Altair was silently moving through the trees to the best of her abilities. She had some shadow birds stalking people who were moving through the forest and noted that they were on their way towards where Altair had just left. It was obvious that they had some method of figuring out that Altair had been there.

Or it could just be because the place was on fire. That was much more likely in her mind.

After she left the building and started to move away from it, she caught the light from a corner of her eye. When she looked over her shoulder she saw the small building had caught fire at some point. She had no idea what caused it. She was completely sure that there was no one else alive in there when she left and she doubted that their allies would have set fire to the own hideout. So.. what happened? She hadn't the faintest of ideas.

Either way, it was on fire and the light was like a beacon in night, because it was literally a beacon in the night. There were no other sources of light that she could see in her immediate area, not that she needed them.

Altair went from one tree to the next through careful, calculated jumps as she continued to move in the direction she was pretty sure she had come in before. Her plan was pretty bad even to herself. She was planning to retrace what she had seen from above when she first arrived with Renald. She doubted heavily that she was actually going in the right direction but she didn't have much choice. It was safer than returning to the Kingdom and being hunted down by a pervert and she couldn't afford to get captured by these people.

She also lacked the knowledge and resources to live in the Empire. She did feel like scum going back to them after telling herself that she was done though. The moment that her options had been cut off she was over here crawling back to Renald.

She couldn't help but call herself two-faced.

'If I had a longer life expectancy then I wouldn't mind paying them back though,' she thought to herself as she stopped on particularly thick tree branch. She felt her shadow bird drawing closer and closer. Soon, the people that it was shadowing would become visible to her.

But Altair didn't really want to get seen or found out. Thankfully, it was pitch black in the forest. This let her Magic do things it wasn't capable of in the light, even if the people that were around her had something that allowed them to see in total darkness as well.

Altair laid down flat on the branch and burned some of her Mana to create the illusion that she was part of the branch. To do this, she basically covered half of the branch from the top up with her Shadow Magic, making it seem that it was just darkness above, blocking her from view to those below.

She had done this many times in the Rebanon Kingdom. She had no real expectation that it would work here though. She was certain they had some kind of technology to track her location. She didn't know how it worked but she mentally prepared herself for what was to come if they could detect her.

She felt her shadow bird fade as they had gotten within thirty meters of her. There was no point in keeping it active since she could faintly hear the brush moving at this point. She hadn't seen any animals since she came to the forest, or any signs of them either, so it could only be them. There wasn't even soo much as a wild life trail to see as far as she had gone.

She slowed her breathing and tensed all of her muscles at once, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. And then she waited.

A group of several people moved closer and closer. They didn't speak, pause, or slow. It was clear that they were moving under a silent agreement towards a shared goal. Altair couldn't see them due to her Magic blocking her view just as much as it would theirs.

However, she could tell they were getting closer and, as they did so, she burned some of her Mana to add those spider legs out of her back. She didn't have much practice with them, but they were surprisingly useful in a surprise attack, or so her one use of them so far had shown her. She could see their potential though and had settled on using them this time as well.

As the people slowly crept towards her, the legs she made hung in the air, waiting for them to show any signs of having discovered her.

Then, Altair heard nothing. It was like sound had been cut out completely around her. Since she was holding her breath, she couldn't even hear that. However, all of her senses were screaming that she had been discovered. That they knew exactly where she was and they were about to launch their attack.

Her eyes opened wide and she was a second away from springing to action when she heard, "Damn it, hold on, my foot got stuck." She then heard some shuffling below her immediately following that. However, she did not loosen her limbs at all. She was tightly wound and wouldn't be tricked by their elaborate lies!

A slightly feminine voice said, "Any word from Boris and Tim?"

"Shut up," an authoritative voice came, "No talking while on the job."

The female sighed loudly but didn't say anything else. However, that didn't mean another person didn't have something to say as their natural, annoyingly high pitch voice said, "Come on, it was probably caused by Tim dropping his smoke and starting a fire. There's no way it could be anything else! And since the connection was cut, we obviously need to go back and find out."

The authoritative person growled loudly before he said, "Anything on the detectors?"

A new voice replied, "Nothing is showing up."

The leaders voice took on a tinge of disappointment when he stated, "Guess they didn't come this way." There was a pause before he roared out angrily, "Are you free yet?! We can't just sit around when something else is out here!"

The first man's voice came back weakly as an audible pop sounded, "Sorry, sorry.. I'm good. Let's go."

Altair was on pins and needles as she faintly heard the sound of dirt crunching below her. She hadn't heard that when they approached where she was! They were several levels above her sneaking ability but it seemed that they didn't discover where she was as they passed below her.

She did not release her tension as she was wound tighter than a spring even when she couldn't hear them anymore. She continued to hold her breath, burning some Mana to keep her body from having any desperation episodes on her. After she was idle there for a full two minutes in silence, she undid her Shadow Magic around her and gazed around with a cautious expression and with a critical eye.

She saw no signs of anyone in the area.

Finally, she let out a sigh of relief and dropped from the tree above.

She then cast a look in the direction she thought she heard them going in. There was still a flickering light in the distance that told her the fire that started somehow was still going. She could see some silhouettes through the flickering light that come in from between trees. Those silhouettes moved in and out of view, which caused her eyes to narrow with a malicious light.

'So, your technology can't find me? Is it because of my Magic?' She tilted her head as she considered taking some revenge on these people who were so damn persistent to chase after her so much. She just wanted to relax and enjoy herself but these people had other plans in mind. No matter the cause of their plans it still bothered her that they wouldn't leave her alone at all.

Since they didn't have any qualms about sending literal Gods to try and.. She just realized she had no idea what their intentions were for sending those two androids that scared her to her core. The android before seemed to defend her from their attack that was obviously aimed at snuffing out her life.

'Is there some infighting?' She rubbed her chin with one finger as she hummed slightly to herself. She then shook the idea away. 'Doesn't matter. They're infighting has taught me that I'm just a pebble before these people and their science.'

'Still,' thought as that malicious light passed through her narrowed eyes, 'Some revenge does sound nice. But if they send more of those.. Man-made Gods for me, I would be dead before I knew what happened.'

She turned to look in the direction she was going and nodded to herself once as she decided on how she was going to approach this problem. She couldn't stick around here with the risk of running into another one of the androids that could move faster than her eyes could see.

She took off one of the vials from her belt and the pocket faded away after doing so. She downed its contents and put a smirk on her face as she looked back towards where those people were heading. She wouldn't let them just run over her like she was some twig on the road for them to burn.

Just because these people didn't know what she was capable of didn't mean that she would let them stay in the dark on what was about to happen.