Soone forcibly cut off the Technique, eyes filled with terror, throat tight. It seed they hadn’t recovered from that instant of "ntal touch."
Sweat rolled down his cheeks, his fingers trembling uncontrollably.
Their reactions were almost identical: pupils contracted violently, muscles trembled, and magic power on their skin flared like a hedgehog, repeatedly attempting self-defense.
But no matter what, the feeling of that twisted chaotic magic power was already deeply etched into their nerves.
However, Flora just calmly observed it all.
"Rember." She spoke slowly, "Rember this feeling."
"From now on, you must use Sensing Technique to search this valley for echoes and traces of similar magic power, regardless of where they might be hiding, whether they are still alive or have only left traces."
Thus, the mages tried conventional Techniques one by one, like "Elental Residue Tracing," "Spiritual Resonance Technique," and "Broken Reflection," but almost all were fruitless.
Either the residual magic power was too chaotic to discern direction.
Or once the Sensing Technique touched that malicious remnant, it was imdiately countered and interfered, sotis causing disordered echoes or forcibly interrupted ntal waves.
A mage stopped the Technique, cold sweat on their forehead: "It’s like trying to touch shadows in the water, not catching a trace."
Flora silently watched all of this until she slowly turned her head to the young man behind her who hadn’t yet acted.
"Dilin." She called softly.
The young Grand Mage under the purple-gold mask nodded slightly and finally stepped forward.
He didn’t bring assistants, nor prepared a complex array; he just took out a silver Magic Crystal, gently holding it in his palm.
"Sensing Technique, against such a chaotic field, conventional thods won’t be effective." He said calmly, "So I’ll first perform a ’retrospective’ to reconstruct the last magic fluctuations in this area."
He closed his eyes, silver hair slightly trembling, the surrounding air seemingly frozen.
Along with a low and clear spell, a silver Magic Crystal slowly floated from his palm, complex light patterns appearing on its surface, spreading like ripples, then casting a vague and distorted three-dinsional illusion.
That was the magic residue he "compiled" with his spiritual power, and he began a reverse tracing.
The initially appearing were innurable fragnts of magic information from the chaotic aftermath of battle, strewn like broken bones, dispersed like sand.
He continued to delve deeper, penetrating the collapsed shell of magic.
The next mont, the entire illusion suddenly jerked.
"...Found it." He said in a low voice.
In the image, the previously silent valley suddenly exploded—the mont the Magic Explosion Bullet detonated.
A massive Shock Wave erupted in the Nest’s core, horrific magic shattering the core in less than a second, unleashing a mountain-breaking, tsunami-like destructive vortex.
Heat waves, debris, and magic streams diffusely spread layer by layer in the illusion, as if the end had co.
Go further back in ti.
He frowned deeply, consciousness sharply penetrating the deepest remnants, finally reaching that mont yet to be destroyed.
The scene stabilized.
The Nest’s magic pulsed slowly and rhythmically, like the breathing of so colossal life form.
Among the mounts of flesh and bone, innurable thread-like neural lines subtly extended.
Passing through the spines of insect corpses, into their bodies, gently connecting to their Magic Cores, like puppet strings, precisely controlling the spiritual rhythm of each insect corpse.
Those threads weren’t physical; they were resonance conduction structures at the spiritual level—the Nest using itself as a "frequency source," enabling all insects to act in the sa rhythm, like a silent symphony.
"This is it." Dilin murmured.
But just as he glimpsed a corner of that resonance core, his face suddenly turned pale.
The illusion abruptly shattered, and the Magic Crystal rapidly fell to the ground. He wobbled, holding his forehead, lips slightly pale.
"Cough... cough."
A nearby mage hurried forward: "Lord Dilin?"
"I’m fine." He waved, taking a few breaths, "The retrospective took too long... spiritually burdened a bit."
He opened his eyes, still slightly dizzy, but his voice remained steady: "I’ve already roughly located the Nest’s spiritual control frequency.
It indeed controls insect corpses remotely through frequency synchronization. And these fluctuations... so still linger beyond the scorched land."
Flora glanced at him, eyes showing slight gravity: "Can you continue?"
"Of course." Dilin looked up, with a slight wry smile, "I can still hold on, but we’ll have to switch to a different thod."
Then, Dilin gently waved his right hand, restarting a second Technique.
Thin light threads extended from his fingertips, slowly drifting towards the Nest’s remains and surrounding insect corpses.
He focused, manipulating the light threads to "scan" the charred and fractured Magic Cores as if seeking so kind of pattern.
Before long, the light threads began to slightly tremble, gradually converging as if responding to a familiar rhythm.
"...Indeed there are signs." Dilin opened his eyes, voice calm, "These insects once temporarily maintained the sa frequency with the Nest, as if uniformly controlled."
He stood up and continued: "I can store this ’frequency’ and later use it to compare nearby magic fluctuations to see if any area shows a similar reaction...
This could an there are other nests or residual control signals."
He spoke slowly, each word carrying caution and fatigue.
"However..." He paused, frowning, "This is all I can manage."
Flora watched him, voice low: "Is there anything that can be imdiately used as a clue?"
"...No." Dilin answered honestly, "The Nest is blasted too cleanly, the magic shattered like powder, too chaotic to make sense. I can only record this frequency first, then slowly test around, hoping luck will lead us to sothing."
Flora closed her eyes, sighing lightly.
"That’s all we can do then."
Dilin was currently the most outstanding in ’Sensing Technique’ in the whole Mage Forest; even if she replaced him, she couldn’t do more.
And to take it further, it wasn’t sothing a "Genius Mage" could solve.
That was the domain of the Supre Mage.
Lindi suddenly spoke again, voice low and unusually firm: "But I can confirm—this isn’t a naturally ford nest, nor is it random mutation."
He slowly raised his head, gaze sweeping over the charred, twisted remains of the Nest and the surrounding burned, contorted insect corpses, eyes gleaming with a trace of cold light.
"The entire structure, whether it’s the frequency construction of spiritual synchronization or that precise self-destruct chanism... it’s too structured, too deliberate."
He paused, voice becoming deeper: "It’s like a carefully orchestrated experint."
The surrounding silence was palpable, a few young mages instinctively tensed, expression uncertain.
Lindi didn’t stop: "And the most crucial thing is, the magic system they use is completely different from any school passed down through our ’Mage Forest’ for generations.
Neither the energy guidance thods, the logic of Spell structures, nor the feedback chanisms of Demon Waves—it’s all like... a system from another world."
"It may be so... branch of Spellcraft we’ve never encountered before."
His tone wasn’t loud, but it clearly conveyed a chilling unease.
As the words fell, the air seed to freeze for a mont.
Flora’s already tense expression deepened, her lips tightly pressed, brows knitted into an unrelenting knot.
She stood silently for a few seconds before speaking, her voice hard and unquestionable: "Rest for a while, get your state ready. Then prepare to set off."
She surveyed the scene, "Using the frequency model Dilin established as the core, initiate a gradual search in the surrounding mountains and fields. Even the slightest resonance, residue, or interference shouldn’t be missed."
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