Ophelia observed the growing spectacle with keen interest, having noticed by now also that Farren had managed to actually disconnect the chain. She felt better knowing that they had, at the very least, completed that part of the fight on their own. She continued to retreat to a safe distance before looking over at the clash and trying to discern who it seemed had the upper hand at that moment in time--but given that all she could really see from the beast was its wreath of crimson lightning and that its claw had just raked across the Shopkeeper's chest to reveal pearlescent blood... Well, she didn't feel like it was necessarily going in their favour. Still--the Shopkeeper was positively full of tricks, and Ophelia was quite content to watch (much in the same vein as Gerlinde) while she continued to regain her frightfully small reserves of stamina. She suddenly had a much greater interest in using the Heir rune to gather blood echoes, and felt like she'd need to hunt something more suited to their power level and truly dominate it.

She also spared a thought for Torquil, and shot him a grateful look--not that he'd see it, no doubt. He had made the choice to act, and she would always have preferred him act rather than dally and dither and end up not doing anything at all. It was nice to see him take some initiative.

While Gerlinde casually leaned on the staked-down lightbeast and twirled her fiery cane, and Torquil collapsed his axe back into its shorter form and successfully retrieved the Loch Shield, the darkbeast remained focused entirely on the Shopkeeper.

The darkbeast swiped again, but the Shopkeeper took a swift and carefully measured back so that its claw missed them by a hair's breadth, only for the Shopkeeper to immediately step back in while spinning the Burial Blade over their head. The great scythe came down vertically on top of the darkbeast's skull, piercing deep into it. It was a wound that one would assume to be lethal to any ordinary creature... but Farren especially had already witnessed a Hunter survive something similar when he had plunged his Blade of Mercy into Skinner's forehead.
Indeed, the darkbeast wasted no time retaliating with another red-glowing explosive slam of its claw. This time the Shopkeeper did not have time to conjure an Effigial Loch Shield to protect themselves, so even as the silt was blown into the air in another dust cloud, they were thrown backward and out of the obscured area by the force, where they ended up rolling an extra meter or so, now unarmed. The darkbeast followed with a fierce snarl, pouncing on the caretaker of the Dream with both claws extended, but again the Shopkeeper managed to roll out of the way in the last moment and get back on their feet.
Raising both hands over their head, the Shopkeeper summoned another weapon with a blue flash: something that looked like a pair of simple, a large wooden wheels connected by an axle, only with the rims of emanating an ominous dark-red arcane aura in the form of what appeared to be human skulls. They slammed the Logarius' Wheel down into the darkbeast's head as it advanced once again, and the wheels appeared to spin violently on their own, carving into the monster while radiating dark, baleful spirits.
Instead of trying to evade or defend itself in any way, the darkbeast repeated the maneuver it had just failed at and brought both of its hands up behind the Shopkeeper, dug its claws into their back, and pulled them in close to its face. The Shopkeeper allowed their wheel to vanish, only to immediately summon a beast claw and use its power to partially transform into a beast themselves, after which they started viciously clawing at both sides of the darkbeast's head at the same time.
Meanwhile the darkbeast seemed to just stand still, just allowing itself to be shredded... except that while its body held still, its lightning was moving. The red glow wreathing its form migrated toward its front, leaving first its hind body dark, then the rest of its torso, until all of its light seemed to focus into its hands and head, each of which now gave off a blindingly bright glare.

There was a powerful sound so deep that none of them could hear it, but everyone felt it rattle their very bones, just as they could plainly see the shockwave sending an obvious ripple through the silt across the entire alcove. Though the light was concentrated entirely on the Shopkeeper, anyone within twenty meters of them would easily be able to feel the heat wafting past them, as if someone had just opened a pressurized furnace.
Then the darkbeast collapsed limply where it was, black smoke rising from its claws and head, and all its electricity gone. The Shopkeeper was also gone, however, and in the place they had stood but a moment ago the ground had turned to glass.

