In the flight towards the Faron Region, a thought came through Vexalia's head, what if the Imprisoned somehow managed to break the seal again? What if it did already? The Sealed Grounds were far from the wildest area in the forest, but the idea of the monster breaking out again made her paranoid, so she made the decision to go there first.
Sealed Grounds.
Vexalia landed outside the temple and looked down the spiral path, seeing that the seal was still whole, "Okay good..." She said in relief, "You're already done?" Groose questioned as he noticed the Heroine, "If only, I just wanted to make sure it wouldn't come out-" Vexalia paused as she noticed the planks Groose was carrying.
"What are you making?" She asked with a confused tilt of her head, "Just something to make sure that thing won't have an easy time coming up." Groose explained before registering what Vexalia was about to say, "Granny told me what you did leading up to this part, and you're scared of an overgrown avocado?" He questioned in bewilderment, "I've had nightmares about this thing before the adventure started!" Vexalia explained as she looked down again.
Groose let out a 'oh' at that, but then went back to work as Vexalia headed to the temple to do what she originally came to do.
Faron's Woods.
"So is there anyway to tell where the gate is?" Vexalia asked Fi, "The gate to the trial should attract butterflies." The sword spirit explained, prompting Vexalia to start following butterflies, Lyre in hand and playing notes to make the gate reveal itself.
It took a while of searching, but eventually, the notes caused the gate to become visible, "Finally! Let's play this music!" Vexalia said as she and Fi began playing until the gate fully opened, "Stab the sword into the gate and you'll begin the trial." The spirit instructed.
Doing as such teleported Vexalia into a morphed version of Faron's Woods, "Woah... Everything looks... Wavy..." She said, not knowing how else to describe it, but then she realized that her hands were empty, "Fi?" She called out while looking around for the sword, "Mistress, as this trial is only for you, I, and as such the sword, are not allowed to enter." Fi explained.
Vexalia sighed at that information, thinking it made things more difficult, "The objective for this trial is to collect all twenty Goddess tears to gain the artifact that will allow you to search for the Sacred Flame of Courage." Fi elaborated the trial, at which moment Vexalia aknowledge the very bright tear shaped stone a few steps away from her, "Also, the moment you step out of the barrier, you'll be chased by the guardians of the realm." Fi added before quieting down.
Now that Vexalia was left alone, she took a step out of the barrier, and as told, something began making a loud clanking noise that rapidly approached, "I don't want to find out!" She declared and began running towards the stone in front of her, taking it quickly, "One!" She exclaimed to keep count.
Running around the ancient structures in the area, Vexalia managed to find two more tears, "That's thr-!" She stopped talking when a huge ornate sword was slammed a few inches from her feet, and looking at what it was, she saw what might be the creepiest statue she ever saw, "What the f-" Vexalia stopped herself, opting to focus on running away from it.
While escaping, five more tears were on her path, getting her total to eight, "Twelve left!" Vexalia counted, taking a moment to look back to make sure she was far from the guardian, but by doing so, she ran straight into a plateau, and in this spot there weren't any possible ways to escape, "Dammit... Well I fought bigger!" She declared, getting into a fighting stance.
Guardian of the Trial Realm.
Standing still allowed the guardian to quickly catch up, and when close enough it began swinging it's sword at Vexalia, who barely managed to dodge it's heavy swings, "It's a lot faster up close!" She thought as she dodged one last swing, which gave her enough time to run up and punch the guardian in the head, only resulting in a broken hand.
"FFF**CK!!!" Vexalia screamed in pain, holding her limp hand and moving around erratically to avoid getting hit by the guardian, "Maybe it's not a good idea to fight..." She realized, thinking of how she could get rid of the guardian, and then she remembered what her body did on Music Island.
Thinking on how it happened, she made her heart rate accelerate, eventually burning her veins, but not stopping the acceleration, and when it reached peak speed, all her veins pulsed as she tried to give a direction to them to make them all focus on the guardian.
Somewhat succeeding in the attempt, the explosion of veins went completely forward, wrapping around and piercing through it's armor, and with this she did it a second time, to get the opposite extremities of her veins to anchor into the ground, trapping the guardian, "Oh good that worked..." Vexalia said happily, but then fell to her knees as her veins regenerated, "Oh that hurt..." She lamented.
While on her knees, all of a sudden, the remaining tears all rushed to her and formed into a trinket with what looked like a blue gem, "Huh?" Vexalia let out in confusion, before getting pulled out of the Trial Realm.