Chapter 951 – Tracking Through the Forest

Matil patted Dominic on the shoulder in a gesture of comfort, then turned around, her voice regaining its calm authority: “Time is of the essence! Rhindor, the team is yours. Be careful, and bring everyone back safely!”

Rhindor accepted the order solemnly, his gaze sweeping over the assembled team. “Aiwendar, transform into your Swiftwind Falcon form immediately and fly ahead to scout the area near Stardrop Falls. Search for any suspicious traces or residual clues, and determine the exact direction the slave-catching party went!”

Aiwendar nodded, stepped back a few paces, and light surged around his body. In an instant, he transformed into a magnificent Swiftwind Falcon.

“The Swiftwind Falcon form is extremely fast, but its carrying capacity is limited—it can’t carry multiple people or heavy loads over long distances.”

“Lila, Kelly, Moira—transform into small animal forms immediately and go with Aiwendar. Once you arrive at the scene, carefully examine any remaining traces. While ensuring absolute concealment, try to track the slave-catching party’s current position and movements, assess their strength, and leave clear but hidden natural markers along the way to guide us. Wait for us to catch up before making any moves!”

Rhindor assigned several high-ranking druids in the team, Mo Lan included, to go with Aiwendar.

“Understood!” The three of them began transforming at once.

Lila’s form rapidly shrank and shifted as feathers sprouted. In the blink of an eye, a dull gray-brown nightingale appeared in her place—unremarkable in plumage, but with a pair of exceptionally bright, keen eyes.

The nightingale form was well-suited for activity during the dim light of dusk and dawn. Its clear, resonant song was ideal for relaying information through the forest, making it one of the druids’ commonly used scouting forms.

Kelly’s form became rounder amid a glow of light. His head gained an increased range of rotation, and facial feathers formed a distinctive disc. He had become an owl with mottled coloring that resembled dried bark.

Owls possessed excellent night vision and silent flight capabilities, making them ideal for stationary surveillance from high branches. Their presence in forested areas was also perfectly natural.

It was Mo Lan’s turn. After a brief moment of thought, she communed with the magic web, channeled the forces of nature, and rapidly shrank into the most ordinary, dust-gray sparrow imaginable.

Sparrows were tiny and extremely common both in forests and along the edges of human-settled areas. They would hardly attract any extra attention, making them ideal for close-range stealth observation. However, this form also had obvious drawbacks—the body was far too fragile, flight speed was low, and if discovered or caught in a surprise attack, there was virtually no ability to resist, making injury or death highly likely.

But her sparrow transformation was not merely a druid’s wild shape. It was an enhanced version she had developed by combining it with the Dryad Beast Speaker’s animal transformation skill from the Dreamweaver World. The defensive capabilities of this little sparrow were already comparable to certain magical beasts.

“The rest of you, advance at full speed with me. Aiwendar and the others will mark the way for us. We need to catch up to them in the shortest time possible! Maintain formation, conserve your energy, stay alert! Move out!”

As soon as the words left his lips, Rhindor’s form flickered and he darted into the forest. Four other Elf rangers followed close behind, making full use of the forest terrain as they leaped between the trees.

Mo Lan, Lila, and Kelly flew up into the lightweight vine basket secured on Aiwendar’s back, gripping the tightly woven vines with their talons and beaks.

“Hold on tight!” Aiwendar let out a low cry, his wings kicking up a powerful gust as his form shot skyward like an arrow loosed from a bow, hurtling eastward at tremendous speed.

The Swiftwind Falcon’s speed was extraordinary. The forest below blurred into a hazy green carpet.

But the Emerald Forest was vast. Even flying from the nature Elf tribe deep within the forest to the woodland trail near Stardrop Falls took over an hour.

“We’re here!” Aiwendar selected a tree-covered slope and executed a precise gliding descent. The moment the vine basket touched ground, the three small birds immediately released their transformations, reverting to their Elf forms with light, fluid movements.

“Stay alert. I’ll keep watch from above.” With that, Aiwendar took to the sky again.

The scene before them weighed heavily on all three.

Scattered footprints, broken vines, fallen Elf arrows—every detail spoke of the violence and struggle that had taken place here not long ago.

“At least ten people. Judging by the footprints, they headed northeast.” Kelly crouched on the ground, measuring the depth and spacing of the boot prints with his fingers, murmuring his assessment.

“The blood contains traces of a compound extracted from purple thorn vine and slumber mushroom—a highly efficient paralytic toxin specifically designed for Elf physiology. It suppresses the circulation of the forces of nature, but the dosage is precisely controlled to be non-lethal.”

Lila carefully dabbed a clean leaf against a patch of dark blood, brought it close to her nose for a light sniff, then examined several nearby wild plants that had begun to wilt slightly after being splashed with blood droplets. Her expression was grave. “They came prepared. They know a great deal about Elves.”

Mo Lan said nothing. She knelt on one knee beside the dirt where Celine’s arrows lay scattered, her fingers seemingly brushing the ground absentmindedly, her eyelids lowered as if inspecting the traces—concealing the brief flicker of the power of fate that flashed through her eyes.

They were already beyond the Tree of Life’s range of perception, and none of the other Elves nearby possessed the ability to detect the energy fluctuations emanating from her. She used her Divination Magic without concern.

First, she cast the Fortune-Telling Spell to divine Polly and Celine’s current condition and the likelihood of a successful rescue. The results were encouraging—both should ultimately be rescued successfully, though there might be some twists along the way.

This result eased the tension in Mo Lan’s heart.

Next, she pressed her fingertips slightly harder, probing deeper into the soil as if searching for something. In truth, she was quietly activating the Origin-Tracing Spell.

Her target was not the spiritually aware ancient trees that Elves typically communicated with. She had already noticed that the spiritual consciousness of the larger trees in the area had been artificially and roughly suppressed or erased—clearly a precaution against the Elves’ Wood Speech.

But the “memories” inherent in trees as living beings—especially the “residual impressions” of intense, recent events—were not so easily erased completely.

Blurred, fragmented memory shards surfaced: savage slave hunters, the cold glint of flashing metal, Polly and Celine struggling, being roughly dragged away… and the direction the slave-catching party had departed!

When they left, they had not gone in the northeast direction where the tracks were most obvious.

Some of them had deliberately created more numerous, messier footprints and drag marks heading northeast, even intentionally discarding some of Polly and Celine’s personal belongings. Meanwhile, the others had taken the unconscious Polly and Celine in the opposite direction—deep toward Stardrop Falls.

A hooded figure with the bearing of a mage had brought up the rear, using a spell scroll. Wherever he passed, the trampled grass on the ground straightened and regrew at a visibly unnatural rate, rapidly concealing the footprints. Even the residual energy dispersing in the air had been forcibly scattered and diluted.

So the northeast trail was a deliberate misdirection. The true destination was the depths of Stardrop Falls to the southeast.