An Owl's Rise

"Thanks, Krunnen. The information and items you gave me will be invaluable to my search." Evelyn said, putting on the necklace that had the emblem denoting she was a friend of an Inferno Ranger. With this item she would not have to worry about other members of Krunnen's organization perceiving her as an enemy and accidentally attacking her.

"It really was the least I could do. You might have been a bit domineering, but you did help me out a great deal. I can only imagine all the number of ways I could have gotten into trouble without you being around. I just can't wait until the surge in elemental activity dies down so that things can calm down a bit.

This place is already dangerous and crazy enough on a regular basis." Krunnen said with an exasperated expression on his face. It was quite clear he wanted nothing to do with some of the more dangerous denizens of the Inferno Field such as the duplicator fire elemental and the Mind Manipulating Mushroom.

"Well, this is where we part ways, and I'm not sure if we'll see each other again, so good luck with your work. Hopefully the credit for some of the achievements you are about to get will get you a promotion." Evelyn said as she rose up into the air.

"Yes, hopefully it will lead to a cushier assignment. And I hope that you are able to find a grand fire elemental and take it down. When we first met, it thought you were insane to go after such a powerful entity, but after watching you in action, I believe that if any awakened rank has any chance against one, it will be you. Still, don't push yourself and get killed.

Make sure to run away if things get too dangerous. There is no shame in preserving your life."

After exchanging their goodbyes, Evelyn looked down at Krunnen one last time with a smile, before ascending higher into the sky and flying towards the elemental rift in the distance.

According to what Krunnen had told her along with information detailed on the map Krunnen had given her, to find a grand fire elemental with any sort of reliability she would need to head to the core area of the Inferno Field.

This was the main stage where the upper ranks of the Inferno Field Rangers fought on the frontlines against the elemental menace that was encroaching on their world from another dimension.

However, what had surprised Evelyn the most was finding out that it was not just the area around the rift's immediate vicinity that was teeming with fire elementals.

The invaders from another realm had actually managed to push back the defenders from the Inferno Field Rangers over the centuries. Currently the line where the elementals were being held back was around thirty kilometers from the rift in every direction.

From what she was able to gleam from the map Krunnen gave her, Evelyn could see that the fire elementals had carved out quite a bit of territory in this world that they had complete control over.

'I can only imagine how dangerous some of these fire elementals must be if even an entire organization similar to the Roost can't keep them in check.'

Evelyn may not have known much about the Great Shell, but she was almost certain that their leader must be a calamity rank beast just as the leader of the Roost. At the very least they should have several peak sovereign rank beasts, and Evelyn could still vividly remember the awe-inspiring magic that her master had wielded.

It was hard to believe that a group with multiple powerhouses as strong as Melisandre could be losing ground against the fire elementals.

Of course, Evelyn had not yet seen the true monsters that were among the fire elementals' ranks. So far, she had only run into grunts that were considered foot soldiers among the elementals.

'This damn smoke is getting thicker.'

As she grew ever nearer to the elemental rift, Evelyn found that the thick haze in the air that consisted of smoke and steam, became far denser and there was more smoke than steam.

Even though her heavenly flame made her practically immune to the heat, she still needed to breath and the air was quickly becoming too polluted for her lungs to take.

Thankfully, she was able to use her wind magic to create a barrier around her head that filtered out the thick smog, but it also announced her presence to anything that was sensitive to magical energy being discharged.

It did not take long before she was noticed, and blasts of fire shot up towards her from the ground.

Evelyn took evasive actions and avoided the barrage of flames coming towards her and using her enhanced vision she followed the attacks coming towards her back to the source.

What she saw was about twenty lesser fire elementals being led by a much bigger one that was a type Evelyn had not seen before.

Unfortunately, she was unable to get a particularly good look at her assailants through the thick smoke. They simply looked like a bunch of bright lights to her.

'Looks like a group managed to get past the Inferno Field Ranger's defenses. Though, I suppose that is to be expected. From what Krunnen told me, his peers are busy dealing with a sizeable incursion.'

For a few moments Evelyn weighed her options, before deciding to descend and take out her attackers. She was nearly certain that the larger fire elemental attacking her with the lesser ones was not the grand fire elemental she was looking for, but she would not truly know until she got closer and checked it against the description Krunnen had given her.

Tucking her wings in, Evelyn went into a dive and created a wind barrier in front of her that lessened wind resistance and acted as a shield against the blasts of fire that were perpetually coming at her. Certainly, she was immune to the heat of the flames and would not be burned, but she had no desire to take the impact of the attacks and be slowed down.

Within just a few seconds she was only around ten meters away from the ground and able to properly see her attackers despite the haze in the air.

'I figured it would not be a grand fire elemental.' Evelyn thought while sighing.

While she had not seen this type of elemental before, Krunnen had been kind enough to give her the description of every type of fire elemental he knew about.

The large one leading the group of lesser fire elementals was just a slightly more powerful elemental called a bull elemental due to its large size and propensity to charge at whatever it designated as an enemy.

