Reincarnated as The SSS-Rank Villain Magus: My Arcana Evolution System

Chapter 3. Arcana Evolution System

The glowing text paused.

[Loading Memory...]

The chamber vanished.

So did Ariel and the pain.

For one brief second, there was nothing.

Then...

-BOOM!

A battlefield crashed into existence around me.

Rey’s memory.

I knew it immediately.

I stood somewhere inside him.

Watching through his eyes.

The sky was black.

Not nighttime black.

Burned black.

The land had been ripped apart for kilometers.

Mountains split.

Forests burned.

The air itself trembled under so much mana that every breath felt metallic.

And ahead of us... The Dark Lord was dying.

He was enormous.

A humanoid shape wrapped in broken black armor, kneeling inside a crater.

Half his torso was gone.

One arm had been severed.

His horns were shattered.

But inside his chest...

Something glowed.

A black-red core.

It kept rebuilding him.

Flesh crawled around the wound.

Bone regenerated.

Muscle reformed.

A woman stumbled nearby.

Golden hair stained with blood.

White robes torn almost completely apart.

Elia Seren. The Saintess.

The healer who history remembered as the merciful heart of the Five Heroes.

She was barely standing.

"It keeps regenerating!" she shouted.

The Dark Lord’s chest rebuilt again.

Elia looked at Rey. "Rey! Do something!"

Another figure moved.

Darius Arclight. The Holy Knight.

His golden armor was cracked from shoulder to waist.

Blood covered half his face.

Raven Dusk, the shadow assassin, crouched on the remains of a shattered tower, one arm hanging uselessly.

Garr Holt, the legendary warrior, leaned against a massive sword, breathing hard enough that I could hear every inhale.

They were all injured.

Badly.

Only Rey remained standing properly.

Even he wasn’t fine.

Blood ran down his arm.

His ribs were probably broken.

Mana reserves dangerously low.

But he stepped forward.

Magic circles unfolded around the Dark Lord.

One.

Three.

Seven.

Twelve.

My researcher brain instantly recognized the structure.

Containment.

Soul anchoring.

Core suppression.

Brilliant.

Beautifully constructed despite the battlefield conditions.

Rey raised both hands. "I’m locking his core!"

Black-red energy thrashed against the barriers.

The regeneration stopped.

The Dark Lord screamed.

The sound shook the ruins.

Rey’s voice became strained. "Wait for my count!"

Darius raised his holy sword.

Rey shouted again. "I’ll trap the core first! If you destroy it before I stabilize the mana, we’ll trigger a discharge!"

The core cracked.

Rey gritted his teeth. "Three..."

Darius stepped forward.

"Two—"

Golden light exploded around the Holy Knight’s sword.

My stomach dropped.

Rey’s memory surged with alarm.

"Darius, WAIT—!"

Darius thrust.

The holy blade pierced directly into the Dark Lord’s exposed core.

-CRACK!

Silence.

For perhaps half a heartbeat.

Then the world exploded.

Black energy erupted outward.

Not fire, nor ordinary mana.

Something uglier.

The dying Dark Lord’s magic flooded everything.

Darius reacted first.

A massive golden shield formed around him.

Elia screamed and raised a holy barrier.

Raven disappeared.

Shadow movement.

Instant retreat.

Garr planted his enormous sword into the earth and crouched behind it, aura exploding around his body.

And Rey... Rey couldn’t move.

His hands were still connected to the containment formation.

Twelve magical arrays linked directly through his mana core.

If he released them... The entire core would detonate uncontrolled.

So he held it.

For everyone.

For half a second too long.

The black wave hit him.

I felt it.

Even though this was a memory.

The curse entered through every magical connection Rey had established.

Straight into his mana core.

Into his blood.

His soul.

His mind.

His screams disappeared beneath the explosion.

Then everything went black.

I came back to myself on the floor. "Shit..."

Ariel still held me.

The pain hadn’t stopped.

If anything, remembering its origin seemed to have given it renewed enthusiasm.

My hands trembled against the marble.

Now I understood.

The Dark Lord’s dying curse hadn’t simply infected Rey.

It had latched onto his entire mana structure.

Every spell.

Every channel.

Every emotion.

Every movement of magical energy.

So that was why.

Why Rey became unstable.

Why he began studying increasingly forbidden branches of magic.

History said Rey wanted power.

Bullshit!

The man had been trying to survive.

He wasn’t hunting forbidden knowledge because he wanted to become a monster.

He was looking for a cure. And nobody had found one.

I shut my eyes.

Pain ripped through my chest again.

Ariel pressed her forehead against mine. "Please..." Her voice shook. "Please don’t leave me."

Something tightened inside me.

Not the curse.

Something warmer.

I forced myself to think.

Rey’s curse wasn’t random.

It had a structure.

I could feel it now.

Mana moved through the core. The curse contaminated it. Corruption formed. That corruption damaged the channels. Pain followed. Then the corrupted mana dispersed uselessly.

My breathing slowed.

Ariel noticed. "Rey?"

I barely heard her.

Research mode.

Everything else faded.

Pain was information.

Corruption was energy.

Energy could be transformed.

The original Rey had spent years trying to remove the curse.

That was logical.

It was also wrong.

The curse was too deeply integrated.

Removing it was like removing half the foundation of a tower and expecting the tower to politely remain standing.

So...

Don’t remove it.

Use it.

My eyes opened. "System."

[Listening.]

"Current flow."

