Chapter 615 - Failures (Patreon)

Not long after, the wobbling stopped and Leyvi’s avatar fully formed.

However, his avatar was quite different from Sherlock’s. It glowed with the same golden brilliance that he was emitting outside.

Sherlock was briefly stunned, but he quickly attributed the difference to the Zenith State Leyvi was currently in.

“First time?” he asked with a smile.

The voices spoken here did not sound like they did in the real world. They entered the mind directly, much like telepathy.

Golden Leyvi nodded as he inspected his glowing avatar.

“To be able to form it so quickly inside someone else’s sea of consciousness on the first try… you’re really talented at this,” Sherlock praised.

He had personally taught and trained many soul-searching specialists, yet none of them had managed to form an avatar this quickly on their first attempt, including himself.

On top of that, the intense hatred filling the space only made the process more difficult. He wondered if this ease was an advantage shared by all Spiritual Cultivators.

Leyvi did not respond right away. He was still focusing on his avatar.

A moment later, the avatar wobbled again and disappeared. Leyvi returned to the form of pure spiritual sense.

Moments later, he formed the avatar once more, this time more smoothly.

He repeated the process several more times, growing more proficient with each attempt, before finally stopping with a stable avatar in place.

“How is it?” Sherlock asked.

“I didn’t realize that forming an avatar would strengthen my spiritual sense while inside here,” Leyvi responded.

“Good. So you noticed it right away. Most people don’t realize that until much later.” Sherlock smiled.

“It makes your spiritual sense stronger, but it also makes the space easier to collapse. Don’t worry, though. Since this is a General Level Demonic Beast’s sea of consciousness, which is obviously much sturdier, and with my stabilizing technique added on top, even with both of our avatars present, the space will not collapse easily.”

Leyvi smiled. That was excellent news for him.

With his current enhanced spiritual sense, he was now confident that he would not need to rely on his twin daughters’ miraculous power boost to overcome the repelling force.

He preferred to keep them uninvolved as much as possible. And if they truly possessed special talents, it was better that those remained a secret from others.

After that, Leyvi and Sherlock no longer wasted any time. They forced the demonic beast’s consciousness avatar to appear.

Leyvi directed his spiritual sense and pressed the full force of his mental power against the repelling force.

Powerful waves of mental energy created by the clash spread throughout the space. Those waves naturally washed over Sherlock as well.

What Sherlock witnessed next left him deeply shocked.

Before this, he had not been certain how much mental power would be required to completely overcome the repelling force, but he had assumed he would not be that far from the required level.

He had believed that if he could find a way to temporarily raise his mental power, he would be able to succeed.

He had been wrong.

It was clear that he had underestimated the strength of the repelling force. Even if his mental power were doubled or tripled, he still would not have been able to overcome it.

The scale of the clash was far beyond what Sherlock had expected. He felt like a person standing in the middle of a violent storm.

How long had it been since he last felt this way? He had stood at the peak of the continent for so long already. When was the last time another presence had made him feel so small?

What he was experiencing now was like being a low-level cultivator caught in the middle of a battle between high-level experts all over again.

While Sherlock was still reeling from the shock, Leyvi gathered his strength for one final mental push. With everything he had, he obliterated the repelling force.

He rejoiced inwardly. It was clear proof that forming the avatar significantly increased his mental power.

“Senior Sherlock, quick, enter!” he urged.

Sherlock forced himself to regain focus and entered the inner space without wasting another moment. Leyvi followed right after him.

Just as Leyvi had experienced before, an overwhelming torrent of hatred and rage erupted around them while countless memories flooded the space.

It was the same hatred, the same murderous intent. Leyvi did not doubt that it originated from the same person, more specifically, the woman he had glimpsed inside the foreign memory.

It made him wonder how she was accomplishing all of this. How had she managed to implant these memories into so many demonic beasts across the continent? And how was each individual memory strong enough to drive even General Level Demonic Beasts completely mad?

