Chapter 11
"Sentient?"
The word left my mouth before I could stop it.
For a moment, the waterfall behind us felt too loud.
The pond shimmered under the sunlight. The trees swayed gently in the breeze. Everything around us was calm, peaceful, almost beautiful.
And in my hand was a blood-red cleaver filled with sentient mana.
Of course.
Of course this was happening.
It just had to be too good to be true.
Bloody's grin widened as if he had just revealed some grand treasure instead of what was basically a magical death sentence with extra steps.
I looked down at Rend.
The blade sat in my palm, crimson and heavy. It no longer looked lame.
Not completely.
It looked quiet.
Waiting.
My stomach twisted.
I knew what sentient mana was.
Everyone knew what sentient mana was.
You learned about it in academy theory, usually right before the professor began listing famous criminal mages who had gone insane, burned down villages, eaten their own comrades, or started cults because their mana had "spoken" to them for too long.
Mana was supposed to be guided.
Shaped.
Controlled.
But sometimes, during awakening, a mage's sense of self was too strong.
Their ego.
Their fear.
Their hunger.
Their hatred.
Something left an imprint.
A scar on the mana.
And from that moment on, whenever they used it, that imprint answered back.
Some mages felt like they were burning alive.
Some felt like they were drowning.
Some felt grief so intense they collapsed every time they cast a spell.
And Bloody's mana?
I looked down at Rend again.
It had felt hungry.
No.
Not just hungry.
Excited.
Unfortunately people with sentient mana usually had a stronger origin spell than most.
And bloodrend was powerful.
My fingers tightened around the hilt.
"That's…" I swallowed. "That's not exactly a small detail."
Bloody looked offended.
"Small detail? This is the reason Bloodrend is superior."
Knight's expression darkened.
"That is not superiority. That is corruption of the self."
Bloody snapped his head toward him.
"Do not speak to me about corruption, old man."
Knight's hand tightened around the pommel of his sword.
"You confuse power with virtue."
"And you confuse hesitation with morality."
"Both of you," I said quickly, stepping between them.
Not physically, obviously.
They were ghosts.
Still, the gesture helped me feel like I had control over the situation.
I absolutely did not.
Sleazy drifted closer, his navy coat swallowing every bit of his body. His abyssal eyes were fixed on Rend.
"So that's why it responded so quickly," he said softly. "It doesn't need as much guidance because it already knows what it wants."
Lazy, who had been floating upside down near the waterfall, slowly rotated upright.
"That explains the efficiency. Sentient mana reduces the burden of invocation. It can respond to instinct instead of command."
"Exactly," Bloody said, pleased.
I stared at all of them.
"Can you guys not talk about the murder cleaver like it's some revolutionary convenience tool?"
Lazy blinked at me.
"But it is."
"That is not the point!"
Bloody stepped closer, eyes gleaming.
"The corpse is right. Sentient mana knows its purpose. It does not need to be begged, shaped, or convinced like ordinary mana. It wants to act."
He lifted his own Rend, letting the dark red blade rest against his shoulder.
"Bloodrend wants blood."
The blade in my hand pulsed.
Once.
Softly.
My heart answered with a harder beat.
I froze.
Bloody noticed.
His grin sharpened.
"You felt it."
"No," I lied instantly.
Sleazy smiled faintly.
"That was a terrible lie, Seer."
"Shut up."
The blade pulsed again.
This time, it was warmer.
A low thrill crawled up my arm. Not pain. Not exactly. It was closer to anticipation.
Like standing at the edge of a cliff.
Like wanting to see what would happen if you just swung once.
My grip loosened.
Rend remained in my hand.
"That," Bloody said, voice almost fond, "is the song."
I looked at him.
He was staring at the weapon, but his expression had changed.
For once, he wasn't sneering.
He wasn't mocking.
He looked nostalgic.
"My mana sings when blood spills," he said. "At first, it is quiet. A whisper under the skin. A warmth in the hand. A little thrill when steel meets flesh."
His red eyes lifted to mine.
"And then, if you listen closely enough, it teaches you to enjoy the song."
A chill ran down my spine.
He wasn't warning me.
He was reminiscing.
Knight stepped forward.
"Young man, drop the weapon."
I looked at him.
His voice was calm, but his eyes were not.
"Now."
I looked back at Rend.
The cleaver felt heavier than before.
No.
That wasn't right.
It felt more present.
Like it had gone from being an object to being a guest.
An uninvited one.
"I'm fine," I said.
