As the others filed out of the chamber, Bartholomew sank back into his chair and called upon the Death Painting. The effort made the image w
As the others filed out of the chamber, Bartholomew sank back into his chair and called upon the Death Painting. The effort made the image waver, but the black panther in the darkness remained, always there, a silent omen of his death.
Is that it? Will I die in a rebellion? If Luke is still alive, I need to know everything he knows. And i...
2025-08-09 17:39:40 +0000 UTC
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Jonathan stood in a vast chamber within Bastion’s fortress, a council room where Bartholomew had summoned many of the Safe Zone’s most influ
Jonathan stood in a vast chamber within Bastion’s fortress, a council room where Bartholomew had summoned many of the Safe Zone’s most influential figures. Merchants, innkeepers, landlords with apartment blocks scattered across the district, every one of them held economic sway in the region surrounding the fortress. It was the most prosper...
2025-08-09 17:39:21 +0000 UTC
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When Luke hit level fifty in his class, the system forced him to evolve it. Because of that, he’d never chosen his final skill from level fo
When Luke hit level fifty in his class, the system forced him to evolve it. Because of that, he’d never chosen his final skill from level forty-five, and now his new class had corrupted that choice.
[Warning: Your Demonic Predator class has corrupted your new skill choice!]
The list of available options was right th...
2025-08-09 00:51:36 +0000 UTC
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The moment Luke accepted the class evolution, five options appeared before him. Artemis stayed quiet. She always did that when something imp
The moment Luke accepted the class evolution, five options appeared before him. Artemis stayed quiet. She always did that when something important came up, giving him space to make the decision on his own. She didn’t want to influence his choice.
It struck him that maybe he had been too hasty. He could have waited until he was somewhere cal...
2025-08-08 17:46:18 +0000 UTC
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In Luke’s hand rested a black stone, its surface etched with the glowing image of a serpent. “I WILL NEVER BE YOUR FAMILIAR!” roared the Bea
In Luke’s hand rested a black stone, its surface etched with the glowing image of a serpent.
“I WILL NEVER BE YOUR FAMILIAR!” roared the Beast Lord’s voice from within the stone.
Luke blinked, taken aback. The serpent sigil pulsed again, light flaring.
“DO YOU HEAR ME?!” the voice bellowed, making the stone tremb...
2025-08-08 00:00:37 +0000 UTC
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The air was bitterly cold. Snow drifted down in lazy spirals, blanketing everything in white. It wasn’t the usual weather for that time of y
The air was bitterly cold. Snow drifted down in lazy spirals, blanketing everything in white. It wasn’t the usual weather for that time of year, but around here, near the Wall, the rules didn’t quite apply. Just beyond that colossal barrier lay the Ice Wastes, a frozen desert of constant snowstorms. Crossing into that deathtrap was suicide.
2025-08-07 16:26:38 +0000 UTC
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Samael stood quietly in the grand hall, eyes fixed on the massive screen suspended at the front. He wasn’t the only one. All around him, bei
Samael stood quietly in the grand hall, eyes fixed on the massive screen suspended at the front. He wasn’t the only one. All around him, beings of power, gods, apostles, emissaries, high priestesses, and divine attendants were watching the exact same broadcast: The death of the Beast Lord.
Some clicked their tongues in disappointment, irr...
2025-08-06 22:55:17 +0000 UTC
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Luke’s arm was gone, swallowed whole by the serpent. He hit the ground, barely escaping being eaten alive. His eyes snapped to the ragged st
Luke’s arm was gone, swallowed whole by the serpent. He hit the ground, barely escaping being eaten alive. His eyes snapped to the ragged stump where his arm had been, and the agony flared into something worse: a burning sensation that wasn’t just from the pain. Acid. The fang had been laced with it.
"YOU’LL PAY FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE...
2025-08-06 11:02:01 +0000 UTC
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Luke sprinted through the winding, debris-strewn streets of the capital, his boots splashing through puddles as he fought to put every possible inch between himself and the Beast Lord. His breath came sharp and ragged, heart pounding like a war drum in his chest. When he risked a glance over his shoulder, he caught sight of the massive serpent coiled on the elevated street above. Its chest rose ominously before it exhaled with a thunderous hiss, unleashing yet another vicious barrage of acid ...
2025-08-05 14:33:53 +0000 UTC
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The massive serpent lunged, jaws splitting wide in a devastating strike. Luke had missed. The Beast Lord had dodged in the final instant. He had poured everything he had into that arrow, and still failed. The creature’s mouth came down fast, fangs gleaming. Even the one he’d broken earlier had fully regenerated.
[Stamina: 1/1970]
With the last flicker of energy left in his body, Luke threw himself backward, rolled hard, and plummeted off the edge of the wall. ...
