The rewards were tempting, but Louis hadn't forgotten his actual business.
He still had to handle the basilisk and Acromantula souls Hastur collected, and two of Voldemort's Horcrux-fragments were still starving, waiting for Louis to feed them fresh, malicious souls.
Louis tugged off the collar around Hastur's neck—the one the elder god was so addicted to training with—and found the huge cluster of souls inside very satisfying.
They weren't human souls, so their forms were unstable and only existed as will-o'-the-wisps. But Louis wasn't picky. He was sure the two Voldemorts wouldn't be picky either.
In the boiling cauldron, the ritual broth Louis had spent over half a month preparing was finally ready.
Standing before the cauldron, Louis brushed his fingers over the patterns on the collar.
The runes lit up, and the cluster of altered souls poured out continuously into the cauldron like ingredients.
After adding a suitable amount of souls, Louis tossed in several "side ingredients" and began chanting malevolent incantations under his breath.
The ritual originated from Hermes and the Homunculus, a thoroughly wicked grimoire. The incantations were sinister, yes—but if Louis hadn't replaced most of the original ritual materials, the broth would have been far more abominable.
Wails and ghostly shrieks were basic features.
Hallucinations of vengeful spirits dragging you to your death? That was considered standard quality.
As Louis murmured the deep incantation, the thick soup swirled violently.
The souls inside were kneaded into a single mass, which finally condensed into a sphere.
Louis cast a spell to lift the soul-sphere out. Before long, it began to grow on its own, developing rapidly toward a humanoid shape.
Of course, it was only a soul-body—its development was purely external. No organs, no inner structure at all.
Which was why it grew extremely fast—within a few dozen seconds, it became a humanoid figure with an indistinguishable face.
This soul resembled a ghost, but much more abstract and blurry, without the clear outfit or features ordinary ghosts retained.
Compared to a normal ghost, it was like comparing a character model from the 1990s to a modern ultra-detailed 3D model.
And because the soul-material came from Acromantulas, its shape kept unintentionally twisting toward something spider-like.
The humanoid form was unstable, and the soul was full of impurities—rage, cruelty, and murderous intent.
Perfect material for Voldemort.
He was practically mad already.
What normal person splits their soul into seven pieces?
At this stage, the creation of the artificial being was only half complete—but Louis only needed the artificial soul, not the full creature.
He ended the ritual abruptly, pulled out Meja's Soul-Stealing Scroll, and absorbed the soul into it.
The scroll glowed faintly, and a tiny, almost negligible strengthening effect washed over Louis.
Weak as it was, it proved Louis' theory correct—an artificial soul could be devoured by the scroll.
He opened the scroll, curious what kind of abilities the artificial soul carried—only to be greeted with a full page of garbled symbols, making him wonder if the scroll had caught a virus.
"I thought at least some animal instinct would remain. Didn't expect nothing but a mess."
Closing the scroll, Louis began deciding which Horcrux to revive next.
The easiest to restore was the diary fragment of Riddle—he had already absorbed enough soul power and needed just one last push to revive.
So Louis set him aside.
Louis planned to starve him a bit longer, ideally draining all the power inside him before reviving him.
That way, the soul fragment would be bound more tightly to the Soul-Stealing Scroll without needing additional restraints.
Thus, this time Louis chose the Gaunt family ring.
Once he freed Voldemort's Gaunt fragment, he'd essentially get a Resurrection Stone for free.
Wonderful.
Louis performed the ritual again, dripping the specialized Horcrux-breaking potion onto the ring.
The potion slid across the surface of the Resurrection Stone, nullifying the Horcrux's resistance to external forces and removing the embedded curse.
The ring became coated in the same pitch-black impurities as the diadem, and faint cries from Voldemort echoed from within.
Another Voldemort—this one sounding younger, unlike the noseless soul in Ravenclaw's diadem.
"Wake up, Voldemort. Time to get up."
Louis pulled out the branded artificial soul from the scroll and crushed it into raw soul-energy to feed to the Horcrux.
But this Voldemort was stubborn. Even half-starved, he refused to absorb such suspicious, impurity-ridden soul power.
Louis didn't indulge him. He force-fed the soul directly into the ring.
It was like dunking a child who refused to eat into a bucket of slop—considering the impurities, the soul-energy wasn't much better than sewage.
Only after begrudgingly absorbing the energy did Voldemort crawl out of the ring.
This version still had a nose, and aside from black blood-veins spreading across his face, he looked relatively normal.
Of course, as a soul turned into a physical body, this young, handsome Voldemort wasn't wearing clothes.
Seeing yet another naked Voldemort, Louis felt he was destined to develop an eye infection.
But beyond appearance, something was clearly different from the Ravenclaw fragment.
His eyes were filled with pure savagery—like a crazed predator.
A side-effect of using an artificial soul, most likely.
Louis didn't care.
As usual, he immediately began the full strengthening-and-restraining process.
He'd already done it once, so the second time was smooth and efficient.
Before this young Voldemort even figured out what was happening, Louis drove an arrow straight through him.
Voldemort reacted quickly, performing a nimble flip to dodge—yet his movement ironically delivered his throat directly onto the arrow's tip.
Puchi!
The arrow pierced his throat. The Gaunt Voldemort froze, his expression almost identical to the Ravenclaw fragment's reaction.
Then came the healing, the pull, and finally the imprinting of Seal—all completed in one smooth flow.
Only when the Gaunt Voldemort looked around blankly at the army of mantis-like shadow soldiers, and the spider-limb-like Stand swayed behind him under his control, did Louis finally speak.
"I don't know how much sanity you've got left."
Louis grinned, showing perfect white teeth.
"But I do know you really want to become the one and only Voldemort… don't you?"
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