Iris and Bill remained calm and analyzed carefully as they realized that they were no longer alone on the mountain path.
The leader of the group of cadets cursed internally at her bad luck as their entire cover was blown by a simple twig. Now that Bill and Iris knew that there was someone following them, they couldn't sneak up on them anymore and so the only option left for her was to come and face them head-on.
"They are only two people. If it comes down to it, we can easily overpower them with our numbers and eliminate them." The leader thought as she stood up from behind the bushes and made eye contact with Bill and Iris.
The leader stepped forward, eyeing Iris and Bill with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. The remaining two boys and girls from the group also quickly followed the footsteps of their leader and showed themself to Iris and Bill.
"We mean you no harm," she said, holding up her hands in a gesture of peace. "We were just following you, trying to see where you were headed."
Iris and Bill exchanged a wary glance, unsure if they could trust these strangers.
"Why were you trying to see where we were headed? What do you want from us?" Iris asked, her voice steady despite her racing heart.
The leader of the cadet group smiled, a glint of mischief in her eyes.
"We're just curious," she said. "We heard you mention the name Mako, and we were wondering if you know where he is."
Iris and Bill tensed at the mention of Mako's name. Bill had shared some sensitive information about Mako with Iris and he didn't know when this group had started following them and how much did they actually know about him.
The truth was that the group had only found Iris and Bill due to Iris' loud reaction to Bill telling her about Mako's insane growth. It was only during that time that they could hear bits of what they were saying because they were talking so loudly, but after Iris had calmed down, they began walking and talking quietly and it was very hard to make out what they were talking about as there were lots of background noises too.
"Who do you think you are eavesdropping on us?! We don't know who or where Mako is!" Bill said firmly. "And even if we did, we wouldn't tell you."
The leader of the cadet group continued to keep a poker face, but her eyes clearly showed that she was disappointed by their answer.
After a moment of awkward silence between them where Bill and the leader were having an intense staredown, the leader let out a sigh and smiled.
"Well, I guess we'll just have to keep looking then," she said, turning to her teammates. "Let's go, we don't want to waste any more time here."
However, as soon as she turned around, the leader made a special facial expression toward her teammates. The expression was a secret code between the five of them where different expressions meant different things.
The teammates immediately understood the task at hand and quietly prepared themselves. They made way for the leader to walk through the middle of them so that she could actually show that she was leaving but as soon as she crossed her teammates, one of the boys from the right instantly accelerated toward Bill with a small two-inch shiv in his hands.
The movement of the boys was so sudden and fast that Bill couldn't react in time. The boy quickly reached Bill and tried to stab him right in the gut using his shiv.
The shiv made contact with Bill's body, however, instead of gliding in and puncturing a deep wound in Bill's abdomen, the shiv was deflected because it hit something strong and metallic instead of flesh.
Bill's reflexes kicked in, and he raised a wall of earth to counter the attack. Before the boy could figure out what had just happened, the raised wall knocked the shiv out of his hands, and he stumbled backward, taken aback by Bill's quick thinking.
The reason why the shiv hadn't gone through was that Bill was wearing the medium-tier Scorpion Leopard breastplate that he had bought some time ago along with his wind ability.
The shiv that the boy used seemed to be of the basic low tier because it didn't even make a dent in the armor which wouldn't have been the case if it was of the same rarity.
Iris immediately reacted, manipulating a stream of water from the nearby stream and directing it toward the group of cadets. One of the girls from the group took the initiative and countered Iris' water attack by summoning a stream of fire from her hands. The stream water came into contact with the fire and instantly evaporated in front of them, creating a lot of water vapor mist that made it difficult for them to see and move.
Bill saw the opportunity and took advantage of it, summoning wind to his position to blow back some but not all of the mist so that he could still see while the opponents would still struggle to see.
