Reincarnated as the Only Male in an All-Girls Magic Academy!
Chapter 46: Life or Death!

Chapter 46: Life or Death!

The pain didn’t stop.

It didn’t lessen.

It didn’t fade.

If anything, it got worse; sharper, heavier, deeper. Not like a knife in his chest or a hammer to the skull.

No, this wasn’t a normal kind of pain. It wasn’t the kind that screamed when you touched a flame or cracked a rib.

This pain was personal. Intimate. It clawed through his nerves, burned through his thoughts, and screamed through every part of his soul like it wanted him to die, but not quickly. Not yet.

Ren lay sprawled across the smooth floor of his dorm, his limbs twitching ever so slightly, but otherwise paralyzed.

His breathing was ragged, shallow, and uneven like his lungs were running some panicked rhythm his brain couldn’t control.

His left eye pulsed violently, glowing faintly red, as if the rune embedded deep inside it had turned into a living furnace.

Every time it pulsed, another ripple of unbearable agony rolled across his skull, spine and soul.

His thoughts, once sharp and analytical, were now getting harder to hold onto. Like he was trying to think clearly while being electrocuted.

But still... he fought.

He clenched his jaw so hard that his teeth ached. His fingers curled slightly, barely scraping across the floorboard.

He pushed against the pain not with strength, because his body had none left, but with willpower so absurdly stubborn that it bordered on the supernatural.

’Move. Move, damn it. Get up. Crawl. Do something. Do anything!’ He screamed those commands inside his mind again and again and again...

But nothing.

His legs felt like statues.

His arms like wet noodles.

And worst of all, his soul... felt like it was cracking.

It was like someone had chained his spirit down and was slowly trying to tear it in half, piece by piece.

His vision started to blur again, not from exhaustion, but from sheer overload. His brain was starting to go fuzzy.

His mind felt like it was being squeezed through a funnel. And the rune in his left eye only pulsed harder, as if it was feeding off his suffering.

The worst part? It wasn’t even malicious.

It was like a newborn creature, wild and unstable, screaming because it didn’t know how to survive inside him.

He should’ve panicked. He really, really wanted to panic. But instead, he took a slow breath that was barely a whisper through bloodied lips and tried to think.

’Think, Ren. THINK. You’re a scientist. A planner. A fighter. Think!’

His thoughts were sluggish now, like trudging through quicksand, but he pieced it together with effort that could’ve moved mountains.

’I can’t move. My body won’t respond. That’s the soul paralysis part of the seizure. My motor functions are offline, like my wiring is fried.’

He sucked in another shallow breath, gritting his teeth as the rune flared again and made his vision split in half.

’I need help. But I can’t move to get it. That means someone else has to come here. So I have to yell... scream... make noise. Surely, I can simply open my mouth and release all this pain through my vocal cords.’

That thought alone brought a tiny flicker of hope, and he reached deep into his gut, summoned every shred of strength he had left, and tried to scream.

"H... HHHHHH—!!"

Nothing.

Just a pathetic little whimper. Like the dying gasp of a squashed mouse. It wasn’t even close to a scream!

"Help," he whispered again, his tongue barely moving.

Still nothing.

’Damn it. Damn it, COME ON! Scream! Someone has to hear me!’

’His dorm wasn’t sound proofed from the girls’ side. Someone should be close enough to hear. Anyone at all.

But no matter how hard he tried to scream, his body wouldn’t obey.

It wasn’t weakness.

It wasn’t fear.

It was his soul refusing to transmit commands to his nerves. He was a disconnected puppet now, aware of his own dying body.

’Come on...’ he thought, tears of frustration leaking from his burning eyes. ’Just—move something. Please...’

A wet drip landed near his ear.

Then another.

He blinked, vision swimming, and realized it was blood.

A thin line ran from his left nostril. Another from his right ear. Then more from his lips. Even his tear ducts wept red now.

Blood was leaking from every orifice, a terrifying sign to anyone who had studied even basic soul theory.

’This is bad... this is beyond bad!’

Soul seizures weren’t common, but when they happened, especially at this level, they were catastrophic.

They meant the soul had been forced into a violent rejection cycle. His own body and soul were in a full-blown civil war, and if it kept going... his spirit could be shattered. Irreparably.

’I don’t want to die like this...’ he thought hoarsely.

He wanted to scream. Cry. Curse. Beg. But none of those instincts mattered anymore.

He coughed, and a little blood spattered across his arm.

No. Stop it. Don’t go there. Think. THINK.

And then... it hit him.

The Evolution Forge!

If he could just enter the Evolution Forge, he could manually force a rune compatibility evolution.

It was a risky theory, but if it worked, it would stabilize the rune in his eye and stop the seizure.

He had read that increasing compatibility drastically reduced backlash and made runes blend better with the soul.

’But how do I get into the forge?’

That was the real problem.

You could only enter the Evolution Forge by falling asleep or being unconscious, and right now, he was in too much in agony to rest.

His eyes widened with horror as another wave of soul pain washed over him, and his body spasmed uncontrollably.

He felt it, this was it. The tipping point. The final warning.

His soul was teetering on the edge of critical failure.

He was bleeding. Trembling. Alone.

Unable to scream. Unable to move.

Even his mind was starting to shut down.

