Looking at the new appendages that came out of the ligament between her wrist and forearm felt surreal for Vexalia, two whips made out of tendons and bone that stretched about twice her height, and didn't seem to have anything in common with the tendrils made by Faron.
"Fi... Explain..." The hero requested, poking the oddly sharp and pointy bone pieces that almost felt like the sword of the Goddess, "I am unsure Mistress, I have vague memory of Vexus having something like this and that it causes crippling damage." The spirit recounted, but also didn't sound sure.
With just that Vexalia decided to get out of the room and attempt to go back up to see if she missed anything, "Let's see..." She muttered, retracting the whips into her arms, only to then swing her right arm to the ceiling of the statue and lodged the tip of the blade in it, then with a simple contraction of the whip's tendon, she got pulled upward and to the exit, "Wow... That'll take some getting used to..." She commented and exited the statue.
Taking a moment to learn how the whips actually worked brought Vexalia onto an upper platform with a chest that contained a map of the Cistern, along with some instructions on how to get to some parts, but the first thing she noticed is that there was a lower floor, "That's... Weird..." She said, looking around for anything that looked like it lead under.
"Nothing." She concluded, but didn't question it beyond that, thinking it was probably a sealed away place, and so she went to the only path avaiable to her, which was underwater, but it was blocked by the spikes of a lilypad, which didn't stop her as she simply flipped the lilypad and went on.
In the new room there wasn't nearly as much water, allowing Vexalia to practice with the whips a lot more, discovering that she could easily use them to pull switches and use the tips to climb parts her claws couldn't pierce, "These feel perfect... But something still feels is missing..." Vexalia mused as she pulled one last switch, triggering a whirlpool in the only water in the room.
"Well only way is down." Vexalia recited and jumped into the whirlpool, that made her get dragged to another area that she didn't recognize, "Mistress, I detect we're in the presence of the source of the dark power." Fi informed, prompting Vexalia to look through some iron bars and seeing pools of decayed water.
Thinking she wouldn't need to go in there at any time, Vexalia was about to move on, but then saw something that made her skin crawl, the chest that contained the key to the flame, "The fact that those chests contain the last keys is just a coincidence right?" She asked in hope, "No mistress, it's for finding them easily." Fi corrected much to her mistress' chagrin.
The only sensible thing to do now is exactly what happened, Vexalia pried the bars apart and entered the corrupted caver, hoping to not attract the attention of anything, but she also found the problem of the pools of dark power that hindered her advacne, so she was forced to use the whips in order to navigate from above, causing a lot of loud cracks as they embedded in walls and ceilings.
"Don't wake up. Don't wake up. Don't wake up." Vexalia repated as a mantra to try and keep the impending doom at bay, and actually managed to reach the chest with no issue, and opening it revealed a minature Goddess Statue, "...WHAT THE HELL!?" Vexalia yelled in confusion.
Upon the realization she covered her own mouth, but could still clearly hear the echo of her voice bouncing around the cavern, and turning around proved she made a mistake as tons of monster corpses started rising from the ground, ranging from Moblins, Lizalfoses, Skulltulas and more.
"Mistress, this is a huge problem, this kind of creature cannot be killed by regular weapons, and as much power the Goddess Sword contains, it does not contain enough Holy Power without at least one flame to kill them." Fi warned, making Vexalia really worried now, but that's when she remembered something.
Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the container containing the flame piece and popped it open, causing the green flame to fly out and engulf her completely, "GYAAAAAAAHHHH!!" Vexalia let out, not in pain, but from the shock of how much power started flowing through her.
The power felt so pure that she felt her own body change, feeling the veins tangled in her hair retreating back into her head, revealing her purely white hair, "This... This feels incredible..." She commented, turning to look at the walking corpses, rising the Goddess Sword to the sky and swinging it at them, sending a powerful enough cut to hit all of them and purge what reanimated them.
"It's amazing!" She exclaimed, running her hand through her hair, feeling smoothness she only felt in Zelda's hair, "Is this what normal people feel like?" She wondered outloud before hearing something crack above, and looking made her notice that the bottom of the statue was lowering, but the rush of power made Vexalia not worried at all.
Grabbing the sword with both hands, Vexalia started slashing at the lowering statue until a hole opened, allowing her access back up, also letting her see the door to the flame on the ceiling and made her way up with the whips, putting the key in, allowing access to the top of the statue's head.
There on the top was a valve that easily turned with a pull from a whip, which made the statue start to rise into a hole in the ceiling into a chamber where a mechanical warrior was located and on top of it, none other than Ghirahim.
"I was waiting for-" He started, but Vexalia quickly interrupted, pointing her sword at him, "Shut up and let's fight! I wanna break your bones!" She said with a smile a little too big for what she just said.
This unusual behavior took Ghirahim off guard, only to then realize that Vexalia somehow had purified herself, "You- How- Nevermind!" He said as he poured dark power into the warrior, making it wake up before disappearing from the room, "Coward!" Vexalia mocked the Demon Lord before facing the Mechanical Warrior.
Ancient Automaton Koloktos.
The battle started with Koloktos throwing a curved blade at Vexalia, which she dodged without much of an issue, but the curved shape allowed it to come back like a boomerang, allowing it to graze Vexalia's shoulder and making a bit of blood come out, "I see..." She muttered, an idea in her head.
Dashing to an arm that held a curved blade, Vexalia swinged her sword at the joint where dark matter was exposed, severing it for the time being, but with the blade on the ground, a quick pull with the whip let Vexalia steal it.
Anchoring the blade to the whip proved to be an effective strategy, as now each crack of the whip sent the blade flying back and forth, easily cutting through the plated body of Koloktos until a red core got uncovered, and Vexalia focused on that core, actually dealing damage now, however it also made Koloktos utilize another strategy.
Using it's arms it came out of the ground revealing legs, and it unraveled two more pair of arms, pulling out six huge scimitars out of it's back, "Cute!" Vexalia commented mockingly, cracking the whip again to launch the blade, only to get it deflected back, really blowing thee wind out of her sails.
With the boomerang blade not working, the heroine felt in a pickle, but then realized she had a better weapon in front of her, so whip a quick crack of a whip, she anchored the hilt of a scimitar, initiating a game of tug of war with the mechanical warrior.
Each pull drained the power of the flame piece from Vexalia's body, as it started pouring into Koloktos trying to purge the malice from it, until it's arm got purged completely making it let go of the scimitar and with it on the whip, Vexalia started going nuts, cracking it down against her adversary, cutting deep into the metal until it couldn't keep itself together anymore.
The last slash completely bisected it while also draining the last bit of flame from Vexalia, returning the corruption it removed, "Well I still get to keep it." She said cheerfully, making her way through the door leading to the actual flame.
Reaching it, the emerald green color permeated the room and Fi took it as her cue, coming out of the blade, floating in front of the flame, "Be prepred mistress, this is going to be way more intense than that singular piece." The spirit warned before jumping into the flame, gathering it into herself, and finally phasing into Vexalia to transfer all the power.
This transfer was a lot more painful than the one before, but the power rush quickly dulled it out as once again, Vexalia was put one step further to complete purity.