Leyvi had already informed Sherlock beforehand so he would know what to expect after entering the inner space.

Yet it seemed Sherlock was still having difficulty resisting the overwhelming emotions that filled the area. His avatar became unstable and looked ready to collapse at any moment.

This shocked Leyvi. Even a Protector was struggling here? If Sherlock could not withstand the flood of countless memories mixed with overwhelming rage and hatred, then they would have no choice but to abort the mission to capture the memory. Only Sherlock knew how to seal it, after all.

While Leyvi was still contemplating whether they should continue, Sherlock’s avatar suddenly flashed several times. A moment later, he finally stopped struggling and stabilized once more.

“What an overwhelming emotion. I almost lost myself in that sea of rage,” Sherlock said, his tone filled with relief. He had completely underestimated the danger of this place.

“Senior Sherlock, how are you feeling? Can you go on?” Leyvi asked with clear concern.

Sherlock looked at Leyvi and sighed again. The young man was not affected by the torrent of emotions at all. Just how strong was his mental fortitude? Sherlock could not help feeling a touch of shame.

“Leyvi, use your technique to locate that memory. I’ll seal it the moment you find it,” Sherlock instructed.

He realized he could not handle everything alone in this place, and he could not afford to divide his attention. He needed to rely on Leyvi to locate the foreign memory so that he could devote all his effort to sealing it.

“Leave it to me,” Leyvi said, nodding.

As soon as he received the reply, Sherlock immediately began activating the sealing technique.

He had already been told that the memory would self-destruct the instant it noticed it had been discovered. Therefore, he had to act with extreme speed.

Once the technique was ready, he gave Leyvi the signal.

Without hesitation, Leyvi activated his Memory Hunter technique to search for the foreign memory.

Very quickly, the technique pushed aside the flood of ordinary memories and locked onto one specific target.

Sherlock was shocked. What technique was this? It had found the target so quickly. Shit, I can’t waste any more time!

His avatar blitzed toward the memory.

ROAAARRR!

Unfortunately, Sherlock was a fraction of a second too late. The memory had already noticed them and let out a space-shaking roar that shattered every memory in the area at once.

“Curse it! Sorry, Leyvi. It’s my fault. Let’s get out of here first,” Sherlock said as he headed toward the exit.

Leyvi nodded. The demonic beast’s sea of consciousness was already collapsing. Their first attempt had failed.

After their spiritual senses returned to their bodies, the General Level Demonic Beast died about a minute later.

Sherlock apologized to Leyvi for getting distracted at the critical moment.

They then rested for a couple of hours to fully recover their mental energy before beginning the second attempt on the next demonic beast.

With the familiarity gained from the first try and the absence of any element of surprise this time, Sherlock managed to launch his soul-searching sealing technique in time.

Unfortunately, he still lacked the mental power needed to complete the seal against the powerful resistance of the foreign memory.

It self-destructed once more, collapsing the sea of consciousness. The second demonic beast died as well.

The Protectors were surprised that Sherlock had failed again.

This time, Leyvi and Sherlock could not simply rest for a short while and resume. Sherlock’s spiritual sense had been quite injured during the encounter.

He had been so focused on sealing the memory that he failed to properly defend himself against the self-destruction. Now they had to wait for him to recover before attempting it again.

Sherlock was already aware, however, that they would still fail even if they tried a third time. He simply lacked the mental power required to seal the foreign memory.

He had no choice but to change the plan and leave the sealing part to Leyvi. That meant their next attempt would have to wait until Leyvi had mastered the soul-searching sealing technique that Sherlock would teach him.

Normally, the sealing technique took anywhere from several months to half a year to master. Considering Leyvi’s talent in this area, Sherlock expected him to learn it in less than a month.

Three days later, however, Leyvi showed up and informed Sherlock that he had already mastered the soul-searching sealing technique.

Sherlock could only look at the monster standing before him in speechless silence.