The two sprung at each other, the hawk swooping down and Eodum sending stinger-tipped tentacles lashing at it. The bird came down, agilely evading Eodum's strikes and let out streams of boiling water, contradicting what Eodum had expected it to do.
The water steamed and tried to cook Eodum's skin. Thankfully, thermal resistance was able to lessen the damage of the burning water, but as only a level one skill and an unspecialized one at that, it didn't help against the magic. As Eodum tried to kill the bird, never managing to land a strike, it knew that it was definitely getting into the deeper parts of the forest with the strength of the monsters around.
While Eodum continued to try and rip apart the bird, slowly getting frustrated from its lack of success, it decided it needed to change up strategies. The current one wasn't working, and trying the same thing over and over again was insanity.
Instead, Eodum created one of its new, higher level [Gravity Magic] spells, [Gravity Down Target]. The way the gravity spells originally worked, Eodum would create a set area in which the effect occurs; however, with the higher leveled spell, the area of effect would now be centered around a single target. Even if it were to move, the spell would just follow it, not needing the input or updating from the spell's caster.
When Eodum inflicted the hawk with the spell, there was an immediate effect: the hawk was pulled down and jerked in the air, trying to reconfigure itself to its new weight. Seeing its plan was working, Eodum used two more uses of the spell, and the hawk was forced to use all of its energy to just slow down its descent to the ground.
The rat took advantage of the weakness and let a tentacle rip through the air, the stinger at its tip cutting through the air with ease. For a split second, Eodum thought it had won the battle. Then the hawk showed that there was more to it than met the eye. Right before the stingers struck home, the bird released a burst of magic, sending itself soaring back into the sky.
It returned to the sky, disappearing from sight as it soared higher and higher and even higher than that. The rain of water that shot from those aqua jets also turned from a torrential downpour to something more akin to that of an incompetent poodle. That was, until the artificially-made rain started getting heavier faster and faster and even faster than that.
Between the span of a blink of an eye, Eodum saw the falling rain, tensing its muscles up to evade, to then feel a sharp pain radiate from its skull as it was sent bouncing off the ground, into the air, and then landing back onto the ground with a blood-curdling crunch and splat.
Something… was broken. Yeah, something was—or really, many things—were fractured, splintered, and decimated with that impressive attack. Ignoring the pain radiating from its wounds, Eodum sent probing tendrils that felt at the different spots. Bloody mush met the feeling back with the most damaged bits being a snapped neck, concave skull, and a couple of misplaced vertebrae and fractured bones.
Sliding each part of itself back into place, fixing up damaged organs and replacing liquified brain, Eodum slowly rose back to its feet. The hawk that was slowly walking closer to it was startled, seeing its meal-to-be wake up from its coma-inducing punches. Leaping back into the air, this time not needing the water jets it had utilized before as the spells disappeared when the hawk managed to get its attack off.
Before Eodum could let it get too far away, however, Eodum casted [Gravity Anchor Target]. The spell created a [Gravity Anchor] on top of the hawk and set the magic to follow the creature. In other words, now various debris were being pulled from the ground and sent falling towards the bird.
Attempting some fancy maneuvers, the bird weaved past everything, but in the process, actually brought itself closer to the forest floor, only picking up more things. Dust clouds formed and dirt settled and was thrown off of the hawk as it did its best to evade everything. As an action of desperation, it shot itself towards Eodum with the help of aqua jets. This ended up creating a spinning trail of forest to follow it with bits of dirt, rock, wood, water, and gods know what else following it.
Eodum saw its rapid approach, ripping through the air as it spiraled towards the rat, and it prepared its next move. Eodum couldn't handle the force delivered by its attacks, they would disable it then and there, so it would need to take it out, form some sort of defense, or evade the attack as well as all other attacks after that.
… That's an idea. Shifting its body around, it created a spike on its body, jagged and formed of hardened pieces of its body. Then, Eodum created a [Gravity Down] facing its body, extending far enough for the bird to enter the column of magic soon.
As soon as it did, it sped up, breaking the sound barrier with a sonic boom that momentarily interrupted the various parts of the forest both following and not following it. The bird realized the rat's plan, but by the time it did, it was already too late. Being unable to adjust the direction it was now tearing towards. In a split second, the bird faced its magic downwards along with creating a couple new beams to propel it in a way that would allow minimal damage.
It only worked somewhat, however, as the bird was so close to the rat that when it did, it ended up just giving itself a deep cut across its body instead of being pierced by the sharp, rat-formed weapon. Eodum was then forced into the ground by the water jets that carried the bird along its path. By the time it rose again, the hawk was long gone.
… Fuck.