Knight's jaw tightened.
"You are not fine. You are holding a weapon made from the magic of a man who admits it taught him to love bloodshed."
"Hey," Bloody snapped. "Do not make me sound weak."
Knight glared at him.
"That is what you took from that sentence?"
"Obviously."
I exhaled slowly.
This was bad.
Very bad.
But also…
My eyes drifted back to the crimson blade.
Useful.
That was the worst part.
Bloodrend was dangerous, unstable, and apparently carried the emotional equivalent of a battlefield drunk on violence.
But it was powerful.
Regeneration.
Self-buffing.
Blood absorption.
Mana theft.
And if sentient mana made casting easier, then it might let me bridge the massive skill gap between myself and actual combat students.
I hated that this was tempting.
I hated even more that it made sense.
Lazy watched me silently for a moment.
Then he sighed.
"You're going to use it anyway."
I looked at him.
"What makes you say that?"
"You have the face of someone making a bad decision and calling it strategy."
Sleazy chuckled.
"That does sound like Seer."
I clicked my tongue.
"I am standing right here."
"Yes," Lazy said. "Unfortunately."
Bloody crossed his arms, smug.
"At least the boy understands value."
"No…I understand desperation," I corrected.
That made the clearing quiet.
The waterfall crashed behind us.
The wind moved through the leaves.
I looked at Rend again.
"I don't have years to train normally. I don't have the luxury of slowly becoming competent. Carlos is already here. The hero is already alive. The world is already moving toward its ending."
My fingers tightened.
"If this thing gives me a shortcut, then I need to learn how to use it."
Knight's expression softened slightly, but his concern remained.
"A shortcut that eats at your mind is not a gift."
"I know."
"Do you?"
I didn't answer immediately.
Because the honest answer was no.
I knew what sentient mana was in theory.
I knew the warnings, the case studies, the names of mages who had become cautionary tales.
But knowing something from a lecture and feeling it pulse in your hand were two different things.
The blade wanted.
And the terrifying part was that I could understand why Bloody had listened.
Power that answered instinctively.
Power that rewarded violence.
Power that made fear feel smaller.
Of course people lost themselves to it.
It didn't come as a monster.
It came as relief.
I raised Rend slightly.
"Then we train carefully."
Bloody scoffed.
"There is no careful with Bloodrend."
"There is now."
His eyes narrowed.
I stared back.
"I'm not you."
The words came out sharper than intended.
Bloody went still.
For a second, the air felt heavier.
His floating heart beat once.
Hard.
Then he smiled.
Not amused.
Not angry.
Something colder.
"No," he said. "You are not."
He leaned closer.
"But you are close enough."
Rend pulsed again.
My skin prickled.
Knight stepped beside me, his presence firm.
"You do not have to prove anything to him."
"I'm not."
Sleazy tilted his head.
"Are you sure?"
I ignored him.
Mostly because he was probably right and I hated that.
I looked at Bloody.
"How do I stop it from affecting me?"
Bloody barked a laugh.
"You don't."
My face fell.
"What?"
"You resist it. You direct it. You survive it. But stop it?" He shook his head. "No. That is not how sentient mana works."
Lazy floated closer, his expression thoughtful.
"An imprint cannot be removed without damaging the mana itself. The best option is separation of identity."
I frowned.
"Meaning?"
"Recognize which thoughts are yours and which sensations come from the mana."
Sleazy hummed.
"So basically, don't flirt with the murder instinct."
"That is the worst possible way to phrase it," Lazy said.
"But accurate."
I looked at Rend.
Recognize which thoughts were mine.
Easy enough.
Probably.
Maybe.
The blade pulsed.
A small warmth crawled up my wrist.
I imagined cutting into something.
Not a person.
A target.
A dummy.
Wood splitting under the blade.
Blood—
No.
There would be no blood in wood.
The warmth faded slightly.
I blinked.
Lazy's eyes sharpened.
"You did something."
"I redirected it," I said slowly.
Bloody's grin returned.
"There. Now you're beginning to understand."
Knight frowned.
"What did you redirect?"
"The urge," I admitted.
The words tasted unpleasant.
"I thought about cutting a training dummy instead of… anything alive."
Sleazy's smile thinned.
"That is both comforting and deeply not comforting."
"Agreed," Knight said.
Bloody laughed.
"Good! Then strike something."
I looked around the clearing.
There were no training dummies here.
Just trees, rocks, water, and the four ghosts who could not be hit.
My eyes landed on a fallen branch near the pond.
