Galactic Exchange: The Merchant Sovereign - Chapter 67 – Market of Shadows

When his wife left without a word when they were young, he entrusted their child to his mother and spiraled into despair, drowning his sorrows in alcohol.Sixteen years passed in a blur, and his daughter was diagnosed with depression.As she lay on the hospital bed, she struggled to smile.“Dad, I don't blame you, and I never blamed Mom. If I have another life, I still want to be your child, but please, don't leave me again.”With that, she closed her eyes and departed from this world.It felt like something tore apart in the depths of his heart.Gu Chen fell into a coma.Upon awakening again, his two-year-old daughter was calling him “Daddy” with a sweet smile and a childish voice.He was reborn!This time, he vowed to make up for his regrets towards his daughter, to hold his wife's hand and never let her go.This time, he was determined to change everything!

“THE NEW GATE”, an online game that trapped its players and turned into a death game, was now releasing the thousands of players that had been dragged into it, thanks to the efforts of Shin, one of the most powerful players. But after having defeated the last boss and freed everyone, he was swallowed up by a strange light and found himself inside the game world 500 years in the future and unable to leave.

A conversation with a handsome stranger leaves Ariane chained in a cellar with a strange affliction. She soon discovers that the darkness of the nineteenth century’s Deep South hides many dangers. Mages, wolf shifters and the humans who hunt them play a risky game where to stumble is to die, all under the amused gaze of the apex predators of the supernatural world: vampires.

It is never healthy to attract the gaze of the aristocracy of the night. It takes much to survive in this merciless world, but Ariane will not let that deter her. The southern belle has a bite, and she is willing to learn and to grow in this hostile new world. She will use whatever means necessary to reclaim her freedom, be it guile, charm, or those intriguing new instincts that make blood so delectable.

This is a story of vampires as I believe they should be, with their strengths and weaknesses, with their remnants of humanity and the beast inside. Updates every Friday. Mind the tags.

Cover by Antti Hakosaari: https://www.artstation.com/haco

Special thanks to Svensonsen for getting me started, as well as Omi Nya, Hesketh, Rhaegar, Yaksher, Selkie and Raven for proofreading my stuff. Thanks to my patrons and you dear readers, for the support. I could not do it without you.

Journey is on Amazon, both in ebooks and audio. here is a link to the first one:

https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B08DK6G8Y8

The story probably exists in your local marketplace as well of I can tempt you.

Ten years ago, Joseph Cassian was thrown into a maximum-security prison for crimes he didn’t commit framed by the very family whose blood runs through his veins.Now, at twenty-eight, he walks free into a world where the city’s mafia empires have mysteriously crumbled. Their leaders, slaughtered. Their empires, burned.All while Joseph sat in silence behind bars... no one can prove he did anything and yet it all happened as if he planned it.Was he just a wrongfully imprisoned scapegoat, a man who survived injustice?Or is he a mastermind a Don who orchestrated revenge so flawlessly that not even he had to lift a finger?Now that he’s free, Joseph stands at a crossroads.He can leave the blood behind, walk away from the ashes of an empire that once owned the city.Or he can claim what’s left of his legacy and become the very Don the world has feared all along.