Bill created a perimeter of wind that blew back the mist around 10 meters and now only Iris and the boy who attacked him were visible. The boy quickly recovered and got back on his feet. He had the speed ability which was he was so fast and why Bill wasn't able to react in time, but now that Bill knew that he was in battle he could react more easily and meet the attack.
Iris tried to attack the boy using small droplets of water that she could accelerate enough that it would feel like tiny bullets, although not as powerful; however, the boy was very quick and zigzagged all over the place dodging all the water bullets.
He soon found an opening from where he could strike Bill. He now knew that Bill was wearing armor so this time he aimed for Bill's legs however that was a big mistake on his end as his whole body was very close to the ground and Bill reacted perfectly to the boy's quick attack by raised several blunt stone spikes that hit several body parts of the boy and launching him into the air.
Then Bill launched himself into the air as well by first launching upwards by raising a stone spike under his feat and then correcting his path using the wind ability. While the boy was in mid-air, Bill positioned himself perfectly and used the only skill that he learned from his father directly.
The Falcon Punch!
He tensed up his right arm greatly and pulled it back as far away as it would go. While still suspended in mid-air, Bill approached the boy and delivered a very strong punch right on his face, cracking his cheekbones instantly, and sending him flying straight through the mist.
Coincidently, Bill launched the boy in the same direction where his group was. He flew through the mist and crashed straight into a tree which cracked several more bones in his body and make him cough out blood.
The group was trying to move carefully through the mist because they thought they could use this to their advantage as well and create a sneak attack and that was when they heard the loud thud noise.
The noise came from somewhere to their left and they quickly made their way over only to find their teammate with a brutally bruised face. The leader gasped as she witnessed the state of her friend, but her shock quickly turned into anger as she couldn't believe one of her friends was already defeated and it hadn't even been a full minute since the mist had formed.
"That's it!" The leader shouted as she realized her own mistake.
She had assumed that her friend could survive on his own since he was very fast and while he distracted Bill and Iris, they would use the mist to their advantage and circle around them to launch a surprise attack; however, that whole plan had seemed to backfire on her.
She quickly summoned her own wind aura, but not to create a pocket of air within the mist but to remove the mist completely.
"Blow away!" She screamed as powerful winds started to blow and remove all the mist revealing everyone.
Just as the mist cleared and everyone came into view for one another, they observed Bill standing beside Iris with tens of small sand spikes hovering around him. Before they could move a muscle Bill released the sand spikes toward the group.
The other boy from their group reacted quickly and raised a wall of earth just in time and protected everyone from the incoming sand spikes.
"No way... He has the sand ability!?" The boy said in shock as he observed Bill's power.
After the attack was finished, the boy lowered the wall back down and he saw that some of the sand spikes didn't even his wall as they were too low and they hit the ground before making their way towards him.
"You might be strong, but you're a lousy shot!" The boy shouted with ridicule but it didn't faze Bill at all as he just stood there.
The boy was already angry as he saw his friend get eliminated so easily and seeing Bill unfazed as he stood coldly, staring at him was pissing him off even more.
"You're gonna pay for what you did!" The boy screamed as dashed forward ready to get in close with Bill and fight.
"NO! Stop..." The leader tried to warn the boy but it was too late.
A small grin appeared on Bill's face as he saw the boy rush toward him.
"Iris, get ready," Bill whispered.
Iris nodded and started sprinting forward to meet the boy's attack. The boy was a bit confused because he 100% expected Bill to meet his attack but he wouldn't back down now.
As they reached closer to one another, the boy cracked back his fast ready to strike Iris, but before he could do so his feet landed on one of the piles of sand that were the missed sand spike projectiles.
As soon as he stepped on the pile of sand, the ground around him exploded and a small sandstorm erupted right on his feet, disorienting him and making it difficult for him to see.
Iris looked at Bill's left hand and saw that he had made the secret signal. Without questioning his judgment, Iris sprinted forward took advantage of the opportunity, and landed a clean strike right on the boy's face sending him flying backward toward where he came from.
