Break my arms. Enhance my swings. But don’t go too far, never leave it unrepairable.

Destroy, kill, and devour as I please, but do not make the ultimate sacrifice, for I can never again do any more damage if I die.

Violent. Pragmatic. Violent. Pragmatic. Violent! Pragmatic!

I repeated the same mantra in my head as I caused my blood to evaporate inside me to enhance my next slash. The result left a wide cut more than halfway into the tree and it began to tilt, threatening to topple over.

It did fall, a few seconds later.

I fell to the soft ground with a huff, my arms dangling uselessly again by my side. I was surrounded by large and vibrant flowers, and once more they began to writhe, emitting a very subtle glow as my broken limbs began to right themselves once more.

“Thanks.” I thanked Elfrafim who was helping me with this training.

“Anytime!” Her voice was like the dawn of sunshine.

The idea here was to drill it into my fucking head not to try and sacrifice myself, because then I’d be dead. A more important realization I’d come to however was how disproportionately strong evaporating my blood actually was. I initially thought that the additional power was just because it acted kind of like a ritual, so there was some boost from that, but I’d come to feel that the concept of sacrificing my own blood actually resonated very deeply with my menace magic.

It brought to mind how the Curse Dragon died, and how his final moments led to the birth of the cursetaceans that continue to be a menace upon Angelore’s lands to this day. He might’ve… No, I was certain that he used this sacrificial effect of nature magic to achieve that miracle of creation.

Even I, weak as I was, stood a chance of injuring Elfrafim if I truly sacrificed my life. Someone who was three whole evolutions above me, beyond even Luine's ability to harm.

So what more could a dragon do, if they were willing to make the same sacrifice? They, at the apex of all creatures, beyond level 160, and at the presumed level of 320. 160 was confirmed to be another evolution, and dragons were surely above even that, but no one truly knew if the same pattern would continue to hold for the next evolution to be at 320.

I would be the first to find out for certain.

~~~

Repetition. Even without a human brain any longer, the same pattern held true. Come rain or shine, I did not fall by my vigil. Over and over I infused my arms with the power of menace magic. I broke it and healed it and then broke it again, all the while making my very body remember my limits, and to never go past them.

“Oh? So this is what you’ve been doing?” Luine just suddenly appeared right next to me mid-swing. I was surprised, and I nearly tripped on myself, but something stopped me. A force held me in place, the blood melted from within my arms, and I struck the tree with nearly the same force of my previous attacks, only a fair bit weaker for my temporary loss of equilibrium.

Kill, destroy, humiliate, and dominate! But do not sacrifice everything, so that I may continue to be a menace!!

The unplanned maneuver, and the subsequent flare of foreign yet internal thoughts finally managed to put me off balance, making me land squarely on my ass. I felt a shift, my mana behaved ominously, but not in the same chaos I was used to.

“Problem, Haell?” Luine asked. I’d been staring at my hands.

“No, no. No worries. Hang on a second. I think I’m in the middle of a breakthrough."

Luine just smiled and stepped away.

I dove into my psyche afterwards, confirming the same old ideas and desires my menace mana wished to convey. From how fun it would be to cause chaos and mayhem, to how easy it would be to hurt and betray those I loved. Whatever actions would cause more harm, the fear of the masses, and the betrayal of all that I loved and held dear; the magic within me sought to twist myself into the kind of menace that would do it all gleefully. That would delight in all the most menacing of acts.

I was used to it. It was basically white noise at this point. But there was a peculiarity, a new voice within the endless cacophony. This one was more focused, serious, stewing in both excitement and impatience at the single action and activity it held dear.

That of my sacrifice.

That of my blood being used to fuel an internal ritual.

Enough magic affecting my arms to break them after only a single attack.

That one eternal moment, where I achieve the greatest destruction possible with one swing.

But never enough to truly end me.

To end my potential.

Because how could it repeat the same process, if I could no longer swing or hold a sword?

How could it continue to kill, if I myself were dead?

No, my power must remain at its prime. And I must continue to shatter my arms with every strike.

Only then will I be satisfied.

…

I took a sharp intake of breath, as I understood what had changed. It was almost as if my magic was alive, as if it had its own thoughts and desires… which perhaps was pretty obvious, but I previously attributed it to just a stronger form of the interpretations of mana. Like how fire mana could give me a sensation of heat, or how light mana could convey a blinding brightness, I thought the menace mana was just like that, conveying a certain idea, but ultimately it’s all in our heads, our own interpretations of the ideas and concepts within.

But then those concepts changed. My menace mana now sung a different tune. Something that could still be attributed to a change in my own mentality, except the magic moved by itself. It took initiative. Its goals and ambitions were altered, and now it was actively seeking them out. As if it were a true living thing, thinking and scheming within the confines of my own body, and perhaps even without.

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This was big. This was a new discovery. And this was bloody fucking dangerous.

I quickly turned on my heel, screamed for Elfrafim to follow, and then ran back towards our base in search of the local nerd.

