An Owl's Rise

While Otis was fighting his own guard statue, Rehni and Bylur had their own to deal with.

Unlike Otis neither of them was definitively more powerful than this wooden knight and needed to work together to take it down.

Ice and metal flew around to try and restrain it, but the wooden knight was not so easily captured.

Its attack power was honestly not particularly high for how much magical energy it held within it, but its speed and defenses were quite exceptional to make up for this.

"Can't you pin it down, Rehni!?" Bylur said over their magical connection.

"I have already tired. It cuts through my metal wires with its spear whenever I try to entangle it and sneak attacks don't seem to work on it. Its like it can see everything around it. Plus, my sound magic basically has no effect on it. Its too sturdy for me to damage and I can't even try to do any internal damage since it is not alive." Rehni retorted.

Unfortunately, both of them were poor match ups against this statue as their magic was best against living opponents.

Sure, they could both conjure powerful attacks with a lot of force behind them, but their opponent had the durability to deal with the strongest attacks that they could fire off and was immune to being affected by the cold or sound.

It also was deft enough to avoid more finessed attacks meant to slow it down and packed enough power behind it to be a threat if either of them got to close to it.

Frankly they were starting to think that Otis' assessment of these sentinels was wrong. To them this wooden knight seemed to be a stronger foe than the tyrant rank lizard they had fought not long ago. Certainly it did not have nearly as much destructive power but its overall ability seemed greater.

"Verrader, Aralee, we need your assistance." Rehni eventually said.

Both of Evelyn's siblings had been waiting a above the two battlefields to assist if necessary, and now that it was clear to Rehni that she and Bylur would have a tough time beating their opponent she was calling them in.

Joining into the fray Aralee and Verrader started off by launching several wind spears towards the wooden knight, but like everything else it blocked with its shield and then sent out several blasts of magical energy from its spear as return fire.

"Aralee, focus on slowing it down with your magic. Verrader try and keep behind it so it can not focus on defending against all of us." Rehni ordered.

With the four of them working together the wooden knight now had to keep its guard up against several mobile combatants and finally they were able to get some attacks through.

To start, Aralee fired off a ball of yellowish energy that contained her momentum magic and encased the wooden knight with a slowing effect.

Immediately its movements began to dull, and its speed and agility dropped to around eighty percent of what it was capable of.

However, Aralee felt that the wooden knight had a great deal of resistance to her magic that was debuffing it and it took her all of her focus and magical energy to maintain the effect.

The wooden knight was also not unaware of what just happened and turned its attention towards Aralee.

With reckless abandon compared to the way it had been fighting defensively, it charged towards Aralee while increasing the output of its attacks to far greater numbers than it had been before. It recognized just how much of a threat her magic was and its programing told it to eliminate her immediately.

Thankfully Rehni rushed in and shielded Aralee who was having a hard time dodging while maintaining her magic. She created a large circular shield of metal that was slightly folded in and rotated it. Causing the blasts of magical energy form the wooden knight to bounce off and be redirected.

In this moment, Bylur and Verrader stuck.

For the first time the wooden knight had prioritized offense over defense and they were not going to let this chance pass them by.

Controlling three dozens blades made of ice Bylur flew in and unleashed a rapid series of attacks against the wooden knight.

Normally the wooden knight would have been able to respond to this attack and defend but tis slowed speed made it slightly too late to reposition its shield and around a third of the ice swords got past its guard and struck its body.

Of course, even though its shield was sturdier, its main body was quite touch as well and Bylur's ice swords shattered against it and only left thin cut on its body.

Still, for the first time they had finally managed to get in a hit. Plus, Bylur's intentions were never to do damage anyway. The shattered shards of ice adhered themselves to the wooden knight and further restricted tis movements.

Then a moment after Bylur landed his attack, Verrader launched a bolt of lighting at the wooden knight's arm joint.

Its tough wooden exterior managed to resist being completely blown apart, buts its arm that it was using to support its shield was clearly damaged.

"Okay, we just need to keep this up. Stay on your guard and let's slowly wear it down." Rehni said, a smile on her face.

Slowly but surely the four of them coordinated their abilities and chipped away at the wooden knights durability until finally they managed to break off its shield arm.

This lowered its defensive abilities greatly and the wooden knight switched over to focusing fully on offense.

Sadly without being able to fly it was unable to get anywhere near Rehni, Bylur, Verrader, or Aralee, and its ranged magical energy attacks simply did not have enough power to deal a decisive blow.

Soon its body was marred with scars from being hit by lighting, ice, and metal, and finally its frame was unable to support itself and the wooden knight collapsed.

"Whew, we finally managed to win. That thing certainly was tough." Bylur said once their enemy had fallen.

Nodding their heads, Rehni, Aralee, and Verrader agreed. None of them had ever had to fight an enemy that solid before. It was able to take far more punishment than any living being could.

"That was a good fight. You all managed to coordinate together really well in order to beat an opponent none of you matched up well against." Evelyn said, flying back down now that the battle was over.

She had kept an eye on both battles and was happy to see that her friends and siblings could work together quite well now.

"What about me Lady Evelyn? I managed to beat my opponent without any assistance and much faster." Otis said, popping out from where he had been hiding.

"You did well too Otis. Though, it was always a forgone conclusion you would win. You are able to output more power and your sand magic matched up much better to begin with." Evelyn said.

After she did, the group that had beaten the second wooden sentinel turned their gaze towards where Otis had been battling and saw what remained of his opponent.

The wooden sentinel that he had been fighting had deep cuts all over its body, all four of its limbs scattered about and was cut completely in half at the waste.

Using his magic like a sand blaster Otis had carved right through the wooden knight he had been fighting and reduced it to pretty much saw dust and scrap wood.

However, none of them were able to revel in their victories for much longer. The remains of the two wooden knights began to glow and all the magical energy that had been contained inside them flew out and towards the doorway they had been guarding.

The giant tree the doorway was in then began to shake and a bright glow was released.

The doors began to rumble and slowly opened up reveling a staircase that led underground.

"That was unexpected." Evelyn said, seeing this happen.

She had never thought the doors would suddenly open after they defeated the wooden knights. This happening showed them that they were not just guardians to protect the place, but also a type of test.

"I am not sure if this is good news or ominous." Evelyn said, pondering what was going on.

The others seemed just as confused by what had happened, until Rehni remembered something.

"I think that this might be heritage that someone left behind. I have heard that those that are close to death or are about to ascend to the next word sometimes leave behind some of their knowledge or items for others to find in the future. Either that, or it is some type of trap. I cannot see any other reason that the doors would open after we beat those statues."

Hearing this, Evelyn recalled finding the gifts that Mason had left for her since he had managed to peer into the future and found that he would already be gone by the time she arrived in this world.

Certainly, this was not exactly the same since it was likely not left for a specific individual, but it was similar.

Of course, Rehni's ascertain that it could be a trap was true as well. Someone with malicious intent could have set this up to lure individuals of a certain level in and kill them once they were inside.

The question now was whether they took the risk and continued to go forward, or left this place behind.