Chapter 11: An Unmistakable Checkmate

Memory sealing is a rather intricate process.

It does not erase memories. Instead, it desynchronizes a memory from the Resonant flow that allows conscious recall.

In simpler terms, it is like severing the nerve that leads to that memory.

The memory remains—but the mind can no longer reach it.

Despite how simple it sounded, Kaelthorn knew better. Nothing involving the mind was ever simple.

He reached out his hand and brushed the loose strands of hair from Aden’s face with a conflicted expression.

His face leaned forward slightly, two words left his mouth with an echo, hues of blue leaving his mouth and entering his ear.

Aden’s face gradually grew slack and almost lifeless.

’It would have been easier if I had someone with a mind based affinity, but it can’t be helped.’

Kaelthorn closed his eyes, a deep sigh leaving his lips as a much brighter and thicker shade of blue travelled out of his body and into Aden’s forehead.

A thin strand of energy lingered between his fingers and Aden’s head, faint white traces pulsing through it in a steady rhythm.

Kaelthorn’s subconscious projected itself through the depths of Aden’s mind, his presence threading through each nerve with precision.

Resonant energy levels remained stable wherever his own energy passed. Had it not been for the jarring ordeal he had just witnessed, he might have been convinced that everything was normal.

Billions of sparks and trillions of neural pathways surrounded him as he ventured deeper, yet his focus never wavered.

Nearly seven hours passed as he searched for a region where Resonant energy was most densely concentrated—all to no avail.

His plan was founded on one of the fundamental laws of Resonance.

Resonance responded foremost to emotion—happiness, sorrow, determination, trauma, and everything in between. It fed upon these states and, in turn, granted power to those capable of taming it.

A severe traumatic experience, therefore, should have caused a sharp spike in Resonant energy. In such moments, the mind was too shaken to process anything beyond overwhelming grief.

And grief was among the strongest emotions of all.

The trouble with Aden’s condition lay in how thoroughly the energy concealed itself. It was so finely masked that it blended seamlessly among the billions of surrounding frequencies.

Three more hours passed with no progress. Kaelthorn began to grasp just how severely he had underestimated the task before committing to it, fatigue slowly creeping into his consciousness.

The mind was far more demanding than any other part of the body to traverse or train. Even beings like Kaelthorn had learned—often the hard way—to tread its pathways with extreme caution.

Constantly attuning himself to fragile frequencies, tracing their routes, then merging into yet another stream of nerves was utterly exhausting. It demanded absolute precision. There was no room for rest, no external elixirs to rely on.

Yet he refused to give up.

Fifteen hours had passed in total. His energy continued to weave through the intricate, interconnected lattice of Aden’s neurons, all while monitoring the resonant energies that surrounded them.

After yet another fruitless sweep, Kaelthorn shifted toward a different neuron, preparing to probe another region of Aden’s mind—

When a massive surge of energy erupted behind him, racing past so fast he would have missed it entirely had he not been on high alert.

He wasted no time, pursuing the energy trace as his speed multiplied tenfold, his blue aura intensifying with every passing moment.

The sparks grew brighter the farther he advanced. Energy surged violently between neurons, pulses accelerating as the surrounding space descended into chaos.

Kaelthorn was certain—without a shred of doubt—that he was close to the source. If not the memory itself, then the neural pathways that led directly to it.

Then, without warning, everything stilled.

The pulses settled into a steady rhythm. Resonant frequencies quieted. The chaos vanished as if it had never existed.

Kaelthorn felt his heart sink as a long-overlooked fact resurfaced.

Resonant energies were semi-sentient. No matter how faint, they possessed a will of their own.

And he had stepped into their domain—not as a guest, but as something attempting to restrain them.

No one welcomed being controlled in their own home. Resonant energies were no different.

Panic crept in as he finally grasped the true gravity of the situation.

If he pushed further, he risked suffering a severe backlash—or worse, losing a fragment of himself and imprinting it onto his disciple.

That would mean erasing a part of Aden entirely, rendering the very purpose of this invasion meaningless.

His energy flared brighter as he acted on instinct alone, forcibly shifting his frequency and merging into a different nerve ending.

Twenty hours had passed. The memory or even a path leading to it remained unfound.

A vicious migraine clawed at the back of his head, demanding his return to reality.

Kaelthorn endured, pressing onward into the unknown.

Another spike.

Instinct took over. He surged toward it, tearing through surrounding energies as he went, sensing every fluctuation in his path.

A glimmer of hope surfaced then vanished just as quickly.

Once again, the resonant energies had deceived him.

Anger simmered within Kaelthorn, but he refused to let the childish provocation of a primordial lifeform dictate his course.

Rather than continue wandering blindly, Kaelthorn chose to hold his position and deploy multiple strands of energy to search for his objective.

A dangerous decision.

It required him to command hundreds of simultaneous strands, constantly fine-tuning each one to harmonize with Aden’s flow while scanning the surrounding resonant energies in every region.

All at once.

Even the most accomplished practitioners of Mental affinity could not attempt such a feat without days of meticulous preparation.

The single strand of energy bacame a stream, flowing in all directions with controlled movements.

In the outside world, Kaelthorn’s face had gone deathly pale, thick beads of cold sweat forming on both his own skin and Aden’s.

A quiet gnashing of teeth echoed as fifteen of Kaelthorn’s energy strands were violently expelled.

A thin line of blood followed—but he refused to stop. Not now. Not when he was this close.

Thirty hours had passed in total—five since the dispersion technique he had devised had taken hold.

The result wasn’t as he hoped.

The result was not what he had hoped for.

The resonant energies were hell-bent on protecting themselves—and their home.

They increased their concentration in distant, unrelated regions, far from where Kaelthorn’s energy strands operated. Each time he redirected his focus to investigate, his concentration was forcibly divided, triggering unavoidable backlash as other strands were expelled from their neural pathways.

Again and again, Kaelthorn fell for the same crude deception.

Yet there was no alternative. To save his disciple from irreversible damage, he had to keep pressing forward—even if it meant being played for a fool.

A full day had passed.

Blood now dripped steadily from Kaelthorn’s nose. Aden’s face had turned frighteningly pale, his body twitching uncontrollably.

The situation had become dire for them both.

If Kaelthorn failed to seal the energy in time, Aden risked slipping into a coma due to the growing neural irregularities. But if he aborted the mission, Aden would be forced to live with a memory so severe that even the strongest minds would eventually break beneath its weight.

It was an unmistakable checkmate.

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