Chapter 381: Jungle Foes

Violet dashed through the lush jungle, the intense heat of the sun fading slightly once she entered the shade. Still the cloying heat was enough that she found herself sweating slightly after only a short time moving rapidly.

She slowed down after a few minutes, satisfied with the distance she had moved away from the entrance from this zone. Now she could take some more time as she explored this place some more.

It had been 5 days since she had entered this trial ground, meaning that half of the allotted time had already run out. Grandes she was in the 4th of 5 zones, 6 she supposed if she were to count the central area where all participants were to gather once they could.

Regardless Violet felt like she had plenty of time to move through this zone, she just hoped that it wouldn’t be too hard to find worthy prey, she did need to find and defeat 5 more participants if she wanted to enter the 5th zone after all.

Her rapid advancement turned into a leisurely jog through the dense jungle, dozens to hundreds of different species of trees grew alongside one another. Bushes and flowers fought for the limited sunlight filtering down through the canopy above, vines snaked up the towering trunks as they too fought for survival in this varied environment.

It was an explosion of life, truly wild and beautiful in its variety.

Violet breathed out in satisfaction, glad to be out in more familiar terrain as opposed to the stifling environment of the stone tunnels of the previous zone she had just left.

As Violet breathed her domain expanded and retracted in time with her deep breaths.

She still felt that unnatural resistance to her domain, yet it was no longer hemmed in by the walls of the tunnels. Now she could at least expand her domain to its reduced but natural size.

A size that had noticeably increased since when she first entered the trail grounds, not by much but enough for the difference to be noticed by Violet as she practiced with her domain.

The first stage of her current tier was focused on gaining mastery over her domain, something that she felt she was achieving quite well. For her domain was not actually expanding in size but returning to the actual size of her domain when it was not being suppressed.

She guessed that if things stayed the same by the time she reached level 200 her domain would be back to the same size as it was back on the continent.

Not that she thought she would reach that point during this trail. It seemed a touch far fetched to believe that she could advance so much in such a short amount of time. Still she would push hard and try to grow as much as possible.

As Violet was practicing with her domain, her presence was expanded much further, her senses sweeping the area around her in search of anything that could pose a threat to her.

Whilst doing so she picked up on something strange off to one side. It was somewhat reminiscent of a beast, yet it felt somehow... wrong.

Or not wrong exactly just different, like a facsimile of what makes a beast a beast. Not the twisted nature of a monster.

Intrigued by this strange anomaly Violet decided to go investigate and see what she could discover.

Her long disused stealth skill activated and she seemed to disappear into the shifting shadows of the jungle around her. Her domain shrank back within herself, its presence too noticeable to go unnoticed.

Thankfully she had long learnt how to expand her presence without alerting others to it, using this she could still pay attention to the goings on around her, yet when she got close enough and finally laid eyes on the strange anomaly she paused in confusion.

For what she saw was not something she had expected to see.

The creature before her somewhat resembled a beast, a panther type beast if she had to guess. Yet this was no beast of flesh and blood, no, this creature was made entirely of plant life. Interwoven vines and bark outlined the creature, the vines acting as the musculature whilst sharp curved thorns acted as claws and teeth.

It was a peculiar life form, somewhat reminding her of the Treant she had encountered just before the war at Syan.

Violet also noticed that the vines of the beast extended beyond the plant body, expanding outwards and connecting it to one of the many vines that connected to a nearby tree.

She also noted that the beast seemed to posses some kind of domain, marking it as a tier 5 entity.

Yet it was also a strange being, its domain was less metaphysical and more just straight up physical.

Its domain seemed to be one with the jungle around it, merging seamlessly with the nature around it.

As such it did not come as much of a surprise when the beast quickly turned and locked its strange emerald green eyes on Violet. The creature was also no bigger than a small horse, as opposed to the normally massive size of tier 5 beasts.

Whilst Violet wanted to observe the vine entity some more, the creature evidently had other plans as less than a second after locking gaze with Violet the beast surged forwards with incredible speed and it raced towards the dragon girl.

She could feel the hostility radiating from the plant panther directed solely at herself.

As such Violet did not delay in responding to this agression directed towards her. As such she responded to the creatures charge with what she felt was appropriate force.

A volley of void bolts and spears raced towards the creature, it responded near instantly as a host of vines and roots surged forth from the ground before the creature and intercepted the attacks.

Whilst the void bolts did minimal damage against the plant life barrier, the void spears did manage to puncture through several vines and even some roots before they were blocked.

Still Violet did not halt her barrage of attacks, continually attacking the approaching creature.

When the last of the barrier was destroyed Violet tensed in preparation for the charging panther, only for her eyes to open wide when the panther was no longer before her.

She felt a pang of danger from her side and did not hesitate in blinking away and reappearing some distance to the side.

She turned to face the panther that had somehow appeared behind her as her eyes narrowed and her domain flaired. A vicious grin split her lips as she began to look forward to the fight to come.