Chapter 356: Towards the First Barrier

Violet stared at the dead body of the small rodent, a slight frown on her face as she reread its name. "That sounds really similar to that first champion beast I killed... must be a coincidence." She muttered to herself.

Swiftly moving on from that strange first encounter Violet dropped the void shield and turned her attention to a new notification regarding the second phase.

[Progress:

First Zone - 1 Token ]

She nodded to herself, satisfied that she had taken that first step towards reaching her goal.

Then Violet wondered to herself about the average strength of the other contestants, surely there must be some strong foes present, it was unlikely that ever beast would be at such a low level.

After all from what Violet had experienced when fighting other champions, they all seemed to be powerful variants of beasts, or at least that was the case for those beasts that had initially been given the designation.

She then wondered if she might actually run into any enlightened beings here. The system did state that anyone who killed a champion beast would gain that designation, so their was a destinct possibility that she may run into one such person.

Still for now Violet would not worry about such matters, she needed to advance and she needed to claim 4 more tokens. Be they through killing her foes or simply forcing them to surrender.

So Violet moved forwards. Her size and impressive stats allowing her to traverse vast distances rapidly. The ground below her almost blueing as she sped along.

Yet her speed did not lower her vigilance. Violet knew well the dangers posed by an ambush.

After all, Violet had started her life off by ambushing prey, it was only when she grew larger and stronger that she began to tackle her foes head on.

So she knew well that a good ambush could turn an impossible fight into a winnable one, Violet had no intention of allowing herself to be ambushed.

Moving towards one of the copse of trees in the distance she moved through the tall grass, her presence expanded and sweeping through the landscape.

At first she didn’t sense anything amiss, yet something was bothering her about this space, yet she couldn’t tell what it was.

Still that feeling of missing something nagged at the back of her mind, a constant annoyance that refused to be identified.

With some helplessness Violet was forced to push it to the back of her mind after reaching the trees. Her instincts were remarkably unhelpful in that regard, whilst they let her know that something was wrong they were utterly helpless in identifying exactly what it was that was wrong.

Entering the shard of the trees she looked up at the giants that surrounded her, these trees were true giants, they made the massive redwoods that surrounded Syan look like saplings.

Their brown bark thick and sturdy to the point that when Violet experimented with scraping her claw across one tree was was surprised when her razor sharp claw failed to even penetrate the thick bark.

She frowned and pushed harder, then truly exerted herself, only then did her claw cause any noticeable damage to the tree before her.

Violet’s eyes opened wide at that, what kind of tree was so ridiculously sturdy. She was a sovereign, a genuine tier 5 beast, how could a simple tree have sturdier defenses that her own scales!?

The thought was ridiculous, yet the evidence could not be denied.

She shook her head at the prospect, unsure of how to take that discovery. So Violet decided to simply ignore it and moved on.

The wind whistled through the branches above, the sunlight filtering down from up high and casting the ground in a gentle but murky illumination. That only changed when Violet body blotted out any remaining light, her onyx scales absorbing what little light made it to the forest floor.

Yet as she walked through the trees that strange sense of unease began to bubble up once again.

Something was wrong with this space, whilst the flora may be much more solid than she could have ever imagined, that did not cause her concern.

No, it was simply too quiet, only now that she was under the canopy of trees did she finally pick up on what exactly was wrong.

For Violet who had lived most of her life within a forest, she had grown accustomed to the constant sound of life. Be that the chirping of birds, the scuttling of insects or the simple cries of beasts. In the forest, sound was a constant companion.

It was when that sound vanished that you had to worry, a fact that had been ingrained into her mind.

So now that she found herself in a place where that all too familiar background noise was missing, her instincts acted up and alerted her to the potential danger.

However, their was no danger. Their was no simply no life.

Other than that first tier 3 mouse she killed, Violet had not seen or sensed a single other life form. Upon realising that fact the subtle tension in her body finally began to unwind.

Whilst it still disturbed her that an entire island could exist with out any naturalised fauna, she was forced to simply accept it as fact given that their was not a lot else that she could do in this situation.

So begrudgingly Violet moved on, swiftly passing through the small stretch of forest and once more emerging on the open plains of giant grasses.

However, as opposed to where she first arrived, she could finally spot signs of life in the distance.

Flashed of magic and the distant sound of beast calls echoed out across the flat expanse.

Beasts were doing battle and Violet looked over with eager eyes. A grin began to form on Violet’s face as her muscles tensed in anticipation of a potential battle.

She had been thourgly disappointed by the durability of that mouse, having expected it to have at least survive a single of her weakest attacks. Saddly that had not been the case at all, now she just hoped that the beasts out there could pose at least somewhat of a challenge.

Not wanting to delay the potential excitement that awaited her, Violet leapt up into the air, her claws only leaving the faintest of divots in the far too sturdy ground below.

Then her expansive wings flapped, the powerfull hurt of wind created with her faintly purple wings nearly flattened the surrounding grasses. Only their unnatural durability prevented them from collapsing under the shear wind pressure.

Still her initial flap thrust her into the air, her body turned into a purple black blur as she raced across the grasslands, her legs barely a meter above the top of the grass line.

She swiftly reached the location that the battles had been taking place, traversing the near kilometre of distance in only a few minutes.

Yet to her disappointment, when she arrived the numerous battles taking place simply stopped. All movement halted, all skills erased and every beast instinctivly shivered as they felt the overwhelming presence of a true apex predator.

To a fault every single beast that had only moments ago been engaged in brutal life or death battles halted all activity.

Their tails tucked and their ears flattened as every instinct these beasts had told them in no uncertain terms that if they attracted even the slightest of attention their life would end.

Violet frowned at the beasts actions, then let out a long sigh as she realised that she had not hidden her presence or even the small parts of her domain that clung to her body like a second skin.

That undeniable pressure from her was simply too overwhelming for the nearby beast to handle. Plus, after quickly checking the strength of the surrounding beasts Violet frowned as she realised that not a single beast here was above tier 3.

’How are they all so weak?’ Wondered Violet, slightly confused as to why they were all such low levels. Completely failing to realise that she was the anomaly here given her extraordinary growth rate since birth.

With a sigh and not wanting to delay any longer Violet simply identified the closest beast to her and spoke into its mind, being careful to only use the beaver amount of force and presence to install in the beast the magnitude of difference between her and it.

"Surrender now and I won’t kill you." Her words were direct and to the point, not seeing the need to elaborate or sugarcoat her words.

After all she was a beast and so was the being she spoke to.

Beasts did not normally need to be circumspect in their actions, particularly when talking to beasts significantly weaker than themselves.

The beast in question, a stag of some kind with electric blue fur and lightning that danced along and between its antlers. Did not delay its actions in near instantly boating her command.

A flash of muted golden light enveloped the beast and a moment later it was simply gone.

[Progress:

First Zone - 2 Tokens, able to pass first barrier, no more tokens may be claimed in the first zone. ]