_Farren

watched the battle with baited breath, recovering his stamina naturally as he did so. Each exchange of blows was tremendous and he marvelled at the fact that they’d even managed to fight the Darkbeast at all. However…at the same time, Farren found himself unsettled and uncertain. Before when Ophelia had summoned the Moonbound Hunter he had absolutely obliterated their opponent…but now, it was almost even, and Farren had the distinct sense that the Shopkeeper was struggling.

“This isn’t good…” Farren muttered, pushing to his feet after he’d briefly handed Bulwark to the Messengers who had waited for further direction. They’d taken it after that.

As Farren stood up, he glanced at the three others. Torquil was perhaps in the best shape…or at least looked it, but that was on account of his armor. Besides, the man had clearly taken at least one blood vial during their encounter with the Darkbeast. While Farren took in each of them–startled at how well off Gerlinde seemed despite the sheer quantity of damage she’d taken. Ophelia on the other hand, though in decent shape, appeared largely on her last legs—she was clearly exhausted.

Yet, before he could even begin to organize some plan of attack, his eyes were drawn back to the conflict as the Darkbeast wrested dominion of the battle by latching onto the Shopkeeper. Then it started to glow with a ferocity far exceeding anything it had done during their fight with it. “Shit…”

Farren cast his gaze down and away, shielding his eyes with an arm in the instant right before the explosion went off. It was so loud and powerful that it rattled his bones, sending a chilling vibration throughout his entire body that set his every nerve on edge. Some small part of him that retained a prey instinct told him desperately to run. Farren stifled that voice, squared his jaw and tried to steel himself, but when the dust cleared, his lips parted slightly in stunned horror.

“That…that’s a problem,” Farren said simply, his tone gruff and though there was a note of fear there, by and large he sounded no less determined than before. Brandishing the Beastflayer, Farren’s eyes snapped over to Gerlinde. “Any chance that horn of yours can work on more than one weapon at a time?” As he spoke, he kept the beast in his peripheral vision. He’d know precisely when it decided to shift its attention.

For the most part Ophelia simply stood awestruck watching the events of the titanic clash, breathing calmly and trying to get into position for whatever happened next. She'd noticed that Farren had managed to pry the chain apart, and the flow of bountiful moon motes was simply flowing out of the chain and into the environment near them--which meant the darkbeast was cut off from the lightbeast's healing capabilities... and with how much effort it was pouring into its attack, it'd clearly soon be exhausted as well. Ophelia was about to muse on how that would give the Shopkeeper an abundance of time to absolutely obliterate the beast, but as the crescendo of the darkbeast's gathering power reached the apex of its fulgurous fury she suddenly had doubts that anything at all--even the Shopkeeper--could survive it.

When the blast hit all of her senses registered it, the sheer volume of energy reverberating through the already-charged air flowing over her instantaneously. She could taste blood, smell the charge in the air, feel the goosebumps on her body write with energy. The keening pitch of its unleashed potential was at no frequency someone should be able to hear, but she could swear she heard a sound that was so pure an expression of malice that it made her shudder. Mother Moon above... she thought to herself, balking somewhat in the blinding wave of light, before finally the second passed and all was clear again. The Shopkeeper did not remain, and beneath the ground where they stood was glass, sparkling softly in the pale moonlight. This, then, was it.

"Now or never! To the death!" Ophelia screamed as she began to run forward towards the beast at her very fullest speed, quickstepping into motion and then heading directly towards the darkbeast's head begin to deliver a flurry of swift and light swipes--with how easily the Holy Moonlight Sword had cut the darkbeast before she hoped she could get away with not pouring that much energy into the swings. She'd need at least some of her still barely recovered stamina to either perform a finishing attack or get away from something imminent if it came to that... But she thought about what had been said before, that the Shopkeeper being summoned meant they'd receive no Blood Echoes, and she summoned what resolve she could. If that was the case, well, it didn't matter if she died. Not really. She would evaluate the situation as it unfolded, but with a clear second wind of passion and unleashing of retributive malice that anyone observing her would see plainly that she was determined to see this through.

