The Villain’s Rebirth and Grand Ambition

Allen de Laval had truly found his rebirth.

Now, he was terrifyingly powerful!

The 1000th cycle, a hellish start?

No, for the current Allen, this was nothing short of a dream beginning!

Experience? The experience gained from countless deaths had long since maxed out his stats!

Strength? While his physical ‘hardware’ was somewhat lacking, his ‘software’—his mind—was undoubtedly overclocked!

Wisdom? Did direct confrontation with The Observer, the true mastermind behind humanity’s destruction, count?

Temperament? Having just recovered from a complete breakdown, only to be resurrected to full health, his composure was as steady as an old hound’s!

More than any previous cycle, Allen was now closer to the non-existent ‘perfect ending’ of “Starlight Serenade.”

He finally understood why The Observer had deigned to ‘have tea’ with him.

Allen de Laval, at last, had the qualifications to be a pawn on the board!

Across from him were the malevolent gods and their minions.

Behind him was The Observer, who manipulated him as a mere chess piece.

In this game, Allen not only intended to defeat the malevolent gods opposite him but also to overturn The Observer’s entire chessboard!

Though the odds were slim, he was no longer fighting alone.

He had Marianne, his father, his old butler, and in the future, he would have even more companions.

Allen was no true divine messenger, incapable of suffering for all humanity.

Allen’s mission was to be a prophet, not a babysitter!

Humanity’s suffering could only be borne by humanity as a whole; no matter how formidable The Observer was, could she truly withstand the wrath of an entire species?

Of course she could!

But what did that matter?

The anthem of humanity was the anthem of courage, and humanity’s greatness was the greatness of courage!

Despite being annihilated countless times, hadn’t humanity stubbornly clung to survival?

Why should Allen cower now?

Just get it done!

“The Observer, have I given you too much leeway? I’ll make you soar for your arrogance!”

“The next time we meet, I’ll blast your face with a planet-destroying cannon!”

In this cycle, Allen had three objectives:

First, to survive.

To achieve this, Allen needed to possess the strength to defeat Livia.

Second, to buy humanity a reprieve.

For this, he had to eliminate the ‘invasive creatures’ unleashed into the human world by the malevolent gods, fulfilling the mission entrusted to him by The Observer.

Third, to escape The Observer’s control.

This was the most formidable task, its difficulty beyond imagination.

For the first objective, Allen had formulated a solution.

Personal strength was, relatively speaking, easier to enhance.

While Allen possessed no mark, if he could acquire the divine artifacts used by the Church to suppress marks, combined with the extensive combat experience gleaned from his death cycles, he might just be able to defeat Livia.

For the second objective, Allen had a glimmer of understanding.

The ‘invasive creatures’ introduced into the human world by the malevolent gods were undoubtedly the cultists and their insidious legacy: the marks.

Cultists were not difficult to eliminate; though individually powerful, they were ultimately rats scurrying in the shadows.

The Church was their natural nemesis, and Allen could entrust this task to the Heretical Inquisition.

Having once been a high-ranking member of the Scarlet Spiral Cult, he possessed a wealth of invaluable intelligence.

It was likely the cultists had no idea an absentee mole had emerged from their ranks.

As for how to eradicate the influence of the marks, Allen intended to tackle the problem at its root.

He intended to ignite a grand revolution, utterly destroying the old world and sweeping all ‘sword-bearing nobles’—those bearing marks—into the dustbin of history.

In this medieval society, where feudal rule was deeply entrenched and class oppression brutally severe, there had never been a shortage of rebellious sparks!

The mercenary group Allen had previously released was the very seed he had sown for this transformation.

As for revitalizing the Laval family? That was merely to accumulate funds for the revolution!

To achieve this goal, Allen would require years of careful planning, yet time was precisely what humanity lacked most desperately!

What would become of humanity? Only the heavens knew!

For now, Allen could only choose to accumulate strength while biding his time.

Regarding the third objective, Allen had no clue whatsoever.

He needed to accomplish the first two objectives before he could even begin to strategize for the third.

Nevertheless, the path he had to take was remarkably clear.

He aimed to propel humanity through a magnificent transformation from a medieval civilization to a cosmic one, rekindling all forgotten technologies, advancing into the interstellar age, constructing spaceships, and ultimately searching for Earth—all within little more than half a century.

Compressing centuries, or even millennia, of societal change into half a century was an utterly impossible feat.

Yet for a transmigrator, anything was possible!

Allen possessed no cheat codes, but he was certainly mad enough!

Should humanity dare to stagnate, he would whip them into action if he had to!