"That'll do."
I walked over and placed it upright against a rock.
Then I stepped back.
Rend felt warm in my hand.
Not hot.
Warm.
Alive-warm.
I hated that description immediately.
"Do I need to invoke it again?"
Bloody shook his head.
"Not while it is already formed. Now use the blood you fed it."
"That sounds disgusting."
"It is glorious."
"Of course you think that."
I raised the cleaver.
The red mana inside the blade stirred.
I could feel it now.
Not as normal mana.
Normal mana was like water waiting to be shaped.
Bloodrend was like a hound straining against a leash.
It wanted release.
I breathed in.
Calm.
Contain.
Conceptualize.
No.
This wasn't my grey sea.
This was red.
Sharp.
Hungry.
I swung.
The cleaver struck the branch.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the stored blood inside Rend erupted.
A red slash burst from the blade and tore through the wood.
The branch split in half.
The rock behind it cracked.
The force pushed against my arm, and I stumbled back.
"Woah… what was that?"
Bloody crossed his arms.
"That, maggot, was the spell called Blood Slash. A simple slash that unleashes the stored blood inside Rend."
He smirked.
"Think of it as water pressure."
I looked down at the cleaver.
"One tiny cut did that?"
Bloody's smirk faded into something closer to reluctant approval.
"I will say, I didn't expect you to have such good instincts with Rend. To use a spell already…"
His eyes narrowed.
"Seems you and I have more synergy than I first thought."
He grimaced.
"Disgusting."
I stared at him.
"Agreed."
Bloody looked unbearably irritated.
Knight looked concerned.
Lazy looked fascinated.
Sleazy looked like he was already planning seventeen crimes.
I stared at Rend.
The crimson glow had faded slightly.
So had the warmth.
The blade had eaten.
Then it had spent what it ate.
A simple exchange.
Blood for power.
I swallowed.
"That was…"
"Marvelous?" Bloody offered.
"Terrifying," Knight said.
"Efficient," Lazy added.
"Marketable," Sleazy said.
I stared at him.
"What?"
He shrugged.
"If you are going to become a villain, branding matters."
"I am not becoming that kind of villain!"
Rend pulsed.
Softly.
Almost playfully.
I looked down at it.
"No. Don't agree with him."
The blade pulsed again.
My face went cold.
"Wait."
The ghosts all looked at me.
I lifted Rend slightly.
"Did it just… respond?"
Bloody smiled.
Slowly.
"Of course it did."
I stared at the cleaver.
The cleaver, apparently, stared back.
Not literally.
Probably.
Hopefully.
I lowered it very slowly.
"I hate this."
Bloody's grin widened.
"You'll learn to love it."
"That is exactly what I am afraid of."
The clearing went quiet again.
For the first time since summoning Bloodrend, I truly understood the danger.
Not the blood.
Not the pain.
Not even the possibility of dying from my own stupidity, though that was apparently very possible.
The real danger was that part of me had liked it.
The power.
The response.
The way the blade moved like it wanted to help.
The way it made violence feel simple.
I tightened my grip until my knuckles ached.
Then I forced myself to release the mana.
Rend dissolved into red particles.
The warmth vanished from my hand.
The silence that followed felt cleaner.
Safer.
I let out a breath.
"Okay."
I looked at Bloody.
"We are putting several rules in place before I use that again."
Bloody groaned.
"Rules."
"Yes. Rules. Because unlike some people, I enjoy keeping my personality intact."
Knight nodded immediately.
"A wise decision."
Lazy raised a hand lazily.
"I second the motion."
Sleazy grinned.
"I third it, mostly because watching Bloody suffer under rules sounds fun."
Bloody looked betrayed.
"You are all cowards."
"No," I said. "We're alive."
Then I paused.
I looked at the four ghosts.
"Mostly."
Sleazy laughed.
Lazy sighed.
Knight smiled faintly.
Bloody muttered something about maggots.
For the first time since entering the training ground, I felt like I had taken a real step forward.
A dangerous step.
A stupid step.
A step that involved a sentient blood cleaver with attitude problems.
But still.
Progress.
I looked toward the waterfall.
Then toward the path back to the academy.
Carlos Strega was still out there.
The hero was still destined to fail.
The world was still marching toward ruin.
And my best new option was a magic blade that wanted me to enjoy bloodshed.
I rubbed my face.
"Fine."
The ghosts looked at me.
I sighed.
"Let's make sure I don't become a homicidal lunatic before lunch."