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The cave was as I'd left it: dark, damp, and utterly silent except for the distant thunder of the waterfall. I sat on the same rock I'd used as a meditation seat for the past month, the white grimoire resting in my lap, and let the mask fall away. My face, freed from the burden of false warmth, settled into its natural expression—blank, hollow, the face of a corpse that had forgotten how to rot.
I opened the grimoire.
The first page was not a spell. It was a declaration, written in script that shimmered with its own internal light, as if the words themselves were made of condensed mana. I read it slowly, committing every syllable to memory.
Binding Vow: The Law of Equivalent Exchange
A Binding Vow is a pact forged by the soul, binding the self to a condition in exchange for power. The greater the restriction, the greater the reward. A Vow may be made with oneself—sacrificing a capability, a limitation, or a freedom in return for an increase in magical potency. A Vow may also be made with another willing soul, establishing a contract of mutual obligation. The magic of this grimoire is rooted in the soul, and the soul understands debt. What is given must be returned. What is sacrificed must be rewarded. The Vow, once sworn, is absolute. Breaking a Binding Vow carries consequences proportional to the pact's severity, up to and including the unraveling of the soul itself.
Examples of Self-Imposed Vows:
- Revealing one's abilities to an opponent increases spell effectiveness by 20%.
- Limiting a spell's area of effect increases its concentrated power.
- Sacrificing a physical sense for a set duration amplifies mana output.
- Establishing a condition for victory before a battle grants temporary access to sealed techniques.
The soul is the instrument. The Vow is the string. Pluck it wisely.
I stared at the page for a long moment. Binding Vows. The concept was familiar—fragments of my past life supplied the context, images of sorcerers and curses and pacts forged in blood. This grimoire had taken that concept and formalized it into a magical system. I could sacrifice limitations to gain power. I could set conditions that amplified my abilities in exchange for restrictions. The potential applications were staggering. If I revealed my Talent to an enemy, my spells would become stronger. If I limited myself to a single spell type for a battle, that spell type would be amplified. If I staked my life on a condition and fulfilled it, the reward would be proportionate.
The locks in my chest hummed with cold approval. This was power. Pure, calculable, exploitable power.
I turned the page.
The second page contained a spell. The script here was different—sharper, more angular, as if the words themselves were blades. At the top of the page, a title blazed in letters of silver flame:
Soul Magic: Soul Slash
Unlocked
My eyes—hollow, grey, incapable of genuine emotion—widened by a fraction of a millimeter. Soul Slash. The locked ability that had taunted me from the status screen for five years, the padlock icon a constant reminder of a power I couldn't access. And now, beneath the title, it read Unlocked.
I read the description.
Soul Slash is an offensive soul magic technique that manifests as a blade extending from the wielder's right arm. The blade is composed of the weilder's bone , It does not cut flesh, bone, or stone. It does not damage the material world. It cuts only souls.
When the blade passes through a target, it severs the soul's connection to its physical anchor, bypassing all conventional durability, magical barriers, and physical defenses. A direct strike to the soul can cause spiritual damage ranging from disorientation and mana disruption to, in cases of sustained exposure, complete soul excision.
Soul Slash requires the Sword of extermination as a medium. This blade is bound to the wielder's soul and cannot be separated, destroyed, or wielded by any other being.
Sword of extermination. I looked down at my right arm.
Something was there. Not quite visible, not quite physical, but present—a pressure beneath the skin, a weight that hadn't been there before. I flexed my will, reaching for the blade the way I'd reached for the status screen on my first day in this world, and felt something respond. A sensation of something sliding free from a sheath that wasn't made of matter.
The blade emerged.
It was not steel. It was not light. It was not anything that could be described in material terms. It was a bone made solid, a void given form. The blade extended from my forearm like a natural extension of my skeleton, its edge shimmering with the faint, ghostly luminescence of captured starlight. It was, I realized, almost identical to the Sword of Extermination wielded by Mahoraga in the memories of my past life—a straight, double-edged blade of pure positive energy, designed to cut through curses and spirits. But where the Sword of Extermination was a weapon of purification, this was a weapon of severance. It didn't cleanse souls. It cut them.
I held the blade up, turning it in the dim light of the cave. It made no sound. It was a thing of pure bone, as much a part of me as my own heartbeat.
So that's why it was locked.