[Mana - Corruption - Pain - Mana Loss]

I grinned despite the sweat running down my face. ’As I thought.’

"Don’t eliminate the corruption."

[Clarification required.]

"Convert it."

The pain spiked.

I hissed but continued. "The curse already transforms mana into corrupted energy. So stop trying to suppress the conversion."

I could almost see the magical architecture inside my head.

Redirect channels.

Create secondary circulation.

Filter the damaging component.

Retain the usable energy. "Change the flow."

The system waited.

I spoke each step carefully.

"Mana."

A glowing word appeared.

[Mana]

"Corruption."

[Mana - Corruption]

"Then instead of pain and mana loss... convert the corruption into a separate usable energy."

The system flickered.

"Call it Forbidden Energy."

[Mana - Corruption - Forbidden Energy]

I clenched my fist.

"And then—"

The darkness inside my chest pulsed.

"Power."

The completed structure appeared.

[Mana - Corruption - Forbidden Energy - Power]

For the first time since waking up in this ridiculous era, the system seemed almost excited.

[Concept accepted.]

[Analyzing Host’s magical knowledge...]

[Analyzing Dark Lord’s Curse...]

[Analyzing soul compatibility...]

[Constructing personalized progression system...]

The system flared violently.

Black-violet light exploded around my body.

Ariel threw her arms around me as the chamber shook.

[Understood.]

[System reconstruction complete.]

[Arcana Evolution System acquired.]

I sucked in a breath.

The black veins beneath my skin began glowing.

Notifications appeared rapidly.

[You got three new skills]

[Curse Conversion: Converts corruption generated by the Dark Lord’s Curse into Forbidden Energy.]

[Arcana Injection: Inject Forbidden Energy into an existing spell, creating a corrupted/forbidden variant.]

[Arcana Evolution: After the Host fully understands and repeatedly masters an altered spell, the spell may permanently evolve into a superior form.]

I stared. Then slowly... I smiled.

The Dark Lord had cursed Rey Valen.

History said the madness destroyed him.

Ruined his mind.

Turned the greatest Royal Magus into a monster.

And eventually gave his former teammates the justification they needed to kill him.

Fine.

If this world wanted Rey Valen to become a forbidden magician...

I could work with that.

I dragged in one painful breath. Then whispered, "Curse Conversion."

The skill activated.

[Curse Conversion activated.]

For one second, nothing happened.

Then everything inside me moved.

The black corruption wrapped around my mana core tightened first, and I nearly screamed again. It felt like someone had poured molten iron into my veins.

But instead of spreading outward...

It turned.

Changed direction.

The corrupted mana that had been tearing through my body began flowing into a new channel.

Slowly.

Painfully.

But steadily.

I felt it happen.

The stabbing sensation in my chest weakened.

Not gone.

Just...

Less.

A little less.

Then less again.

Every pulse of corruption that should have shredded my mana channels was compressed, refined, and dragged somewhere deeper inside me.

Something new gathered there.

Dense.

Cold.

Dangerous.

Forbidden Energy.

My breathing became easier.

The violent trembling in my hands slowed.

The dark veins under my skin faded bit by bit. "Oh..."

I stared weakly at my fingers. "So that’s what you feel like."

The new energy responded immediately.

Black-violet sparks curled around my fingertips.

The system flashed.

[Forbidden Energy successfully generated.]

[Forbidden Energy: 37%]

[Curse Stability increased.]

[Curse Stability: 9%]

"Only nine?" I wheezed. "Greedy bastard."

Another notification appeared.

[Curse Conversion has successfully transformed accumulated corruption.]

[Combat adaptation detected.]

[New offensive skill generated.]

[Corruption Bolt: Condense Forbidden Energy into a destructive projectile.]

[Effect: Damages physical matter and disrupts mana circulation.]

I stared at it.

Then laughed.

It was weak.

Breathless.

Probably slightly insane-sounding.

"Hah..."

My ridiculous idea had worked.

Actually worked.

I had taken one of the most infamous curses in recorded history, looked at it for approximately five minutes, and decided the obvious solution was to recycle it.

Excellent.

Good to know dying hadn’t damaged the useful parts of my brain.

I tried to stand up, but my strength vanished.

My body dropped.

I hit the floor on my side like a sack of very handsome magical potatoes.

"Rey!" Ariel caught me before my head struck the stone.

Her arms wrapped around my shoulders.

Then she started crying. She broke.

"Rey... Rey, no..."

Her voice cracked completely.

She pulled me against her chest, trembling so badly that I could feel every shudder.

"Please... please don’t..."

Hot tears landed against my cheek.

She hugged me tighter.

Like I was already slipping away.

Like the man she loved had finally died in her arms.

"Ariel..."

She didn’t hear me.

Or maybe she couldn’t.

"No... no, please..." Her fingers clutched the back of my ruined shirt. "I should have done it... I should have—"

I gathered what little strength remained and wrapped one arm around her waist.

She froze.

I pulled her closer.

Her breath caught.

Then I whispered beside her ear, "I’m here."

Ariel went completely still.

I tightened my arm around her. "I’m still alive."

For a second, she didn’t move.

Then her arms crushed me. "Ow!"

She sobbed harder.

Apparently, mermaid princesses possessed excellent upper-body strength.

Okay, another useful historical detail nobody had bothered writing down.

I closed my eyes and let her hold me.

The curse was still there.

My body felt like I’d been beaten by an entire magical research committee.

But underneath all of it, Forbidden Energy continued circulating.

And after that... Everything turned black.

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