Chapter 145:
The Pure Eyes of the Lotus Clan were not born from bloodline alone.
They were the manifestation of centuries of selective cultivation, shaped through marriages arranged not for political influence or wealth, but for the preservation and strengthening of an ocular gift that had first appeared during the age of the Arcane King.
Unlike the Clover Eyes, which granted premonition, illusion, and the power of the Avatar, or the Mana Eyes, which allowed their users to command the very essence of magical energy, the Pure Eyes served a single and focused purpose: they revealed what ordinary perception could not.
A cultivator with awakened Pure Eyes could trace the flow of mana through a living body as clearly as a cartographer could trace rivers across a map.
Every meridian, every pathway, and every junction where energy gathered, divided, or changed direction appeared in sharp relief.
This extraordinary perception was the reason the Lotus Clan's Celestial Meridian techniques were feared throughout the Hidden Cities.
A fighter who could see the exact structure of another person's mana network could identify weaknesses with surgical precision and strike the points capable of disabling or killing an opponent.
The Pure Eyes, however, were not limited to close-range perception.
From a high vantage point, an experienced user could track mana signatures across miles of terrain and distinguish individual cultivators by the unique character of their energy.
Obstacles did little to conceal someone who possessed a substantial mana signature.
Stone walls, wooden structures, and even the dense foliage of an ancient forest could obscure ordinary vision, but the Pure Eyes could see through them as long as mana existed beyond the obstruction.
To a Pure Eyes user, a wall was merely an obstacle to physical sight. If someone stood on the other side, their mana became a beacon.
Kaya had kept her Pure Eyes active almost continuously since the chase began.
She had used them from the ridge overlooking the depot to assess the battlefield before the explosions tore through the warehouse.
She had relied on them to track Tisha's position through the chaos that followed, and she had continued using them to count the pursuers closing behind the decoy team.
Now, as the group traveled east through an ancient pine forest, she used them once again.
The enormous trees rose toward the sky, their branches intertwining overhead until the pale morning light could barely penetrate the canopy. Kaya's vision ignored the obstruction.
Her eyes passed through the trunks, through the tangled roots and jagged rock formations scattered across the forest floor, and continued into the distance.
Her expression tightened.
"Twelve elites," she murmured. "Perhaps fifteen."
Their mana signatures burned across her vision like candles scattered through a dark room. Some flickered with the uneven rhythm of exhaustion, while others burned steadily with the focused intensity of hunters who believed they had finally cornered their prey.
They were moving faster than before.
More importantly, they had changed formation.
The pursuers were spreading through the forest in a loose net, attempting to surround the decoy team from multiple directions and cut off every obvious avenue of escape.
The false Lucas ran beside Kaya with an expressionless face. The false Ethan maintained his injured appearance, one hand pressed against his ribs while blood continued to seep from a shallow wound on his forearm.
The false Austin stumbled against a tree trunk before recovering and continuing forward.
Every movement had been calculated.
Every injury was an illusion.
They looked exhausted because they were supposed to look exhausted.
Then the first attack came from the northern flank.
[Water Spell: Jet Stream]
A compressed lance of water tore through the forest, striking several tree trunks and stripping their bark away before reaching the false Lucas.
The clone reacted immediately.
[Mana Spell: Kinetic Shell]
A shimmering hemisphere of reactive mana formed around his body just as the Jet Stream struck.
Instead of resisting the attack head-on, the shell redirected its linear force into rotational momentum.
The clone was thrown sideways rather than pierced, but he deliberately used the momentum to his advantage.
His body spun with the impact before his feet struck a tree trunk.
He pushed away from the bark and landed several meters farther back, creating the appearance of a desperate retreat.
More spells followed.
Stone shards tore through the southern side of the formation. A wave of fire erupted from behind them, forcing the clones forward, while lightning bolts descended from above and struck the surrounding trees with sharp cracks.
The false Ethan raised both hands.
[Wind Spell: Vortex Shield]
A cyclone erupted around the group.
The rotating air seized the incoming stone shards and hurled them into the surrounding trees. The wave of fire collided with the vortex and fragmented into scattered embers, while the descending lightning was caught in the violent airflow and redirected into the surrounding vegetation.
The forest flashed with blue-white light as several lightning arcs grounded through the trees.
Kaya continued running.
The attack had not stopped the pursuers.
It had merely revealed how quickly the net was tightening.
The clones could not continue defending indefinitely. They had been created to buy time, not to defeat the force pursuing them.
The false Lucas dropped his Kinetic Shell and immediately extended one hand toward the northern flank.