’I’m dying... aren’t I?’

The blood from his eyes made his vision red.

The pain in his soul made it all fade to static.

And just before he blacked out completely, a single, desperate thought echoed through his crumbling mind:

What if no one finds me in time?

.....

Darkness, total, absolute, and silent like the inside of a coffin was all that surrounded Ren.

No pain. No sound. No heartbeat. Just the void.

And then, like a bubble popping underwater, he opened his eyes to the faint white glow of the Evolution Forge.

He blinked rapidly, confused, dazed, but still breathing.

The smooth white walls, the smooth polished floors and sterile furniture. He was back. Inside the Forge!

His body was whole again, or at least it felt that way. No more blood dripping from his eyes. No unbearable pulsing from the rune in his skull.

He could stand, breathe, move. For a split second, the silence was almost comforting. But then...

His eyes narrowed.

"...No. Wait."

If he was back here, that only meant three things. And none of them were particularly comforting.

Option one: somehow, someway, he had fallen asleep through all that god-awful pain. Not likely.

The agony had been so raw, so intense, that sleep felt like a joke. If anything, it would’ve ripped sleep out of his soul just for trying.

Option two: he had passed out from the pain, which was far more believable.

The kind of pain he had experienced wasn’t something even top-ranked warriors survived without heavy treatment.

Passing out wasn’t weakness, it was biology saying, "Yeah, I’m done, good luck with that."

Option three... and this one gave him chills: he had died. Like, full-on, heart-stopped, game-over dead.

But instead of his consciousness vanishing or floating off to some magical afterlife, it had somehow been dragged right back here, to the Evolution Forge.

He slowly inhaled. "I really hope it’s not door number three."

But there was no time to waste. Either he was unconscious with a timer ticking down on his physical body, or his body was already a bleeding corpse back in the dorm room, waiting for his soul to either fade out or do something miraculous.

Either way, he had one job:

Save himself.

The Forge, as always, stood ready. The red evolution crystal laid lazily above the white shelf like a bored cat watching him struggle.

It pulsed softly, almost mockingly, as if it already knew he had no idea what to do next.

Ren didn’t panic.

Instead, he went full scientist mode.

’First, isolate the problem: the soul seizure is happening because the evolved rune is not compatible with my body or spirit.’

’Before, it was fine as a palm rune. But after evolution, it relocated into my left eye, and whatever change that caused broke the harmony between it and my soul.’

He paced quickly in a circle, muttering to himself, eyes darting.

’So, what’s the fix? I can’t evolve my soul directly. Already tried that a dozen times. The forge always says the red evolution crystal level is too low. I’d need a higher-tier crystal to even touch that.’

He grimaced. That had been his first hope, just evolve the soul, make it stronger, more durable, maybe more flexible to the rune’s new form. But nope. Too ambitious.

That leaves one thing; rune compatibility.

It wasn’t a physical thing, not like a weapon or a rune sigil he could hold in his hands. But in the Forge’s laws, anything that existed could be evolved.

That was the beauty of the place. It didn’t care if something was abstract. It just asked: "Is it real?" and if the answer was yes, it could be changed.

Rune compatibility exists. It affects how well a Carver can use a rune and its resonance. So if I evolve mine, maybe I can make my body and soul more in sync with the rune.

If the compatibility improves enough, the pain should stop. The seizure should stop.

It made perfect sense... on paper.

Ren didn’t hesitate. He marched up to the red crystal, inhaled slowly, and mentally willed his rune compatibility with the Umbral Kinephantom panther rune to enter it.

He extended a hand.

The forge trembled slightly as a stream of symbols appeared faintly on the walls, scrolling like a vertical waterfall of code.

The red crystal flared bright, and then... flickered.

Nothing entered it.

Ren’s eyes widened.

"...No. Wait. No no no—try again!"

He focused harder, willing it to work.

’Add compatibility of Stage 1 Umbral Kinephantom Panther rune to the red evolution crystal!’

Another pulse.

The crystal turned dim.

No entry. No evolution list. Not even an error message.

His stomach dropped. He felt ice crawl up his spine as his heart began pounding again, not with adrenaline this time, but dread.

’No, no, no—WHY isn’t it working? It exists! I’m sure rune compatibility exists! They’re right there in the book Lia bought me!’

He turned toward the forge again and glared at it like a kid staring at a vending machine that ate his last coin.

"I’m not asking for a soul evolution! Just a small adjustment! A simple upgrade! I’m dying out there! This isn’t the time to be picky!"

Nothing.

The forge remained silent. Cold. Unbothered.

Ren’s legs gave out, and he dropped to his knees, panting, eyes wide.

His thoughts spun like a blender on high speed. He was running out of time. He just knew he was running out of time.

His physical body was probably seconds away from full soul collapse. Blood from every orifice. A cracked soul. Pain like a thousand needles shredding through his bones.

And now, his one shot, his one miracle space was telling him it couldn’t help!

"I’m gonna die," he said quietly. "For real."

He stared at his hands, shaking now.

This is it. I finally reach Adept. I start to make progress. I have friends. I have a future. And I’m going to die in a pool of my own blood in my room like a side character from a horror novel because I got too curious and didn’t consider the damn probably rating before evolving the rune.

And then...

A final thought came to him.

"...Wait."