An Owl's Rise

After creating a giant inferno around her, Evelyn focused on the flames and quickly condensed them into several flaming spears that matched the number of white-hot cannonballs coming towards her.

With her wind magic she wrapped these flaming spears in small twisters and launched them.

Her magic flew far faster than the grand fire elemental's and impacted against each of its attacks before they could travel too far.

When her crimson spears enhanced with wind magic initially impacted the hundred-meter-wide flaming spheres it appeared that Evelyn's spell was consumed and nullified.

Yet less than a second after the spears disappeared, each of the fire cannonball's that the grand fire elemental had fired exploded and dispersed their power before reaching their target.

'Whew, I was afraid that might not work.' Evelyn thought, relieved to see that her strategy had succeeded.

While the output of her fire magic was incredible for her rank, she honestly could not hope to match the sheer quantity of flames that the grand fire elemental could produce.

Thankfully, her heavenly flame was of a higher quality and gave her a means to fight back. By launching an attack directly into the center of fire cannonballs she was able to destabilize them and cause them to discharge early.

For nearly two dozen seconds Evelyn's exchange with the grand fire elemental continued.

During this time, she did not find any sort of opening to exploit as her attention was focused entirely on stopping her opponent's barrage of attacks.

As the exchange went on, Evelyn eventually figured out that the grand fire elemental was likely trying to simply exhaust her reserves of magical energy. It certainly had far more than her and figured that she could not keep up with it.

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Unfortunately for it, this plan proved to be far less sound than expected. Evelyn's possessed an unnaturally huge quantity of magical energy thanks to having both a beast core and human magic core. Plus, she was keeping a few magical replenishment pills in her mouth that she swallowed to keep her stores of energy topped off whenever she started to get low.

A prolonged stalemate was actually to her benefit.

Eventually the grand fire elemental realized that its attacks were not accomplishing much of anything and that if it kept dealing solely with Evelyn its forces would be wiped out by the Inferno Field Rangers. It had originally targeted her because she was a nuisance that was preventing enemy casualties but did not seem particularly strong.

It had figured that its first attack would kill her and never expected to end up in such a difficult battle.

'Oh! Looks like it is switching up its strategy,'

Once the barrage of giant flaming cannonballs ceased Evelyn kept her eyes on the grand fire elemental and waited for it to make another move. She felt she had the advantage reacting to whatever it attempted to do.

However, she did not expect what happened next.

A flash of heat erupted from the grand fire elemental and a loud hissing sound echoed throughout the area.

For a split-second Evelyn thought that she heard some sort of language within the sound, but it only lasted for a second. Nevertheless, it became clear that the grand fire elemental had used some form of communication as a group of fire elementals peeled off from the main battle against the Inferno Field Rangers and came directly for Evelyn.

Of course, none of the Rangers pursued the around four dozen fire elementals and were happy to have some of the pressure taken off them. Just as Evelyn had been told, they were not going to provide her with assistance.

'That's not good.' Evelyn thought watching the shift of the battlefield.

The grand fire elemental had not only sicked its goons on her but was also heading towards the main battle. It no longer desired to fight Evelyn and was going to leave her to its subordinates. A sound strategy since it was essentially being held up by a far weaker combatant instead of pushing through the Inferno Field Ranger's defenses which was its main objective.

Evelyn was not just going to let her target get away from her, though. She had come this far to kill it and obtain its heart, so that was what she was going to do.

Ignoring the small army of fire elementals coming directly for her, she clade herself in her heavenly flame and shot directly for the fleeing grand fire elemental.

'Out of my way!'

Expending a burst of magical energy, Evelyn expanded the crimson flames around her and scorched the fire elementals charging at her.

Several of them were killed outright by the powerful heavenly flame, while the rest were scattered and injured.

Having forced her way through, Evelyn quickly caught up to the grand fire elemental and opened her beak when she was in range.

Like a dragon's breath attack, flames spilled out of Evelyn's mouth and rushed towards her target.

It seemed that her devastating attack would connect and engulf the grand fire elemental, but at the last moment its body exploded, and a powerful blast of white fire erupted from within it.

For a few moments Evelyn's attack was clearly overpowering the grand fire elemental's, but as time went on the tables turned.

The immense output of fire slowly overwhelmed Evelyn, and she spun to the side to prevent being consumed by flames herself at the last moment.

Surely, her fire immunity would have protected her, but she was not ready to reveal one of her greatest trump cards to her enemy since it had not yet realized that the heat of its flames would be completely ineffective against her.

'Seems that I have made it pretty mad.'

After Evelyn's latest attack, the pure white glow around the grand fire elemental had become tinged with red. Its demeanor had also changed from dealing with an annoying insect to an enemy that had royally pissed it off. The grand fire elemental had been conserving its energy in order to deal with the strongest Ranger present, but it was not going to hold back any longer.

Evelyn had proven herself to be a threat that could not be ignored, and it was going to crush her with everything it had.