Ashen Dragon - Chapter 45: Forced Collaborator

A world filled with heroes with superpowers. A world attacked by calamity fiends. A modern world filled with wonders and dangers.

Shi Xiaobai, a child from normal Earth, walked into such a world, proclaiming to be its king. But at the first signs of danger, he is forced to make a choice, one which he cannot refuse for time would repeat, making him face the choice again.

He is not humble nor is he modest, but neither is he delusional. Yet, the Absolute Choice seems to make fun of him. Will the joke be on him or will he laugh at his opponents? There will be many watching his escapades, and there will be some joining him in his adventures.

To see through the world and to grasp its truth, that is the destiny of the King.

- Description from novelupdates

Rex was an ordinary salaryman, resigned to a dull life of monotony in a towering megacity. But his world shatters when he’s conscripted by Nexum Dynamics, a ruthless megacorporation, and thrust into a brutal war for a barren, alien world. The planet holds unimaginable riches, but it’s also swarming with the Krhyssari, an insectoid race that dominates the surface with their hive-mind precision and relentless aggression. Amid the carnage, Rex had an extraordinary encounter with Cleo, an ancient AI, a survivor of a long-extinct civilization. Cleo isn’t just an artificial intelligence; she’s a consciousness imbued with memories of her people’s interstellar empire and equipped with advanced bio-nanotechnology. Offering Rex a new purpose and unmatched power, she transforms his fragile human body into a hybrid of living metal and flesh, making him the ultimate weapon. But Cleo is more than a tool of war. As she journeys alongside Rex, her cold, logical algorithms evolve, shaped by his humanity. Together, they form a bond that transcends the boundaries of man and machine, discovering love in the midst of chaos. As Rex and Cleo fight for survival, they uncover a shared ambition, to rise as intergalactic overlords, uniting or conquering the galaxy.

While creating her character, the game’s system randomly generated a “unique” name for her.

The dust thrown into the atmosphere by the impact obscured the sky and plunged the world into an Ice Age that would last for hundreds of years without sunlight.Because of the lack of sunlight, Earth's surface had fallen to extreme cold temperatures down to tens of degrees below zero.Facing impending doom, Chen Xin was left with a shelter that he built underground and an upgrade system he found. How would he survive the crisis?Could human civilization prevail? Would the embers of hope be enough to illuminate the cold night and bring warmth to mankind?Destiny had brought forward a harsh trial. Could human beings avoid sharing the same fate as those of the dinosaurs that were extinct?