Chapter 365: Windy Wastes

Violet finished off the last of the tiger meat with a satisfied groan, she stretched her arms up above her head and a second groan was made as audible pops cracked out as her back straightened.

"That was gooood." She murmured to herself once her stretch was complete.

Then after storing away all the equipment she used for the cooking she stood to her feet once again and was briefly engulfed in a purple glow as she returned to her true form, in her reduced 50 meter size.

She pulsed out her presence to get a feet for any creatures nearby, smiling as she only spotted the lone wolf that was still cowering some distance back down the valley from her.

Then her gaze turned back towards the exit of the valley she had rested in and grimaced at the dust storm that was still raging. She spotted chunks of rock and other debris flying about at breakneck speeds before crashing into both the ground and each other.

A near constant cacophony of howling winds and echoing cracks and boom rang out from the vicious natural environment of this section of the vast island.

Violet was not exactly looking forward to venturing into this place once again, yet she knew that she had to if she wanted to advance any further. Besides she still needed to gather 2 more tokens in order to pass onto the next stage of this event.

So with a single deep breath to steady herself, Violet raced out into the howling winds in search of the next valley for her to enter.

Immediately upon exiting the valley she felt the wind try to tear her away from the ground, debris begin to slam into her with enough force to cause her to wince slightly at the sharp stinging pain from their impacts.

It was not enough to truly injure Violet, yet it was still anoying none the less to be effectively constantly poked by various items.

Still she did not felt, picking up speed as her eyes tried to locate any change in the environment, visibility was atrocious with the abundant debris and dust flying about making it challenging to see anything past a few dozen meters with any reliability.

Eventually however, Violet did spit a shift in what she could see.

A large shape could just be made out further head, it resembled a vast shadow at this distance. Violet simply hoping that it was a cliff or something similar that she was seeing.

With that located she changed her direction slightly to head towards the vauge shape, swiftly coving the distance between it and herself.

Soon enough Violet could make out more details of the vast shadow, delight sparkling in her eyes as she confirmed that it was indeed a grand cliff that cast the shadow.

Approaching this cliff she sighed in relief when the vicious winds began to die down somewhat, it was still more powerful than any natural wind she had experienced, yet was a significant drop when compared to what she had just experienced.

With that lull Violet carefully observed her surroundings, eager to locate any kind of enterance of valley that she could venture into and fully escape the winds.

At the same time she expanded her presence to see if she could locate anything to fight in order to gain more tokens.

Now that Violet had experienced a great fight against something of a similar level to herself she was not too worried about bullying some weaker beasts and forcing them to surrender in order to gain her next tokens.

She figured that she would undoubtedly have plenty of opportunities to have plenty more battles worth remembering in the coming days that this trial took.

So when Violet picked up on a small cluster of life signs some distance away she eagerly headed in that direction.

She moved along the cliff, keeping close to it to limit the impact of the winds. Soon enough she came across a vast opening that lead into another open valley.

This particular valley was covered in dense foliage, from tall ferns and grasses to the odd sturdy tree, running through the center of this valley was a crystal clear river some 5 meters wide. The water of which seemed to simply vanish into the ground at the enterance of the valley before her.

It was a bazar little ecosystem, like a self contained oasis more than anything else. The winds still howled high above and behind her, yet in the sanctuary of the valley all was still.

Or it would all be still if it weren’t for the distinct sounds of battle coming from deeper within.

Smiling at the familiar sounds of combat Violet caused her body to shrink once again, to the point that she could relatively easily hide herself amongst the tall ferns. Then she raced forwards, taking care to move as silently as possible so as to not scare her prey away.

As Violet moved down the valley she was once again struck by how odd it was that their were no animals or low levels beasts anywhere. A localised biome like this would be teeming with life in the endless forest.

Tens of thousands of small insects and animals would call this spot home whilst the local overlord would maintain the ballence.

Yet here, their was no life, no local beasts to call this spot home. Instead in was a pretty facade, a convincing visual to imitate real environments whilst failing to deliver on what actually made such spaces real.

Shaming her head if those strange thoughts, Violet advanced further, drawing ever closer to the sounds of combat from up ahead.

Before long she got within visual range of the excitement, peering through the dense undergrowth Violet carefully spied on the 4 way battle taking place ahead.

And when she saw the combatants her eyes opened wide in surprise upon seeing the various combatants.

The largest of the fighters was some kind of boar, except this one had a mane of flames around its neck and was flinging various fire spells towards its foes.

Then their was a similar but slightly different boar type beast, this one however seemed to wield water as its mane, those two boars seemed particular hostile to one another, a fact that the final two combatants seemed eager to take advantage of.

Next was a beast that I let had heard of yet had never actually seen before now. It had a body resembling that of a horse, albeit around 15 meters long with tawny brown fur. Yet had a eagle like head with golden feathers adorning it, from its back sprouted two besutiful golden feathered wings. It was a hipogriff of violet remembered correctly, quite a rare beast known for its intelligence and strength.

Yet that was not the truly strange one present, no that would go to the all too familiar dwarven man standing strong in his heavy steal armour and wielding a massive war hammer as he faced off against the powerful beast standing before him.

For Violet recognised this man, she had once saved this very man from a situation somewhat reminiscent to this quite some time ago.

As Violet watched she could help but mutter. "What the heck is Tyre doing here?"