2025-08-05 14:33:40 +0000 UTC
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Luke stood atop the wall, a living barricade of roots, earth, vines, and leaves. Towering and dense, it loomed like a fortress of nature, but it wasn't what trapped him. He reached forward, fingers brushing against an invisible resistance. No wind, no movement, just the strange stillness of an airtight dome. The Stone Echo Sanctuary was sealed inside some kind of magical barrier. Maybe that’s why even the Beast Lord hadn’t been able to breach this place.
His eyes dropped to the scre...
2025-08-05 04:50:44 +0000 UTC
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Luke was still trying to make sense of what had just happened. The stone angel was dead. For real. He glanced over at Charlie.
“I don’t know exactly what that was,” he said, “but the important thing is—we survived.”
Charlie, however, didn’t seem as relieved as he was expecting. She was staring at him with a mildly irritated expression.
“What?” he asked. “If this is about the second servant thing, it was just an opportunity. Relax, I’m not trying to repl...
2025-08-04 16:40:24 +0000 UTC
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The battle with the stone angel had begun. Luke stood atop the fortress wall, kukris flying from his hands, but the creature didn’t stop to fight. Instead, it sprinted straight for the warhorn. He clicked his tongue. The damn thing wasn’t interested in a duel. It wanted to wake the entire army.
“You hit the ANGEL LADY’S BEAUTIFUL STONE BOOBS!” Artemis yelled.
“Head and heart are damage multipliers, what’d you expect?!” he snapped back.
He recalled the kukris ...
2025-08-03 23:02:01 +0000 UTC
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The statue had sensed something. Its head turned slightly toward the fortress gates, but Luke was already hidden behind the warhorn, heart pounding. From his position, he could see the backs of the countless stone soldiers lined up before him, all facing the city streets in perfect stillness. They were frozen. But there were so many of them.
Even if they're just level 45... if they all wake up, I’m dead.
He understood the stakes now. If that thing, the Angel, reache...
2025-08-03 11:02:02 +0000 UTC
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Luke pushed himself up from the ground and leaned against a nearby tree. His entire body still pulsed with heat, the lingering aftershock of fusing the Blood of Mother Freya into his bloodstream, only for it to immediately clash with the Dark Blood already inside him.
I should’ve taken that warning seriously, he thought, still wincing as the residual pain simmered in his veins.
Slowly, his blood began to cool. The burning eased. His breathing leveled out.
“Hey, ...
2025-08-02 23:40:20 +0000 UTC
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Luke crouched atop the tallest building in that ruined city, perched on its edge like a gargoyle surveying the chaos below. From this vantage point, he had a clear view of everything ahead: scattered torch-lit camps, enemy routes, his own chosen path weaving right through them. He was closing in on the fortress that housed the third mechanism.
But the streets below were crawling with danger. Stone knights on stone horses patrolled the roads, each of them carrying a horn. They moved rele...
2025-08-02 18:25:55 +0000 UTC
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Luke stared at the list of skill options that had unlocked when his class hit level 35. Every single one had “Assassin” in the name.
It’s just like I suspected. Being a Demonic Assassin means I get skills from two different styles. If I go more for the non-stealthy assassin approach, killing head-on with a combat style closer to a mercenary, that’s actually the demonic side of the class, something more savage and beast-like. Technically, this class isn’t about stealth, it...
2025-08-02 00:22:50 +0000 UTC
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Luke crouched silently atop a rooftop, eyes fixed on the streets below. He’d been in this place for a few days now—long enough to memorize the statues’ patrol routes, their habits, their blind spots. The layout of the city was eerily familiar. It looked almost identical to Bastion’s first Safe Zone. Same narrow alleys, same building patterns. He’d even found a house that looked like his old hideout.
After days spent scavenging for resources, refining his profession skills, and...
2025-08-01 16:13:36 +0000 UTC
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Luke was dragged through dense roots, pulled along a living tunnel while the Beast Lord’s roars grew more and more muffled beneath layers of dirt and leaves. Then even the sound vanished as the path sealed shut behind him.
And then—he fell.
But he didn’t stay down. Not even for a second. He sprang to his feet, kukris drawn, scanning for the monster, ready for it to lunge from the dark. But the tunnel was gone. No way back. Charlie emerged from his soul, stepping into place b...
2025-07-31 19:28:03 +0000 UTC
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Luke had his hand in the dirt, pulling out everything he could. Two days had already passed in that maddening routine of constant running, never-ending tension, and the looming threat of the Beast Lord. The damn thing never stopped. It slithered across the entire region without pause, hunting him like a predator with no need for rest. Luke couldn’t afford to stay in one place for more than an hour. Any longer, and he risked being caught.
Even with Meditation, his stamina never fully r...
