"I am too weak to be of any use to Mako and Leon doesn't have the skill set to deal with an Advanced-tier beast yet so that just leaves you," Bill said.
"Me? How can I help him when I couldn't even free myself from the swarm of these insects," Erin retaliated.
She quickly understood what Bill was trying to propose to her, and she really didn't want to go down that route.
"That's just it! Your skills can't benefit you against a swarm of small enemies but they will work wonders against a massive beast!" Bill explained.
Erin knew that Bill wanted her to leave them with the Terra Beetles so she could go ahead and help out Mako with the Beetle King; however, splitting up was what caused Iris to be disqualified and she didn't want to take that risk again, and risk another friend's elimination from the test.
"I want you to stop using wind aura and instead build it up in your hands, once you are at your maximum, I will give you a boost back up into the air and then you can easily glide over to Mako's position without the Terra Beetles being able to stop you," Bill said.
"Why can't we just quickly take them out?! We can then all go and help Mako together," Erin suggested still trying to stick to her ideal and not trying to split up.
"What?..." Bill said as his face showed an expression full of ridicule and confusion.
"Erin! Mako is fighting an Advanced-Tier beast ALONE!! It took all of Iris' power and mine just to barely be able to overpower and kill one of those damn things, and now the second one is going to kill my friend unless you help him!" Bill yelled out in frustration, unable to keep his anger in check.
Erin was completely taken aback by Bill's sudden outrage that it kept her completely stunned and speechless. Tears were starting to form around her eyes again and Bill quickly realized his mistake.
Erin was just given the news that her best friend was almost dead and eliminated from the test so of course such a thing would have a great impact on her mental health.
Bill ignored this fact as he continued telling Erin his plan without even properly consoling her for the huge emotional blow she just took head-on.
Bill and Erin had descended quite a bit and were now within the range of the lightning ability of the Terra Beetles so the beetles quickly switched from earth mode to lightning mode to start shooting Bill and Erin down.
Bill gently wiped away the tears from Erin's face and apologized for his outburst. He gently grabbed her shoulders with both hands and looked deep into her eyes.
"Look, I get it! You don't want to lose any more of us after what I just told you about Iris, but please you have to trust me on this. Leon and I can easily handle these chumps, but you have a different role to play than us, a better role, a more important role! You don't want Mako to end up just like Iris do you?..." Bill said with as soft and caring a voice as he could which wasn't great considering all he ever knew was violence and hate.
However, Erin still got the memo of what Bill was trying to say to her. She had been blinded by her emotions in the heat of the moment and made a poor judgment that could have cost them heavily if it wasn't for Bill to knock some sense back into her.
Erin stopped using her wind aura to support their weight and they started falling faster toward the ground.
"You're right! Right now, Mako needs my help! Thanks for opening my eyes!" Erin said as she began charging her wind aura into her hands.
Bill nodded and gave out a sigh of relief as Erin finally agreed to go ahead alone and help out Mako. However, since she had taken so much time to decide, they had fallen way further down than Bill had anticipated.
Erin and Bill were now within the range of the Terra Beetles Lightning strikes and so almost all the Terra Beetles on the ground switched from earth mode to lightning mode to try and snipe them out of the sky with their lightning strikes.
Around ten to twelve of the Beetles were still engaging Leon so as to not allow him to interfere with their sniping practice.
Leon saw what the other Terra Beetles were planning to do as he had to stop them from firing no matter what. Since Bill and Erin had launched themselves way up into the sky, Leon was now the Terra Beetles on target which was quite rough as he couldn't handle so many High tier beasts at once while more of them were shooting lightning bolts at him from underground.
However now, a lot of that pressure was gone as he could easily deal with a few Beetles at a time.
He had picked up the combat knife that Erin had dropped when Bill launched with her into the air, and he had been heating it up with one of his arms this entire time while dodging the Terra Beetles with his speed.
Now the blade of the combat knife had been heated sufficiently once again and Leon was ready to launch a counter-attack, and a heavy one at that.
The Terra Beetles had all charged up their lightning bolts and were about to fire when all of a sudden small balls of fire started to fall from the sky to their left and land on their bodies, lighting them up on fire and making them miss their original aim.
The fire wasn't particularly strong nor it did do major damage but it was enough to create havoc among the Terra Beetles making it so that none of them were able to hit Bill and Erin.
"HEY!"
The Terra Beetles turned around toward the left to see Leon standing over a freshly slain corpse of a Terra Beetle with the combat knife in his hands sizzling the blue blood that was covering the blade.
"You want to get them!? You're gonna have to go through me!" Leon shouted as his boots began to glow blue.
Leon had activated the active skill of his Leg armor as he received a significant speed boost which he then paired with his speed ability skill that allowed him to do something similar to the leg armor, by absorbing energy and releasing all at once in a massive speed boost.
This was Leon's strongest and last resort skill that he had used to single-handedly defeat the first wave and now he was going to use it to take care of every single Beetle on the ground in front of him.
Leon activated his hardening ability as his whole body became stiff and with his max speed, he became a blur as he ran through the crowd of Terra Beetles, smashing into as many as possible while also wildly swinging his hot knife to injure as many beetles as possible.
Leon had named this his last resort skill for a couple of reasons. After using this skill, his body wouldn't be able to physically fight anymore because he still lacked in the fortitude department to actually bear the skill, and secondly, he still had little mastery over speed and so he couldn't actually control when he was moving this fast as he could only move in straight lines.
Leon ran through the crows real quick, trampling over the lives of a few unfortunate beasts, while injuring many more, but he was done by a long shot.
Leon ran straight into a tree and it allowed him to stop his momentum. It was really dangerous to get hit by a solid object while moving at fast speeds but unfortunately, this was the only way for him to stop or change direction.
He turned back around toward the Beetles with a bloodied face and scratches all over his body, but he didn't show any sign of pain as the expression on his face was one of satisfaction and pleasure as he laughed maniacally toward the remaining Beetles.
"Oh, I'm not done with you yet. I get two minutes and 23 seconds with this skill, and I'm gonna make every single damn second count! HAHA!" Leon shouted out loud toward the crowd of Beetles while continuing to laugh maniacally.
Bill and Iris observed the events taking place from above as they were only about 15 feet off the ground now and were still descending. They observed a blue and sliver streak running back and forth, colling with trees and boulders to change its direction and killing a lot of the Terra Beetles on the surface.
Seeing this Erin was finally relieved that Leon was back to his regular old self again and now felt safe leaving the two of them behind to take care of things.
"Are you ready?" Bill asked to which Erin nodded yes.
Bill canceled his wind aura as well and the two of them quickly dropped to the ground, but Bill instructed Erin to not let go of him yet.
As they fell and touched the ground, the ground actually caved in and formed a crater as it stretched inwards as if it was an elastic material that was experiencing some weight placed on its stretched surface.
Bill was actually condensing some of the rock that was under his feat but he was still not strong enough to actually compress rock so he was aware that his plan would fail but that was exactly what Bill wanted.
Bill wanted the explosion from the failed attempt of trying to compress the rock to propel him into the air again just as he did with his wind ability earlier.
"Make sure that idiot stays alive," Bill said to Erin as his parting words.
"Yeah, sure! You still owe me a proper apology and a detailed explanation!" Erin replied back.
To this, Bill smiled as he replied one last time, "It's a deal!"
*BOOM!*
The crater exploded launching the two of them into the air again, but this time, Bill quickly let go and manipulated the wind ability so that he would lose all of his momentum and it would also be transferred over to Erin, launching her much higher into the air than before.
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