Running in Circles!

"Crackle... crackle..."

Within the vast, dim primeval forest, the piercing hiss of dense electric currents cutting through the air rang out. From the outer edge all the way to the inner depths, blue-white flashes intermittently lit up the originally dark forest, illuminating its shadowy silence again and again and bringing a trace of life to this quiet, rather terrifying woodland.

"Tap!"

Then, within only two or three minutes, the heavy sound of someone stepping onto the branch of a giant ancient tree rang out.

"Crack... crack-crack-crack-crack!"

This was followed by the sound of hardwood splitting apart.

Nothing!

There was nothing!

Not even the slightest trace!

That was impossible!

The originally radiating Lightning Release Chakra Cloak abruptly shifted into a jet-like form with a hissing sound. The Third Raikage planted one foot on a giant branch near the center of the primeval forest, and the branch immediately cracked inch by inch beneath his foot. At the same time, as his Lightning Release Chakra Cloak changed into its jet-like form, sections of his hair rose up and spread across his back like sharp spikes.

I searched from the outside inward for barely three minutes. It was impossible for me to have passed him by. And if he had erased his tracks and taken a detour, it would have been even more impossible for me not to encounter him.

But now, there is nothing. No tracks, no sign of him—there is not even a single trace...

This search was not a meticulous inch-by-inch sweep, but not finding even one trace?

Impossible!

Even if I missed a few traces along his escape route, I could not have missed every trace along the entire route.

Finding no trace at all can only mean...

I fell for it! At that thought, the Third Raikage clenched his