The realization settled into the cold machinery of my mind with the click of a puzzle piece finding its place. Soul Slash had always been there, a potential ability created by the Talent's adaptation to soul damage during my transmigration. But it required a medium. A vessel. A sword to channel the soul-cutting energy. I had no such sword—not until the grimoire bonded with me and manifested it. The grimoire wasn't just a collection of spells. It was the Sword of extermination given form, a weapon that had been waiting in the tower's highest shelf for five years, dormant, patient, destined for the only soul in the kingdom that could wield it.
I tried to summon my status screen. A flicker of blue light, then:
Status: Upgrading...
Estimated Completion: Unknown
The screen fizzled and vanished. I stared at the empty air where it had been, my mind already cataloguing the implications. The grimoire was integrating with my existing abilities. The Talent, the resistances, the regeneration—all of it was being restructured, incorporated into the grimoire's framework. What would emerge on the other side, I didn't know. But the upgrade would be significant. A system overhaul, driven by the addition of a soul-bound magical artifact that had been specifically designed—by whatever cosmic force governed this world—to complement my abilities.
I rose from the rock and faced the cave wall. The sword was still extended from my arm, a shimmering absence that hummed with quiet, lethal intent. I needed to test it. To understand exactly what Soul Slash was capable of.
I swung the blade in a horizontal arc.
It passed through the air without resistance. No wind. No sound. No visible effect. It passed through the cave wall—through solid limestone—as if the stone were nothing but mist. No cut. No impact. The wall remained exactly as it had been, unmarked and undisturbed. The blade couldn't touch physical matter. That was the first confirmation.
I stepped out of the cave, into the jungle, and found a suitable target: a small mana beast, a Horned Rabbit, nibbling on a patch of clover near the waterfall. A creature with a soul. A living consciousness, however primitive.
I approached silently. The rabbit didn't notice me until I was within striking distance—my Mana Pressure was suppressed, my presence muted. It looked up, its eyes widening with the instinctive terror of prey facing predator, and tried to bolt.
The blade passed through it before it could move.
The rabbit didn't bleed. It didn't scream. It simply... stopped. Its body remained intact, heart still beating, lungs still breathing, but the light behind its eyes went out. The soul had been severed from its anchor. What remained was a body without an animating consciousness, a biological machine running on autopilot with no driver at the wheel. It would continue to breathe, continue to pump blood, continue to function for a time—but it was no longer a living creature. It was a shell. A husk.
I watched the rabbit's empty body twitch on the forest floor, and I felt nothing. No satisfaction. No horror. No pity. The void was silent. The locks held.
So this is Soul Slash. I deactivated the blade, and it dissolved back into my arm, sinking beneath the skin like water into sand. A one-hit kill against any target with a soul. Physical durability is irrelevant. Magical defenses are irrelevant. As long as the target has a soul and I can land a clean strike, they die.
The implications were staggering. A magic knight captain with Stage 0 mana and impenetrable barriers would fall just as easily as a common bandit. A devil with reality-warping powers would be just as vulnerable as a wild animal. The only limitation was range—I needed to close the distance and land a physical slash with the blade—and the possibility that some beings might have soul-based defenses I hadn't encountered yet. But those were solvable problems. Distance could be closed. Defenses could be adapted to.
I walked back to the cave, leaving the rabbit's empty body where it lay. The grimoire floated beside me now, its pages rustling faintly as if stirred by a wind that didn't exist. It had bonded to my soul, and it would follow me wherever I went, a constant companion in the hollow journey ahead.
The Mask would stay on. The village of Hage still saw me as a gentle, grieving orphan with a strange grimoire and a kind smile. That perception was useful. It would get me through the Magic Knights entrance exam. It would get me into the Black Bulls. It would get me close to Yami Sukehiro, close to the secrets of ki and Mana Zone, close to everything I needed to transcend my current limits. And when the mask was no longer necessary—when I had accumulated enough power that public opinion ceased to matter—I would let it fall.
But that day was not today. Today, I had a grimoire. Today, I had Soul Slash. Today, I was one step closer to becoming a force that even the devils of this world would learn to fear.
The Wheel on the grimoire's cover seemed to gleam in the dim light of the cave, its eight spokes radiating outward like the paths of a destiny I was only beginning to understand. I closed the grimoire, tucked it into the satchel at my belt, and walked to the cave mouth.
The jungle waited. The exam waited. The future waited.
And I, Hasegawa Ouga, the boy who had died twice and felt nothing for it, walked forward into the green with a sword in my soul and a wheel on my book, ready to carve my name into the flesh of this world.