Card Room (Rebirth) - Chapter 26: Bloody Maple Leaf: Mystery of the Curse

The Last Touched is a haunting fantasy of bloodlines, broken fate, and the perilous cost of power.Elsbeth MoonChild is the last of the touched—the final descendant of a cursed lineage bound to the flame. As Alpha of the shattered 12th pack, she bears the ruin left by her father’s crime: the murder of the queen. Branded by his betrayal, hunted by her former chosen mate, and driven into exile with the last of her people, Elsbeth has one desperate path forward—to survive, she must stake her claim in the Rite of Queens, an ancient trial that demands strength, sacrifice, and the will to rule.But the Rite does more than test her body and mind. It pulls her backward in time, submerging her into the forgotten life of her ancestor—the first queen. As memories bleed into dreams and dreams into waking, Elsbeth begins to unravel a long-buried truth: the flame in her blood is not just magic. It is a weapon. A curse. A gift once traded in blood and sacrifice to end an age of chaos.And she is not the only one who carries it.Julia, her estranged sister—exiled, fire-born, and half-mad with hunger—is no hybrid. She is the living echo of the power their bloodline tried to bury. Ruthless, charismatic, and driven by the belief that the throne was stolen from her, Julia is building a gospel of grievance and flame. Her army grows in the shadows, fed by secrets and stolen children. And with each ritual, the ancient seal weakens, waking something that was never meant to rise again.Torn between duty and desire, Elsbeth clings to the one thing that keeps her tethered—Fen, her true mate, a being older than he appears, hiding a divine truth of his own. Their bond runs deeper than fate, but it terrifies her. To surrender to it would mean choosing love over the kingdom. And if she falls too far, the flame inside her might burn her from within… just as it did her father.As old gods stir and the fire in her blood begins to answer the call of something watching from beneath the ice, Elsbeth must decide: will she become the queen her people need? Or the weapon her blood was meant to wield?

In her seven years of marriage, she and her husband click perfectly well, sharing a loving and sweet relationship.

Human civilization expanded into space, and its territory spanned across galaxies.

During this great trend of interstellar migration, Zhou Qing accidentally awakened the power of traveling to various Astral Realms. He was able to create [Astral Realm Apostles] as vessels for his soul and project them onto different realms. This allowed him to travel through various worlds with different identities.

His unremarkable life was met with an unexpected twist of fate. Every time he created a new Apostle, it was like being reborn.

Yet, slowly, he realized that the Human civilization wasn’t completely ignorant about the existence of other realms…

——

Multiple-dimensional worlds, multi-dimensional factions. This is an clash of fate between realms!

And he is the only being who is able to travel amongst the realms in countless different shapes and forms — The Astral Apostle!

[I was reincarnated as an F-class Hunter.

…it’s a problem because they don’t treat me that way.]