Spending another seven minutes, making the total time spent on this battlefield reach 3 hours, at about the time when Maria was almost done gathering a new set of vestiges, they had finally went around the entire battlefield, both of them heaving heavily from the exertion it took for this feat.
In between gasps, Victor turned to look at Victoria, his helmet folding in on itself towards the back of his head to reveal his face that was paler than usual, and said to her, "I think this should be enough, the situation has mostly stabilized so let's go back -"
He hadn't finished talking when a loud boom went off from the distance, startling them and then a shockwave that came soon after hit, forcing them to cover their eyes.
Although most of the soldiers here didn't know the reason, how could these students not when they saw him leave?
That was Orion battling the tier 4!
"Looks like that battle's in full swing.", Victor said and took out a potion, downing it in one go like it was water.
The slightly spicy and slightly bitter sour mixture went down his throat, a slight grimace appearing on his face as he quickly took out some water after that and downed it too.
'I really can't get used to this taste', he thought.
But regardless of taste the concoction did it's work as his face grew noticeably more rosy, signifying a reloading of his stamina and energy reserves.
Drinking more water to help regain the lost fluids in his body, he turned to Victoria to see her doing the same.
Though she didn't lose water in her own speeding state, the energy and stamina loss were even more exaggerated than his.
She may be faster than him, but the one who held the title of most stamina without any augmentations or replenishes was still him.
In total, she had taken four stamina and energy potions while he only had two.
Wanting to get on with this he turned back to her after taking a brief look at the surroundings, aiming to get moving, "We should get going-". His words paused, looking at the odd expression on her face.
'Something's up.'
He easily identified it as her 'hesitating to speak about a personal-ish matter' look.
"What's wrong?", he said in a somewhat exasperated tone.
Whenever that look appeared on her face the thing he would have to do would definitely be tiring and troublesome, hence his reaction.
"Nothing! Nothing at all! Everything's fine!", she replied to him in a slightly raised voice.
Now he knew that something was up, but he knew that she would sell herself out with her actions soon enough.
Before he could even speak again, she said,"Let's get back, the battle up there is almost done, we should go help the others."
Not waiting for his reply, she turned into a flash of light and started running towards the forest.
'I just said that. Weren't you even listening?'
With a sigh, his helmet unfolded back over his head with one thought running through his mind, 'The things I do for this girl.'
With a flash of lightning, he chased after her catching up easily as she purposely waited for him.
But instead of moving straight to the forest, whether consciously or not, she took a slightly different direction, as if trying to get somewhere.
'Here we go.', he knew he was about to find out what was bothering her.
He didn't need to wait long before her cause for concern made itself known.
A vestige, high grade tier 3, looking like a silver-white praying mantis with green lines running all over its body like cracks and six pale green ribbon-like attachments coming from its back and swinging around came into view.
It only took a look for Victor to understand something,'We can't beat that.'
Quickly, his senses spread out, trying to notice any person strong enough in their vicinity to handle it.
'There's one.... no, he has his own battles and it would take too long to reach here. These people would be dead by then.'
This vestige definitely wasn't sitting idly as it was locked in a battle with two members of the speeding rescue squad, one soldier and one adventurer.
This ragtag team was protecting three others, two gravely injured and one trying his best to heal them.
One of the speedsters had her brow locked in a perpetual frown while the other seemed to be locked in a verbal battle with the air while fighting, growing angrier and more desperate by the second.
The remaining two burly looking men were holding two small shields in both their hands, blocking the vestige from reaching for their companions.
It seems the ones here knew they wouldn't last long and had the same idea as him, to look for backup, but the idea seemed to not be going well from their grim expressions.
The simplest way to describe this vestige would be fast. The two speedsters could hardly react to the speed of it's blades and the two shieldmen were already covered in minor wounds from the six elongatable blade like ribbons coming for them.
They definitely wouldn't last until reinforcements arrived.
'So this is what she was worried about', his thoughts coming to a realization.
She knew that coming here and fighting against it would be suicide but she still decided to do it, not wanting to watch these people die when she could do something to prevent it.
But she also didn't want to be the cause of his death or tell him, so she had to leave them.
Fortunately for these people, she was very bad at hiding her intentions, especially from him.
'Well, I know she won't take the initiative unless I give her a little push.', with that thought, he said, "Let's help these people out."
Afraid she had misheard, Victoria turned to look at him with wide eyes.
Because she didn't want to just blaze by, her speed was slower than usual, meaning her body hadn't become like solid light, instead she looked like herself normally in her combat outfit and left behind a trail of light as she moved, lingering briefly before dissipating.
So her expression was clearly seen as it changed from surprise to hard to conceal happiness, not even asking him to come again before rushing in their direction at her fastest speed, her body becoming like light again.
