The fight began with the noise of shattering glass as the Creeper broke the field containing it. This seemed to make the Umbral Doll’s field also dissipate as if they were linked. Knowing that there was no more time, Axel moved to intercept the Creeper as it decided to go for Lyra first. With a charge and yell, Axel interposed himself as the Creeper was only halfway to its target.
Using a horizontal slash to try and get the Creeper to back off was Axel's first mistake due to reflex, as the crimson entity did not stop its charge, taking the hit. This caused it to stagger, and green goopy blood leaked out, along with losing the left arm at the shoulder and a good part of that shoulder area. This, though, allowed it to use its long gangly arms to make a swipe at Axel when he believed that he was still at a safe attacking range. Feeling the impact, Axel used the force of the impact to retreat back to gain room, as a green light then enveloped the Creeper, speeding up its regeneration and causing the area that was lopped off to regrow in the time it took Axel to regain his footing.
Axel moved back onto the attack, changing up his fighting style. Instead of using the slashing chops of the axe head, he started to use the spear part of his halberd to keep the Creeper busy and not let it get another strike in. He would have loved to pin it with the hook or the spear, but that would lock him, and he was unsure if he could get it locked down with the way it was fighting, ignoring any injury to attack its target. Axel’s body information from his health system showed nothing penetrated his skin, along with likely his armor, though he did not have the luxury to check right now, but there was extensive bruising along his lower stomach that would take long minutes for his blessing to repair.
Axel tried to use this flurry of jabs to get hits on the black spot that was the Creeper's core, but the spot seemed to sense where Axel was striking. It was not helping that every few hits, that green light would glow on the Creeper, speeding up its already nearly overwhelming regeneration. In the short span of about two minutes, Axel likely swung or stabbed the Creeper over twenty times, but it was closing the wounds moments after, forcing Axel to withdraw a couple of steps after almost every exchange, as the Creeper was beginning to try to run itself through on Axel’s weapon to get its claws in range with those scary long arms. This reached a point at the end of the second minute that Axel risked injury and used more of his strength to fling the damn Creeper into a wall to get a moment to catch his breath.
There was a warning of strained or torn muscles and minimal bone damage showing from Axel’s health monitoring. Thankfully, the force of the throw caused a large green splatter mark, and while the Creeper was standing, it was not standing as quickly. With no green light of healing coming the Creeper's way, this meant Lyra must have hurt or hopefully killed the Umbral Doll. Taking this moment to gain more awareness of the overall fight, Axel took a quick look around the room to see that there were fire spots happening all around the room. Axel hoped that there was good ventilation that he could not see, or there would be an oxygen issue very quickly.
The room was getting coated in green blood from Axel's fight, and there were burning spots all around the room from likely missed shots from Lyra trying to nail the Umbral Doll with her sling and jars of oil. Axel saw that the Umbral Doll was still alive with at least three throwing knives in its body that it was trying to heal even now. Lyra was charging the Umbral Doll with her sword and shield raised. The shield was hit by weak, sickly green bolts of energy that were eating away at the wood and metal of the shield slowly.
This was all the time Axel had to see what was happening as the Creeper was back on its feet, and even without the green healing light, its wounds had fully healed in less than ten seconds that Axel used to cover the room and reassess the situation. Knowing that his job was still to keep the Creeper engaged, Axel kept his steps in a more light and bouncy way that Aria had shown him, trying to move in a more zigzag pattern with more random zigs and zags to confuse the Creeper. Axel also threw several knives on the way in, but they seemed to do little to this monster besides being a slight impediment to it.
This time, knowing that Lyra should be able to kill her prey quickly, Axel danced around the Creeper with more dodging back than attacking to keep its attention. The fight continued in this manner for another minute when Axel, having lost track of the first limb he had lopped off, slipped on it, costing Axel to take another hit, this time claws piercing his armor in the right shoulder. Axel, through the pain, caught the follow-up strike aimed at his face with his other hand, less than an inch from his eyes, and then again used his strength along with kicking his legs into the Creeper's chest to throw the Creeper away, ripping the claws out of his chest. This throw caused the Creeper to bounce at an angle from the ceiling and ricochet to one of the walls with a squishing breaking noise on each hit.
Axel could feel the blood pouring down his shoulder from the three finger-shaped holes. Breathing heavily and finding it hard to catch a breath at all, Axel could see that the Creeper was already standing as its misshapen body began to pop itself back into place as its regeneration took care of its broken body, only for it to take a jar to the side of the head, causing it to catch flames. This caused the Creeper to flail around for the first time, reacting to what Axel assumed was the loss of vision as he could see the eyes boiling in its skull in a pattern of regeneration and destruction.
Knowing he had no time left to finish this, Axel charged the Creeper and with a semi-circular swing caught the flailing Creeper with the hook and then lifted it off its feet to slam it on its back down with bone-shattering force. Axel then held the Creeper in place and with all the breath he had left called to Lyra, “Nail this thing!” but all that came out was a loud gurgle and frothing blood.
Lyra did not disappoint Axel in this moment, for as Axel was beginning to grey out from what his health data showed was a collapsed lung, Axel saw her run up and slam her sword home into the Creeper's core, killing it. Axel then fell to his knees, gasping for breath that his body was just not getting all it needed as he felt a hand on his back and his blessing mobilizing to fix his deflated lung quickly. Axel then saw the various worst spots closing and the damaged arteries stopped bleeding quickly, which would have bled him badly. With the more life-threatening injuries closed and taken care of, Axel just focused on breathing to get the pain under control and let his body catch up on the oxygen deficit it was at.
