Night chase

Nameless moved, the forest was bioluminescent even at night. 

It had already been a few hours since the night had fully set in.

Small squid-like creatures floated in the air illuminating the forest with yellow-purple light.

Some plants shone with blue fluorescent light while various flowers bloomed with purple and red light.

The bioluminescent ground and the various fluorescent organisms illuminated the trees with their magical shadows and reflections.

These same trees reflected on the nearby lake giving the whole scene a mystical ambience.

As Nameless moved, a mental transmission reached his mind : "Stop, don't move and wait for a few moments." It was Yugo's will.

Nameless followed his instruction and stopped.

A few minutes passed before a loud sound echoed.

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Galloping sounds echoed as weird alienoid creatures pushed the giant leaves and moved towards the depths of the forest.

As Nameless watched, he couldn't help but notice their resemblance to the horses in his previous world.

They had six legs, a giant burly body and long sensory quills right by their ears.

They also had a giant nape that stretched from the top of their head to the back of their neck, parts of it shone with blue fluorescent light.

The horses galloped rapidly moving through the forest while loudly neighing as Nameless watched from the top of a branch.

Words could hardly describe the unparalleled beauty of this world, the entire forest operated like a symphony of life.

"That's right, this is what an ecosystem is supposed to be to begin with, it's just wasn't apparent in my previous world because humans were enslaved to cities and had no time to observe the vast natural world."

Nameless however didn't waste time observing these sceneries, immediately emitting his divine sense to find Yugo's will and follow it.

Nameless had found a new use for his divine sense, he previously used it as a scanner which is its main purpose, however, he had found that he could emit sonar-like waves that could spread longer through the environment.

The first use made the consciousness of a person move through the environment while the second only sent thought waves, when these waves hit an obstacle, they would rebound and come back to him with the information about the obstacle.

Nameless had figured that this was the reason Yugo made him move through the night, in such a filled forest, a lot of obstacles would be present.

Thus, he had to send waves in all directions and pay attention to which one reflected Yugo's location.

Whenever he emitted these waves in high numbers, the sea in his sea of consciousness would be depleted.

Yugo's will didn't move far away always keeping a distance near him, he had also exposed himself so he could be detected.

After the horses left, Nameless continued on his journey.

Jumping from branch to branch had become almost a second nature to him.

As he moved, he emitted thought waves to detect Yugo's next direction and follow him.

Yugo's will could turn both ethereal and physical as it wished but only when it was physical could it be detected.

Even so, in such an environment, neither sight nor hearing nor smell could help, in-between the branches, the bioluminescence was rare as it would be mostly covered by the giant leaves, aside from the occasional transparent jellyfish that had purple, yellow or blue fluorescent organs or the various mushrooms or fungi that emitted light, there was only darkness in-between the trees.

This forced Nameless to activate his thermal eyes from time to time to be able to see the branches. The trees were alive after all, they appeared in orange colour to his thermal eyes.

There was not just darkness in the forest but also the unending creature sounds that endlessly echoed.

Weird creature screeches, high-pitched cricket sounds, bird singing and the occasional beast roars made the entire forest feel alive and full of life.

An hour passed as Nameless followed Yugo's will.

Nameless had already realised that days in this world were twice as long if not thrice as long as the days in his previous world.

At first, Nameless's divine sense couldn't properly send thought waves and interpret them, thought waves took time to move through the air and it took a few seconds to interpret them, once he would do so, Yugo would have already moved past that point.

This was similar to shooting a gun in his previous world, although a person could see the target and aim the gun properly, they would still miss the target.

The only way to hit the target was to try different shots and see which one would hit close to the target and then try to replicate it until finally hitting the target.

This was of course while the target was unmoving but once the target moved, the difficulty would be increased by far, Yugo knew this thus always leaving a way for Nameless to detect him.

Nameless had to send thought waves far beyond the location he expected Yugo's will to be, similar to shooting a gun at a moving target, one had to move the gun beyond the location of the target to anticipate the location they would reach as the bullet is shot.

Nameless expected this to be extremely difficult if not impossible but to his surprise his mind could do it.

He could send thought waves through the directions he expected Yugo would move, as well as send thought waves beyond his location so as to adjust the time it took for the waves to travel back to interpret his future location.

He could also send thought waves in different directions so as to check if he changed directions, everything worked on predicting the most likely direction he would take and following it.

Despite all these thought processes, Nameless still could leisurely think.

'What a powerful mind! So this is a rank 3 sea of consciousness!'

Nameless could think about multiple things at once as well as predict the different types of scenarios that could happen, which location Yugo could have taken and whenever he was lost or strayed in a different direction, he could immediately adjust his thinking and move forward in the right direction.