[Mana Spell: Slasher]
A crescent of blue energy tore through the trees.
Branches snapped apart as the blade of mana carved a path toward the hidden water caster, forcing the elite to abandon his position and retreat deeper into the forest.
The false Ethan followed with his own attack.
[Wind Spell: Wind Blade]
A compressed blade of air ripped across the forest floor, cutting through roots and soil while sending dirt, pine needles, and fragments of bark into the air. The sudden cloud of debris forced several pursuers to slow.
The false Austin raised his hand.
Fire gathered in his palm.
It was not the purple flame associated with Austin's Avatar, nor did it possess the white-hot intensity of his Inferno Point. The spell was deliberately ordinary, resembling the kind of basic fire technique an exhausted cultivator might barely manage after prolonged combat.
The clone hurled it toward the southern flank.
The pursuing elites scattered.
Kaya watched their movements through her Pure Eyes.
That was all she needed.
They were not trying to defeat the pursuers.
They were trying to remain visible.
They needed the enemy to believe that the four figures ahead were the real targets.
"Now!" Kaya shouted.
The false Lucas and false Ethan immediately moved with her.
Three spells erupted almost simultaneously.
[Mana Spell: Revolting Mana]
Chaotic mana exploded outward from the false Lucas.
The energy did not travel like a conventional attack. Instead, it scattered unpredictably through the surrounding forest, disrupting the natural flow of magical energy and overwhelming anyone attempting to track the group through mana perception.
[Wind Spell: Burst]
The false Ethan released a concentrated blast of compressed air.
The explosion tore through the underbrush and sent pine needles, dust, leaves, and broken branches spiraling into the air. The debris combined with the Revolting Mana to create a localized storm of physical and magical interference.
The Lightning Clone disguised as Austin supplied the final piece.
It released a wave of fire into the airborne pine needles.
The flames were weak and produced little destructive force, but they did not need to burn the forest.
They only needed to create light, smoke, and confusion.
The pine needles ignited into a curtain of glowing embers. Smoke spread rapidly between the trees, while the Revolting Mana continued scrambling the senses of anyone attempting to track the decoys.
The pursuing elites stumbled to a halt.
Some raised their arms against the smoke. Others attempted to sense the decoy team's mana, only to encounter the chaotic magical interference surrounding them.
By the time the smoke began thinning and the Revolting Mana started to dissipate, the decoy team had already created several hundred meters of distance.
Kaya continued running with them.
Her attention, however, had shifted away from the pursuers.
She looked east.
Beyond the river valley, beyond the ridges marking the edge of the forest, a single mana signature dominated her vision.
Tisha.
Kaya's expression hardened.
The Calamity Tiger's Holder was moving at a speed that dwarfed every other cultivator involved in the chase. Her partial manifestation remained active, and blue-white mana burned around her body like a comet tearing through the sky.
She was still several miles away.
Yet the distance was disappearing rapidly.
More than three hundred meters per second.
At that speed, she would reach the pursuing elites within minutes.
And once she joined them, the deception would collapse.
Kaya understood what had to happen next.
She extended her lightning mana.
The energy gathered beside her and began taking shape.
[Lightning Spell: Lightning Clone]
The clone materialized beside Kaya while maintaining the group's pace. It possessed her appearance, her mana signature, and enough of her combat presence to convince anyone observing from a distance that Kaya herself remained with the decoy team.
No explanation was necessary.
The clone understood the plan because it had been created from Kaya's own lightning mana.
Kaya allowed herself one final glance toward the east.
Then she suppressed her mana signature.
The difference was immediate.
The crackling energy surrounding her vanished, leaving only the physical strength of her body.
Without the enhancement of her lightning mana, every step became heavier, and the strain from the previous battle returned to her muscles.
She did not slow.
Instead, she changed direction.
Kaya veered south and slipped between the trees, moving with controlled steps that avoided breaking branches or disturbing the undergrowth. She deliberately kept her breathing quiet and minimized every trace of mana.
The forest swallowed her.
Within seconds, she had disappeared from the path.
The four clones continued east.
Their mana signatures burned brightly through the forest.
Their trail remained deliberately obvious.
Behind them, the twelve elites recovered from the disruption and resumed the chase.
Behind those elites, Tisha continued closing the distance.
Every second brought her closer to the decoy team.
Every second carried Kaya farther from them.
The plan had become a race between deception and discovery.
The decoy team continued east toward the river valley while Kaya disappeared south through the ancient forest, leaving the hunters to pursue the version of her that they were meant to see.