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“Good shot with the jar there, Lyra,” Axel complimented. “You saved the day there as I think in that state I had about a minute or less before I was overwhelmed. No wonder so few people fight those things as their starting Trial.”
“Yeah, I had the Umbral Doll dealt with for a good while there, but there was no way I could get into your wild melee without likely messing your rhythm up. You scared me greatly when you slipped on the arm there, though. We need to work on your awareness drills more. Have you been slacking?” Lyra laid into him, her voice still set to a higher octave that meant she was scared still of what happened from Axel's experience.
“You try fighting something that cares very little about what injuries it takes to get a lethal blow on you and tell me if you can keep track of all details.” Axel shot back hotly, feeling the heat going to his ears from the embarrassing display. Axel then took a few more breaths to calm down and looked Lyra in the eyes, saying, “Sorry for blowing up on you there, I think that the adrenaline is still pumping, and my body is still fight or flighting on me. Let’s check to see if you can take the healing orb, as if not, we still have another fight to do.”
Lyra nodded, not bringing anything else of the comment up, and held out a hand to help Axel back to his feet, which he took using the leverage to bounce up. Lyra gave Axel a hug, and he could feel her shaking like a leaf in his arms to hear a whisper, “Don’t leave me like everyone else, you fool. What would I do? I don’t think I could survive alone.”
She then released her hug and moved to where the Umbral Doll died. Axel followed Lyra across the room to a black orb with green lights swirling on the surface that looked like clouds reflected in the river. With shaky hands, Lyra reached out to the orb to touch it.
“Good shot with the jar there, Lyra,” Axel complimented. “You saved the day there, as I think in that state I had about a minute or less before I was overwhelmed. No wonder so few people fight those things as their starting Trial.”
“Yeah, I had the Umbral Doll dealt with for a good while there, but there was no way I could get into your wild melee without likely messing your rhythm up. You scared me greatly when you slipped on the arm there, though. We need to work on your awareness drills more. Have you been slacking?” Lyra laid into him, her voice still set to a higher octave that meant she was still scared from Axel’s experience.
“You try fighting something that cares very little about what injuries it takes to get a lethal blow on you and tell me if you can keep track of all details.” Axel shot back hotly, feeling the heat going to his ears from the embarrassing display. Axel then took a few more breaths to calm down and looked Lyra in the eyes, saying, “Sorry for blowing up on you there. I think the adrenaline is still pumping, and my body is still in fight-or-flight mode. Let’s check to see if you can take the healing orb; if not, we still have another fight to do.”
Lyra nodded, not bringing anything else up, and held out a hand to help Axel back to his feet, which he took, using the leverage to bounce up. Lyra gave Axel a hug, and he could feel her shaking like a leaf in his arms as he heard a whisper, “Don’t leave me like everyone else, you fool. What would I do? I don’t think I could survive alone.”
She then released her hug and moved to where the Umbral Doll died. Axel took this moment to look at the disappearing body of the Creeper, which was leaving a red orb with many bright green lines crisscrossing its surface. As Axel picked it up, his Journal asked if he wanted to integrate the material to create his core, to which Axel denied for now as he needed to see if Lyra became a full healer or if they had one more fight today. Axel then followed Lyra, who had moved across the room to a black orb with green lights swirling on the surface that looked like clouds reflected in the river. With shaky hands, Lyra reached out to the orb to touch it.
As she touched the orb, a light gasp came from her lips. “Axel, my journal says I am compatible with energy healing!” Lyra said while not looking up, keeping her voice hushed. “But should I become one?”
Lyra's voice was very low with a hint of fear. “If I become a full healer, the Healers of Hope will do everything they can to make me join. There are only like nineteen of them in all the city-states. I will also be the target of so many powerful people if I want to be free from the Healers.”
Axel moved in closer as if to comfort her, acting like she was not compatible with the power. “Why didn’t you mention this while we were planning?” Axel whispered in her ear and rubbed her back in a consoling way. “Do you want to be a full healer but free?”
Lyra bit her lip and nodded. “It has been my dream forever to be a full healer, but I can’t trust the Healers anymore. Not after what Tess did to me.”
“Alright, here’s the plan,” Axel began to whisper in her ear. “We are going to fake the system out. We will declare that you are incompatible and have them release your second choice, but you will use the healing orb instead of the reflex booster. Because who would give up the prestige of being a healer, let alone a full one? We will have to make more plans in the future, but this is all I got for you.”
Lyra nodded and let tears roll down her cheek, though they were tears of relief and gratitude, not sadness. Axel then stretched his back and said loudly, “Lyra is not able to get energy healing; we need her backup choice released.”
At the statement, another circle shifted and split in the floor, bringing up a Snap. This was a smaller beast-looking entity that was small, fast, and surprisingly lethal. Getting ready, Axel moved up to the dome with Lyra and readied himself for a hard fight.
There was not much of one, much to Axel’s relief and disappointment, as when the dome dropped, Axel worked with Lyra to corner the creature and finish it quickly with a stab while it was avoiding a sword strike from Lyra. After the creeper fight Axel forgot that most weak entities were very beatable in a one on one if you were trained properly, otherwise it would be a much higher death rate for the first trial.
As it dropped a sky-blue orb with a yellow script on it, Axel reached down and, as he acted as if he was handing it to Lyra, shattered it with his strength. Lyra then shifted the healing one into her hand in an action of taking the reflex boost into her hand.
Axel was unsure if the act was needed, but it was better safe than sorry. Axel then breathed in and blinked his eyes in confirmation of taking in the Creeper core. Feeling that it had taken forever to get here after everything that he had gone through. It was time to complete his core and truly start his journey!