We arrived in the dense forest just a few hundred meters from the Holts' base. The air shimmered faintly around us—subtle distortions twisting the view.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to grasp how Dante was hiding us so well, how the space bent around us like layers of thin glass. But I reminded myself this wasn't the time to get distracted. We had a job to do.
I turned to him.
"They have dynamic portal devices," I said quietly. "I'm not sure how many… can you find them?"
Dante gave a short nod, raised his hand, and tapped the air gently in front of us. Ripples pulsed outward, fading into the woods.
"To track those devices," he said, "you need to look for spatial ripples. They're constantly pinging their location to alternate coordinates. That's how they move so fast."
I nodded and expanded my perception outward, threading it through the trees and deeper toward the base. Within seconds, I sensed two unstable pulses.
"Found two," I whispered.
Dante nodded again.
