The horses galloped through the forest until they reached a small clearing and stopped one by one.

The woman with white hair and golden streaks was the first to dismount, putting a foot on the ground before her horse had fully stopped, and what she saw made her go still.

The place was completely wrecked.

The trees that should have been there simply no longer existed, some had been torn out by the roots and were lying several meters from where they had originally grown.

Deep cracks ran through the earth in irregular patterns, some several meters long, others shorter but much wider.

Craters of various sizes were scattered across the entire area, as if someone had dropped spike-shaped objects from the sky.

Entire stretches of grass had been completely scorched, leaving nothing but black earth and ash.

Behind Hod, the other inquisitors dismounted one by one.

And the reactions came quickly.

"By the Goddess..." the young man with brown hair who had woken Hod murmured. "What the hell happened here?"

"This must have been a brutal battle," said the short-bearded inquisitor, walking a few steps forward while looking at the craters. "Look at those holes... they were probably caused by some kind of area-of-effect attack spell."

"Do you think the battle only involved the Grand Inquisitor, or her whole group?" the young man asked, looking around.

"With this level of destruction, it had to be the whole group," the bearded one replied. "Not even the Grand Inquisitor could cause all of this on her own... could she?"

"I wouldn’t be so sure about that," another inquisitor said quietly.

Hod didn’t take part in the conversation. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

She was standing in silence with her arms crossed, scanning the area step by step.

Her eyes moved from one crater to another, from a burn mark to a crack, from a tree torn out by its roots to another split in half, and with each detail she registered, the same question repeated in her head.

’What were you fighting, Alice?’

Because the destruction she was looking at wasn’t the result of a fight against semi-humans.

The semi-humans of the forest were aggressive and territorial, yes, but they didn’t have the power needed to cause this.

This was definitely something else.

’And did you even survive...?’

That second question weighed on her more than the first.

Because detecting someone’s magical signature was one thing, and confirming that person was still alive was another entirely.

Magical signatures could persist in a location for hours, even days after being released.

The fact that they had detected it didn’t necessarily mean Alice was still alive at the moment they did.

Hod clenched her jaw.

"Everyone!" she said, raising her voice without turning around. "Stop talking and start searching."

The conversations cut off instantly.

"I want you to check every corner of this area," the white-haired woman continued. "Look for clues, tracks, footprints, anything that tells us what happened here and where Alice’s group went afterward."

"Yes, Captain!" everyone replied in unison.

The inquisitors spread out across the clearing, each taking a different direction.

Some crouched to examine the cracks in the ground, others walked toward the edges of the clearing looking for footprints among the damaged vegetation.

Hod stayed where she was, watching.

Not even five minutes had passed before a voice called to her from the far end of the clearing.

"Captain! Captain Hod!"

It was the group’s tracker, a slender woman with short dark hair who was crouching at the edge of the destroyed zone, examining the ground with her hand.

Hod walked toward her quickly.

"What did you find?"

"The footprints!" the tracker said in a tone that couldn’t hide her excitement. "I found the trail again, Captain!"

Hod crouched beside her and looked at the ground.

And sure enough, there they were.

Footprints in the damp earth at the edge of the clearing, heading northwest, pushing back into the forest.

"These are the same footprints we found at the semi-human camp," the tracker said.

"How many pairs?"

"...Seven," she said finally, looking up at Hod.

"Only seven?" Hod repeated with a frown. "At the camp there were eight."

"I know..." the tracker confirmed.

That meant someone from Alice’s group hadn’t survived the fight that had caused all this destruction.

But it also meant something else.

’Seven are still alive...’

And if seven people had managed to walk out of a zone with this level of destruction, that meant they had won.

Hod let out a sigh of relief that she tried not to make too obvious, but which the tracker noticed anyway.

"It seems the Grand Inquisitor and her group managed to win the fight, Captain," the tracker said in a relaxed tone.

"It seems so..." Hod replied, getting to her feet.

She stood looking at the footprints for a moment.

Now that she knew Alice’s group had walked out of a fight of that magnitude, it meant they couldn’t have gone very far afterward, it was basically impossible.

Even if Alice was in perfect condition, which was unlikely after something like this, the rest of her group had to be exhausted, wounded, or both.

Hod turned around and walked back to the center of the clearing where the other inquisitors were still examining the area.

"Listen up, everyone!" the white-haired woman said in a tone that made every one of them look up instantly. "We’ve found Alice’s group’s trail again."

Hod pointed toward the horses.

"They continued on foot toward the northeast, so they can’t have gone very far," she said. "We’re on horseback, so if we move quickly, there’s a very good chance we’ll catch up to them."

"Understood, Captain!"

"Then mount up," Hod ordered. "We’re leaving now."

The inquisitors moved quickly, each heading to their horse without wasting time.

Hod mounted her horse in one fluid motion and gripped the reins firmly.

’We’re close now,’ she thought as she turned her horse. ’Just a little more.’

"Move out!" the white-haired woman ordered.