Damn Reincarnation

e was even prepared to die a few more times.

But, there were too many uncertainties about the success of this ritual.
For example, the Black Dragon’s sinister intent that had polluted the entire land within the Rainforest.
Edmond was confident that he would actually be able to make use of it and keep it under control, but Hector, who was ignorant of magic, had difficulties sympathizing with his confidence.

And was that all? It was also hard to believe that the dubious Dungeon Master of the Desert was being transparent in her cooperation with Edmond.

“Amelia and I are not enemies,” Edmon said reassuringly as he stroked his beard and laughed.
“Instead… we’re actually in a position to cooperate with each other for the sake of our respective desires.
Listen carefully, Hector.
For a magician, their secret desire is an ideal that must be achieved, even if it means putting their entire life’s work into fulfilling it.
Still, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that requires them to compete with other wizards for it.”

“Is that the case?” Hector said with a frown.

“After all, the direction that our respective desires take us isn’t necessarily the same.
That’s why Amelia and I are able to cooperate so amicably.
After fulfilling my secret desire with Amelia’s help, I have made a promise to help Amelia with fulfilling hers,” Edmond revealed.

He and Amelia had known each other for a very long time.
The two were well aware of how vastly different the aims of their respective desires were.
There was no reason for either of them to betray the other when it came to this matter.

“I helped her in the creation of that Death Knight,” Edmond added.
“I’ve only borrowed it temporarily to reinforce our forces here.
Once everything is over, that Death Knight will be returned to Amelia once more.
Also, when Amelia wishes for it, I will offer her my help.”

Eventually, Hector said, “I know what your secret desire is.
However, I don’t know what Amelia Merwin’s secret desire is.”

Edmond replied, “Her secret desire is quite complex, but… to put it simply, Amelia wants strength.”

“Strength?” Hector repeated in confusion.

Even if Edmond was trying to abbreviate his explanation, wasn’t that a bit too short? As such, Hector couldn’t understand what Edmond meant by those words.
In the first place, it was questionable that a wizard on the same level as Amelia Merwin would desire even more strength.

“A great amount of strength,” Edmond clarified with a smile as he stood up.
“As I’m not her, it would be impolite for me to elaborate any further on the nature of her secret desire.
However, you should also be able to see why we are working together.
Once everything in this forest is completed, I will… haha, I will become a helper who can provide the great strength that Amelia requires.”

“Can you really succeed?” Hector asked with a worried expression.

Edmond’s smile deepened, and his voice grew more forceful, “Of course.
All variables have been taken into account.”

Eward Lionheart had obtained a spell from the Remnants of the Demon Kings.
It could reconstruct the soul and create a new body.

Eward had almost succeeded in becoming a being comparable to a Demon King by taking in the Remnants of the Demon Kings and transcending into a Spirit King of Darkness.

However, he had failed.
Eward himself was the biggest variable.
It was all because a snot-nosed brat like him had gotten his hands on far more power than he could control.

The evil intent of the Demon Kings that had decayed into those Remnants had desired the blood and soul of the Lionheart clan’s main line as a sacrifice due to their hatred for the hero, Vermouth.

Yes, something like that was all that they needed.

If you thought about it differently, it actually would be surprising if Eward could have completed the transformation of the Remnants of the Demon Kings and become a new Demon King with just that number of sacrifices.
To a certain extent, it was because Eward had had the Remnants of the Demon Kings working with him.

However, Edmond had neither a Spirit of Darkness nor any Remnant of the Demon Kings.

Even so, Edmond would not fail.

He knew the function of the spell.
He had repurposed and supplemented the entire ritual.
The large scale of the spell itself was an indication of just how special Edmond’s plans for it were….
A large number of sacrifices would be required, but even if the last remaining seeds of the natives in this forest were to dry up, the eyes of the continent wouldn’t be drawn to this place immediately.

‘What great luck,’ Edmond had celebrated when he copied the spell from Hector’s memory.

While feeling like he had been blessed by the God that he didn’t even believe in, Edmond was delighted by the results of that night.
This was a spell that Edmond himself hadn’t been able to complete even after decades of research spent pursuing it.
He never thought that he would actually be able to receive assistance from the Remnants of the Demon Kings who had died three hundred years ago.

His luck didn’t stop there.
Edmond had always wondered where the Black Dragon Raizakia, one of the Three Dukes, a powerful existence of such caliber, could have disappeared to.
He would never have thought that all traces of Raizakia’s presence would have been embedded into this land.

‘It was also a huge turn of luck that the grave of that stupid lizard happened to be here,’ Edmond thought with satisfaction.

Raizakia’s evil intent had thoroughly polluted this land.
In actuality, it seemed that instead of dying, Raizakia was wandering around in a dimensional rift somewhere, but happily, that just made it easier for Edmond to make use of these circumstances.
When the land of the Rainforest was used as the base for his spell, it would draw in Raizakia’s dark power as well as the power of the leylines below.

