As soon as Iris turned around toward Bill with gratitude, she saw him having a terrified look as he was running forward toward her.
Iris couldn't understand why Bill was acting in such a manner, but before she could realize what was happening, she felt a sharp object pierce her from her back.
A sharp pain started to shoot up in Iris' body and she looked down, she could see that she had been stabbed by a sword that had made it all the way through her body and extruded out from her abdomen.
"IRIS!!!!" Bill yelled as he ran toward her at full speed.
As soon as Iris had turned around towards Bill, the leader of the group unsheathed her short sword that she was carrying on her waist and rushed toward Iris to stab her from the back. Bill noticed the threat and immediately tried to run forward and intercept the attack and save Iris, but he was slower than the group leader.
Blood leaked out from Iris' mouth as she stood there with the blade still lodged in her. All of this happened so quickly that she couldn't understand anything that was happening. She was completely consumed by the pain; however, through all that, Iris was able to hear a single sound, one that came from behind her.
"This is what you get for laughing over my friends, b**ch!" The group leader whispered in Iris' ear from behind and then proceeded to pull out the blade from her body which caused her even more than when she was initially stabbed.
Time slowed down for Iris as her mind had gone completely blank. She couldn't make out anything anymore. She was having trouble trying to breathe and she felt like she was going to collapse any moment. All she could see was Bill running towards her in slow motion, but before he could reach her, her vision started to fade away and get consumed by darkness.
Bill ran as fast as he possibly could and as soon as he got close he planted one of his hands on the ground and raised several extremely sharp earth spikes from under the leader's feet, but she was easily able to avoid the spikes using her wind ability which she used to blow her self back towards her friends.
Bill grabbed onto Iris before she could fall to the ground and gently held her in his arms. He was full of emotions at this point and his eyes were starting to become watery but he still didn't let his emotions take over as he quickly began to think of possible solutions and outcomes.
Suddenly out of nowhere, a patrolling officer appeared and began to move toward Bill. It looked like the officer believed that Iris had sustained a critical injury that would require urgent medical attention and hence she was disqualified from the test.
"DON'T! SHE ISN'T ELIMINATED YET!" Bill shouted toward the approaching patrolling officer with great anger and determination.
However, the patrolling officer was not fazed by it as he had seen such events occur hundreds of times before, and this was no different.
"I know it's hard to lose someone you are close to, but if you hold on to her, you will end up killing her. She has done well to survive this long but this is as far as she goes, she needs urgent medical attention." The patrolling officer said calmly.
"Please, she has the healing ability! She can heal herself, she can continue the fight, just give her some time!" Bill began to plead to the officer as he held tightly onto Iris' body.
"Look, son. She can't heal herself if she is unconscious. She is losing blood by the minute. If she doesn't get medical attention soon, healing pills won't be enough to bring her back." The Officer said calmly as he tried to make Bill understand that he needed to let her go.
eαglesnᴏνel "Please sir, how much time can you spare before you Have to take her?" Bill asked while continuing to plead.
"...2 minutes... 2 minutes and I have to take her from you by force." The officer replied reluctantly.
He normally never gave people this type of leeway but if what this boy said was true and this girl could heal herself then she wouldn't be considered eliminated as per the rules of the patrolling officers.
The patrolling officers had a wide range of rules that would determine whether a cadet would be eliminated or not, but it all boiled down to until and unless the officer believed that a cadet was on the verge of dying and couldn't be saved past a certain point, he or she would have to interfere and save the cadet; hence, eliminating them from the test.
"Thank you!" Bill said to the officer for granting him time and now he shifted his focus toward waking Iris.
The group was observing the whole scene play out and she couldn't believe that the officer was actually giving them some time and not eliminating the girl immediately.
The leader's blood boiled as she saw this. Their group originally consisted of six members but during one of the early nights, they were ambushed by several cat-like beasts that were able to land a heavy strike on their sixth member who was a girl, and heavily injure her on the abdomen area similar to Iris.
The leader pleaded with the patrolling officer that had arrived on the scene to give her time to find healing pills and heal her friend rather than him eliminating her, but the officer said that there was no time, and she couldn't possibly find some to save her life in time and with that he grabbed her injured body and quickly got out of sight.
'Why does she get extra time?' The leader asked herself in anger as she watched Bill trying everything he could think of to wake Iris up.
She wasn't going to let them have their way. If one strike wasn't enough, she would land another. When her friend wasn't given any extra and was eliminated on the spot then why does this girl deserve extra treatment?
With this mindset, the leader tried to move forward once again to try and land another strike on Iris to make her lose more blood so that she could be eliminated faster, but as soon as she took a single step forward, she began to feel intense pressure on her shoulders.
She looked up in fear and could see the patrolling officer's eyes glaring at her with anger and disgust.
"Moving to attack an injured opponent who is on the brink of death? You are the worst of scum! You are to stand down this instant!" The patrolling officer shouted toward the leader as he released his aura to suppress her movement.
Bill couldn't believe that this was the intention of the group leader, but he couldn't focus on her right now. He needed to wake up Iris at any cost. He tried covering her wound to stop her from bleeding. He tried splashing her with water but nothing worked.
With 30 seconds left, Bill was completely out of options. Her heartbeat was slowing down and he couldn't hear her breath anymore. He couldn't wake Iris up and she would soon be eliminated from the test.
"No! I can't let it end here! Iris! Iris!" Bill shouted.
He quickly got down on his knees and started doing chest compression on Iris' chest to manually pump her heart.
"Iris, wake up! You have to wake up!" Bill shouted.
With fifteen seconds left, Bill saw that Iris still wasn't coming to. In a last-ditch effort, he quickly brought his mouth close to hers and began breathing into her lungs.
Since he had the wind ability he could more efficiently get oxygen into her lungs. Once he had breathed in a good amount of oxygen into her lungs, he began doing chest compressions once again.
5...
"Iris!..."
4...
"...Wake Up!"
3...
"YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP!"
2...
"IRIS!"
1...
*cough!* *cough!*
Bill suddenly heard Iris cough and immediately stopped the chest compression. He watched with several emotions welling up inside him as Iris' eyes began to twitch and slowly open.
"Hah! Iris you're awake! Please start healing yourself, you have lost too much blood!" Bill said to Iris as soon as she had fully opened her eyes.
Iris couldn't understand anything that was going on around her. Her vision was blurry and her hearing was numbed. She couldn't make out anything, but then all of a sudden, Iris began hearing a voice from inside her.
Iris couldn't make much of what was going on outside but she could clearly hear a voice from inside her. Her consciousness looked through her body to find the source of the voice and soon she found it. It was coming from the whitish-green aura bubble that was inside her.
"Release... me...! Let... me... help..." The voice said.
Iris had no clue how she was hearing this voice, but she was too weak to argue as she complied and let the whitish-green aura be free inside her body.
