Starting from the edge of the Mist ninja search, Mirai hurried toward the center after briefly tending to the wounds from the recent battle.
With the help of his intel, Mirai quietly avoided the enemy formations. However, it took him a long time to stealthily withdraw from the surrounding area and circle around. Searching the central area of this operation while making sure he was not discovered by the Mist ninja in the thicker fog truly consumed a great deal of his energy.
The Mist ninja within this vast encirclement clearly had not put their full effort into searching for Chi Jingyou and the other two. Otherwise, at least one or two of their teams would not have come up empty-handed.
This was simply because two groups had already been assigned to intercept them, and that honor had to belong to those groups. There was no need to rush over and take risks. Moreover, spreading their forces out could effectively prevent Chi Jingyou from escaping, ensuring that they would not repeat the previous mistake—when a group of people had descended into chaos, allowing the enemy to break through once and escape.
In any case, the Mist ninja's arrangements had indeed caused Mirai a great deal of trouble. Yet it was also fortunate that they had not focused all their attention on dealing with Chi Jingyou, ultimately giving Mirai hope.
At the very least, he had not heard any bad news from his teacher. At the very least, his chances of reaching them in time to provide support were much greater.
Thus, he cautiously searched a small area for traces of Chi Jingyou. Half a day later, Mirai finally saw his teacher and companions again!
Half a day seemed rather long, but that was already the result of exceptionally good luck.