Adventures of the last Wild Dragon

The morning soon arrived with a disgruntled Rhyana in her humanoid form complaining about her outfit once again.

The previous night she had been practically forced into a variety of outfits by the rest of the girls, eventually though it was settled on that she suited a blue sundress the best. At least according to Susan who was unable to stop giggling in excitement whenever she laid eyes on the now dressed dragon.

It was decided that all beasts should remain in their humanoid forms for the foreseeable future so that if they encounter any other enlightened, they wont get attacked for no good reason. Plus Rhyana did need practice walking and fighting whilst on two legs, even violet needed more practice fighting in this form so it made sense to trial it out before then entered a city that would force them to stay in this form.

Heading out once they had eaten they watched as the campsite returned to the Earth, it was a fascinating sight to behold and was a near reversal of how it was formed the day before. The log benches and moss flooring retreated back underground, the stones of the firepit melding back with the ground below.

The whole process only took around 10 seconds, yet they all watched the process with interest, once more in awe of the power and control that Ivy displayed.

Once they had left the campground however, they were back in the rain. Violet was enviously watching how Susan was managing to keep all of the rain from hitting her with a thin water barrier. Yet it was not a specific barrier skill but pure manipulation.

Getting inspired by this, Violet returned to testing the limits of her void manipulation skill. She had allowed it to go underutilised as of late, relying mainly on her established skills in fights and not nothing to experiment with new ways of utilising her void magics.

But she had an idea for what she wanted to achieve. She started out with a simple void shield that floated horizontally above her head. From there she worked on manually thinning the shield out, whilst extending it in a half dome above her. She did consider using her void cloak skill, but for whatever reason it did not block the rain. It did only block attacks, so maybe it didn't consider rain to be an attack?

She wasn't too sure but, it didn't matter all too much really. Because after not too long she had managed to alter her void shield to the degree that it now nearly fully enclosed her in a mostly transparent purple dome. The steady rainfall unable to penetrate through. Not a moment later Luna suddenly appeared right besides Violet, her arm reaching out to interlock with Violet's own.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh just wanted to walk besides you, why am I not allowed to be close to you?" Teased the slightly damp Luna.

Violet's eyes narrowed slightly as she fake glared at her companion. "You just want to do this because iv figured out how to stop the rain aren't you?"

"I have no idea what you could possibly mean." She denied with an affronted look on her face. Violet just snorted in amusement before pulling her closer to her as they walked in a comfortable silence.

The group also ensured that they practiced the presence control techniques shows to them by Ivy. They were devilishly simple yet hard. The first step centered around manifesting their presence in a singular spot that was not attacked to their bodies. Simple on the surface, yet required significant concentration and experience.

Like this 2 days passed with the group traveling east. Wether due to them constantly flexing and manipulating their presences or just dumb luck, they didn't encounter anything worth fighting, sure then ran across the odd beast, but they were all tier 3 or below so the group didn't bother hunting any of them.

And around midday on the 3rd day since they left Ivy, they finally arrived at the foothills of the Spine. Before them towered the impossibly tall mountains that reached for the very heavens. When compared to the mountain that was Violet's first home it was truly stark, the smallest of the mountains before the group now was easily 3 times as large as that lonely spire.

They were so massive that it was challenging to truly comprehend how big they were. They towered higher than the clouds, not a single peak even visible, they truly looked like a black curtain that denoted the end of the world itself.

"How did you two manage to cross these mountains before?" Questioned Violet as the group stared up at the impenetrable wall of rock before them.

"I think we just got lucky, at the spot that we came from there was a good sized valley that allowed us to quite easily cross the mountains. But we think a particularly strong beast had just passed through before we did as we didn't spot a single beast as we flew through it. Honestly, I think we got incredibly lucky in our journey to find you, I honestly have no idea how we didn't get killed by something as we travelled." Explained Susan.

And it truly was extraordinary lucky that they did manage to survive their journey west. Through a combination of never truly looking for a fight, and being simply too weak for any of the true apex being to even bother with. Both Rhyana and Susan had somehow managed to traverse the vast distance in an impressive timespan. Almost as if something was secretly aiding them on their journey, be that the system itself or some benevolent god that took pity on the pair.

But regardless they had done the near impossible and crossed well over half of the Endless Forest over two short months, whilst being just above level 40.

The group moved on, now climbing a steady incline. From what Ivy had told them they knew that they should soon see a valley entrance denoted with several large carved stone pillars. This was the signal they they were heading in the right direction, so they continued their treck.

Slowly climbing higher and higher. Eventually the incline evened out slightly as they crested one of the hills that bordered the mountains.

Before them lay a vast landscape of entwining valleys and steep mountain slopes. All covered in verdant green foliage, only a few sparse trees covered the ground, with much of the vegetation being grasses and shrubs. In the near distance Violet managed to spot a towering edifice of salved stone.

She was unable to make out many details from this far away however, it was a truly giant monument. Standing well over 100 meters in height and being carved from a white stone that contrasted with the black rock all around.

Seeing this the group reoriented towards that point and began their decent down towards the valley the edifice denoted.

They also drew in their presences, they had spotted several beasts dotting the landscape before them and they were not eager to get into a heated battle when they were so close to their destination.

In only an hours time the group finally arrived at the valley entrance, they saw the second edifice that was previously hidden by the mountain wall. Together they acted as the entrance to a lush valley, tall grasses and verdant trees lined the space. And running down the center of the valley was a stone paved road which ended in line with the marble monuments.

Said monuments depicted a mix of nature and beasts. From smaller prey, such as rabbits and some strange mole like beast near the bottom, to towering trees filled with life in the center. Yet it was the top portion of the monuments that truly captured the girls attention.

Carved in breathtaking detail right at the top of each stone pillar, was a dragon in flight. They dominated the sky shown in the carvings, looking down on all that resided below them and taking their place as the true rulers of the sky.

The girls spent some time just admiring the details in the carvings, from the individual leaves on the trees to the glint in the eyes of some of the beasts. The monuments were a true work of art that demanded their attention.

Sadly their time was soon interrupted by the sounds of combat.

Distant booms of exploding magic and the cry's of beast and man alike echoed out from further into the valley, instantly capturing the groups attention. The ground bang to shake from the intensity of the apparent conflict.

They didn't have to think long about what to do, Violet and Luna quickly deciding for them as they charged ahead, eager to see what was causing this so close to the city.

The group dashed forward, quickly closing the distance between them and the battle.

Soon enough they spotted what was causing the commotion. Towards one side of the vast valley a small formation of humanoids, they were fighting for their life against a veritable horde of monsters. Not the corrupted kind, thankfully. But the regular elemental kind.

Dozens of towering stone elementals, with a couple of nature elementals mixed in were surrounding the small group of humanoids. Powerful magics were being thrown around, tearing up the landscape with their might.

The humanoids looked to be putting up one hell of a fight, but, it was a loosing fight. They were constantly being pushed back, giving ground and unable to bear the brunt of the elementals onslaught.

In the middle of the pack of elementals stood a giant amongst giants, easily 20 meters tall. This particular elemental seemed to be a mix between stone and nature, with its rocky core covered in numerous vines and flowers. It did not join in the fight, seemingly content to let its lessers be the ones to do its work for it.

As the group observed this, a wicked grin appeared on both Violet's and Luna's faces. They glanced at each other and smiled as their respective elements began to gather around them. "Let's go save the locals shall we?"