(Important notice at the end)
Victor started chasing the vestige, closing the distance while aiming his blows as best he could.
His second enchantment definitely helped in this regard, helping him in his attempts to close the gap despite his drop in speed.
It was a simple yet complicated feature. It turned the floor between two anchor points into a type of electrical field, one that only responded to the soles of Victor's boots.
The electricity that coursed through the anchor points had a special reaction when passing through the boots, which was to literally repel it from the ground.
Though his weight didn't allow the repulsion to take him far off the ground, it surely helped him to take out friction entirely, increasing his linear speed while eliminating energy lost through friction on his footing.
Though as shown earlier, it could become very difficult to make sharp and sudden turns, leaving the user more susceptible to ranged attacks, but the boost in power he got when using this in conjunction with his ability was supposed to cover for that.
And it would've, if only he could hit his opponent. One thing Victor came to notice quickly though, was how, in front of overwhelming speed, overwhelming power could become very useless very fast.
While the difference in speed wasn't that much when compared to before, roughly 10-14%, it was enough.
Enough for the vestige to always stay out of reach and to cause him endless frustration, even panic.
After about three seconds of him trying and failing to catch up while also destroying five more of the blades, the mantis seemed to have had enough as it just decided to turn around and run, having been sufficiently scared out of its wits, at least just enough for self preservation to kick in.
[We can't let this thing get away! Vicky where are you?!]
It was at that moment that two white flashes came from seemingly two directions at the same time, one aiming for its head and the other for its foot with just a little delay in time.
While it didn't damage it much except for two nicks, it had slowed it down just enough for the boy to finally be able to catch up to it and send two blows at it's body.
Managing to move it's big body away in the last second, it managed to avoid both of them... or thought it did before belatedly noticing that its body moved slower than usual.
Because of it's drop in speed, it could only manage to dodge one before suffering a devastating blow to its abdomen section.
It almost knocked it off balance if not for it managing to balance at the last moment.. only to trip on an invisible trap again, crashing on the floor and rolling.
Quickly springing back to its feet, its mandibles started clicking again, but this time in a low and reverberating tone, as if warning them.
It turned its head towards the direction it once was, its eyes landing on the person currently where is previously stood.
Victoria, her air and aura making her seem like an entirely different person was standing there.
The vestige was now seriously in trouble. It knew that it had to run away but the interference from both Victoria and Alia said otherwise for it.
But what could it do except try to run away while still boiling over with madness and hunger.
This scenario lasted for a minute, in this time the battlefield around Victor seemed to both grow incredibly quiet but also intensely heated with very loud sounds, but the boy himself wasn't paying that much attention to that.
He seemed in a very strange state of mind, his energy growing more destructive and his body in more pain but at the same time, he seemed more in tune, calm and focused than ever before.
He felt that he was on the verge of learning something, coming to a better understanding of himself and his powers.
All he needed was that last push, and he wanted to get it during this battle.
Just two minutes into this epic battle, the only part of his armor still working were the boots that he didn't allow to be destroyed, and his chest, due to both giving and receiving blows with his head and arms, sometimes even his torso, the rest of his armor was either completely destroyed or in no working order.
Luckily, the two parts responsible for the main function of the enchantment was still working, though the rest of the parts, mainly responsible for reducing energy consumption and stability were gone, making it all the more difficult and energy draining to maintain this level of speed.
Victoria and Alia definitely did help pick up the slack as the vestige was in line to getting defeated in the next four minutes.
While Victor's performance was definitely stellar and shocking, Victoria's was nothing to sneeze at either.
After the revelation, she seemed to have become a whole other being, becoming seemingly lost in thought and getting even faster and deadlier, as if trying to prove something.
And that wasn't all. her speed seemed to keep ticking up notches, to the point that, while her blows weren't worth much in terms of raw damage, the speed of repetition on a single spot was definitely showing its worth as another leg of the vestige was sent flying off it's body.
At this rate, this battle might just end in the next minute, no it might end even sooner than that.
The four of them thought this inadvertently, already tasting the scent of victory and giving it their all to make it end that way.