~~~

The entire gang was gathered in our living area. I told them of my recent findings, of new discoveries, and possibilities.

Instantly, Moonwash was enamored, and Elfrafim too was unbearably excited.

Baston shook his head. “This is a very, very dangerous force you are touching, Haell.”

“I know. When has great power ever come cheap and without risk?”

Well. You could just be born strong, but that’s beside the point. I was sure I could someday surpass all those that only relied on the superiority of their birth.

Luine too nodded, after a long moment spent thinking. It seemed like she’d come to a conclusion all her own. “I trust that Haell knows what she’s doing. She may die, but she may also live, and that life would shine brighter than any of us ever has. Combined.” She coughed into her hand. “Don’t tell Mahka and Rallem I said any of that though.”

“Eh? Why not?” I feigned innocence. “Secrets bad… Why keep secret from mama and papa?”

“Oh shush you.” She rapped me lightly on the head. “I… nevermind. Let’s talk later.”

I raised my brow. Left unsaid was that it had to be in private, given that she could just speak now. Nothing was stopping her. She didn’t have duct tape over her mouth or anything. This world didn’t even have duct tapes!

“Sure. No duct tapes.”

“...What?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

After a few squawks from Astan that I did not understand, it was finally time to engage with our two resident nerds.

“That’s a whole new fucking insight!” Elfrafim vibrated excitedly. “I guess I’ve heard similar things, but I never heard anything about the breakthrough you just had. We need to test if this really is a product of curse-aligned magics. It’s something that we elves really truly suck at. The only elf I know that was good at it was that same guy who made those… torture bugs that I told you about. And the less said about him, the better.”

“It’s also important to remember that the menace magic is inside Haell.” Moonwash added. “What’s more, it’s in her blood, not isolated in a repository. It’s constantly subjected to her thoughts, and she in turn is subject to its influence. I think that’s an important factor to achieve what has happened. The altering of the identity of mana, the awakening of its will.”

She paused.

“I will now coin the term Mana Awakening.”

“Hey! It’s my technique! Why do you get to name it?”

Moonwash shrugged. “You weren’t fast enough.”

I fumed and stomped, until we all laughed. Except for Moonwash, but she did go through the trouble of smiling.

“This is a little bit of an extrapolation, but please, bear with me,” Moonwash continued her explanations, and no one dared voice dissent. “From Haell’s descriptions, we know that she is constantly beset by the desires and ideals of her menace mana. It’s a constant presence in her mind. From other monsters and animals, there are those who have magic constantly flowing through their bodies like this. Chief of which are the goblins that we know well. But I think there are a few more, albeit they are extremely extremely rare. Unless if you count fountans, who do produce mana without a repository, but there’s a reason why it’s pointed outside of their body.”

