Edmund Codreth

Edmund Codreth is the Staff of Incarceration and the most technically accomplished black wizard among the Three Mages of Incarceration. He rules the Kochilla Tribe in practice and converts the Samar Rainforest, its people, Earth Veins, and Raizakia's lingering dark power into a ritual intended to transform himself into a Greater Demon King. (Chapters 253, 277–293, and 332–333)

Biography

Ruhr, Lehainjar, and the Dragon Conflict

Edmund learns the reconstruction ritual once used by Eward, expands it across Samar with bone towers and underground rivers of sacrificial blood, and allies with Hector while borrowing Amelia's Death Knight. His aim is to abandon humanity and become a Greater Demon King by consuming mass death, the forest's leylines, the World Tree's power, Vladmir's reserves, and the dark power left by Raizakia. The allied tribes and Arothian wizards attack before completion, but Edmund deliberately uses both armies' deaths and emotional ecstasy as offerings while fighting from within Cube. Balzac Ludbeth diverts sacrifices and alters the ritual, forcing a failure when Eugene cracks Cube. Incarceration ignores Edmund's plea for rescue; the Moonlight Sword erases his body, and only Vladmir is retrieved from the battlefield. (Chapters 277–293)

Appearance and personality

Edmund wears a graceful purple robe rather than the black clothing conventional among black wizards and keeps a trimmed beard that he strokes while thinking or speaking. The corpus does not provide a dependable hair, eye, age, or build description. His composed dress and grooming contrast with the bone towers, blood channels, and mass death supporting his work. (Chapters 279 and 287)

He is brilliant, controlled, arrogant, and consumed by the conviction that magical capability makes him exceptional. Edmund plans on continental scale, speaks of cooperation in terms of mutually compatible secret desires, and assumes every variable can be mastered. When the ritual begins to collapse, that self-assurance turns to panic: he compromises his design, curses Balzac, and finally begs the Demon King for intervention despite knowing Incarceration never promised to save him. (Chapters 279 and 287–292)

Abilities and powers

Edmund is an Archwizard, master of Vladmir, and contractor of the Demon King of Incarceration. His Signature, Cube, draws black lines around a compact space that provides near-absolute magical defense and continuously repairs his body with dark power, granting regeneration beyond that of high-ranking demons. Cube supplies no offense by itself, so Edmund attacks through Vladmir, battlefield eyes, curses, Hellfire, the Hand of Death, aerial bombardment, and death spears. Its practical limit is resource and repair rate: repeated Moonlight Sword strikes damage its formulas faster than he can reinforce them. (Chapters 253, 279, and 287–292)

His transformation ritual demonstrates greater scale than his dueling magic. Edmund twists Earth Veins, marks territory with catalysts, collects blood and souls, and imposes a law that makes emotionally heightened battlefield deaths superior offerings. The ritual can draw on remote sacrifices and dragon dark power, but its interdependence is also the weakness Balzac exploits: diverting only part of the supply and changing a small section after Edmund hastily revises the design causes the whole ascension to tangle and fail. (Chapters 279, 287–292)

Relationships

• Demon King of Incarceration: Incarceration contracts Edmund, names him Staff, and grants dark power and Vladmir, but does not promise personal protection. Edmund mistakes his value for a bond that will compel rescue and dies when the Demon King declines to intervene. (Chapters 253, 292, and 332)
• Balzac Ludbeth: Edmund considers Balzac a friend and fellow Mage of Incarceration but underestimates his deception. Balzac hides within Blind, steals part of the sacrifices, and introduces the error that collapses Edmund's ritual. (Chapters 279 and 282–293)
• Amelia Merwin: Edmund and Amelia cooperate because their secret desires do not directly compete. He helps create her Death Knight and borrows it for Samar, promising future power after his ascension; his death leaves that exchange unfulfilled. (Chapters 279 and 333)
• Eugene Lionheart: Eugene is both the strongest obstacle to Edmund's ritual and a soul Edmund wants to sacrifice. Eugene withstands his curses and large-scale attacks, repeatedly breaks Cube with the Moonlight Sword, and delivers the final blow after Balzac destabilizes the transformation. (Chapters 288–292)

Items

None.