Such adaptability shocked him, a human mind in his previous could only focus on one thing at once if not a few things if trained, yet without training or too much effort, Nameless could send thought waves and interpret them, move perfectly through the lush forest with his thermal eyes and predict Yugo's movements, all at the same time.

Yugo helped at times, whenever he saw Nameless had strayed off the wrong direction, he would chase him, let himself be detected and then move to another direction.

As this pursuit continued, at some point Nameless could no longer detect Yugo's will.

"It's been three minutes since I last located him, I detected him north-west before, he must have changed directions, lets go north-east!"

Nameless moved sending all types of thought waves, first sending thought waves north-west then north-east and east, not forgetting to get all the angles right while also avoiding the leaves and small obstacles that appeared through his thermal eyes.

The same moment he was sending these thought waves, the previous thought waves came back, his mind immediately started interpreting them while sending the next thought waves, more and more thought waves came back, Nameless's consciousness immediately began scanning through them, he threw everything even beast sightings to find the blue figure he was after.

Such a process had already been going on for three hours, half of his sea of consciousness had depleted but the natural recovery of his sea of consciousness was only slightly below his consumption.

Half an hour passed, beasts, branches, leaves, insects, mushrooms, fungi, plants, birds but no Yugo.

"Weird!"

This was the first time such a long time had passed without clues, Nameless immediately stopped the thought waves focusing on going through the previous thought waves.

They appeared as images in his mind, he shifted through the last few hundred one of them, beasts, branches, insects, leaves but no Yugo.

He went through all his memories before discarding them, in his sea of consciousness, they turned into droplets of water before merging into the sea below.

"Wait! What if he is above?"

Nameless immediately climbed the branches upwards while sending thought waves north, east and west.

The higher he climbed, the darker it became till at last there was no light but this was no problem to his thermal eyes, everything appeared in yellow, red and purple colour, the nocturnal beasts that arrayed these trees also saw him in such a fashion.

Nameless moved forward, forcefully exerting himself to find Yugo, he couldn't be left behind in such a forest!

He climbed and climbed, climbing the towering trees, slowly moving before finally reaching the highest branch.

A big moon with planetary rings appeared, gigantic trees, birds and beasts appeared but no Yugo.

"What is happening?!"

Nameless traveled far and wide, exerting his mind even further, the consumption of his sea of thoughts increased till the sea of consciousness was only 1/3 filled.

Nameless sweat heavily, he traveled for another half an hour moving a giant distance yet he couldn't detect Yugo even once.

"I have to rest and recover! I can't be exhausted here."

Nameless breathed deeply, letting his mind relax.

As he was relaxing, he felt something touch him on his shoulder.

'Fuck!'

Nameless turned expecting a beast but it was a smiling Yugo.

"Hehe, how are you doing?"

"You?! Where were you? I've been looking for you for an entire hour!"

"I was behind you the whole time, you idiot!" Yugo couldn't help but burst into laughter as he spoke.

"What?! You've been following the whole time."

"Yes, the whole time."

"Sigh, I see now."

Nameless was slightly embarrassed. He didn't need to send thought waves behind him, he sent them from his mind after all, if south was his back, he could just turn his head and send thought waves in that direction but in that same moment, Yugo would have switched direction and remained on his back remaining unexposed.

"Well done, you got me." Nameless spoke.

"I didn't do it to disparage you, I simply wanted to show the importance of divine sense."

Nameless had been safe the entire time, he had sent waves in all directions, he thought there could be nothing approaching him without his knowledge but there was a hole in his field of investigation.

Yugo continued : "You were smart in using thought waves instead of divine sense, divine sense consumes too much mental energy, scanning everything in its field is extremely effective but its range is short, especially to a person that doesn't cultivate wisdom path nor has trained extensively with it. Well, divine sense is made of thought waves that are so concentrated and stacked that it goes through a qualitative leap."

He continued : "Thought waves are much more effective at finding a target at long range, you made the right choice but if you did that and kept a divine sense of a ten meter radius, that would have been much safer and effective but the consumption would indeed skyrocket."

"I understand, that is the reason why after using divine sense for a few moments, I thought of using a small bit of it to find you, that's how I found out I could use thought waves."

"Haha of course you did, that's the reason, I left you to chase me to begin with. Your sea of consciousness is still not at its full potential, you advanced too fast thus you aren't aware of its full capabilities, but it will do so as naturally as continue to train and use it."

"I see, no wonder." 

Nameless paused to take a breath before continuing : "Right, give me some time, I need to rest and recover my mental energy."

Yugo laughed : "Of course you will be resting, you will be fighting beasts for the remaining of the night."

"What?! Didn't you say I won't be fighting till tomorrow night?"

"Nuh uh, I changed my mind."