Klaus directed his transcendent perception deeper into the chronological sequence of his incarnations, expecting to find the gradual accumulation of mortal experiences that should have followed his supposed death as Arkadius. Instead, he discovered another surgical void where his first ten incarnations should have resided.
The absence was absolute—not the fragmentary remains of damaged memories, but complete elimination that left no trace of what had been systematically removed. Klaus could sense the precise boundaries where memories had been excised with skill that exceeded even the sophisticated manipulations applied to his Arkadius fragments. The extraction had been performed with such precision that the surrounding consciousness had healed seamlessly around the gaps, leaving only subtle irregularities that his enhanced perception could detect.