The current world calendar was named Anno Salutis (A.S.), with A.S. 1 marking the year recorded in the Holy Scripture when “Saint Leon guided the first King Camille Durand, leading the survivors on an ark to the New World, establishing the Kingdom of Lorraine and the Church.”

The story of “Starlight Serenade” began on September 1st, A.S. 1082, and the current date was June 23rd.

What did this imply?

It meant that in this cycle, humanity had maintained a feudal society for a full millennium, despite possessing the technological legacy of a prior civilization!

A thousand years!

If the previous civilization had advanced to the pre-space age before being destroyed by The Observer, this millennium would have been sufficient for humanity to become a cosmic civilization!

According to The Observer’s galactic civilization, the physical constants of this universe should remain consistent with the original world!

If the principles of relativity still held true, then in this thousand-year span, even if humanity hadn’t developed a faster-than-light engine, they should have at least managed a sub-light engine, shouldn’t they?

Even at sub-light speeds, humanity could have colonized nearby star systems with their spaceships!

Allen understood The Observer’s disappointment in humanity.

The Observer seemed to have established an observation post on humanity’s planet, actively intervening, and blissfully awaiting a monthly +10 to her sociological research.

Yet after a millennium, when she returned to check on humanity’s development, she discovered that far from achieving a +10, her observation post had yielded absolutely nothing for a thousand years.

Not to mention The Observer, even Allen, as a human, couldn’t help but feel exasperated.

‘I’ll concede that history spirals upwards, but tell me, what in the world is this straight line?’

‘What on earth was humanity doing, just stagnating?’

‘Happy now? All that hard-preserved technology deleted with a single click by The Observer?’

‘Didn’t want to play on easy mode, insisted on hell mode instead?’

Allen genuinely felt his blood pressure rising.

With things as they were, blaming humanity for its past foolishness was utterly meaningless.

Allen had to quickly rectify humanity’s mistakes and catch them up on all the essential lessons they had missed!

All three of Allen’s objectives pointed to a single entity.

The Church!

The Church was Allen’s most crucial ally.

Time was short, the mission critical; Allen had to act immediately!

Allen had two hundred percent confidence in his ability to masquerade as a divine messenger.

No, how could one call it a masquerade? He was now a divine messenger!

While not the original, ‘The Observer’ was still a god, so it was perfectly fine by approximation!

However, before the official performance began, Allen needed to test a hypothesis.

“Marianne,” Allen said, turning to his yandere ‘little sister-type’ maid, his tone holding a touch more intimacy than usual, “How are your sword skills?”

“I haven’t studied them,” Marianne replied honestly.

“What about assassination techniques?”

“They say I’m master-level.”

“Excellent!” Allen slapped his thigh.

“Grab your most comfortable weapon; we’re heading to the courtyard!”

As the Laval household servants rubbed the sleep from their eyes and began their daily chores of sweeping and cleaning, they witnessed a scene worthy of being etched into the family’s annals.

Young Master Allen, legendary for not rising until late morning and causing trouble the moment he woke, was now standing spiritedly in the misty garden clearing!

In his hand, he held a gleaming, cold longsword!

The thin mist hung like gauze, dewdrops glistened, birds chirped crisply, and the air was fresh.

This morning, after the heavy rain, felt incredibly refreshing.

Allen took a deep breath, tightened his grip on the captured longsword, and addressed Marianne, who had assumed her stance:

“Are you ready, Marianne?”

“Yes, Young Master!”

“You attack, I defend, give it your all! Don’t be afraid to hurt me!”

“Understood!”

“Begin!”

Marianne trusted her young master unconditionally; whatever he said, she did.

The moment Allen’s words ceased, she moved like a phantom!

This was no mere practice; it was a real fight!

True to her master-level assassin skills, Marianne never engaged in head-on clashes, her form elusive, her dagger transforming into streaks of cold light, specifically targeting the gaps in Allen’s defense!

Allen, solely on the defensive, was under immense pressure!

After several probing exchanges, Marianne deftly seized an opening, her dagger darting like a viper’s tongue, thrusting directly at Allen’s ribs!

Allen swung his longsword horizontally, parrying it with a precise ‘clang’!

“Marianne,” Allen remarked, “in a real fight, your failed ambush would have already cost you your life.”

“…Understood, Young Master,” Marianne replied, her eyes sharpening.

Allen was an assassin’s bane.

This was a skill he had honed through countless deaths, enduring all manner of sneak attacks from cultists!

Concurrently, Allen was a weapon master.

His ‘Villain Reincarnation Style’ was never picky; he used whatever weapon he could seize, naturally training himself to full proficiency with all of them.

While defending, he simultaneously guided Marianne in optimizing her dagger techniques.

Marianne’s physical prowess, enhanced by the false mark, was equivalent to three elite soldiers, making Allen’s task of fending her off quite strenuous.

