Lucifer stopped observing Merlin when Ahri left the room and returned his consciousness to the strong gaze of Selenia. He was still using the doll as a body, but it was already falling to pieces on the inside, the organ that holds mana if it could be called an organ isn't tangible and Lucifer isn't able to replicate it, this means that he is forced to use his core's raw mana to power the false body and after an hour it was already disintegrating.

He would have to invest significantly more time into creating bodies before he will be able to create one from scratch.

Luckily Lucifer had the foresight to have Selenia gather several hosts for him to use, he walked up to one of the tied up men and dropped dead. Once he was outside the doll he went to work possessing the new host.

Meanwhile, a certain fox girl shivered slightly and after a moment of concentration sighed in relief before continuing on her way.

Soon Lucifer was in a new body with what he considered the "minimal" required enhancements. Just as he was leaving to inspect the dungeon on his way to the surface Selenia asked, "weren't you going to tell me something"

Lucifer paused for a moment then replied "come with me, if you really want to know then I can tell you while we walk"

So Lucifer began telling his lives story.

"so where do you want me to begin"

Selenia answered "from the start I guess, I've listened to the life stories of elves yours can't be much longer or more boring"

"haah" Lucifer sighed before continuing "well I was born in--"

"not literally the start" snapped Selenia

Lucifer simply restarted "I was born in I don't know where on I don't know day, that is to say, I was an orphan in my first life--"

"first life" Selenia interrupted.

"I've had three including this one, I will get to that abnormality later so be patient" Replied Lucifer as he stepped over a body.

Selenia asked "what happens after you die"

Lucifer glared at her and said "you wanted to know so at least listen"

Selenia apologetically replied "sorry Its a habit asking a lot of questions to stave off the boredom when someone is telling a story"

"anyway, the orphanage was a particularly uneventful part of my first life so we will skip that for brevities sake. When I was around ten I was adopted by an older gentleman who had ties with the orphanage director.

He made devices that kept time and taught me the craft before I was 15, although by that time clocks weren't really on my mind by then. A couple moved into the house across the street along with a 14-year-old daughter. Long story short we quickly fell in love and promised to get married.

Fast forward a few years I was already in a loving marriage and would soon take over my foster father's workshop, those were probably the happiest years in my existence.

During which a man was gaining significant popularity in a country that had recently lost a war, soon he was able to take over his country and start invading others.

War started anew and young men were conscripted to their deaths, I was one such young man.

During the war, I made new brothers and lost them like everyone else. I was even considered lucky by most because of my skill set I was able to stay relatively far from the frontline.

I was a sort of battle engineer, or architect, whatever you would call it in this world--"

"ther--"

Lucifer interrupted her interruption "I'LL GET THERE. However, the war went on longer and caused more damage than anyone anticipated, at first I was tasked with solving problems, get this big thing over there, make what is supposed to move move again etc, but the shortage of skilled men forced me into more and more dangerous positions.

By the end of the war, I was known as Abbrucharbeiter by my enemies or something that sounded like that, it roughly means demolitionist or so was told.

heh, my old man used to be an architect until an earthquake leveled one of his building killing a bunch of people, it only fell because the builders used cheaper materials, not because of any fault of his design, but he was still never allowed to have one of his designs used again.

Although he didn't teach me much of the trade I still learned what a building requires to stay standing, which was immensely useful in knowing where and how much explosive to place in any particular building to level the thing and anyone still inside.

This was a blessing and a curse, I was able to get out of dozens of sticky situations with some well-placed grenades, but the brass quickly figured out my particular ability and I was quick on my way to being known as the demolitionist.

I managed to get out of the war relatively unscathed, at least physically.

But none of that mattered because I was going to get back to my "lovely wife" after several years of death and destruction.

When I walked the familiar road to home I didn't even notice the boarded up windows on my father's workshop, I only saw a little girl, she could be 5 or 6 at most playing in my wife's front yard.

At first, I thought she may have moved during the war and panicked a little, then I remembered that I had friends in the service with brothers in law enforcement back home, a quick favor and a drink then I would know where my wife moved to no problem.

The funny thing is I can still remember this little memory as if it happened yesterday, even when the images of war that should be burned into the back of my eyelids are blurry. When she turned to face me as I walked up the path I noticed that she looked extremely familiar, too familiar"

Lucifer paused and focused on traversing the third floors terrain for a time while Selenia remained tactfully silent.

After a dozen minutes or so he continued, "After that, I went on adventures, which was code for drinking with old war buddies, not many of them survived the whole war, but enough of them did to keep a man permanently drunk.

I can almost say I am disappointed now, apparently, society only considers you a war hero until the day after the war, so with little motivation to go back to that street to work on clocks for the rest of my life I along with a few forgotten war brothers created a gang, or what you would call a mercenary band I suppose.

Most of us had very little use for the skills we picked up in war and even less use for the scars it painted us with, so what else could we do to get by.

It went well for a quite a while, we sort of took over where the law left off. With most of the men dead or missing from the war crime was extremely prevalent, something we were glad to remove, some of us for the money others for some sense of justice that I wasn't sure how survived the war, but for most of us it was the only thing that kept our heads right.

In the middle of a fight where some green kid could pull a knife and completely change the situation, you didn't have to think, you didn't have to wonder whether that whistling was some child on the street or something else.