“Never tried,” Gerlinde replied to Farren's inquiry. She started reaching for the tube of quicksilver bullets on her hip, but stopped when she heard Ophelia's battlecry and realized that others were already moving against the darkbeast.
Ophelia arrived and started carving into the darkbeast's face with her arcane blade, gushing blood from the creature as its charred bones crumbled under her strikes. Perhaps half a second after her – arriving after Ophelia only because he had opted not to quickstep to get there – Torquil ran to the right and back of the monster's head, and immediately chopped at its neck with his axe, the only way he knew how: with every ounce of strength he could draw from his bulging muscles.
Both the Holy Moonlight Sword and the Hunter's axe cut deep, and the darkbeast trembled under their assault. Anyone paying attention might notice a faint pulse of electricity through the chain connected to the stake through the darkbeast's chest, but they ended up just sparking uselessly at where the chain had been severed, never reaching their intended target.
The darkbeast hissed and gargled, its entire body trembling. Nearly all of its fur had been burned away by the red lightning, and it was clearly struggling to produce even the faintest voltaic charge at the moment. Each swing of the blade of the cosmos left gashes in its flesh and bone that still healed, but did so discernibly slower with each passing second.
Its hind legs kicked uselessly in the silt and its shaky front claws tried in vain to drag it toward where the lightbeast remained staked to the ground. The lightbeast, in turn, raised its head for only the second time since they had arrived at the alcove, turning its empty sockets toward its dark and menacing companion.
Ophelia slashed, Torquil chopped again, and the darkbeast collapsed once more. Its wounds, which had once regenerated as fast or faster than they could inflict them, were no longer healing. It convulsed weakly on the ground, with no strength left to resist.
Then Torquil chopped a third time, and its head tumbled off its shoulders and landed at Ophelia's feet.

Ophelia, Farren, Torquil and Gerlinde all suddenly felt an overwhelming sensation of something weightless and invisible coming to envelop them, and all of them except Torquil would likely recognize the sensation as that of the blood echoes of the fallen clinging to them. Except feeling, even for those familiar, was far more intense than they had experienced before.

Ophelia and Gerlinde has received 600 blood echoes.
Farren and Torquil, under the influence of the Heir Rune, have received 1200 blood echoes.

Ophelia basked in the glory of killing this creature that had tormented them so, had abused the chained lightbeast, had rendered even the Shopkeeper to dust and transmuted the dirt and sand to glass. It was a magnificent feeling, to emerge victorious, but there was none of that crude and vile furnace heat like when she'd awakened from the clinic mere hours ago--this was only gently warm, and trickled through her like a babbling brook more than a sweeping inferno. She was deeply proud of them--well, less so Gerlinde whose strategy of 'simply do not stop attacking' which, while effective, would not have been able to prevail on its own. Everyone had seen the openings and opportunities left by each other, taken the initiative when they had to, and done the very best they could when thrust into this strange world. It did not escape her notice that merely yesterday this sort of creature would be, very literally, the stuff of Nightmare--so utterly and unfathomably terrifying that Ophelia would not have even thought to have attempted to fight it. Now they stood victorious over its severed head, and she turned to Torquil and gave him an earnestly wide and bright smile.

"Oh, here, love..." She began, quickly moving over to him and carefully removing the empty vial sticking out of his visor. "You did very well, Torquil--you acted when you needed to, and I'm very proud. I'm glad I had you by my side. The feeling of getting these blood echoes is... well, it's something, isn't it?" she commented, half wanting to reach out and clasp him into a hug but deciding that it wasn't the place.

"Similarly effusive praise to the two of you, as well! Especially good work finishing off that chain, Farren--my, you definitely look the part of the Hunter proper now don't you? Shall we find a lantern and spend these echoes before more terrible things appear to try and kill us? Perhaps if we cut the chain leading up to the top of the gate there..." Ophelia called out, heading up towards Farren and Gerlinde and pointing out the relevant chain with the Holy Moonlight Sword.

