Rushing forward as their spikes collided, Sapphire rammed into the fox, sending him a short way back.
Not letting up, she continued forward, attempting to impale the fox with her antlers. When that failed, and the fox maneuvered their body to avoid the gruesome and rather boring death, Sapphire changed her attack to a second headbutt, sending him to the ground.
However, before she could hit them with her crystals, the fox managed to get up and dash at her, which she matched, running away.
The fox was considerably faster than her, though, forcing her to hit a tree and have it deter the fox. Whenever it inevitably didn't do anything but reroute the monster and give her a little time, she clicked her deer tongue.
'One of these days, the tree I knock down will do something.' She frowned to herself, taking the chance created to strike the fox from an angle.
All good hits as they were; the fox had significantly higher stats than Sapphire, causing minimal lasting damage.
The Fox paused, circling Sapphire slowly.
Sapphire followed suit, causing the two to move opposite of each other. If it was going to stall for time, Sapphire was by no means against that.
'3 times? Maybe 4?' She counted the usages she'd have of either of her skills with her current Mana pool.
No matter how she looked at it, this didn't look great. But she'd make it through. Alchemy had beaten enemies with far higher stats than herself. Sapphire would just need to follow in her master's footsteps and do the same.
'Just like Master Alchemy. A vital is all I need to hit. Or hit it hard enough to concuss it and prepare a finisher. You can do this, Sapphire.' She thought to herself, her legs shaking.
To say she was used to fighting… It would be a lie. Her natural instinct as a monster helped to some extent, but when she was spending leisurely days with her family, Sapphire never thought she'd fight such powerful and scary foes.
Equally so, she never thought she'd meet such powerful and scary allies. She was a [Hero] too! Just like Nera. Taking down a single fox should be simple!
When the fox got bored of sizing Sapphire up, it lunged at her with its mouth wide open. While it was in the air, Sapphire gave it a crystal hoof straight to its jaw. The force sent it to the ground, but not for long, as it managed to bite onto her other front leg.
"OW!" She shouted, that leg rapidly crystallizing as she forced the fox off. The distance wasn't much, but because of that, she had plenty of time to turn around and stomp the head of the beast into the ground several times.
She tried to finish it there, but the fox created a platform underneath her and launched it away with her on it. The distance wasn't a bad thing. Just like when she was fighting those wolves, her leg was caught.
"It hurts so much." She mumbled, crying quietly.
As much as it pained her, the damage wasn't as bad as when she fought the wolves. Maybe it was thanks to her CON stat increasing as she leveled up, or perhaps she was more used to the pain. Regardless, she could move.
And she'd need to move. A certain fox flew at her like a villain from an early 2010s mascot horror game.
"You never learn!" Sapphire shouted, creating a crystal tree right before the fox. Since it could reflexively dodge it, she'd summon her crystal in front of her.
To her surprise, her plan worked as the fox ran into the tree, breaking the crystals and being sent to the ground again with a loud THUNK!
Quickly, she rushed over to the fox to try and finish the battle again, but as she got close enough, the fox smiled and leaped up, slashing at Sapphire and leaving several deep gashes in her side.
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Sapphire was sure she saw another system panel show up, followed by a surge of power, but she ignored it entirely due to the pain. She wanted to scream, but the fox also had to be in bad condition. There was simply no way it could be doing much better than her.
She hoped.
The fox slashed at her again, but she retaliated with a head butt. The fox tried to create spikes to impale Sapphire, but she countered them with her own before retaliating with a powerful Hoff to the enemy monster's eye, causing it to stagger back.
She went in again, this time prepared for its counterattack. As it lunged at her, she jumped to the side before charging in, stomping on the beast to keep up the pressure.
Once again, the beast tried to throw her off with another earth platform, but she managed to jump in time. Unfortunately, the fox was trying to recover just as quickly. Oddly, however, when the fox tried to lift its head, it suddenly couldn't.
Like a foreign power, an invisible person pushed it down to the ground. Seeing this, she took the chance, creating spikes with the last of her Mana to impale the fox.
While she managed to show off her signature attack of "Stringing the enemy up like an ornament on a Christmas tree," she missed any vitals.
The pain stopped her from aiming accurately, not that she was a great aim usually.
'One more! Just one more!' She shouted inwardly, charging at the fox one final time!
With a single thrust of her crystal antlers, she impaled the skull of the fox, putting it out of its suffering.
The moment she felt the blood drip onto her face, she fell to her knees.
Without even looking up, she knew she had won. That ringing sound that accompanied the system giving a reward, wrung through her head, signifying her victory.
She didn't know what the system was or what it wanted… But she was so glad it gave her reassurance.