But, as we got bigger and more money got involved we weren't able to look out for those whos sense wasn't completely there anymore. We needed more people to protect what was ours, so we let in punks who thought they owned the streets which were a bad idea because we were the kind of men who took streets.

With overconfident idiots, we were quickly noticed by law enforcement, although they weren't a problem for ours they were for the new guys.

Some of us ended up in jail others split apart over internal disputes that the new shits brought in. Soon we were overrun by a new gang and without my brothers, I couldn't keep it going.

I would like to say I died twenty to one with a weapon in hand fighting to the last, but reality is not that fantastical, a couple guys were waiting for me in an alley and shot me the moment I turned the corner.

However, I did manage to get a single shot off and the guy I hit will forever be remembered by a probable immortal as Dickless"

Lucifer chuckled at his own joke and Selenia said "I can see why you don't trust people easily, most people who go through harsh wars become more wary of those who haven't proven themselves to them. and it also explains why you're so skeptical of women"

Lucifer stopped for a moment then laughingly replied "skeptical of women, ha, if "that" was the only thing then I would already be over it, my distrust of woman was set in stone in my second life"

Selenia thought it was the right time to ask now "so what happens to you after you die?"

Lucifer chuckled and said "I was just getting to that part. Anyway after I bled out I found myself in the dark void of nothingness for a time, how long I don't know nor do I care, soon I saw other lights similar to myself, then we floated through a giant obsidian black circle with a hole in the middle, after flying through some weird tunnel system of energy I ended up in my second body.

I possessed some nine-year-olds body, apparently, the kid had a really bad fever because his mother was "pro-disease" or anti-vaxxer and died. I took over his body and confusedly started a second life.

Although my single hippie mother was an idiot in some respects, she was a kind and caring person who healed me greatly during my younger years.

We were very poor when I reincarnated, but as a person with plenty of experience I was able to quickly "find" some money to get us by, I even managed to put together a militia to guard the neighborhood against local hoodlums, a few military tactics can go a long way to introducing a few punks teeth to the sidewalk.

During such times I got relatively well known around the area and even befriended an old man with a look in his eyes I could recognize a mile away, his son had recently died in some pointless war for oil and having a young kid around helped.

I really wished I learned psychotherapy during my past life because he committed suicide shortly after I met him, strangely enough, he left all his things to me in the will which included his son's things, which included enough tools to start making basic clocks.

So while resharpened my skills we used the money from the will to send me to a good school.

by 12 I was already living comfortably with my mother, I made clocks from scratch after school to pay the bills and even caught the attention of a few famous watchmakers who were interested in my lost skills. Apparently, some of the techniques I used to make clocks were lost during the war and I managed to get a little fame out of it.

The news or gossip as you would call it was "young boy revives lost art and saves his mother", even wartime propaganda wasn't so full of shit as today's media.

Anyway, the damage was done and I was noticed by a particular family, you would consider them nobles I call them rich bastards.

They noticed me from the clock making and then looked into my background, they found that my grades or abilities were extremely high and even found some of my architecture sketches, they thought I was some sort of genius in the making.

After several years I found myself engaged to their daughter despite my initial distrust of the entire situation, it turns out that women can act like a perfect little angel for years without anyone noticing.

Long story short they found out I wasn't some genius because my intelligence didn't keep increasing after I became older, I figured out that my soon to be wife was actually a monster in disguise, however, the family had been bragging about finding a genius for years and couldn't lose "reputation" by rejecting the marriage.

So she dropped her disguise like a mask that was never there to begin with and when I tried to leave they already had my mother. She wasn't hostage or anything, she just liked living in their mansion and couldn't give up being rich, she said I was being paranoid and had cold feet regardless of what I showed her.

I went through the marriage like an idiot because I knew they would kill my mother otherwise and thus started the worst years of my existence. "

Selenia asked, "a marriage was the worst years of your existence even after war..."

Lucifer continued in a calm manner, but Selenia could tell it was a frightening kind of calm, "the woman seemed to resent having to marry some average joe even though she was the one who initiated the whole damn thing, so she spent an almost admirable amount of effort making my life miserable, I'll was sent overseas 24/7 mainly to keep me away from the other influential families in case the found out I'm dumb, usually to make deals with manufactururs and such other trivialiteis they could have done from home, another reason was to keep me away from my mother, lest I convince her to leave those horid people.

Honestly, I don't know why I put up with it for so long for some woman who was at this point a lost cause.

The last straw was finding out my "wife" enjoyed making her husband a cuck with anyone and everyone, she said it was to secure deals for the family, not that anyone would believe her.

But, I had learned a very important lesson from her, revenge, good revenge, beautiful revenge is something that takes time to do properly.

So I waited, several years in fact, then when I had all that I needed I disappeared. Proof of the families crimes found their way to the public, this is not really a problem for people with such power but several scandals also snuck their way out, the other influential families didn't want anything to do with that sort of thing or even to be associated with them, so when the family tried to bail themselves out of trouble like they always did they found roadblocks at every corner.

Although even this wasn't enough to take them down as far as I know. Several years later they found the man that had apparently fucked half a tropical island, and here I was sitting in front of my wife again.

Her face looked like it was possessed by demons but I swear it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I never knew so much rage could be contained in such a small being let alone expressed on such a small face.

The last thing she heard was AYAYAYAHHH MOTHERFUCKER! from a wild man laughing like a maniac.

apparently, her elite guards didn't account for their captive to have learned bomb-making skills in his past life. Fucking scrubs.