Balton did not move from his position. His eyes stared toward the forest that had swallowed Ash's figure, his hand holding that iron bat casually at his side.
No command came from his mouth, no movement suggesting he would follow. Only watching, like someone who was assembling something inside his head.
On the large tree trunk at the edge of that boulder area, Shiva tightened her grip. Her breath had not fully steadied after the explosion earlier, her green hair disheveled across her face from the blast of wind. Her eyes stared toward the same forest.
"That attack," she murmured quietly, "its power was truly tremendous, given his body is in that kind of condition."
She leaped from one tree trunk to the next, entering the darkness of the forest following the same direction as Ash. Her feet landed lightly on every surface, her hands reaching for the next branch without needing to look, moving among the trees in a way different from someone who was lost.
The forest was her home, and wherever its forest was it never felt unfamiliar to her.
Jason's forces shot into the forest, the lights from their flying boards illuminating the tree trunks and shrubs ahead, cutting through the gaps between trees with high skill without reducing speed. They moved in small groups, using their lights as coordination of each other's positions.
One minute passed, then two minutes, and no one found anything. Jason raised his hand and all the boards stopped hovering, spread among the trees with lights shining in every direction. No red light, no sound, only the sound of wind among the leaves above.
"Does anyone have a heat scanner?" asked Jason, his voice kept not too loud. "Use it now quickly."
A man on the left side reached into the bag on his back and pulled out a scope with a frame thicker than an ordinary scope. He pressed it to his eye and began sweeping the area around them slowly.
"There is one point, far to the left, height of about eight meters."
Jason nodded. "Surround it. Two groups from opposite directions, the rest hold position."
The flying boards moved silently, spreading then closing from two different directions, their lights aimed at one point on a large tree trunk whose width was nearly three times the width of an adult.
Shiva sat on that thick branch with both her legs dangling below, her back resting against the main trunk of the tree. When all those lights turned toward her simultaneously, she covered her eyes with one hand then opened both of them slowly, looking downward with an unchanged expression.
More than ten rifle barrels aimed at her from every side.
Shiva raised both her hands slowly to the sides. "Get your lights off my face, that is blinding you know."
Jason looked at her from his flying board for a few seconds. His jaw moved once to the side, then he shifted his gaze to his surroundings. That elf woman was not the one he needed to think about right now.
"Keep searching, he must still be around this area. Spread out, move slowly and watch every corner."
The flying boards spread out again in every direction, their lights moving to scan between the tree trunks and low shrubs. The man carrying the thermal scope put it back on, his head turning slowly searching for another heat point.
Nothing was visible, one minute, two minutes, three minutes, only trees and leaves in the darkness.
Then from above, a red-orange shadow shot downward at a speed that gave no time to react, striking two flying boards on the right side of the formation. Two bodies were thrown to the ground and did not rise again, their empty boards fell tilted to the side among the tree roots.
Jason turned toward the sound, his eyes finding Ash's figure with fire still blazing from his body among the darkness and tree roots.
"From above?" he murmured.
The darkness of the forest moved.
Not wind and not an animal, but something faster than both, leaping from one tree trunk to the next without sound proportionate to its speed.
The red-orange light from the cracks in Ash's skin flickered between the gaps in the trees, appearing for a second then vanishing again before anyone could lock onto his position.
Two hovering boards that had lost their riders were still swaying among the tree roots when panic began erupting in every direction.
"Where is he! Where!" A man spun his board left then right, its light sweeping tree trunks without finding anything, then something struck his board from above and he fell spinning into the bushes below.
Shots fired from three different directions, uncontrolled, punching through tree trunks and some hitting the boards of people on the other side. Someone screamed, their board lurched then slammed into a large tree trunk in front of them with a loud crash, the rider thrown and hitting the ground hard.
"Cease fire! You idiots!" Jason pulled his board down to almost ground level, avoiding bullets with no clear source.
His eyes swept quickly through the chaos, trying to find a pattern in something he was struggling to understand. "Damn it, turns out he didn't run at all."
Hysterical screaming filled the forest from every direction, mixing with the sound of boards crashing into tree trunks, uncoordinated gunfire, and the sound of bodies hitting the ground. The formation that had been orderly was now shapeless.
"Everyone fall back! Out of the forest now!" Jason shouted as loud as he could.
On a tree trunk far from the chaos, Shiva moved to a higher branch while observing from a distance. The small fires from Ash's body flickered like fireflies moving too fast among the dark trees, appearing at one point then reappearing at a completely different point in time too short to measure.
"He's using the darkness and these trees," Shiva muttered quietly. "I thought he'd lost control, turns out he's quite clever."
***