The room suddenly went silent. Revy's plain brown eyes widened to cartoonish proportions upon hearing the hostility in Batain's voice. Lisa appeared shocked as well, flinching back.

"What do you mean, my lord?" Her voice seemed to express genuine surprise.

"Stop telling me to do shit." Batain raised his finger at her.

At that, Lisa's voice took on a soothing, nearly patronizing tone, as if she was speaking to a child. "Sorry if I offended you. It was never my intention and I most humbly apologize." The tone combined with Batain's finger pointing made the dynamic obvious to even Revy whose eyes dimmed as he watched Batain's shameful childishness unfold.

Upon hearing Lisa's response, Batain put his finger down and seemed to sit. However, impossibly fast, he was behind Lisa with his sword out. The woman's eyes widened before she smirked, turning around just as fast, her mana rising to block the apparent attack.

However, all she saw was Batain's shocked face. Originally, her smile widened, as she thought it was at her speed, but it was clear he was looking past her. Instinctually, she turned her head to see... black.

Batain pulled his fist back from where it had violently kissed Lisa's jaw. "Stupid bitch." There had been nothing behind her aside from Revy who'd been knocked down by the blast required for Batain to move at such speeds.

It was the oldest trick in the book.

Batain looked past Lisa's, now unconscious, body and focused on Revy. The kid truly seemed to be in shock.

He decided to ignore him for the time being as he was now faced with an annoying issue. He obviously intended to take Lisa, Marie, and Lucas back to Guilm but now they were all unconscious. He'd already tried waking Lucas up on the way here, dropping on his head even, but he didn't budge. He'd think the kid was dead if it wasn't for his breathing.

Waking one of the women up would be stupid, especially after he'd put in so much effort to knock them unconscious. It looked like he'd have to carry all of them.

His baggy eyes briefly lit up as he looked back towards Revy. "Hey, kid. Smack Lucas for me", he prompted as he gestured towards Lucas' unconscious form.

Revy, still a bit addled from the impact, both mental and physical, tripped when he got up. Only after stabilizing himself for a few seconds did he go over to Lucas. Just before doing it, he stopped, realizing what he'd been told to do.

"Slap him.. and slap him hard too."

Revy only barely questioned it before deciding to follow along, excitement catching flame in his stomach. His hand came down upon Lucas' small face with swift merciless force. Batain nodded in appreciation of the resounding smack sound.

After waiting a few seconds, Batain sighed before picking up Marie and Lisa. "That bitch is gonna kill me."

He looked over at Revy. "Pick him up and take me to the stables. I'll let you come along with me to Guilm."

Revy's eyes lit up as he jumped. However, just as quickly, they narrowed. "What about my sister?"

They were about to leave Lisa's house when Batain suddenly had a mental lightbulb go off. "Just run and get your sister and then lead me to the stables." It made much more sense to get the carriage here and then pile all the bodies into the carriage before going back to Guilm. It was a pain carrying all of them.

Revy nodded before running along. Batain could only shake his head and look back at Lucas who still hadn't budged. 'What happened when I wasn't there?' He thought. In the end, he shook his head and waited for Revy.

Two hours ago

Lucas was met with a familiar sensation of weightlessness. He had become a disembodied soul once again.

Had he a mouth and lungs, he would've sighed. He remembered his uncle being crushed by rocks in some sort of ambush. After that, he himself was ambushed and he remembered killing one guy before passing out. Evidently, he must have been killed after that.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

How pathetic was that though? An elite noble went to investigate a problem and got killed by peasants. Lucas couldn't say he wasn't at least a little bit disappointed in his uncle's capabilities. All those scars, all of that experience and he still died that easily?

Lucas was surprised at his own brief survival though. He remembered his blood boiling and his skin reddening from the swirl of rage and shame and pity before he'd suddenly felt none of that. It had been like a rush of power had entered his body, cooling his fury. And when he looked those two shitstains in the eyes, they had stared at him in abject fear. They hadn't even dared to move. For a brief few seconds, he'd felt like a king.

He couldn't tell what it was but he knew there'd been something that had activated last minute within his body. It was the only real explanation for how the men had just stood there while he killed one of them. It was just too bad that came far too late.

