The Queen of Scrolls never admits defeat

Mathilde patted Dominic on the shoulder in a comforting gesture, then turned around, her voice regaining its calm and authoritative tone: "Time is of the essence! Ryandor, the team is in your hands. Be careful and bring everyone back safely!"

Ryandor solemnly accepted the order, his gaze sweeping over the assembled team: "Evandal, immediately transform into a Swift Falcon and lead the team to scout the vicinity of Startear Falls, searching for any suspicious traces or remaining clues, and determining the exact direction the slave-hunting group departed!"

Evandar nodded, took a few steps back, and his body surged with light, instantly transforming into a magnificent swift falcon.

"The Swift Falcon form is extremely fast, but its load-bearing capacity is limited, making it unable to carry multiple people or heavy objects on long-distance flights."

"Lila, Kelly, Moran, transform into your small animal forms immediately and follow Evandale. Once you arrive at the scene, carefully examine the remaining traces. While ensuring absolute concealment, try to track the slave-hunting group's current location and movements, assess their strength, and leave clear but concealed natural markers along the way to guide us. We'll make our move once we arrive!"

Lendor sent several high-ranking druids in the group, including Moran, to accompany Evandar.

"Understood!" The three immediately began to transform.

Lila's body shrank and changed rapidly, her feathers grew, and in the blink of an eye, a gray-brown nightingale with dull, inconspicuous feathers but unusually bright and sharp eyes appeared in the spot.

The Nightingale form is well-suited for activity during low light conditions at dusk and dawn. Its clear and loud song is useful for transmitting information in the forest and is one of the scouting forms commonly used by Druids.

Kelly's body became rounder in the light, his head rotated at a greater angle, and the feathers on his face formed a unique disc. He transformed into an owl with mottled feathers, resembling withered tree bark.

Owls possess excellent night vision and silent flight capabilities, making them well-suited for stationary surveillance from high branches, and their presence in forest areas is quite reasonable.

It was Moran's turn. After a moment's thought, she connected with the magic network, mobilized the power of nature, and her body rapidly shrank, transforming into an ordinary, dusty gray sparrow.

Sparrows are small in size and are extremely common in forests and on the edges of human activity areas, hardly attracting any extra attention. They are very suitable for close-range observation. However, this form also has obvious disadvantages. Their bodies are too fragile and their flight speed is not high. Once discovered or attacked by an accident, they have almost no ability to resist and are very easy to be injured or killed.

However, her sparrow transformation is not just the druid's wild form, but an enhanced version of the sparrow transformation she developed by combining the animal transformation skills of the beast whisperers of the Spirit Transformation Clan in the Dreamweaver World. Her little sparrow's defense is already comparable to some magical beasts.

"The rest of you, full speed ahead with me! Evandar and the others will guide us. We need to catch up with them in the shortest time possible! Maintain formation, conserve energy, and be careful! Let's go!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Lendor moved and darted into the forest, followed closely by the other four elven rangers, who made full use of the forest terrain to leap between the trees.

Moran, Lila, and Kelly also flew onto the lightweight wicker basket that was secured to Evandar's back, and used their claws and beaks to grasp the sturdy wicker.

"Hold on tight!" Evandar let out a low cry, his wings whipping up a strong wind, and his figure shot straight into the sky like an arrow, flying swiftly eastward.

The swift falcon was incredibly fast, turning the forest below into a blurry green carpet.

But the Emerald Forest is too big. It took more than an hour to get from the tribe of nature spirits deep in the forest to the forest path near Star Tear Waterfall.

"We're here!" Evandale chose a gentle slope sheltered by trees and slid down precisely. The moment the wicker basket touched the ground, the three little birds immediately reverted to their elf forms, moving nimbly and gracefully.

"Stay alert. I'll keep watch from high altitude," Evandale said before taking off again.

The scene before them weighed heavily on their hearts.

Disordered footprints, broken vines, scattered elven arrows... all tell the story of the violence and struggle that occurred here not long ago.

“At least ten people, judging from the footprints, they went northeast.” Kelly squatted on the ground, measuring the depth and spacing of the boot prints with his fingers, and made a low-pitched judgment.

"The bloodstains contain a mixture of extracts from purple thorn vine and sleeping mushroom, a highly effective paralyzing toxin specifically designed for elves. It can suppress the flow of natural forces, but the dosage is precisely controlled and will not be fatal."

Lila carefully dabbed a small amount of dark blood with a clean leaf, brought it close to her nose and sniffed it lightly. She then observed the few wild grasses nearby that had been stained with blood and were slightly wilted. Her expression was grave. "They came prepared and know a lot about elves."

Moran didn't speak. She knelt beside the soil scattered with Celine's arrows, her fingers seemingly unconsciously brushing across the ground. She lowered her eyes, pretending to examine the marks, concealing the fleeting glimmer of fate in her eyes.

This place was no longer within the Tree of Life's perception range, and the other elves around her were not capable of detecting the energy fluctuations on her body, so she confidently used the prophecy magic.

I first used divination to determine Polly and Celine's current state and the success rate of this rescue operation. The result was pretty good; they should both be successfully rescued in the end, although there might be some twists and turns.

This result relieved Moran.

Immediately afterwards, she applied slight pressure with her fingertips, probing deeper into the soil as if searching for something, but in reality, she was quietly activating the Source Tracing Technique.

Her target was not the ancient, spiritual trees that the elves usually communicated with—she had already noticed that the spirituality of the larger trees around her had been artificially and brutally erased or suppressed, clearly to guard against the elves' "wood language".

However, trees, as a "memory" of existence, especially as "image remnants" of recent, intense events, are not so easily and completely erased.

Vague, fragmented memories surfaced: ferocious slave hunters, the gleaming cold metal, the struggling Polly and Celine, the rough dragging... and the direction the slave-hunting group left in!

When they left, they did not head towards the northeast, where the traces were most obvious.

Some people deliberately created more and more messy footprints and drag marks in the northeast direction, and even intentionally discarded some of Polly and Celine's personal belongings, while others took the drugged Polly and Celine and headed deeper into Startear Falls on the other side.

A hooded mage lagged behind, using a spell scroll. Wherever he passed, the trampled weeds on the ground visibly and unnaturally rose and grew back, quickly covering his footprints. Even the energy dissipating in the air was forcibly disrupted and diluted.

It turns out the traces to the northeast were a deliberate misdirection; their true destination was deep within Star Tear Waterfall to the southeast. (End of Chapter)