‘This stamina… if I can’t even beat Marianne, how am I supposed to deal with Livia?’ Allen grumbled inwardly.

As his stamina rapidly depleted, Allen’s movements began to falter.

Marianne instantly seized the opportunity, her dagger transforming into a flash of lightning, striking directly at Allen’s heart!

In that critical instant, time seemed to slow down.

Allen’s Future Sight activated!

Indeed!

Allen’s hypothesis was entirely correct!

This cheat-like Future Sight was a permanent passive ability, only triggering when he faced a genuine threat of death!

The slumbering Lord might truly have bestowed a great gift upon him!

Allen offered a small moment of repentance for his previous disrespectful attitude.

As the saying goes, every wrong has its perpetrator, every debt its debtor; thinking he had wrongly accused a god, Allen’s hatred for The Observer intensified.

Relying on Future Sight, Allen anticipated the attack’s trajectory and seized Marianne’s wrist!

“How did you do that?” Marianne asked, astonished.

“This is a blessing from the Lord; I can foresee fatal attacks aimed at me.”

Allen now fully trusted Marianne, deciding to reveal all his secrets to her.

“Similar to a mark?”

“Something like that.”

Allen felt the time was ripe.

He lowered his voice, solemnly revealing the truth to Marianne:

“The power of both marks and false marks originates from malevolent gods.

You must not tell anyone this secret.”

Even though Marianne had mentally prepared herself, this shocking truth still left her dizzy and disoriented!

“No wonder the enemy is the entire world…” she murmured, then suddenly thought of something.

“What about Livia? Her mark is so powerful… could it be that…”

Allen nodded gravely.

“I suspect she might have become a pawn of a malevolent god.”

Marianne’s realization dawned!

Her suspicion had actually been true!

“You asked me to stay with Livia, was it truly to save her…? Indeed… you are so kind…”

“Uh…”

Allen, for his part, hadn’t actually considered that deeply.

“Come on, Marianne!” Allen decided to end the topic, steeling his resolve to test his limits.

“Taking my precognitive ability into account, try to kill me!”

“Yes, Young Master!”

The skirmish resumed!

Allen, whose stamina was nearing its limit, found Future Sight triggering with increasing frequency.

He was drenched in sweat, seeing stars, his body feeling as heavy as if filled with lead!

After his final parry, Allen finally collapsed from exhaustion with a ‘thump,’ sprawling on the ground and gasping for air.

“Ha… ha… that was exhilarating…”

Allen was as tired as a dead dog, yet a gentle, contented smile graced his face, the madness that once resided there seemingly vanished.

Allen now understood the limits of his abilities.

Future Sight could only predict enemy attacks within five seconds, and each activation drastically increased Allen’s physical burden.

Even if Allen could continuously evade enemy attacks using Future Sight, his energy bar was finite, and over time, he would be relentlessly worn down to death!

Fortunately, Allen possessed no mark, so enemies would likely let their guard down when facing an unmarked opponent.

Therefore, the optimal use for Future Sight was to feign an opening at the start, lure the enemy closer, trigger Future Sight to evade a fatal blow, and then, capitalizing on their recovery lag, deliver a single, decisive killing strike!

As a noble passive skill with no cooldown, Future Sight’s ability to secure a first-strike kill was far more terrifying than any mark!

This move was inspired by Allen’s life-for-life struggle against a False Mark Knight, its core perfectly complementing his ‘Villain Reincarnation Style’ of feigning weakness before launching a surprise attack.

Allen decided to name this new technique ‘Villain Reincarnation Style: Power-Up Version.’

Allen knew full well that a battle maniac like Livia would neither care for his feigned weakness nor let her guard down.

That woman understood the principle that even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit.

His ‘Villain Reincarnation Style: Power-Up Version’ might work against other minor foes, but against a ‘hexagonal warrior’ like Livia, it would likely still be very difficult.

Livia not only possessed formidable close-combat abilities but also had stronger ranged output than most mark bearers.

Even if Allen could evade ranged attacks with Future Sight, Livia would exploit the distance, chipping away at his health and kiting him to death.

Theoretically, Livia would not employ such a ‘dirty’ tactic.

She genuinely believed that a warrior’s honorable victory was the noblest profession, and those who relied on ranged attacks were cowards.

As a cunning villain, Allen believed Livia to be a person of martial integrity, but he certainly did not trust the malevolent god behind her!

Livia’s suspicious behavior when she killed Allen in the previous cycle now, in retrospect, strongly suggested the intervention of a malevolent god.

This was truly terrifying!

When Livia was falling in love, were the malevolent gods watching the entire spectacle, munching on popcorn?

