Cosmic Paragon - Chapter 12: Arrogant guard at the gate

“You want me to go on an impossible journey, sacrifice everything, and risk my own life for a mere 1,000 gold? Hell no!”Lukas never really had anything going in his previous life. When he found himself transmigrated into a new world, he had hoped the soft and gentle touch of a hot milf would mark the beginning of a lavish lifestyle befitting a king.Instead, he quickly learned that he was just some random extra. Worse than that, this extra was only known by everyone as the “Divine Simp,” someone who would do whatever the gods asked.“Divine Simp? Fuck that!”Refusing such a pitiful existence, Lukas decides to take this new life in his own hands. Instead of waiting for some lavish life to fall in his lap, he would create one for himself.How?Well, the gods seem to love him. They shower him with quests, thinking that he will just take them for free. Little do they know... that old extra is dead and gone now.The Divine Simp has become the Divine Extortionist: someone who can obtain the greatest rewards for completing the easiest tasks.

On their wedding night, she gnashed her teeth, yelling, “Your Highness, that’s shameless!”

Set off by the flickering light of red candles, he curved the corner of his mouth into a wicked grin, “Actually, I can be more shameless…”

…

When they met for the first time, he was the young prince who lived in his day of brilliance, while she was the pampered princess of the adjacent state.

When they met again, he became the crippled underdog suffering from frustration, while she became the lackluster hostage stranded in an alien land.

In his mid-life, he was defeated in the fight and had his legs broken; his wife passed away and he didn’t have anything left except his father’s detestation… After constant blows took the edge off his spirit, all he wanted was nothing but serenity.

In her teen-age, her state perished and her home lost; she lapsed into an awkward situation after being abandoned and having her marriage annulled… As endless hardships isolated her from happiness, everything she wished for was no more than peace.

…

“Lu Zhishan, when I first met you, I didn’t think I’d marry you…too old,” after years passed by, one day, she lay on his laps mumbling, with a kind of hazy beauty on her boozy face, “and lame.”

“Mu Nanzhi, you have the wrong memory. At our first meeting, I’m neither old nor limp.”

“…When was that?”

“When people were celebrating your first birthday,” that man assumed all gentleness and joy crept on his eyes and brows, “On that day, you were ‘drawing lots’ in the rear hall. I also sneaked there to have a look. But, out of my expectation, you directly grabbed my true-love knot.”

…

How vivid the red love pea is embedded in the exquisitely carved dice,

Just as my feelings for you deep in my bones.

- Description from Novelupdates

He had never invested in shares or bought a lottery ticket, and neither did he have any experience in the general business industry. Lu Li found that the only thing he could do was play games.

Luckily he had experienced rebirth, and was one step ahead of everyone else. Luckily, games had been developing extremely quickly, and there were many people who had become rich through playing games.

In his ‘past life’, he had spent countless nights awake, in grief and anguish. However, although all of this had been washed away, so what…? This life, he was determined to make a fierce counterattack against fate and stand at the very top!

- Description from Novelupdates

Astrid dedicated her life to Leon, believing in their love, their pack, their future. But the devastating return of her sister, Clara, as Leon's destined mate, shatters Astrid's carefully constructed world. Betrayal cuts deep, leaving Astrid stripped bare and forced to confront a horrifying truth: her loyalty was misplaced, her sacrifices meaningless.Just as despair threatens to consume her, Kaeleen, a magnetic and rebellious Alpha from a rival pack, storms into her life, igniting a forbidden passion that challenges everything she thought she knew. He offers her a chance to escape the suffocating control of her past, to claim a life of her own, a life where she is the priority.But Leon won't relinquish his prize so easily. Obsessed and dangerously possessive, he unleashes a storm of violence and manipulation, determined to drag Astrid back into the darkness. Now, Astrid must make a desperate choice: succumb to the chains of her past, or embrace the dangerous allure of a love that could save her... or ignite a war that will consume them all.