The tidal wave was causing havoc as it moved further inland, enveloping the Terra Beetles one by one and thrashing them around inside as they were bombarded with rocks and other debris that was also picked by the tidal wave and moved at high enough speeds to cause some serious damage when colliding against the Terra Beetles who were quickly dying out due to getting hit in vital organs by the debris and having no air to breathe.

Iris wasn’t really concerned with what was happening to the Terra Beetles as she just hoped to ride the tidal wave all the way over to where Bill was launched inside the forest as she needed to make sure she was alright before she was all out of power and completely useless.

The size of the tidal wave began to shrink as it covered more ground leaving behind a trail of waterlogged ground, uprooted vegetation, destroyed rocks, and dead Terra Beetles. The tidal wave didn’t act exactly as a normal wave of water as Iris made it so that it would keep its shape and travel forward as if the wave was still forming on the water, which made it last longer and travels a greater distance.

Soon enough, Iris had reached the area where Bill was launched and she relinquished control over the tidal wave so that she could jump off and escape before the tidal wave was completely gone.

Without any of the beasts noticing, Iris silently jumped off from the top of the tidal wave that was much shorter than its initial size and quickly began running deeper into the forest, searching for Bill.

As soon as Iris left, the wave became wild as a wave should on land and dropped in height significantly, and flooded a larger area including their own shelter.

The tidal wave had proven to be quite effective as it had killed almost every single Terra Beetle that was chasing after Iris but wasn’t quite able to kill the Terra Beetle King as it was too far away and the wave had lost all its power by the time it reached the Beetle King.

The Beetle King was quite lucky as it was able to survive such a great attack, but now it had no visual on where Iris was and was too weak and hurt to even move around; especially with no limbs.

So as Iris ran through the forest to look for Bill, the Terra Beetle King called all remaining alive Terra Beetles of its colony towards itself to utilize another great feature that was unique to their kind and was the main reason why the Beetle King was fighting so recklessly to the point that it had also sacrificed its crystal so easily.

************

Iris had used up 97% of her energy and her mutant gene had forcefully been deactivated leaving her operating on fumes, and yet Iris still didn’t give up and ignored her bleeding nose, intense muscle aches, and excruciating headaches as she continued searching for Bill through the dark forest.

The area was barely visible, and Iris didn’t have a source of light on her so it would be a lot harder for her to find Bill, and so she had to rely on her senses if she wanted to find Bill.

She knew the general direction where Bill was launched and it was quite obvious that he would have followed a straight path until he finally hit something that would have caused him to stop.

Iris kept dashing through the forest to where she roughly thought Bill might be and after about 10 minutes of searching her instincts paid off as she saw a faint light coming from in front of her where a tree had also collapsed so she was sure that this was where Bill had crashed and had used the small light sticks that were provided in the backpack to let his friends know where he was.

Iris rushed toward the light hoping to see Bill still conscious so that she could heal him and get him back into the fight as she knew Bill was important to help the group defeat this wave.

However, what she saw when she finally reached the collapsed tree was something completely unexpected.

In front of Iris, two patrol officers were in the middle of placing Bill’s unconscious body on a plastic stretcher, ready to take him off the island as he had sustained heavy injury which might become fatal if he didn’t receive immediate medical attention; hence, disqualifying him from the military test.

“No No No No! Stop! Please stop!” Iris yelled as she ran toward Bill who was still in the patrolling officer’s hands.

“It’s too late, young miss. He has been disqualified from the test and has received severe damage which might become fatal if we don’t get him to our standby medic immediately, so please move and let us save his life.” The patrolling officer gently said as she consoled Iris who was on the verge of tears after seeing Bill’s condition.

There was a deep cut on his forearm that was tightly covered up by a cloth and his power armor breastplate was completely broken into pieces with a massive slash across his chest area from where he had lost a lot of blood. In addition to that, the travel through the forest and crashing directly into a solid tree at high speed caused multiple fractures and bone breaks, leaving him on the verge of death.

*************

The patrolling officers had taken the biggest gamble throughout this entire recruitment test yet, thinking that Bill would be able to survive the hit from the Beetle King or at least wouldn’t die immediately. .𝒄𝒐𝒎

The call was a very close one as by the time the patrolling officers found Bill, he was on the verge of death and his condition only stabilized after they quickly fed him 3 High-tier healing pills and patched up all the areas that were bleeding and losing blood.

However, this wouldn’t be able to prolong his life for too long and they quickly had to take him off the island and get him to a medic, but they were interrupted by Iris’ sudden arrival.

************

“No, please! Don’t take him out just yet! I can help him! I can fix him!” Iris pleaded.

The officers thought that this was just her grief speaking and they couldn’t lose any more time so the female patrolling officer tried to use a bit of force to make her let go of Bill so that they could quickly get out of there.

However, before she could do so, she received a message in her earpiece that was an order coming directly from the main commander himself.

“Don’t try and stop the girl. She has remarkable healing capabilities and we would like to see the extent of her power. We have dispatched a medic to your location who could help the boy if she fails to heal him back to a stable condition in time.”

The female officer was a bit skeptical considering the condition that Iris was in herself, but she would dare go against an order from the main commander and so she gently laid Bill down on the ground and explained to Iris that a medic will arrive shortly to their position. If she isn’t able to heal Bill to a stable condition before his arrival, Bill would be disqualified from the recruitment test.

Iris was so shocked by the sudden change of heart from the patrolling officers, but she quickly got to work wasting no time as her hands started glowing green and she began healing Bill.

The damage was too much for her to repair in the short amount of time that she had, but she had no other choice but to keep on trying till the last moment and help Bill recover.

Time continued to tick away and blood started to drip from her nose and mouth as she focused all her energy on her healing ability leaving nothing for her own body, causing damage to herself in exchange.

The patrolling officers were quite concerned with Iris’ condition and tried to talk to her and get her to stop so that she could save herself, but Iris snapped back at them with anger as she told them to keep to their word and let her continue trying until the medic arrived and stop distracting her.

The officers were really taken aback by the amount of emotion behind Iris’ voice and actions and they backed away as they said allowing her to do her thing while she still had time.

Iris’ hands were shaking tremendously and her muscles were spasming out of control all over her body, but she didn’t dare stop or slow down her healing.

‘Bill, you saved me and believed in me when I got stabbed and was on the verge of death. You protected me and pleaded for the officer to give me time to heal so that I wouldn’t get eliminated. What kind of a friend would I be if couldn’t do the same for you in your time of need!? Please I am begging you hang on, and get better, don’t quit on me, yet! The others need you!’ Iris said in her thoughts as she pumped more and more healing aura into Bill’s body.

The healing aura was working as quickly as possible, fixing internal injuries and mending fractures and broken bones, and even restoring blood by prompting the body to kick into overdrive and produce more blood.

It was indeed working, but it would still take a while for Iris to completely heal Bill which she didn’t have the aura nor the time to do.

Realizing that she wouldn’t be able to do it, Iris let her emotions run wild as her aura leaked freely from her body and guilt washed over her similar to the tidal wave that killed all the Terra Beetles.

She was incredibly heartbroken and mad at herself for not being able to save the person who save her so many times. The intense guilt and sadness triggered a reaction to occur within Iris’ body which she was too lost to even realize, but the patrolling officer knew exactly what was going on.

“Her ability is evolving!” The patrolling officer commented to her partner as she observed the wonderful changes in Iris’s aura as her healing ability became even stronger.