Now that that was all behind him though, he focused on this next life. What had this been, his 360th reincarnation? Well, that was all behind him now.

"Looking" out at his environment, he realized there was nothing. It was an all-encompassing void that he couldn't give any size or dimensions to. It was different from the darkness from when he'd first entered that world in his mother's womb. It was like the difference between being in the void of space versus being in a dark room. It filled him with an odd sense of lonely familiarity he couldn't quite understand.

Very quickly, though, something, a light, blinked into existence. He still couldn't really tell how far or close it was from him but as he paid more attention to it, he noticed it looked somewhat like an orb. It wasn't the only one though.

He could see another orb roughly the same size beside it. Unlike the other small light sphere, this second one wasn't entirely a white orb. It had some design on it he couldn't make out. He moved closer, the only sign he was actually getting closer being the circles slightly expanding in his field of vision.

He slowly began to make out more details: an army and a pair of eyes. Now floating before it, he fully took it in.

A dark silvery light shone out of the orb but it was the designs that shone with pure white light. By this point, Lucas had realized that either he wasn't truly dead or that there was something special about this death. Either way, he'd gain nothing from just looking at the orb.

He floated closer to the ball of light until he could touch it. Immediately, his mind was filled with memories: an army, a group of men, a coat, a sword.

'Oh I remember this life.. I think. Wait no, I remember remembering this.' Lucas' thoughts jumbled before he began to understand things.

It was the life he'd lived as Thibaud Gaize where he rose to power from a merchant's son to a high ranking officer to building an empire with him as grand commander of its army. It had been an exciting life to say the least. After dying painfully from an intestinal disease and grumbling about it as he reincarnated, Lucas had realized the life nearly mirrored that of Napoleon. Hell, if it wasn't for lack of confidence, he likely would've gotten himself killed either by internal strife or military failure.

In fact, he came very close to that in one battle: The battle of... Grativos. The memory of him overusing his mana and getting knocked out resurfaced in his mind.

Confusion sprung up in his head until a faint excitement took its place. Did this mean that the world of Thibaud Gaize and the world of Lucas Cazenarch were one and the same? In that case, was the ancient empire that this world was named after, his empire?

He stopped to think about it rationally, though. This world looked nothing like that world. The scientific innovations of that world were also far behind this one. The language and culture were completely unrecognizable. Last, the existence of magic as a whole was also a thing. What had happened after he died? Someone had just invented magic?

Still, as ridiculous as that sounded, it made an inkling of sense. After all, hadn't Empre split apart in some cataclysmic event? In that case, not only would the geography clearly be different but language would mutate beyond comprehension. It wouldn't be surprising if humanity was sent back to the stone age and forced to rebuild which would explain the technology. As for magic, well.. what else could cause such a sudden split without destroying the entire planet? Also why was magic suddenly appearing now unbelievable? He was literally reincarnating. After wrestling with both ideas, he still couldn't find a consensus though he found himself leaning towards the "you're bullshitting, there's no way the world (literally) magically collapsed before being reborn" side.

It just didn't make sense. None of his other lives were linked like this. Why would this one be? Was there something special about that one? Well, for one, there were other reincarnators here, though he hadn't seen any in his life as Gaize.

But even then, maybe there were reincarnators but he simply hadn't seen them. That was always a possibility. But then again, maybe it was all related to magic? Had magic been the one to draw reincarnators together or was this world simply special?

He shook his figurative head. His tendency to overthink had remained with him across lifetimes and it led him on paths he had no business walking on. What had allowed him to connect his life as Gaize to his life as Lucas in the first place?

Lucas focused on the orb he floated in front of before turning to the other orb. If this orb represented his Gaize life, what did that one represent? He moved towards the sphere of light, examining it.

Unlike the orb that seemed to represent his Gaize life, this one was purely white with no distinguishable designs or features.

He waited a second in front of it, just making sure that there was nothing else he'd missed about the orb before enveloping it.

Immediately, it felt different. The Gaize sphere had, sort of, melted into his soul. Like they were soup, all the memories had just flowed into his mind with a little prodding.

This new orb was like he was the soup now instead of the other way around. He felt his soul being sucked into the orb and before he could recoil, he lost consciousness once again.