Chapter 362: Ice Domain

Luna took her time traveling through the Arctic environment, basking in the frigid temperatures and biting winds. The snow felt comfortable to her with her thick and luscious fur providing all the insulation she could ever desire.

She took her time to also work on integrating her domain with the natural world around her, it was a slow process but something that she felt would help her down the line as she advanced.

At first their was no signs of life anywhere, not exactly unusual for such an environment, yet after over an hour Luna was quite surprised that she hadn’t come across a single beast.

It only occoured to her later on the reason why she failed to encounter anything.

Whilst she was trying to blend her domain into the world around her, from the outside it was not a welcoming sight.

Any beast of sufficient strength, so tier 4 and above. Could easily feel the fluctuating space all around Luna, her domain sent of powerful ripples of power as she controlled it.

That prompted these beast to avoid heading in her direction.

It wasn’t until a tier 3 Arctic fox wandered into her domain that she finally figured that point out.

For the fox failed to notice the strange fluctuations, at least until it fully entered into Luna’s domain. Then it froze in abject terror before turning around and trying to flee, not that Luna would allow that to happen now that she had located another creature.

Before the fox could do more than turn around in preparation to flee, Luna was upon the beast, its legs were frozen to the ground preventing any movement and it fearfully looked up into the shimmering blue eyes of the arctic leopard before it.

Only after asking it some questions did Luna then instruct the beast to surrender which it promptly did, granting Luna her first token of the trial.

From those questions Luna realised the fault of her domain in its current state. Whilst she was making noticeable progress towards integrating her domain into reality around her, whilst it was in this testing stage it was apparently quite obvious for any beast that Luna would consider a worthy fight.

So she was now presented with 2 choices, either continue to practice and risk scaring off any worthy prey or, halt her practice until she managed to hunt down another token and she could enter into the next stage.

It didn’t take her too long to decide on which course of action to take.

She retracted her domain, leaving her presence hidden yet expanded, then she raced through the landscape in search of any kind of beast to hunt.

Sadddly she failed to find anything truly worthy of hunting at first, only encountering weaker tier 3 and 4 beasts leaving her quite disappointed.

Luna was just about to consider taking out one of the weaker beasts before moving on to the next stage when she suddenly felt her presence slam up against a solid wall that entirely blocked her perception.

She was momentarily surprised at this, but only for a moment, then she realised what that meant and a wide smile split her face as excitement bubbled up within her.

For she recognised that feeling of having her presence rejected.

It was the sensation of encountering a domain and a domain meant only 1 thing, that a sovereign was present.

Luna bounced with excitement, looking forward to her first true battle after entering tier 5, sure she had spared but that could never match a true battle against an unknown foe.

So without any preamble Luna moved.

She raced through the frigid environment, allowing her own domain to surge forth with all of its might.

When the two domains clashed the frozen landscape seemed to shatter.

A chasm of opposing forces opened up, the ever present blizzard was parted as the two domains clashed for supremacy over the environment.

Luna felt the substance of the opposing domain. It was one of eternal ice, of the end of all life where nothing could survive to bitter cold.

It was rigid and unwavering, brutal in its simplicity, yet powerful in its execution.

At first Luna felt her own domain push back against the icy domain, yet that was only the initial clash where her opponent was unaware of her presence.

Yet less than an instant later she felt the opposing domain push back.

The small amount of ground her Arctic embrace domain had gained was challenged. The two domains clashed, the sound of shattering ice rang out in a brutal cacophony that overwhelmed the sound of the screaming blizzard.

It was a violent clash, yet it was only the preamble to the true clash that was yet to come.

Then Violet saw the creature that was standing in the heart of the frozen domain.

It was a large creature, thick white fur covered its powerful body. It walked on 4 powerful legs each tipped with vicious claws meant for rending flesh. Its onyx eyes gleamed with brutal power and intelligence as it locked gaze with Luna’s own.

The beast in question was much bigger than Luna, where she was a solid 30 meters long, a good 10 meters of that was from her long and extremely fluffy tail.

This beast however exceeded that at almost 40 meters whilst being nearly 20 meters tall to its powerful shoulders.

Still that did not deter Luna, she only felt a surge of excitement upon seeing the powerful beast before her. If anything she felt excited.

For Luna knew of this beast, not this being in specific, but she knew of the race of this beast.

Because this was a well known beast, one that was widely considered to be the true apex predator of the Arctic environment, one that stood at the top of the food chain, fearing no foe other than its own kind.

Because standing before Luna, in its domain of ice was a polar bear. A true sovereign that struck fear in all beasts that lived in the Arctic.

Now that beast stared at Luna with undisguised arrogance.

It looked at Luna like Violet would a particularly uppity bird. As if she wss nothing more than a pest that had dared to intrude upon its rightful place.

Yet that only excited Luna all the more.

For if their was one thing that Luna enjoyed more than a good fight was putting an arrogant opponent in its place.

And Luna was rearing to go.

Her domain surged as her excitement built. The bear found its own domain being brutally pushed back befor it solidified its defence and held the line.

A growl erupted from the bear, its low reverberation once more cutting through the sound of the blizzard, its shear force pushing back the swirling snow.

Luna answered the surly challenge of the polar bear with a roar of challenge, her domain pulsing with her growing excitement.

Then she took a step and appeared within the bears domain as she raised a claw and swiped down.