Dex crouched amid the remains of the small camp and closed his eyes for a long moment.
In that instant of absolute stillness, he did not summon the powers of the Phoenix or his Mana. He summoned a sharper and more lethal weapon: his criminal mind and the analytical faculty that had been honed under the pressure of death across fifteen years in the cells. In solitary confinement and on the blood-soaked prison yards, survival did not depend on muscle alone. You learned to read the small details that others did not see. You learned to notice the tilt of a warden's shoulder to know if he was tired or ready to strike. You learned to identify the direction of faint air currents carrying the whispers of prisoners from other floors, to know who was planning to kill whom. You learned to notice the invisible trace a hidden blade leaves on the rotting wood of your cellmate's bunk.
For Dex now, this abandoned camp was not merely the remains of a fire in a forest. It was a crime scene, or an interrogation room, containing evidence waiting to be read. He opened his eyes, and his gaze transformed into the gaze of a cold predator and a detective who missed nothing.
He began analysing the angles and distances. He pointed his hand toward the charred ash inside the stone circle and said:
"Look here, Lumia, and study this arrangement."
Lumia stepped closer, looking at where he pointed with her quiet curiosity.
"The ash is not distributed evenly," Dex continued his explanation, as though delivering a lecture in military tactics. "It is noticeably accumulated and mounded on the southern side of the stone circle. What does this mean? It means the fire's owner was sitting here, " he pointed to a patch of ground that appeared more compressed than the rest, ", with their back facing south, while their face and gaze were consistently directed northward. Why? Because south is the direction we came from, and is comparatively the least dangerous. But north… north is the deep interior: the heart of the Forbidden Zone, the direction from which the cold winds blow, the toxic mist comes, and the catastrophically ranked beasts emerge. No one sits with their face toward the north in this forest unless they are waiting for something terrifying to arrive, or watching a specific target that will emerge from that direction."
Dex then rose and crawled quietly toward the enormous tree trunk that stood very close to the camp owner's sitting position. He brought his face close to the black petrified bark and began to sweep it slowly. His fingers stopped at a group of very fine scratches, barely noticeable to the ordinary eye amid the natural creases of the wood.
"Come here," he called to Lumia, who leaned in to see what he had found. "These scratches are not natural. They were not made by a beast's claws trying to climb the tree, the spacing between them is not biologically consistent. And they were not made by the fangs of a hungry creature. These marks are precise, longitudinal, and made by a hard implement."
He ran his finger along one of the deeper scratches.
"These are marks left by the repeated friction of a heavy metal sword scabbard, or the ends of a long rigid bow, when their owner leaned their back and their weapons against this tree time and time again. They sat here for very long stretches, for days, perhaps nights. They were watching the narrow passage we came through, with their eyes fixed north. They were waiting for something with extreme caution… or perhaps they feared something that was tracking them."
And as Dex examined the massive tree's roots, jutting from the ground like the ribs of a mythical beast, he noticed a small, dark gap between two intersecting roots: a spot that appeared to be a perfect natural hiding place for disposing of refuse or broken objects.
Dex extended his hand cautiously into the gap, and his fingers touched something long, rigid, and of a strange texture unlike the wood of the forest. He pulled the object out to examine it in the faint silver light of Lumia's aura.
It was an object broken into two halves: an arrow. But not any ordinary arrow used by hunters or even the Empire's knights.
Dex weighed the half containing the arrowhead in his hand and was immediately struck with surprise. The arrow was unexpectedly heavy for its size, as though fashioned from lead rather than wood. Its shaft was made from a material of absolute, mirror-smooth blackness, devoid of any ordinary wood grain.
"This is… poisoned ebonwood," Dex whispered, memories of the novel he had read in the prison library flooding his mind. "This type of legendary tree never grows under sunlight. It grows exclusively in the deepest caverns of the Djinn Kingdom in the continent of Kairot. This wood possesses terrifying magical properties: it does not reflect or transmit magic, it absorbs it, extinguishing its waves. This makes it entirely invisible to magical radars and Mana shields. It is the world's first choice, and most expensive, for sorcerous assassination guilds."
Dex brought the metal arrowhead close to his eyes. The tip was fashioned from a non-lustrous metal engraved with extremely fine black markings, carved with consummate skill: a serpent coiling around itself to swallow its own tail, forming an endless circular loop, the ancient Ouroboros symbol.
The moment Dex's fingers made direct contact with the arrowhead, a strange reaction occurred. He felt a cold, malicious, stinging prick seep into his veins, as though the broken arrow were actively attempting to absorb the Phoenix heat and fire from his blood, like a parasite starved for energy. He pulled his hand away quickly, dismissing the uncomfortable sensation, but a very faint smell reached his nose: the smell of bitter almonds mixed with rusted iron.
Dex's eyes widened with a flash of excitement fused with deep concern and cold certainty. He raised the arrow so Lumia could see its details clearly.
"This arrow…" he said. "These complex engravings depicting the serpent of eternity, the perfect balance of the remaining fletching in the other half, taken only from the wings of Roc birds of prey to guarantee silent flight, and this venom that smells of bitter almonds and was designed to coagulate a sorcerer's blood in seconds… this is not the craft of Imperial humans, nor even their elite sorcerers."
Dex rose and looked north, where the forest's endless darkness extended. He gripped the two halves of the arrow tightly and addressed Lumia with a decisive tone carrying the weight of the discovery:
"This is the exclusive and bloody signature of the Dark Elf Archers. The ingenious camp, the extended wait, the weapons that only the legends of the underworld can purchase or carry…"
He turned to face her, faint blue fire flashing in his eyes as confirmation of his certainty.
"There is no doubt in my mind now. The man we are looking for, Okonnor, was here, Lumia. Or at the very least, one of his followers from the Dark Elves passed through. We have found his trail at last. But the more important question remains: was it Okonnor who fired this arrow, or was he the target it broke against?"