---
Reincarnation. The rebirth of something beyond flesh — soul, spirit — after the body has perished. Even in a world where demonic bikers roared down highways, shattering speed limits, many still refused to believe in it.
Among those skeptics was Legrand, whose corpse now rotted somewhere in the near-underworld, while his consciousness inhabited Arnold Relish: a man already dead before his own reflection.
His hand wandered across his jaw, over his nose, like that of a blind man trying to recognize a face. The features were pleasant enough to look at, yet they paled in comparison to the beauty once belonging to the one who, for centuries, had been called the Demon King: Adrien Legrand.
It was an immature beauty, unsettling, one that made him twist with discomfort before the mirror. The reflection stared back with a fallen expression, more broken than the hangover from the night he had arrived. Important, he thought, but without conviction.
— Not really. — he muttered to himself, stepping back. — Nothing here matters.
His clenched fist struck the mirror, again and again. But it wasn't the glass that shattered, as it once had when he was "the Great." It was his own flesh, split open in droplets of blood. His eyes widened.
From the light above to something as trivial as a mirror — everything wounded this frail body.
With pupils blown wide, a single thought carved itself into his mind:
I have to get out of here.
---
Legrand moved fast, tearing through closet after closet. Clothes, maybe toothbrushes, were ripped out and stuffed into a worn leather backpack, the rusted zipper screeching at every rough tug. There was no care in his movements. At last, he slung the bag over his shoulder.
He went to the open window. The morning breeze brushed against his skin like a warning. He glanced back once before throwing himself toward the green lawn. The landing slowed him, but it didn't stop him.
Rising again, he crossed the gardens of the vast Relish estate. He spared not a glance for its beauty. Beyond, the view turned bleak: auto shops, abandoned houses, crumbling facades.
He reached the wall of gray concrete blocks. The iron gate, sealed with a mechanism that allowed no mistakes, was useless. So he climbed, eyes narrowed, chest heavy with tension.
The conclusion was inescapable: living under the same roof as a demon-hunter cop, while carrying a demon inside his own skull, was nothing short of suicide.
He vaulted over.
Who would've thought? Legrand, once dreaded as the Great Demon King, was now just a walking corpse. The thought nagged at him as much as the whining of mosquitoes or the oppressive silence that choked the entire district.
He followed the asphalt, gaze fixed forward — never upward. Ahead, glowing letters rose to greet him:
"Welcome to the City of Desires."