Damn Reincarnation

t had died, Carmen Lionheart was the only living person who had reached the Seventh Star of the White Flame Formula.

To put it simply, Carmen was the strongest person in the Lionhearts.

‘Wait, is she also using the Lightning Flame?’ Eugene thought as he realized what had happened.

The part of the Lightning Flame that had been tying Iris up was also concentrated in Carmen’s iron cannon shooter.
The circuit engraved on the surface of the cannon shooter lighted up.
Iris’ eye shone in black light.

Thuuud!

Carmen’s attack was different from before.
Yet, Iris felt an immense shock — her darkness burst.
Iris had used her darkness passage to diffuse the power of Carmen’s attack, but it was still powerful.
The shock spread throughout Iris’ entire body, breaking her teeth and bursting her eyeball.

Iris flew backward.
Carmen had created a chance for Eugene to attack, and Eugene didn’t want to miss this opportunity.

Eugene grabbed the Moonlight Sword’s handle inside the Cloak.
Right now, Eugene saw a possibility of killing her with the Moonlight Sword.
Iris was flying away like a puppet without strings.

Hamel had won and survived as he went through numerous battles 300 years ago.

Therefore, he knew that a rash conclusion during battles equaled a sword shoved into his throat.
Letting go of the Moonlight Sword, Eugene held Akasha.

Carmen had developed her intuition to a clairvoyant level, but unlike Eugene, she lacked the experience of surviving life-and-death battles.
Although Carmen’s power was respectable, she spent her whole life in the age of peace, where Demon Kings and humans didn’t try to exterminate each other’s kind.

That was why she hadn’t sensed something was wrong and just marched forward.

‘Blast Form. Gigant Impact.’ Carmen thought.

She knew her attacks had worked.
The power of her attacks was lessened while trying to break through Iris’ darkness barriers and having been diffused by Iris’ darkness passage.
Still, she had successfully destroyed Iris’ innards.

Carmen saw a chance of victory.
Although she wasn’t sure whether or not her body would be able to take it, she knew she could kill the Rakshasa Princess if she took a few more steps forward.
The question of what would happen after she killed the Rakshasa Princess crossed Carmen’s mind, but she concluded that there was nothing to worry about.
The Rakshasa Princess was the one to instigate the fight.
Besides, the Rakshasa Princess and her Fury Independence Army were problems for Helmuth too.
So Carmen would have no problem if she killed the Rakshasa Princess right here.

‘For the Lionhearts’ honor.’ Carmen solemnly thought.

The Lionhearts’ honor was now in the gutter.
Killing the Rakshasa Princess was the best starting point to pull out the clan’s honor from the drain.

Creak.

Carmen’s right arm changed its form.
She really wanted to speak the names, but there was no time to speak them out.

‘Form Change.
Destiny Form.
Destiny Breaker….’

Woosh!

She should be shortening the distance between her and Iris, but she got further away from Iris.

‘What’s going on? Wasn’t I stepping forward? My sense of distance is all jumbled up. Why did I catch on late?’ Carmen thought in perplexity.

That was because she could never imagine Eugene, who was fighting on the same side as her, would use subspace magic and grab her nape to pull her backward.

“Why—”

Before Carmen could form a sentence….

Craaackkk!

…a pitch-black darkness sphere rose up in the space where Carmen was trying to move forward.
The darkness summoned by Iris all appeared abruptly, but Carmen and Eugene could avoid it since there was a telltale sign — Iris’ demoneye glowed before she used her power.

However, the darkness showed up without any telltale sign this time.
Besides, the darkness right now had a completely different property from the previous darknesses that had appeared beforehand.
Carmen could feel it even though she hadn’t touched it.

If she hadn’t stopped — no, if she had kept marching forward, she would have died without realizing the reason.

“…Tsk.” Iris clicked her tongue in discontentment.

Iris had stopped flying when she crashed against her darkness, bending her upper body backward.
Iris leaned forward, her bones creaking.
Her eye had burst, so her eye socket was empty.
However, blood and darkness were whirling in her empty eye socket.

“Are you a lucky one, or do you just have a great instinct?” Iris spoke, but blood dripped out of her mouth the entire time she talked.
Then, chuckling, she leaned against her darkness.

“It’s a pity.
I could have crushed you into a meat pie if I had been just a little bit faster.”

The darkness sphere, which had previously appeared, popped and disappeared.
Slowly sliding down the wall, Iris stared at Carmen and Eugene.

“Princess,” One of the dark elves spoke, standing outside Iris’ darkness.
“We are out of time.”