2025-07-31 19:27:53 +0000 UTC
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The massive serpent watched him with eyes like wet blades, its body undulating across the forest floor in slow, deliberate coils. A grotesque smile twisted along its split mouth.
[Frankzaroth, the Great Serpent (Beast Lord) – Lvl 83]
“I let you believe you were in control. That you could strut through my territory like you owned the place. But now…” The creature slithered forward, muscles rippling beneath its dark scales. “Now, it’s time to act. Your d...
2025-07-31 19:27:39 +0000 UTC
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It had been a few hours since Luke confirmed the location of the third and final mechanism in the tutorial. He didn’t care about being seen by the statues during the day, not this time. He made sure to head into the forest in the opposite direction of his real hideout, looping around through the dense woods until he finally reached the cave. Before, that kind of maneuvering wasn’t an option. Back then, his path led straight through their territory, and getting spotted had never been on th...
2025-07-30 19:21:44 +0000 UTC
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Luke had spent the entire day hidden in silence, watching the Beast Lord. The giant serpent roamed the ruins like it owned them, slithering between buildings, occasionally peering inside as if inspecting its domain. But Luke wasn’t here to fight. He was waiting for the perfect moment. That one window of opportunity when the monster would slip into the forest during daylight. That was how he’d been moving across the city, little by little.
“Tch.” He clicked his tongue, annoyed.
2025-07-30 04:07:28 +0000 UTC
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An arrow sliced through the air and buried itself in the tree trunk with a sharp thunk.
“Nice shot,” Artemis praised. “Now do it again, but this time my way.”
Luke let out a long breath and reached for another arrow. “You sure about this?”
“I’m always sure. I was the most skilled archer in the entire multiverse, remember?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I believe you. I just don’t trust your methods.”
“Just do it. You’ll understand.”
W...
2025-07-29 17:01:52 +0000 UTC
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Luke sat at the table in his hideout, surrounded by scraps of paper and hand-sketched notes. He’d managed to scavenge some basic supplies from the city, ink, old parchment, scraps of cloth, and now, after days of careful observation and cautious scouting, his map was finally starting to make sense.
The forest, as far as he could tell, curved around the city in a giant U-shape. That meant he could continue advancing through the outskirts, hugging the treeline and avoiding attention. It...
2025-07-29 05:06:13 +0000 UTC
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It had been a few days since Samael left, leaving only Luke, Artemis, and Charlie behind in the cavern. In that time, Luke hadn’t focused much on his profession. His attention was consumed by the capital and the hunt for the third mechanism.
“So... you’re looking for me,” he muttered, eyes scanning from the shadows.
He was tucked inside a ruined building, half-collapsed and smothered in dust. Most wouldn’t have been able to squeeze through the crack in the wall, barely w...
2025-07-29 05:04:12 +0000 UTC
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Samael’s gaze sharpened as he stared at Luke. He had tricked him into agreeing to fight the Beast Lord.
Luke only tightened his grip on the demon’s hand. “I don’t care. I’m killing that serpent anyway. Honestly, even if it were ten of them, I’d still have taken the deal. You’re offering me something I’ve wanted for a long time. Answers about what happened to my mother.”
He gave a slow smile. “Far as I’m concerned, I’m the one coming out ahead.”
Sama...
2025-07-27 23:51:15 +0000 UTC
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Luke finished assigning Princess Charlie’s new skill. With her class evolution into Death Knight, several impressive skills had unlocked, and he had already made his choice.
[Doomblade (Rare)]: The Death Knight’s sword becomes shrouded in a cursed aura. Each strike with Doomblade corrupts the target’s flesh, dealing necrotic damage. Wounds caused by this blade resist healing, leaving behind searing pain and lingering decay. The more cuts inflicted, the heavier the toll of ...
2025-07-27 16:24:53 +0000 UTC
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Tension hung in the air the moment Bartholomew heard Jonathan humming the hymn of Blight.
“Please, leave. I have private matters to discuss with this man,” he said with a calm smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
The soldiers nodded without question. Bartholomew glanced deliberately toward a specific corner of the room where he knew Kruger was hiding. A subtle hand signal followed, a silent cue only Kruger would recognize. He understood immediately. This wasn’t just some inte...
2025-07-26 23:02:01 +0000 UTC
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Luke stood in a dense patch of forest just outside the city. He had spent the entire day testing his new skill, and if he had to describe the experience in one word, it would’ve been... weird. With his palm pressed against the trunk of a tree, he felt emotions pulse through him like subtle waves. That was how plants communicated. Not with words, but with sensations, soft, flickering things that echoed beneath the skin. Some were shy. Others, surprisingly unfriendly. And then there were thos...
2025-07-26 16:25:59 +0000 UTC
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