Thinking about it… the malevolent god manipulating Livia from behind the scenes seemed somewhat like a metaphor for the players of “Starlight Serenade.”

The protagonist’s identity, while seemingly glamorous, was essentially that of a tool manipulated by unseen hands.

Protagonists were sometimes tools for the author, sometimes for the scriptwriter, and most tragically, they became tools for the investors, with all their character traits drastically altered to cater to commercialization.

In contrast, villains enjoyed far greater freedom; all creators could interpret antagonists as they pleased.

Just for a single character like the Joker, how many origins and creative angles existed?

Indeed, being a villain was far more liberating!

In any case, Allen now had his own cheat.

Recalling all the past humiliations, Allen finally felt a surge of pride.

What he lacked now was physical fitness, which could be improved through training.

As for how to deal with Livia’s formidable mark, that depended on the efficacy of the Church’s divine artifacts.

Excellent!

Allen’s probability of defeating Livia had risen from zero to ten percent.

Next, Allen had to face the biggest challenge of this cycle.

To control the Church as a divine messenger.

Allen instantly snapped to attention, all physical fatigue swept away!

“Marianne, help me up.”

As Marianne helped him to his feet, Allen praised her:

“Well done, Marianne, your master-level assassin skills are truly deserved; crushing weak mark bearers will be no problem.”

Marianne smiled.

“Young Master, you were only defending.

Had you counterattacked, I would have lost long ago.

You are the true strong one.”

“What kind of strong one am I? I’m still far from Livia’s level,” Allen said, shaking his head.

As Allen spoke these words, he instinctively overlooked one crucial detail.

Livia, whom he regarded as his opponent, was the holder of the protagonist’s halo, a legendary Child of Fortune!

Originally, for him, a mere cannon fodder villain, to defeat such a protagonist was akin to a fool’s dream!

However, Allen’s perspective was already on an entirely different level from Livia’s.

The Observer could effortlessly shatter entire planets, and other malevolent gods were beings of unspeakable horror.

After witnessing the sheer scale of The Observer and the malevolent gods, Livia, in Allen’s eyes, was, well, just ‘so-so.’

If he couldn’t even defeat Livia, how could he hope to save humanity?

Allen had successfully ascended from a minor villainous young master to an ancient god-tier arch-villain!

His motivations as a villain were irreproachable, arguably even nobler than the protagonist’s faction.

His enemies were lofty deities; the world Livia couldn’t save, he would!

Allen couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for Livia.

‘You, a peerless heroine, are truly pathetic.’

‘Despite possessing the power to change the world, you only know how to show off in the academy and live out your small days.’

‘Your perspective is far too narrow!’

Allen disdained being such a protagonist.

If he were to be anything, he would be the most formidable villain!

Allen’s true goal was the vast sea of stars!

Humanity in the 21st century had long forgotten the golden age dream of exploring the cosmos; people preferred to bury their heads in cyberpunk landscapes rather than look up at the starry sky.

Yet Allen always firmly believed that only the universe was the ultimate destination for human civilization!

Since humanity could travel from a distant Earth to this planet, then Allen would make humanity set sail once more, to search for his beloved homeland!

Indeed! This was the grand vision an arch-villain should possess!

While Allen’s mental distress had somewhat healed, his chuunibyou tendencies were worsening.

Thus, this villainous young master, possessed by the spirit of chuunibyou, could no longer suppress the joy and excitement in his heart, and he roared to the heavens:

“Hahahahaha! I have mastered divine power, I am invincible! How could a mere Livia be a match for this Young Master!”

Exactly!

Allen’s invincibility was well-deserved!

With his current strength, Allen feared no unmarked opponent.

The marks were a conspiracy of malevolent gods; all mark bearers were enemies from the heavens!

So even if he lost to Livia, Allen was still invincible!

For Allen, there were only small victories, medium victories, and grand victories.

What others called a loss was merely a grand strategy of Allen’s, one that no one could comprehend.

This is what it means to be a villain, listen to Allen!

“With my own strength, I’ll take down the entire damn world!”

Allen spread his arms, immersed in the chuunibyou sentiment of one man against the world.

Marianne watched Allen completely shed the despondency and sorrow of his breakdown, transforming back into the slightly unhinged villainous young master she knew.

She applauded with relief, cheering him on.

“Yay! Young Master is invincible! Young Master will surely bring Livia to her knees and take her home as his wife!”

“Marianne, why such a vivid imagination! Is that something you should be saying from your position!”

Finally, on the topic of the yuri heroine being ‘disqualified,’ Allen severely lectured Marianne.

“Even if it’s NTR yuri! That’s still a yuri tragedy tainted by a man, ahhhhhhh!”