“It hasn’t been that long.
It’s just been ten minutes, right?”

“They are already approaching.”

“This country is uselessly safe.” Iris stood up, clicking her tongue.
As she stood, she could feel her legs had weakened slightly.
Still, she didn’t stagger and stood upright, using all her remaining energy.

‘Interesting,’ Iris thought.

Humans had put her in a tight spot.
The humans were younger than Yagon, the motherfucker and the Demon King of Incarceration’s three demons.
Instead of feeling humiliated, Iris felt ecstatic about this.

Feeling her tired eyes, she blinked as she giggled.
Then, her exploded eye regenerated, and her crushed teeth grew back.

“I’m guessing our negotiation has broken down, huh?” Iris spoke brightly.

Eugene could feel Iris’ desire to kill him and Carmen had subsided.
Shrugging, she gestured at the dark elves behind her.
One of the dark elves approached, putting a cigarette between Iris’ fingers and lighting it up with a golden lighter.

“Or shall we sit at the table and begin negotiating again?” Iris asked, blowing the smoke.

“I can try talking to your successor if you would just let me kill you,” Eugene calmly answered.

“It is difficult for me to grant your wish.
The Fury Independence Army means something because I, the rightful heir of my father, exist.”

The dark elves gathered around Iris.
One dark elf took off her suit jacket and put it around Iris’ shoulder since Iris’ clothes were as good as rags now.

“Eugene Lionheart and Carmen Lionheart,” Iris called as she savored the cigarette smoke in her mouth, holding the cigarette that had burnt away in an instant.

“Let’s meet under sunlight, not in a musty basement.” When she dropped her cigarette, Iris and the ten dark elves dropped to the darkness underneath their feet.
Using the darkness as a passage, all dark elves disappeared from this basement.

‘…She didn’t have the power to do this 300 years ago.’ Eugene thought as the moment when Carmen almost got crushed by Iris’ darkness sphere came to his mind.

The darkness on the floor turned back to natural shadow, not Iris’ darkness.

Glaring at the shadow, Eugene was absorbed in thoughts.

‘It is a shocking improvement, Iris.
You could only shoot and move fast 300 years ago, but I now see that you have gotten pretty good at close combat.
On top of that, you can use new abilities with your demoneye.
You must have trained a lot to become a Demon King.’ 

Eugene chuckled as he pulled out his index finger from the karambit knife.

“I’m lucky,” Eugene concluded.

He didn’t have to feel bad about failing to kill Iris in this basement.
Actually, Iris was the one who should feel bad about today’s battle.
Maybe, she was certain she could surely kill both Eugene and Carmen if the third party hadn’t interfered.

Although for a different reason, Eugene was also confident.
In fact, he had become more certain as he fought against her — no matter what he did today, he wouldn’t have been able to kill Iris.
If Eugene had kept fighting, he surely would have needed to devise an escape plan.

However, Iris had retreated even before he tried.
Their fight was short, but Eugene had learned about the new power of Iris’ demoneye; she definitely couldn’t have done all that 300 years ago.

To sum up, Eugene had learned about the current Iris, but Iris didn’t know much about Eugene.
He thought he made a great choice of not pulling out his Moonlight Sword, Demon Spear, or the Annihilation Hammer.
This would be Eugene’s greatest advantage the next time he tried to kill Iris.

“…Phew.” Carmen changed her Heaven Genocide into a pocket watch again.

“…Are you all right?” Eugene asked as he looked at Carmen’s bloody right arm.
Without answering, Carmen flicked her fingers in a certain direction, making her coat fly back to her.
When Carmen first entered the basement, the coat had fallen off her shoulders, unable to keep up with Carmen’s speed.

“…You helped me,” Carmen spoke as she put her coat around her.

“Don’t mind it.”

“I would have died if you didn’t pull me away.”

“I was behind you, so I could see the bigger picture.”

‘That was all it took for him to figure it out?’

Carmen couldn’t really understand it, but she didn’t pry any further.
She wasn’t able to feel her drooping right arm.
Therefore Carmen pulled out her cigar with her left hand and put it in her mouth.

“…Lighter,” Camen spoke out of the blue.

“Pardon?” Eugene asked back.

“The golden lighter used by the dark elf just now.
It made a sound when she opened it.”

“…Ah, yup,” Eugene half-heartedly said.

“I wanted to ask where she bought it.”

“…Lady Carmen, you don’t light your cigar.”

“I might want to light it someday,” Carmen mumbled as she turned away.