Evelyn could only see this group of elementals as a bother, but she still planned on taking them out. She was confident that she could fly away and escape from them, but she did not want them to persistently follow her and show up at an inopportune time. Leaving them alive could only lead to them possibly being a problem in the future.

'Ture to form, its charging me with reckless abandon.' Evelyn thought, her eyes drawn to the bull fire elemental that was rushing towards her.

Unlike the lesser fire elementals that were launching balls of fire at her, the bull elemental planned to use its larger size and greater strength to destroy her in close combat.

Naturally Evelyn was not going to meet it head on. Instead, she took out a large container filled with aqueous foam meant for fighting fire and threw it in the barreling towards her.

When the alchemical item impacted the rash elemental, it stopped in its tracks and crashed into the ground.

Immediately it instinctively began rolling around on the ground to get rid of the substance that felt like searing acid to it.

'Hm, looks like it was not effective on this one because of its greater size and the intensity of its flames. Still, the aqueous foam is strong enough to bring it down for at least a few seconds.'

Carefully Evelyn observed how her latest test subject reacted to one of her anti fire elemental creations.

During this time, the gaggle of lesser fire elementals rushed towards Evelyn since it was obvious that their ranged attacks were either being dodged or deflected.

Nevertheless, Evelyn did not panic in the face of the enemies coming her way and instead smiled since she would not have to go to them now.

From her storage cuff she pulled out another container, this one filled with plenty of flame-retardant salt.

All it took was a liberal dusting from Evelyn's next alchemical item to snuff out all of the lesser fire elementals in a few seconds.

The only one that survived was the far tougher bull fire elemental, though its body had become noticeably diminished.

'So, the stronger ones can take both the aqueous foam and fire-retardant salt. Still, both items clearly dealt a great deal of damage, and it should be easy enough to finish it off with my magic now without too much difficulty.'

Finished with her current experiment and understanding that the bull elemental was now too weak to serve as a proper test subject for her other alchemical items, Evelyn flew over towards it to put it down.

To her surprise, however, the nearly extinguished elemental lashed out at her with a great deal of force and speed. Even on its deathbed it retained a powerful drive to destroy Evelyn and put the last of its energy into one last attack.

Yet, while Evelyn had not seemed on guard, she had been prepared to deal with anything.

In an instant she activated her gravity field and lowered the gravity around her and the bull elemental.

Its flaming first packed with power began to lose its form and the entire elemental's body became more spherical and less intense under the effects of lessened gravity.

At the same time, Evelyn flapped her wings once and shot up higher into the air and completely avoided the attack.

From there she unleashed a flurry of wind blades and cut up the bull fire elemental into hundreds of pieces.

Then with a final gust she blew the small parts of her adversary away and watched them quickly blink out of exitance as they lost what little energy remained in them as they tried to reform into a whole.

Out of the largest of the remaining flames, a large crystalline rock fell to the ground with a thud. This was the heart of the fire elemental, and the only prize left after defeating one.

But despite having finished off her foes, Evelyn did not move to grab her spoils and instead turned her head to the left where she sensed another presence.

"I know that you are there. Stop hiding and come out." Evelyn said, using her wind magic to simulate a voice.

"Oh, and here I thought I did a pretty good job of hiding myself. I must be losing my touch if an awakened beast can notice me so easily."

From out of the hazy air, Evelyn watched as what appeared to be a human woman approaching her.

Of course, it became apparent almost immediately that the induvial was not actually a human but a beast in humanoid form.

"I'm guessing you are another member of the Inferno Field Rangers?" Evelyn asked.

"That would be correct. I was coming to clean up the rabble that got past me earlier, but it seems that you dealt with them spectacularly. At first, I thought I would need to jump into help you, but you have some interesting items on you that easily dealt with those fire elementals." The woman said with a look of curiosity in her eyes.

"Still, as well equipped as you appear to be, I would recommend that you leave. I can see that you are friends with one of my fellow Rangers, but right now is not really a good time for you to be here. Things are pretty hectic at the frontlines and there's a good chance you will end up dead if you go any farther.

I'm sure that you are here to gather some sort of item and I have your reasons for being here. Nevertheless, we are spread too thin to watch out for you and I would hate for another Ranger to lose one of their friends."

Evelyn could only sigh in response to this unwanted advice that she had already heard from Krunnen several times. She had come here with an objective and was going to see it through no matter what. Not even a tyrant ranked beast was going to convince her to turn around after coming this far.

"I've already heard the same thing enough. I appreciate you and the other Rangers wanting to look out for my wellbeing, but I came here prepared to obtain what I seek no matter the cost. Please just let me through." Evelyn said, wearing a determined expression.

"I see. You are not going to back down." The woman said with a contemplative look. "Well, in that case, would you mind telling me what you want? Perhaps I already have the item in question, and we can make a trade. Those items you used on the fire elementals were most impressive. I would be willing to offer quite a lot for some samples or the recipe to create them."