(A/N Big thanks to everyone for the Power stones and Golden tickets, they mean a lot. As usual, please don't hesitate to comment or drop a review. ENJOY)

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Orion immediately activated The Seer, his eyes glowing golden, and he moved towards the direction he'd noticed the person.

His eyes scanned around a wide radius for any signs of the person or any traces of their presence.

It didn't take long before he noticed footprints, albeit faint.

He surged toward the place, Margaret struggling to keep up with him.

He got there in a few seconds, immediately activating Protocol.

"You're mine, ghost"

A few minutes later.

The forest had gone still again.

Orion slowed his steps, eyes half-lidded, Protocol stretching in silent arcs through the undergrowth. Every vibration, every echo of movement fed into his mind in calculated threads — all except one.

The anomaly pulsed faintly ahead of him, just at the edge of range. It wasn't loud or abrupt; it was deliberate. Someone was there.

He stopped moving. Margaret nearly bumped into him from behind.

"What now?" she whispered.

"He's moving," he said quietly.

"Are you sure it's not a team?" She asked with a frown.

"No. He's alone. But…" he trailed off, narrowing his gaze. "He's masking it."

Protocol synced with his mana sense expanded outward again, its lines weaving through the air like silent waves. They touched trees, rocks, fallen leaves — the ordinary sounds of life — yet between two trees, the data fractured. A gap. No sound. No movement. No airflow. Too perfect.

Whoever was there wasn't using just mana to hide — Orion would have sensed that. This was finer. Smarter.

He took another step, then froze. The faint pulse that marked the target vanished.

Protocol read nothing.

Gone.

He frowned slightly. That wasn't possible. Even if the person teleported, there'd be a delay in the trail, a distortion of spatial particles. There was none. The air simply… reset.

He inhaled slowly. "He's fast."

Margaret blinked. "You mean gone?"

"No. Just faster than my read rate." Orion replied, growing irritated.

Margaret frowned but didn't argue. She'd seen him track people through different terrains and distances without missing a heartbeat; if someone could slip him now, it meant something was off.

Orion breathed out and turned off all his skills before reactivating his senses, letting Protocol fold inward and link with his spatial senses again. The combined weight of both techniques weighing on him. If the opponent moved again, even the smallest breath would ripple through the model.

Nothing.

Seconds passed.

Then, faintly, something shifted — a single particle of dust disturbed midair. Too deliberate again. He turned sharply, stepping forward, his eyes scanning the distance.

And just like that, the signal blinked out again.

Orion's fists were clenched; it'd been a while since he'd gotten this frustrated.

He stood motionless, thinking. If this person was capable of masking his presence so effectively, how had he detected them in the first place?

Was it a mistake?

Or a lure?

He didn't like the idea of mistakes. His skills didn't make them — not since he'd been using them. Miss something, yes, but see something that wasn't there, never.

He replayed the first detection in his mind, the faint mana tremor that had pinged his senses. It wasn't random. It was clean, controlled — almost intentional.

His lips twitched. "So you wanted to be seen."

Margaret turned to him, confused. "What?"

He didn't answer. His mind was already cycling through possibilities. There were only two reasons someone this skilled would reveal themselves — arrogance or strategy.

'If it's arrogance,' he thought, 'then he's underestimating me.'

'If it's a strategy, then I'm being led somewhere.'

He considered stopping, just for a moment — then dismissed the thought.

If it was a trap, he wanted to see it.

A faint smile tugged at his lips. Pride, maybe, or curiosity — the line blurred easily. He wasn't stupid enough to fall for an obvious lure that would harm him, but he wasn't self-controlled enough to ignore the challenge either.

He moved forward again.

Each step was quieter than the last. He wasn't chasing recklessly — he was shadowing the silence itself, mapping the points where presence should exist but didn't. The absence of a pattern was its own kind of signal.

Every few seconds, he felt it — that faint flicker, like a heartbeat on the edge of perception — only to lose it immediately after. It was frustratingly precise, like the person was toggling visibility between each of his sensory waves.

Half a kilometre later, he stopped.

Still no trap.

No explosive mana surge. No shift in terrain. Just emptiness.

That made it worse.

'If it's not a lure,' he thought, 'then he's genuinely avoiding me.'

He crouched slightly, brushing his fingers along the grass. The soil was compressed in rhythmic intervals — short, consistent steps. The runner wasn't panicked. Controlled, even while fleeing.

Then why the first reveal?

He straightened slowly, eyes narrowing. Maybe the initial pulse hadn't come from the boy at all. Maybe something else had forced it.

[You're not the only one affected by instability.]

The system's voice came abruptly.

Orion froze. "You mean Margaret?" he asked inwardly.

[Yes.]

He turned his head slightly, glancing back at her. She was standing a few meters behind, watching him with mild irritation. Her mana flow flickered faintly — irregular as always.

[Her fluctuations don't just interfere with you. I'd reckon they resonate through space.]

'Meaning?'

[Meaning if she's near someone maintaining perfect concealment, her instability can momentarily disrupt it.]

Orion's mind clicked through the logic instantly. That explained the first detection — not a mistake, not a trap. Just Margaret.

He sighed quietly. 'So she exposed him… by accident.'

[Correct. But the instability is unpredictable. You can't time it.]

'Can't time it?' Orion thought. He looked at Margaret again.

Maybe not naturally. But Protocol was built on pattern recognition.

He started walking again, faster this time.

Margaret frowned. "Did you find him?"

"Working on it," he replied.

He was replaying their last hour in his head — every instance where her fluctuations had spiked. When she was frustrated. When she was scared. When she was arguing.

Her emotional state directly affected her stability. And when she got irritated, the interference was strongest.

'So if I can predict her moods,' he thought

'I can predict when the concealment breaks.'

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