Countless souls would also be offered as sacrifices, and Edmond had become the Staff of Incarceration due to being valued for his magical power.
He could also draw on the dark power stored within Vladmir, which had been crafted using a whole Dragonheart.
On top of that, he would even be drawing on the dark power of Raizakia, an Ancient Dragon turned Demon Dragon!

There was no way he could fail with all these on his side.
That said, Edmond wasn’t going to rush anything.
For the sake of perfect success, human bone towers were still being built throughout the Rainforest, even now, to serve as catalysts for the ritual.
They would create streams of blood with the ability to bind souls that would flow through the whole forest.

‘Theoretically, I’ll even be able to absorb the power of the World Tree and make it my own,’ Edmond thought greedily.

If Eward’s ritual had succeeded, he could have become a Demon King, but it still would have been pretty close.
For Eward to actually become a Demon King, it would have required the best-case scenario.

Once this ritual was successful, Edmond would be reborn as a being even greater than a Demon King.
He would obtain the power of a true greater Demon King, not one of the lower-ranking Demon Kings.

Edmond would abandon his existence as a weak, mediocre, and grossly overpopulated human being and become a greater Demon King, one that was completely in tune with its nature.

He had no regrets about leaving behind his life as a human.
Should he be reborn as a greater Demon King or remain a human? Was there even a need to consider the question? Edmond was confident in his success, and he had the ability to make it happen.

“If it’s me, then I can surely do it,” Edmond muttered with a self-assured smile.

This was a declaration of his confidence.
Hector quietly followed behind Edmond, keeping his head bowed.

‘This will change everything,’ Hector silently thought to himself.

He would no longer be forced to live the life of a collateral bloodline whose abilities would never receive the full recognition they deserved.

Hector had never been one to rest on his laurels, but he hadn’t had the ability needed to overturn the Lionhearts, an immense and prestigious clan of warriors, so he had restrained himself.
Even though he was praised as the best among all the collateral bloodlines, his heart had always felt empty.
No matter how much acknowledgment he received, Hector felt that, in the end, he was just a member of a collateral bloodline.
Someone who would never be in a position to learn the White Flame Formula that their great ancestor had passed down.

While he was wandering around with this aching hole in his heart, Hector was contacted by Edmond.
Edmond had recognized Hector’s ability and had shown him a future that he would never be able to achieve by himself.

Edmond told Hector that if he couldn’t receive the recognition he craved from his clan, he should just abandon them.
Instead of the Lionhearts of the continent, Hector could proudly erect a new Lionheart clan in Helmuth.
The history of the Lionheart clan, which was over three hundred years old, would become insignificant tales in the era of the new Demon King.

Even as these two were dreaming up pictures of their future, full of confidence, battles were taking place all throughout the forest.

Warriors of the Kochilla Tribe, who were wearing masks made from human skin, were raiding the lesser tribes.
Whenever these raiding parties had too many hostages to bring back to the tribe, they reduced the number of their prisoners with impromptu massacres.
These warriors followed the practices that Edmond had thoroughly trained in them.

They would cut the hostages’ chests open with black magic daggers that they had been given and pull out the hearts while their victims were still alive.
Then, without needing anyone to draw the blood, the dagger would guide the blood from the sacrifices and use the harvested blood as another cog of the ritual.

The blood would seep down into the soil.
Gathering deep underground, the blood would start flowing like an underground water vein.

After that, the warriors would chop up the corpses whose souls had been stripped from them, dig out the bones, and use them to build a tower….

“As I thought,” a man muttered as he crouched down on a site where such a massacre had taken place.

In a village that was overflowing with blood, the man wearing a hooded robe stood up.
He approached the tall human bone tower that had been erected at the center of the village and examined it while rubbing his chin.

“I’ve got a good idea of how you reinterpreted the spell.
Edmond, as your friend, I can’t help but admire your sense of magic,” the man distractedly complimented.

It was Balzac Ludbeth.
He knew what the purpose of these human bone towers was.
These towers weren’t just totems that the natives from the Kochilla Tribe had constructed out of cruelty.
These human bone towers would connect to the rivers of blood flowing underground and guide them to flow in the right direction.

“This is a spell that I would never dare to think of, let alone actually attempt,” Balzac admitted to himself with a wry smile.

Although they might be called by the shared title of the Three Mages of Incarceration, it was Edmond Codreth who possessed the greatest ability as a wizard.

That was why Edmond had been named the Staff of Incarceration and had been bestowed with Vladmir.

Balzac was aware that he fell far short of Edmond as a wizard.
He had managed to reconfirm that just now.
In the first place, as a black wizard, Balzac Ludbeth didn’t have any particular advantage or strength when compared to Amelia and Edmond.

Nevertheless, the Demon King of Incarceration had still signed a contract with Balzac.
In other words, Balzac had to have a talent that was worthy of catching the great Demon King’s eyes.

Balzac himself was well aware of what this talent was.
He had been aware of it for a long time now, from back when he was still a member of the Blue Tower of Magic.

Balzac Ludbeth was good at deception.