_Farren

did not act as quickly as the others, but when he saw them rushing the darkbeast, he followed suit. However, as he arrived it was already over. He gritted his teeth a moment, irritated, and then the wash of overwhelming, but weightless Significance settled into his veins, pulsing through with each of his heartbeats. Though it burdened him not at all, the sensation of it was similar to what he imagined it must have been like to exist beyond the physical self…yet within the same space. The thought came to him without context and he took in a deep breath, finally feeling some of the frustration from the last hour or so fall away from his shoulders and drain from his body.

Realizing he’d closed his eyes for a moment to revel in the sensation, Farren opened them once more and then walked towards the Darkbeast’s ruined corpse and stared down at it with a slight smile. “Good fucking riddance,” he said, sounding satisfied, then spat on the ground beside it. That done, Farren retrieved what he could from the beast, looking it over to ensure there was nothing of any further use that they might extract from it beyond the echoes that had once animated its undead flesh. During that process he also retrieved the Blade of Mercy he’d left embedded in its skull, checking it over, before unifying it with its twin and sheathing it.

Once he’d found all he could, Farren glanced in Ophelia’s direction, wondering perhaps if he contemplated on their recent experiences if there might be another Rune to be gleaned somehow. He doubted it…and after a few moment’s consideration he decided against it. If he was going to do something like that he’d save it for somewhere safer–like one of the workshops…or the Hunter’s Dream. A moment later he was pulled from those thoughts by Ophelia's praise. He almost let out a grunt rather than reply, but instead he glanced back between the members of their group and then down at the beheaded Darkbeast.

“Still could've gone better,” Farren said, and though the words were rather negative, he was smiling, clearly pleased that things had turned out better than he’d expected. For a time there it had seemed like they’d been slated for an exceptionally more unpleasant trip to the Dream. Then he nodded, and glanced in the direction of the fog gate–obscured by the illusory wall. “Mmh, Sounds as good a plan as any. Besides, I’m tired of all this blasted silt,” Farren replied, kicking at a nearby pile with a faint laugh. He seemed in good spirits. There really was something to narrowly escaping death it seemed.

While Torquil tried to find a way to simultaneously puff out his chest in pride and awkwardly look away in embarrassment, Farren spent some time examining the remains of the darkbeast. The first and most notable thing he would find was that though the monster itself was dead, its remains appeared to still contain some faint remnant of life. Muscle-tissue remaining on the bones continued to twitch randomly and ineffectually, its heart and lungs kept spasmodically trying to preserve life in its undead body and, as he looked very closely, he would even find that the burns and cuts it had received in its last moments were still regenerating... just very, very slowly, at least by the standards of someone with the Old Blood.
As an undead beast, it appeared that even beheading the creature was not enough to completely extinguish the spark of life from it. But even if it still possessed some weak semblance of vitality, the fact that they had received blood echoes seemed to suggest that its mortal will had been vanquished, at least... and even with the incredible regenerative powers of undeath, it seemed incredibly unlikely that the darkbeast would be able to grow a new head on its body, or a new body from its head.
Aside from the still-living flesh and bones of the creature itself, the only potentially useful thing Farren would be able to retrieve from the corpse was the massive stake embedded in its chest. That particular stake looked like it would be rather large and cumbersome for something human-sized to handle, but it also looked like it – being a giant stone stake – could feasibly be used as a weapon somehow. Notably, the significantly smaller stakes in the lightbeast's hands and feet looked like they would be a much more manageable size.

Gerlinde, meanwhile, seemed fairly unmoved by everything that had just happened, but merely turned to the lightbeast while idly brushing off the ash of her own burned-up skin off her right shoulder and arm. The lightbeast kept its head raised, much more attentive now than previously, and seemed to turn to look at whoever was speaking at any given moment.
“What about this one?” Gerlinde asked, pointing her threaded cane at the beast. “Do you want to kill it, too? That might be faster than breaking the chain, and I bet it has some pretty powerful blood echoes too. Or are we just leaving it here?” Her tone suggested that she was personally more interested in killing the creature.