With a chuckle, Victor once again thought, 'The things I do for this girl', before also turning in their direction and running at full speed.
***
While the 4 people were desperately defending against the eight blades coming for them, the vestige swinging them, it's eyes shining with malevolent intelligence, seemed to be enjoying it.
This smart vestige could definitely have ended this fight far faster, but it seemed to derive joy from toying with its prey, casually sending out the six tail blades while swinging its front blades.
No matter the strategy that they used on it, while their strength seemed to be equal, it always seemed to be at just the right speed to counter any swing.
Its laid back approach to this battle almost lead to its death when a person soaked in bright light came swinging from the side with two short blades, almost decapitating its head if it hadn't sent one of the ribbon blades to counter it.
Because it was caught off guard, it couldn't position it blades to block the swing well on time, instead allowing it to hit the side, snapping its tail blade off!
But this momentary lapse in speed from the time it took to cut through its tail was enough time for it to move its head out of the way, preventing an otherwise quick death.
Victoria did not let up, instead capitalizing on the element of surprise and the advantage she got because of it to keep pressuring the vestige.
But the first lapse in judgment, while almost causing its death did not dull its instincts as the vestige, using its superior speed that it didn't bother using before to quickly put her on the losing end of this exchange.
Evidently surprised that it had this much extra speed, she almost lost her arm to it after a few short exchanges. If not for Victor's timely intervention, blocking a few more hits with his fists while trying to attack its body, she would have definitely lost an arm.
[ Thanks for the assist. I needed that.] , she said after the exchange that almost crippled her.
[ Less talk, more focus!], he replied to her not even having the chance to turn away from the vestige lest he lose his head.
Quickly regaining focus, she turned her attention back to the battle going on, moving to help the injured ones by giving them two potions to heal and six potions to recover stamina and energy.
***
Even the brief moment she turned her head away and back was enough for Victor to almost die from four blades flying towards his head and torso while the remaining two his legs at speeds he could barely react to.
Victoria quickly rushed towards him, attacking the monster which the vestige blocked with one of its claws, making the vestige split its attention with three ribbon blades and one claw on each person.
But the situation was still quickly turning dire with the both of them on the losing end repeatedly as the vestige almost took off various parts of their body in the few seconds the fight started.
[ We can't beat this thing!], Victoria said through the mindlink.
[ Oh really? I didn't notice from all the blades almost decapitating me!], Victor replied sarcastically as opposed to his usual down-to-earth demeanor.
[What do we do now?], Victoria asked back to him.
[We have to take it back to the forests. Maybe one of them there can help us. There is no one that can help us that is free in the vicinity of our area!], he decided, both of them under too much stress to realize they were even shouting into each other's minds.
Not wasting time after making that decision, they quickly put a bit of distance between them and the vestige, turned around, and ran in the direction of the forest.
The vestige, more than a little angry about the two humans who disturbed it and then dared to turn their backs on it to run, quickly chased after them.
The six people that they saved with stupefied expressions plastered on their faces, took a few seconds to process what had happened in the last five seconds.
Quickly coming back to their senses, they hurriedly communicated with the commanding body of this war about this situation and to stop reinforcements from being deployed here again.
Meanwhile, the two students were seen running at the fastest speed they could muster in order to get back to the forest before this vestige could catch up to them.
Originally moving without care for conservation of energy, they both glanced back to notice that the vestige was slowly growing further from them.
While its reflexes and the speed of the appendages were indeed out of this world, it turned out that it's travelling speed, while still extraordinarily fast, was still slower than expected.
Noticing the growing distance and afraid that it would stop chasing them, they both slow down their speed to to a level that while it couldn't catch up, it wouldn't easily stop chasing them either.
In less than 30 seconds, the edges of the forests area where the rest of the students we're fighting came into view, characterized by the vines entangled between the trees blocking anything from going in or coming out.
[Open up the forest fast! We are coming back and we brought very fast company of the infected kind!], Victoria basically shouted at Alexander when the forest got in their sights as fast as he would be able to understand with the speed of her thoughts.
As if in reply to their cry, the two students quickly noticed the slowly opening hole as they adjusted their direction to its location, slipping in as quickly as they could.
Due to their speed, Alexander only had the time to open a hole in their general direction big enough for one of them to fly through at a time while they had the smallest surface area.
While addressing Victoria alone, Victor said,[With the strength of those vines, it should take a while before it gets-].
His statement hung in his mind mid-sentence as the vestige used its bladed arms to rip through the vines in a moment and kept chasing after them.
Seemingly annoyed at being cut off mid sentence far too many times in one day and the speed at which it tore open the vines, he didn't even use the mind link as his voice came out of his mouth during this super slowed down version of his perception.
"Oh come on!"