18 Desparation

"There!" she shouted to Darius who was just behind her. She wasn't sure if this would work, but she had to try. In the exact same moment that they ran into the cave, another crack followed by an explosive blast destroyed everything in the immediate area. Transforming the lush green forest into a scorched barren desert in an instant.

The cave was deep and wide yet narrow at the entrance. The walls were covered in thick moss. Luckily for them the cave was empty, or at least it whatever resided inside it wasn't there at the moment.

"We're cornered." Darius said as he faced the dead end at the back of the cave.

"Does that thing work?" Lara asked as she eyed his hammer.

"Yeah."

"Well in that case I have a plan."

At that moment the great crustacean slammed into the cave entrance. It was far to large to enter, but that didn't stop it from trying as it repeatedly bashed into the mouth of the cave. Determined to penetrate the cave it pulled out of it for a moment, then lunged full force into the cave, getting itself stuck in the process. It used its long antennae to probe its surroundings. In search for any sign of Lara and Darius, while using its other, much smaller claw to reach in side the cave, trying to grab at anything it could. Lara seized her chance and went on the offensive, lunging forward and slicing off all four antannae in one sweep. Blinded, the creature writhed in pain. It still had two eyes but its eyesight was too poor to see into the dark cave, but it was determined to kill everything in the cave, at any cost.

"What the fuck is wrong with this thing? Its blind but it keeps attacking anyway." Lara was talking more to herself than to Darius. Spirits also valued their lives and would normally stop attacking once their were wounded this badly. So it surprised Lara that the shrimp kept at it.

The creature then began to unravel its large claw. Lara saw this and lept onto the shrimps head. She gave it all she had as she thrust both of her sword into the shrimps head, but to no avail.

"The armor's too thick!" she said as the beast violently jerked its head up and down. Bashing her repeatedly on the roof of the cave before throwing her off so hard she hit the back end of the cave, knocking her unconscious.

"Stop the test immediately!" the Emperor bellowed as he stared at the screen in disbelief.

"Where is the administrator? Have her shut the formation down now!"

"Father you know we can't do that. She has to survive the test on her own without our help. Either way the administrator isn't allowed to stop the test for anything, even you." said Edward, the oldest of Lionel's siblings. He knew that Lara was his fathers favorite child and when the time came would be most likely be chosen to become Emperor, or in her case Empress. Although if she were to say tragically die in the test, then his problem would be solved.

"Screw the rules that thing is going to kill her!" Lionel said, enraged by his brothers' lax attitude towards the death of their only sister.

"Well maybe if you hadn't been such a coward you would have been there to protect her in the arena instead of hiding from from your responsibilities like you always do." James, the second oldest snapped at Lionel. He realized what his older brother was trying to do and decided to support him in bumping off the competition.

Lionel looked to his father for help, "Dad we can't just sit by and watch Lar-"

"Your brothers are right, Lionel. If we help her she will not only fail by default but bring shame upon herself and our family. We have no choice. " the Emperor cut in, clearly defeated.

Lionel slumped back into his chair. His brothers words had cut him like razors. It was true, if he hadn't tried to run from his responsibilities he could have been there right now, but he wasn't.

Lionel could tell from the moment he set eyes on it that it was a possessed creature. Spirits are formless beings made of pure energy. They usually try to take the forms of animals in order to sort of attempt to solidify their existence in the physical world, but they would always appear disfigured or wrong in some way.

Spirits were classified in terms of raw power in the same way that Spiritknights were classified. There were four levels called steps, each with three sub levels called stars. So much of a spirit's energy was spent in trying to maintain its form, that if one was able to possess a creature in the physical world, one with a physical body, it didn't have to spend energy trying to sustain then its power would increase drastically. That was why even though the forest only had one star level one spirits of the first step, the mutated shrimp had the power of a level two spirit of the first step. It had successfully possessed the creature of a real animal. This was referred to as a variant spirit.

For reasons unknown Spirits by nature had always sought to destroy everything in the material plane. Which was the reason for the never ending war between them and mankind. This particular spirit that had possessed the shrimp however was particularly hell bent on destruction, a lot more than spirits of its level usually were.

"Can't it figure out that using its main attack in such a small space will incinerate itself alongside everyone else in the cave? Why would it go to such lengths just to kill two humans? Is it crazy or just incredibly stupid?" These thoughts raced through Lionel's mind as he could do nothing but watch on helplessly.

The only one left standing between the shrimp and Lara's grizzly demise was Darius, who knew that if they didn't do something to stop its claw this time there would be no surviving this. He knew they only had about ten minutes until their certain death.

He rushed over to Lara and picked her up, carrying her well out of reach of the smaller claw which was searching feverishly for something to grab a hold of and dismantle. He then sat down right next to her.

"Eight minutes." Darius muttered to himself. Lara, who was coming to heard this.

"What?" she said not averting her yes from the giant pistol shrimp which was slowly taking its time to deliver its wrath upon them. Although Darius wasn't exactly the person she wanted to spend her last moments with, he was the best she had. So they may as well talk.

"We only have about eight-well seven minutes until that thing kills us. I estimated from how long it took when it was chasing me." Darius was shaking with fear.

At that moment Lara felt incredible disgust towards Darius. This time however it had nothing to do with his nobility status or the fact that he was just a simple peasant. This time it was because of the sheer amount of fear that was emanating from Darius. As far as she could see she was at least three times the man Darius was.

Meanwhile Darius was rocking back and forth, hugging his knees tightly and mumbling to himself, "I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die, I don't want to-"

"SHUT UP! For once in your petty, worthless little commoners life could you have some dignity?" Lara screamed at him.

She couldn't stand it anymore. She was willing to kill him there and then if it meant she could die in peace. She loved her brother Lionel but in that moment she wanted to kill him for leaving her to die next to Darius of all people!

She then said, quite frankly, "Yes, we are going to die. It's inevitable and if you can't accept that maybe you should do something about it rather than sit around and cry like a child! Because if you hadn't noticed, whining about it isn't exactly going to make the problem go away."

"I'm sorry." Darius lowered his head in shame.

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Lara knew the rules of the test and that no one would come for them. Although she wasn't afraid of death, she was still disappointed and felt like she was too young to die. She still felt like she had her whole life ahead of her.

"This is all your fault. I was doing just fine before you brought that thing to me." she now aimed her anger at Darius.

"I worked so hard. I spent so many hours studying, training, watching my father and learning how to rule an Empire. This was my last test before I could qualify to become his heir. I was supposed to be the Empress." Although she kept emotions like sadness and disappointment close to the chest and never revealed them to most people, inside she was breaking down.

"But now I'm going to die because of you." her last words were bitter and filled with hate and disdain. She indeed had a plan, which was to have Darius smash a hole through the cave once the creature was blinded. She figured once it could not see it would focus on escaping but much to her surprise it didn't care and kept on attacking.

Darius didn't respond to this, he felt there was nothing he could say. He wasn't ready to die there, so he decided to do something. In a desperate last attempt he ran up to the shrimp and began pounding it with all he had.