An Owl's Rise

'I'm here again, huh.'

When Evelyn regained a semblance of consciousness, she found herself in a familiar blue expanse that seemingly went on forever.

The last time she had been here was when she had used the Unleash Potential Potion to temporarily bolster her power and fight against the Empress Dryad.

She had suffered immense backlash from using power far greater than what her body and soul could handle.

Without Melisandre's intervention where she used multiple powerful healing alchemical items, Evelyn undoubtably would have died back then.

Unlike las time though, there was not any floating masses of dark blue energy she had used to repair herself.

That had been an external power courtesy of the potion that Melisandre had submerged her in.

Looking down at her body, she wanted to assess the damage.

Yet, as she focused on herself, she went wide-eyed with surprise.

On her previous visit to this place, she had been in her human appearance from her previous life.

However, right now her from was a fusion of how she had been when she died the first time, and her current self.

Her long gray hair was now had a mixture of brown flowing through it. Her wings had also disappeared, and her body had shrunk in all areas.

It felt a bit unnatural since she had never had a form like this before.

Still, this was perhaps an expression of how her soul had changed. She was no longer just the young girl that had died on earth. She was truly becoming something else.

'Though the real problem is these cracks.' Evelyn thought, looking up and down her body at the damage.

From what she could remember, the damage was not as bad as when she had pushed herself with the Unleash Potential Potion, but it was still obviously distressing.

There was not going to be an alchemical expert on her side this time to heal her. She would have to figure out something on her own or wait for her friends to do something.

It was as she was thinking of her companions that a shimmering light filled the space around her for an instant and a warmth enveloped her.

'What the hell was that?!'

For a few moments, Evelyn was startled by the foreign energy until she came to recognize it.

She had felt this magic several times before.

There was no doubt in her mind that this was Bylur's life magic.

'He seems to be trying to heal me, but it doesn't seem all that effective.' Evelyn thought, looking down at her form and not seeing any visible difference in the cracking.

Perhaps that was a good sign, though. It was only a guess on her part, but Evelyn believed that even if Bylur was unable to fix her, he was doing all he could to make sure that her state did not get any worse.

Taking the warm energy to mean that her friends had managed to survive, Evelyn felt her spirits bolstered.

'If this place is a representation of what I think it is, and it hasn't drastically changed from before, I know where I need to go.'

Focusing on doing what she could, Evelyn chose a direction and started flying.

During her previous time here, she had eventually come across a giant crystalline planet that was light blue in coloration and had a purple moon rotating around it.

She figured if she found those two objects again, she might be able to do something about her current situation.

Time seemed to stretch on, but it was not too long before she found what she was looking for. Unlike the last time when she had been flying around aimlessly, she was able to locate the planet and moon with far greater ease this time.

'Yep, that's like I remember.'

A sharp pain suddenly shot through Evelyn's chest as she stared at the cracked planet.

This had occurred her first time here as well, though fortunately, the pain was a lot weaker now than it had been then.

There was also quite a bit less damage to the object. Only a few shallow cracks along it.

Another major difference was its size and color.

It was noticeably larger now and had become purple itself. Making it a bit more difficult to notice the similarly colored moon floating around it.

However, if there was something that was disconcerting, it was the movement of the moon. Before it had been rotating normally, yet this time it was wobbling all over the place and looked unsteady.

'What about the other one?' Evelyn thought focusing on a far-off place connected by a thin strand of energy.

There she found what looked like another purple world. Albeit this one was covered in a crimson flame.

Its condition still looked pristine, so Evelyn turned her full attention to what was currently in front of her.

'If I'm right that this planet represents my beast core and the moon is the Aethersphere, then I guess the problem is obvious.'

Evelyn knew why she had ended up here in the first place.

When she saw Aralee being taken away, she had let rage consume her and forced out more strength than she could handle.

The Aethersphere was a divine item of unimaginable power, but it was currently damaged. What Evelyn had just done probably set back its recovery by a large margin. Perhaps she had even made it worse.

Within this inner world of hers as she had decided to dub it, Evelyn floated over to the erratically moving moon. Maybe by interacting with it she could enter that other dreamlike state she had been in once before. There she had put shattered pieces back together and it had seemed to have had a positive effect on the Aethersphere.

Except, once she was almost close enough to reach out and touch it, the object began to glow brightly for a moment.

The light then coalesced at one point and peeled itself off. Creating a small purple ball of energy that was freely flying around.