The moon hung high over the suburban sprawl, casting long, silver shadows across Moha's bedroom. Inside, the "Angel of the Household" was not sleeping.
Moha stood stripped to the waist in front of the full-length mirror, his eyes narrowed in a cold, clinical appraisal of his new vessel. In his previous life, his body had been a roadmap of violence: jagged scars from jagged blades, the dull sheen of burn tissue, and muscles corded like steel cables. He had been a weapon forged in the gutters.
Now, he was a masterpiece of a different kind.
"Disgusting," Moha hissed, though his reflection told a different story.
He was breathtaking. His skin had the translucent quality of fine alabaster, unmarred by even a single freckle. His collarbones were elegant, framing a slender neck that looked far too easy to snap. But it was the face that truly unnerved him. Even without the "performative cuteness" he used as a weapon, his features possessed a haunting, ethereal beauty. His eyes were huge, fringed by lashes so thick they looked artificial, and his lips were naturally flushed a soft, bruised crimson.
In this world, he wasn't just a boy; he was a high-tier genetic lottery winner. He was the kind of "resource" that powerful women would fight to own, trade, and display.
He flexed his arm. Nothing. The bicep was a soft, decorative curve. He tried to throw a punch—a move that, in his old body, would have shattered a man's jaw. Here, his fist traveled through the air with the weight of a falling leaf. There was no torque, no explosive power. His center of gravity was high, his bones felt like glass, and his lung capacity was pathetic.
He was, by all physical metrics, a decorative doll.
"I am a grape," Moha muttered, his face twisting into a silent, hideous snarl that looked utterly alien on such a beautiful canvas. "A soft, succulent grape waiting to be squashed by some titan in high heels."
He sat cross-legged on the floor, the hard wood pressing against his underdeveloped glutes. He had heard the women talking about Mana. They spoke of it as a biological certainty—something that flowed through their veins like oxygen, powered by the "Stellar Core" located near the heart. In all the schoolbooks he had skimmed earlier that day, the consensus was absolute: Males lack the spiritual conductivity to manifest Mana.
"The 'consensus' can kiss my pale, pampered ass," Moha growled.
The Descent into the Void
Moha closed his eyes. In his old life, he had practiced a form of meditative sociopathy—a way to silence the noise of the world and focus entirely on the rhythm of his own malice. He began to breathe, slow and deep, forcing his heart rate to drop until it was a rhythmic thud in a silent ocean.
He searched inward.
Initially, there was nothing but the warmth of his own blood. But Moha was a man who had spent hours waiting in dark closets for a target to walk by; he knew how to wait. He pushed his consciousness deeper, past the muscles, past the organs, down into the very marrow of his being.
There.
Deep within the center of his chest, he felt a flicker. It wasn't the roaring furnace the textbooks described in women. It was a cold, stagnant pool. It felt like mercury—heavy, silver, and utterly still. It wasn't "active" because there were no channels for it to flow through. In men, these pathways were supposedly vestigial, like the appendix.
"Wake up," Moha commanded.
He visualized his will as a jagged, rusted hook. He reached into that pool of mercury and began to stir.
THUMP.
His heart lurched. A sudden, searing pain shot through his ribs. It felt like someone was pouring molten lead into his veins. His "feminine" nervous system, unaccustomed to the violent pressure of spiritual energy, began to scream.
Moha didn't stop. He leaned into the pain. He loved the pain. Pain was the only thing that felt familiar in this pastel-colored nightmare.
"Flow, you coward!" he gasped, his teeth grinding together so hard they creaked.
He forced the mercury out of the pool and into the narrow, withered channels of his arms. The sensation was agonizing. It felt like his veins were being threaded with barbed wire. His skin began to glow—not with the steady, blue light of the foster mother, but with a flickering, sickly pale violet.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open. The room looked different. He could see the dust motes in the air, each one vibrating with a faint hum of energy. He could hear the heartbeat of his father in the next room, the rhythmic snoring of his foster sisters down the hall.
He raised his hand. Small sparks of violet static danced between his fingertips.
Crack-pop.
A small burst of energy jumped from his thumb to the wooden floor, leaving a tiny, blackened scorch mark.
Moha's face broke. It didn't just smile; it underwent a catastrophic structural failure of "cuteness." His eyes rolled back, his jaw unhinged, and he began to shake with silent, rhythmic tremors of laughter.
"They said it was impossible," he whispered, his voice cracking. "They said the boys were just... vessels. Just batteries for the 'Goddesses' to drain."
He looked at the scorch mark. It was pathetic—hardly enough to kill a fly. A Tier 1 female student could have leveled the room with a sneeze. But it was there. He had broken the first law of this world.
The Face of the New Devil
He stood up, his legs feeling like jelly, and returned to the mirror.
The violet glow was fading, but his eyes... they hadn't changed back. They remained sharp, the pupils elongated like a cat's. He looked at his beautiful, fragile face and realized the potential of his new existence.
If a woman saw a man with Mana, she would see a threat to the natural order. She would see a monster to be contained or destroyed.
But if she saw the most beautiful, most submissive, most "pure" boy in the world... she would let him get close. She would invite him into her sanctum. She would let him stand behind her while she slept.
"I am a doll," Moha said to his reflection, his voice a melodic purr. "A beautiful, perfect, magical doll."
He practiced his "coy" look. He tilted his head, letting his hair fall over one eye, and gave a shy, breathtakingly innocent smile. To anyone else, it was the image of a young boy dreaming of his future husband.
But behind that smile, Moha was calculating the voltage required to stop a human heart from the inside out.
"Tomorrow is the Inspection," he reminded himself.
He needed to be chosen. He needed to get out of this suburban cage and into the halls of power. He needed to find the source of this "Mana" and see if he could drink the whole well dry.
He reached out and touched the mirror. "Step-mother. Vex. Sarah. You all think you're the ones with the leashes."
He leaned in until his breath fogged the glass, masking his face.
"But I'm the one who decides when the walk is over."
He spent the rest of the night in that room, not sleeping, but meticulously "stretching" his new Mana veins. Every time the energy flowed, he felt like he was being flayed alive, but he welcomed it. He forged those narrow paths through sheer, psychopathic stubbornness.
By dawn, he was exhausted, his body trembling with fatigue. But as the first light of the sun hit the floor, Moha didn't look tired. He looked hungry.
He put on his best, most frilly shirt. He brushed his hair until it shone like silk. He even put a tiny bit of clear gloss on his lips, just as his "father" had taught him for special occasions.
He walked downstairs, the smell of breakfast wafting through the house.
"Good morning, Papa," Moha said, entering the kitchen with a radiant, saintly glow.
His father dropped a spatula, staring at him. "Moha! You... you look... luminous! My goodness, the Academy scouts are going to lose their minds! You look like a literal angel descended from the heavens!"
Moha lowered his gaze, blushing with a precision that was terrifying. "I just want to make you proud, Papa. I want to be useful."
Inside, the Butcher was sharpening his knives. The Inspection was about to begin, and Moha Stalloni was ready to be the best "prize" the world had ever seen.
But as he sat down to eat his porridge, a small, violet spark flickered deep within his iris—a tiny, hidden promise of the carnage to come.
Let the goddesses come, he thought. I've always wanted to see if a deity can bleed.