Chapter 146: Bonding [6]
The three of them moved to a designated bonding area within the enclosure. Elenaria signaled him to prepare, activating the ritual runes buried beneath the snow with a quick tap on her handheld terminal.
A circle of soft blue light flared to life, framing Soren and the young kitsune.
"Close your eyes and guide a thin thread of your mana outward," Elenaria instructed, her voice calm. "Let it bridge the gap between you."
Soren closed his eyes, his heart beating with a mix of anticipation and nervousness. He focused inward, carefully releasing a gentle strand of energy. Across from him, the young kitsune let out an expectant "kyuu~", its own vibrant frost energy rising to meet his halfway.
The two distinct mana signatures touched.
A brilliant flash of silver light illuminated the entire enclosure.
The connection felt incredibly natural, a warm sensation blooming in Soren’s chest as their souls began to align, forming the initial framework of the contract.
Then, the connection suddenly snapped.
There was no violent explosion or backlash. The flowing mana strands merely dissolved into a faint mist of frost particles, leaving the air completely silent. The glowing runes flickered and dimmed back into the snow.
"?"
Soren snapped his eyes open, his breath catching in his throat. He looked down at his hands, then at the young kitsune, who was shaking its head in equal confusion. A wave of anxiety washed over him. What went wrong? Did he do something improper?
Outside the glass, Marron’s brow furrowed, while Elenaria immediately stepped closer to the barrier.
"The alignment was perfect," Elenaria muttered, her eyes tracking the fading light before she spoke through the comms. "Yet the connection didn’t hold."
She paused, looking down at the telemetry data on her screen for a long moment.
"Let us try one more time," she continued, her voice encouraging. "Mr. Soren, focus entirely on maintaining a passive reception."
Soren nodded quickly, swallowing the lump in his throat. He tried to calm his racing thoughts and extended his mana once more, making it as welcoming as he possibly could.
"Kyu!"
The young kitsune, determined to complete the link, leaned forward and sent a thicker strand of its pale blue energy toward him.
Once again, the two forces met. The silver light flared up, warmer and brighter than before, bridging their consciousnesses. The contract began to weave itself into existence, and Soren held his breath, praying it would stick.
Snap.
The connection withered instantly, the energy evaporating into nothingness a second time.
This second failure was visibly harder on the small creature. Before Soren could even process what happened, the young kitsune let out a low, exhausted sigh. Its five tails drooped flat against the ground, and it sat down heavily in the snow, its breathing shallow and rapid.
"That is enough," Elenaria ordered through the console. "We are stopping. Repeated failures will only cause unnecessary strain."
Soren immediately knelt closer to the little creature, his eyes filled with worry.
"Are you okay?" he murmured softly, reaching out to gently pat its head, feeling terribly guilty for causing it such exhaustion.
"Kyu..." The little kitsune nodded weakly before resting its small chin heavily against his knee, its breathing slow and shallow as it tried to recover its strength. Soren kept his hand on its soft head, his chest tightening as he looked at the drained little beast.
The airlock hissed open, and Elenaria stepped into the snowy enclosure, her sharp eyes fixed entirely on Soren. She approached him, her gaze scanning him with an intense focus.
"Elenaria?" Marron asked, walking in right behind her with a deeply puzzled expression. "What just happened? Their compatibility was perfect. Why did it fail again?"
"The little one was entirely willing. The rejection did not originate from her. Mr, Soren, I think," Elenaria said, her voice dropping into a serious register. She stopped right in front of Soren, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Your soul space is locking out the contract."
Soren stood up, his stomach twisting into a knot. "Locking it out? Is there something wrong with my soul? Or my core?" A genuine fear crept into his mind. What exactly did that mean? Was there really something wrong with him?
Elenaria didn’t answer immediately. She fell into deep thought, her eyes fixed on the empty air as she analyzed the situation. Only after a few minutes did she finally break her silence, gesturing toward the exit.
"Follow me. We need to verify if this is an absolute restriction or an anomaly specific to this creature."
Soren gently lifted the tired kitsune, placing it comfortably back into its resting nest. "Take some rest," he murmured softly, giving its head one final pat.
He looked back at the little creature one last time before turning around to follow Elenaria and Marron out of the sub-zero biome.
His hands were slightly trembling, his mind spinning with unanswered questions.
They walked down a side corridor to a separate, smaller testing room, which housed a standard, C-Rank Frost Wolf resting inside a reinforced glass cage. The beast was docile and well-trained.
"This is a standard taming test," Elenaria explained, gesturing toward the cage. "If your core is genuinely blocked, it will reject this one as well. Try to establish a basic companion link."
Soren stepped forward, his chest tight with anxiety. He approached the glass, looking at the large gray wolf, desperately hoping that the previous failure was just a fluke. He extended a hand toward the designated transfer port, releasing a basic thread of his mana to initiate the sequence.
The Frost Wolf whined softly, its ears pinning back in a submissive gesture as it accepted his energy. The taming runes on the console glowed a steady green.
’Please work,’ Soren thought, holding his breath.
But the exact moment the contract attempted to settle into his soul space, the familiar, empty sensation returned.
With a quiet, dull thud of displaced air, the connection collapsed entirely. The green lights on the console flashed red, indicating a complete failure to bond. The Frost Wolf blinked, completely unharmed but utterly detached from his energy.
Soren slowly retracted his hand, pulling it close to his chest. He turned back to face the two onlookers, his eyes wide with a mixture of confusion and deep worry.
Behind the console, Director Elenaria and President Marron exchanged a long, profoundly stunned look, the silence in the room growing heavy.
"The problem is me..." Soren looked down at his trembling palm, the sudden weight of the realization pressing heavily on his chest. "But what exactly is it? Why is this happening?"
He turned his eyes toward Director Elenaria, the only one present with the deep, esoteric knowledge required to understand such a phenomenon. President Marron shifted his position as well, his gaze locked on the elven woman, waiting for answers.
Elenaria remained silent for a long moment, her eyes tracking the fading residual mana on the console.
"There are very few records of a soul actively repelling a contract when both parties are willing," she began slowly, her voice carrying a rare gravity. "It does not necessarily mean your core is damaged, Mr. Soren. In fact, it is quite the opposite. A contract fails to settle only when the soul space behaves as if it is already complete."
Soren blinked, his anxiety morphing into confusion. "Complete?"
"A soul space can be blocked if it is already occupied," Elenaria explained, her sharp eyes boring into him. "Or perhaps your inherent soul structure is simply too unique, possessing a natural defense mechanism that views an external bond as an intrusion rather than a partnership. There’s even a chance that-"
She cut herself off as the heavy metallic door of the testing room slid open with a sudden, jarring clang, shattering the tense silence.
A young researcher stumbled into the room, his lab coat disheveled and his face completely drained of color. He was breathing heavily, his hands clutching a tablet tightly against his chest.
"D-Director!" the worker gasped, catching his breath as he looked between Elenaria and the President. "There’s a problem in the Sector Seven."
Elenaria’s brow furrowed into a slight frown. Sector Seven was a highly classified, heavily reinforced containment zone. "Calm down. What exactly happened?"
The researcher swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward Soren for a split second before returning to the Director. "It... it just spoke, ma’am. It talked. And..." He hesitated, his voice trembling violently as he pointed at Soren. "It is asking for him."