“Off the top of my head, there’s the abomiempire,” Elfrafim added her own knowledge. “It is a fabled monster that very seldomly appears throughout history, but is always a calamity when it does. It has life magic constantly flowing throughout its deformed body, powering its many glands that depend on it, and allowing it to regenerate and twist its own flesh. But its most terrifying aspect is what it does to others. It twists life, and it heals everything, but that healing is wrong. Your Mutations will cease to work as your body is deformed, be it in small or big ways.”

Moonwash nodded and continued from there. “I have heard of this. The Angelore Empire has dealt with it once too. But the thing that this monster and the goblins have in common is that they cannot be reasoned with. We can’t know if they experience the same phenomenon. But I think of it differently. I think that they might not be able to define their magic differently, because their magic is the one that has defined them.”

She turned, and the full weight of her gaze landed on myself. I met her clear human eyes with my demonic ones.

“Haell has retained her sanity in the face of forces that would overwhelm anyone else. She is conscious and aware, allowing her to define the mana within, and somehow not be totally defined by it in turn.”

The praise almost had a physical force to it, and I staggered back, unprepared. The wide smile that graced my face could not be painted, and I hugged my friend tight in all my excitement.

“I’m not done. Get off me.”

“Okay.” The joy did not leave myself. “But thank you.”

“Sure. I’m glad that you like the information.”

“Oh yeah. That’s totally it.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Yes.”

From there, Moonwash gushed about other but no less important, implications of this recent information. What I found the most interesting was how my sword had really taken to being cursed, now being a full and bonafide cursed object. Moonwash tried to hold it as an experiment, upon which she immediately eyed me silently.

“I want to kill you. But… I’m more lucid than before. It’s not as strong as your mom’s dagger “

“Heh. A your mom joke.”

“You keep saying that. It’s infuriating.” Moonwash raised my sword, but Elfrafim suddenly appeared and yanked the cursed weapon from her hand, tossing it back to me.

“Woah. That’s a strong curse, to have been made by someone this low level. Did you use a ritual on it by any chance?”

I raised a brow, but shook my head. That was an idea for later.

I turned my attention back to my greatsword and its dark exterior. It was as if a constant mist was wafting off it, just out of sight. But it was never there whenever I tried to closely inspect it.

Other than the very cool aesthetics however… I barely felt a whiff from the sword. It certainly wasn’t trying to drive me mad.

A flash of inspiration made me realize why that could be.

“The curse has really taken to this sword. It’s been far more efficient than me trying to pour menace mana into a dagger. I think… it could be just like how I’ve managed to define the mana inside of me! What if I defined this sword in the same way!? That’s why I could hardly notice its influence, it's familiar to me. It blends in with the constant buzz of my internal menace mana!” My voice reached a pitch and cadence as I spoke even more rapidly, the passion taking over. “It makes so much sense! Many a swordsman have claimed bullshit about being one with the sword, but I’ve taken it to a whole new fucking level! You see, whenever I fight, I’ve taken to weaving mana into this sword, and then essentially integrating it into my internal flows of mana! It’s amazing, I'm amazing! Right? Don’t you agree?? That’s how it is isn’t it!!??”

“It is!!” Elfrafim chirped in her usual melodic way. “This is all soo exciting! Aaaaahhhhhh!!! Do you think I could use your menace magic too? Curse magic in general!? I was never able to connect with the element, I definitely had no talent for it, but I never really tried all that hard.”

“I agree, you are amazing, Haell,” Moonwash finally recovered from merely touching my sword, and immediately she jumped into the conversation with enthusiasm. It was clear even through her bland tone. “It would need more testing, however this defining thing really makes sense. I think your theories are correct. Maybe the mana does need to be inside of you to be defined, and your sword somehow counted for that. It at least helps, if nothing else. Maybe the fact that it got to act out its new purpose also helped, that’s another difference with the dagger that you seldom used for combat. And then there’s your inside mana, the one in your blood. It remains defined in that new way doesn’t it? But how? It gets replaced often, you use it after all. So why are the new mana you produce still defined? So many questions that I would love to pick apart. Let’s do it.”