CHAPTER 111: THE MAD DOCTOR’S ESCAPE

The pillar of golden fire burned for a full minute. There was no heat from it, only a deep sense of warmth and peace. Then, just as it had appeared, it went away.

The Blight-Heart Tree, no longer a monstrous entity of rage and pain, stood for a moment. It was now just a statue of glowing golden ash. Then, with a soft sound, it began to crumble.

CRUMBLE. WHOOSH.

The ash-form fell in on itself. It flowed to the ground like a beautiful, silent waterfall of gold. The ash spread out, covering the newly cleansed soil in a fine, glittering dust that looked like fallen starlight.

High up, where a big branch had been, there was now only empty air.

Dr. Aris Thorne fell.

He hit the newly cleansed ground with a heavy thud. He fell in a heap. His clothes, arms and legs went everywhere. His fall was made soft only by the golden ash. The fall itself wasn’t what hurt him; it was the violent severing of his psychic connection to the tree. The backlash had felt like a giant hook had been ripped out of the very center of his soul, leaving a gaping wound behind.

He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, gasping for air. His neat hair was now a tangled mess, filled with dirt and ash. His coat was torn and burned. One of his arms was badly burned. The skin was red and blistered where the fire had touched him. His smart look was gone. Now, he just looked angry, like a wild animal.

"He’s powerless," Jonah said, his voice low and steady. The team’s moment of wonder was over. They started to move forward. They made a careful half-circle around the fallen scientist. Draven and Maul took the lead, their expressions grim and unforgiving, two walls of muscle and steel closing in.

Thorne ignored them completely. His eyes, burning with a furious light, were locked on Jonah.

"You!" he screamed, his voice raw and filled with anger. He pointed a burned finger at Jonah. "You... you child! You insect! You have ruined perfection! That was my life’s work! A new world, a perfect evolution, and you burned it all for the sake of your pathetic feelings!"

"It’s over, Thorne," Draven said. His glowing greatsword was leveled directly at the man’s chest. "Surrender now, or I will end this myself."

Thorne let out a wild laugh that sounded more like a sob of despair. "Over? It is never over! My theories are proven! My methods are sound! I will build it again, a hundred times over! A forest of blight to choke this entire pathetic continent! You have only seen the first draft!"

He got to his feet, holding his burned arm. He looked like a cornered animal, ready to do anything to escape the cage that was closing in around him.

"He’s mine, Draven," Jonah said, taking a step forward. He dismissed Maul with a silent thought, leaving the furious brute to pace angrily inside his Beast Space. This wasn’t a fight for a monster. This was a battle between creators.

Before anyone could take another step, Thorne’s good hand went inside his burned coat. He pulled out a small, flat stone. It was carved with a chaotic rune that pulsed with an unstable purple energy.

"A single-use teleportation rune!" Vanessa gasped from behind the frontline, her voice sharp with alarm. "It’s unstable! Don’t get near him! A forced teleportation like that could collapse and take everything nearby with it!"

"Clever girl," Thorne spat, pouring the last bits of his own mana into the stone. The rune began to glow with a blinding purple light, and the air around him started to twist and tear. "I always have a backup plan. My work will not be stopped by a group of children playing at being heroes!"

Draven lunged, his massive body a blur of motion, but it was too late. The teleportation was instant. There was no way to stop him with physical force.

But Jonah wasn’t thinking about stopping him. He was thinking about finding him.

As the purple light flared to an unbearable brightness, as Thorne’s form began to dissolve into a vortex of chaotic energy, Jonah acted. He didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t summon a monster to attack. His mind, honed by countless hours of creation, moved with the swift precision of a master weaver.

He reached into his mind, past the rage of Maul. He found the subtle power he needed. He made a single command. Specter. Mark him.

From the air next to Jonah, a tiny piece of silver energy shot out. It was not an attack. It was smaller than a needle. It was faster than a thought. It was a tiny piece of Specter’s illusion magic.

The sliver piece crossed the space in an instant, completely silent and unseen amidst the violent tear of the teleportation. It attached itself to Thorne’s screaming life signature just as the chaotic magic reached its peak. It didn’t burn him or harm him. It just... stuck. It was a psychic tracer. A magical signal that only Jonah, its creator, would ever be able to sense across any distance.

VWOOMP!

With a violent rip, Dr. Aris Thorne was gone.

The clearing was suddenly silent. The golden ash settled on the ground. A gentle breeze moved the newly healthy leaves of the surrounding trees. The immediate threat was neutralized. The mastermind was gone.

Draven slammed his fist into the trunk of a nearby tree in frustration, leaving a deep dent in the wood. "He got away! After all that, he just got away!"

Master Fen sighed. He looked sad. "All that beautiful, firsthand data... escaped. The creator himself, a living library of forbidden knowledge, and he just slipped through our fingers! Unacceptable!"

Vanessa was still panting, leaning on Lira for support, the psychic backlash of the teleport having drained her last reserves. "What now?" she asked. "He could be anywhere in the nation. He could start all over again, somewhere we’d never think to look."

Jonah didn’t answer right away. He stood perfectly still in the center of the clearing, his eyes closed, his senses extended not to the world around him, but inward, to the space of his own mind. He shut out the worried voices of his friends, the rustle of the leaves, everything. He searched. And he could feel it. A faint dot of a signal, impossibly far away but as clear as a bell in his mind. A little piece of his own power, now attached to his enemy, calling back to him.

He opened his eyes and looked in the direction the signal was coming from.

"He can run," Jonah said, his voice calm and sure. "But he can’t hide."