An Owl's Rise

Nearly two months had passed since Evelyn and her allies had defeated the group of humans that had appeared in the Verdant Warlord's Domain.

During this time all of them had continued to explore the dimension created by an entity that had exceeded the peak of the world and collect the treasure trove of items and knowledge that had been left behind.

Yet, while Anneli, Katrina, and Savan were still around, the three of them were exploring the domain separate from Evelyn and her companions.

There was simply just too great of a difference in their power from everyone within Evelyn's group barring Evelyn herself and Otis.

It would stifle Bylur, Rehni, Verrader, and Aralee's growth to have so many stronger fighters around backing them up.

Evelyn at first was a bit concerned since there were only three of them, but time went by, and they still met up frequently and Anneli, Katrina, and Savan were doing fine each time. It seemed that this forest did not have much that could threaten them. It was very rare to come across an extremely powerful creature like the massive rose bush monster.

During this time, Evelyn also finally made the breakthrough to the high tier of the awakened rank by eating three low tier tyrant rank beast cores they had received from the domain while bathing in the magic spring the last time it was active.

This gave her a massive push and she was able to break through the wall that she had been stuck at for quite some time now.

None of the others had gone up a tier at this point, other than Otis who simply needed far more magical energy as a tyrant rank beast, everyone else was close.

Nevertheless, while all of their progress had been exceptional, Evelyn could tell that they had pretty much plateaued with what could be obtained on the first floor of the domain. The items they were able to get were quite good, but nothing especially special.

It was also a pain to go looking for the terminals that randomly appeared all over the forest and were duds around sixty percent of the time.

Around twenty-five percent of the time, these terminals would be traps that spawned a horde of monsters, and thirty-five percent of the time the items that could be obtained were not particularly valuable.

The other forty percent of the time the terminals offered useful items, but so far, the fulmination diamond they had gotten from their first one was the best item they had obtained.

At this point they had amassed a small fortune of tokens since they were earning more than they could possibly spend when it took them several days just to find a single terminal and over half the time they were worthless.

'I think it is about time that we try the next floor. I can tell that all of us are getting burned out here. Our motivation is not going to last much longer if we just keep doing the same thing in the same place.' Evelyn thought after they returned from another unsuccessful search for a terminal to obtain rewards from.

As the six of them ate, Evelyn broached the topic and the others responded positively.

"I think we have gotten just about all we can from here. It seems that the chances to find anything exceptional on this floor of the domain is just too low." Otis said, the happiest to be moving on.

Among all of them he was the one making the least progress since the items they retrieved most of the time were not of a high enough quality to give him any significant increase in magical energy.

"Hopefully we can find some items to help us reach the next tier. I never imagined it was this difficult to break into the peak of the awakened rank." Bylur said.

Everyone else was similarly hopeful about their prospects on the next floor. While they had no proof that it would be a treasure trove full of every item they wanted, it helped their moods improve to have such enthusiasm.

"Okay, then if we are all in agreement, we will travel up to the next floor tomorrow. If it turns out to be too much for us, we should be able to use the stash of tokens we have collected to return to this floor." Evelyn said, not realizing just how wrong she was.

When the next day came around and the six of them each spent three tokens to ascend to the next floor, each of them was met with a very unpleasant surprise.

The moment the light of the warp portal faded; Evelyn noticed that something was horribly wrong right away.

She had activated the warp pad along with all of her companions, but now she stood alone in an area that was completely filled with darkness.

It was not the kind of darkness that was found at night where a bit of light came from the stars and moon, but an absolute pitch blackness that even Evelyn with her impeccable night vision as an owl could not see anything through.

Before she could process what was going on, a familiar silhouette appeared in the darkness and was the only thing that Evelyn could see.

Floating above her was the vestige of the Verdant Warlord.

"What is the meaning of this? Where the hell have you sent my friends and siblings!" Evelyn shouted, her normally collected thoughts frantic.

"If you calm down, I am more than willing to explain what is going on as is my duty." The vestige said with a nonchalant demeanor.

Evelyn had to take several deep breaths and bring her left wing up to her beak and bite down hard enough to draw blood in order to keep herself from exploding. There was one thing that could send her over the edge very easily and that was not knowing about the safety of those close to her.

"Good, now that you are ready to listen, I am going to explain how the second-floor works. Things here are very different from the first floor."

The vestige then explained that the second floor was a massive hedge maze with hundreds of paths.

"Just as the first floor you will find creatures roaming the maze. If you can defeat them, they will award you with iron tokes as opposed to the bronze ones you got on the first floor. These tokens can be used at the terminals hidden around the maze. Oh, and as some bonus information I will tell you that the rewards on this floor are better and there are more terminals to find." The vetige said with a wink.

At this point though, Evelyn could care less about the rules of the floor and wanted to know about her companions.

However, when she tried asking the Verdant Warlord's Vestige about where they were, he just shrugged his shoulders.

"Like you they have all been sent to their own starting places in the maze. If you search around long enough, you are bound to bump into each other.

This really pissed Evelyn off and she burst into crimson flames and the entire area lit up around her.

Now she could see the towering hedge walls around her that met around two hundred meters in the air and made an arched ceiling.

Nevertheless, she did not care about anything right now other than finding her friends and ignred the pathway in front of her and aimed to burn her way through the maze.

"Now that will not do." The Verdant warlord's vestige said, snapping his fingers and assaulting Evelyn with enough magical energy to restrain her.

"I believe I told you that I cannot do anything to harm you so long as you do not threaten this domain but using that heavenly flame of yours to damage the maze and circumvent its paths is against the rules. I will take action if you try."

Realizing she was beat; Evelyn stopped the blaze surrounding her body.

The vestige immediately released her when she did and continued explaining how the second floor worked.

"The warp portal you are currently on is inactive and will not be able to return you to the first floor. You will need to find a safe zone within the maze where a checkpoint is and use the warp pad there if you want to return to the first floor. Also, the only way to reach the third floor is to make it to the center of the maze and have the necessary number of iron tokens. And, that ends my explanation. You will need to find out anything else on your own." The Vestige said, beginning to slowly disappear.

The moment he was done, Evelyn pulled out her message pad and tried to send off correspondences to her companions.

Unfortunately, when she ripped out the paper it formed itself into a bird but did not go anywhere. Just flying around in a circle which was an indication that the target was out of range.

"I am afraid that magic tools like that are not going to work. You will find that it is impossible to cheat in this maze." The Verdant Warlord's Vestige said before completely fading.