Chapter 358: Sovereign Clash

As Violet felt the now familiar sensation of an opposing presence backed by a domain lock onto her position she could not help but smile.

She had not had the chance to fight against someone of similar strength to herself in some time, sure she had spared plenty against Karla, but that was more of a one sided beating with Violet only desperately trying to survive.

Then upon arriving here Violet had only encountered weak combatants, mostly tier 3 with a singular tier 4.

So to now feel the presence of a tier 5 like her, one that felt to be on a similar level to herself. Well, Violet was unable to contain her excitement.

However, whilst she was looking forward to the clash, she would not act rashly. So she moved forwards with care, entering into the wide valley and taking note of the landscape around her.

The valley was quite massive, like everything else on this island. The floor where Violet stood was a good 6-700 meters wide and ran for several kilometres. The sides of the valley were approaching 200 meters tall.

They were steep in some places, rocky overhangs and outcroppings providing ample space to hide and launch an ambush.

Whilst violet could feel the opposing sovereign, she could not actually locate them. The beast was actively masking its location, blending it into its surroundings in such a way that whilst its presence could be felt its precise location would be impossible to find through any means other than traditional senses.

As for Violet? Well she did not bother with any of that. She strode in purposefully, her own presence on full display, whilst her domain was kept tightly controlled, ready to be unleashed at a moments notice.

As she slowly walked further into the valley her gaze swept the steep cliffs, constantly scanning for any signs of disturbance or of a hiding foe.

Yet she found nothing, no sign of disrupted ground, no tell tale tracks that a powerful beast could leave behind.

But she was ready, her muscles tense as she anticipated the attack that her intuition told her was swiftly approaching.

Then she felt it, a sudden spike of danger rapidly approached Violet from the side, her mind spun and the world slowed down around her.

She didn’t have time to see what kind of attack was coming her way as she instantly blinked out of existence, reappearing a short distance away from her original point.

Only then did she turn to see what had attacked her.

In the spot she had just vacated was a tiger. It was a large beast, a good 20 meters long and it rippled with dense and powerful muscles.

It had silver fur with distinctive black stripes, its eyes glowed with a intense darkness as the shadows around it shifted unnaturally.

Their eyes met briefly before the shadows suddenly surged and the beast was swallowed by the shifting darkness.

When the shadows receded the beast was gone.

Yet Violet did not relax. Her domain flaired as runes, empowered by her domain etched themselves into reality.

A dozen runes were created in the second it took for the tiger to reappear, this time directly besides Violet, its claws already swiping down towards her side.

Chains formed from void shot out instantly, wrapping around its leg and halting its attack for the briefest of moments. In that time Violet leapt away as void bolts were instantly conjured and fired at the tiger.

Yet the beast was not so easily stopped. Its muscles tensed and the void chain holding it shattered in an instant. Then the shadows surged once more and seemed to consume the barrage of bolts heading towards it.

The two beast then slowly circled each other, the opening barrage, whilst a display of deadly strength to any being of a lower tier to them. Was simply a casual opening move to test the other.

Neither had committed anything serious to the fight, both content to simply test out how the other would react.

As the two slowly circled each other Violet decided to try and talk to this beast, a quick mental bridge was formed and connected to the tiger.

The beast paused for the briefest of moments when the bridge connected to it, then with a flash of something in its eyes the bridge was allowed to form and the two sovereigns were mentally connected.

"Why speak words when our actions can do more?" Asked the tiger in a deep male voice.

She didn’t really know why she initiated a conversation with the beast yet decided to just speak honestly. "Well you are the first sovereign I will have the chance of fighting since reaching tier 5. I would like to at least exchange names before we fight."

The tiger seemed to snort at her words, his reply sounding quite condescending. "Then you are unfortunate, as you shall die this day by my claws. For I am Uliias, and I shall be your end."

Violet felt her excitement build as she replied to the obvious taunt. "I fear not, as I shall not die here today. I am Violet and I shall welcome you into the void."

The mental bridge was cut by Uliias after her words, then his domain bloomed as he once more initiated the attack.

Lances of shadow shot out of all nearby shadows, heading straight towards Violet, the only shadows left untouched were those directly cast by Violet herself as her own domain denied the tiger access to them.

Still she responded in kind, the remaining runes that still floated in the air all flashed with purple light and unleashed their own stored lances of void towards Uliias.

At the same time Violet unleashed her domain, allowing it to rapidly expand to meet the incoming projectiles. The lances of shadow entered her domain and were promptly met by interlocking void shields.

The shields cracked en mass, yet they held against that salvo.

Meanwhile the tiger fell into the shadows at his feet to avoid violets own attacks. He reappeared directly in front of Violet an instant later, his claw once more heading directly towards Violet.

Violet spun in place, her domain encompassing her tail as she shipped it forwards to intercept the claw. At the same time she unleashed several void spears to impact the beasts back.

A sharp sting of pain lanced through her tail as Uliias’s claws cut deep into her tail, shredding through her sturdy scales and leaving deep gashes into the thick muscles of her tail.

Yet whilst he managed to land first blood, Violet instantly scored second. 3 of her spears impacted the beasts back, they dug into his flesh before exploding a moment later taking chunks of flesh along with it.

Uliias hissed in pain as he leapt backwards, a wave of cutting shadows heading towards Violet in retaliation.

As Violet summoned several shields once again she dashed to the side and allowed her void to both block and swallow the shadows. All the whilst a constant barrage of bolts and spears launched towards the rapidly retreating tiger.

Yet Uliias was slippery, he moved with incredible grace and speed. Managing to expertly avoid the rain of attacks heading his way. When Violet began go once again create runes he reacted with violence, unleashed blades of shadow at each rune to destroy it before it could form.

Yet whilst he managed to destroy some, Violet had learnt how to deal with such tactics. Her domain formed in localised areas for a brief moment, in that short span of time the rune did not have to etch itself into reality, for it only needed to shape the void which Violet had brought into reality with her domain.

These rapidly formed runes instantly unleashed their attacks, from chains, to bolts to beams. Attacks rained down on the speedy tiger as he dove between the attacks with supernatural agility.

Still he was unable to escape entirely from her ruthless barrage.

The odd bolt and beam would impact against his silver fur. Yet as the shadows enveloped him the smaller attacks failed to deal and significant damage, only managing to scorch the fur. Instead of trying to avoid these numerous smaller impacts, he focused on avoiding the spears given they had already proven to be able to damage him.

With that in mind he raced towards Violet, he once more melded with the shadows and emerged behind her, once again aiming for her tail.

Yet when Violet blinked away she was shocked to find the tiger reappearing near instantly besides her once again. His claws lashed out before she had the chance to summon any shields.

His vicious claws tore into Violet’s side, leaving deep cuts where blood began to pour.

Violet managed to create some space as a wall of spears shot towards him, her mind raced, she knew that she could not outrun the tiger as he was clearly focused on agility.

So she needed some way to overcome that gap in speed. Thankfully Violet had just the skill to do so.

Violet grinned viciously at Uliias as purple lightning raced along her scales, her domain flaired with purple nothingness as Violet activated Limit Brake for the first time since reaching tier 5.