HP: The Arcane Thief - Chapter 51: New Term, New Surprises

Then there’s James Bellini. His nickname? The Angel of Death.The man everyone fears. The man they all whisper about in dark corners. They say he’s merciless, that he has killed more people than anyone in the Circle. No one dares cross him. But there’s a secret, one that no one knows.James Bellini has never killed anyone. Not once.The rumors started because of a misunderstanding, a mistake so deep that even he couldn’t fix it. Now, the entire underworld fears him. Even the other bosses treat him like an equal, like he’s one of them. But the truth? The truth is something only God himself could untangle. And James? He’s just a man caught in the middle of it all.

Anton is a great-grandfather. He is living quite a happy life, despite his advanced age and declining health… until a group of cultivator bandits moves into the area. The nearby guardians of the area, the Order of Ninety-Nine Stars, are unable to track them down as they continue to ravage nearby towns. During one desperate winter Anton is out on a hunt when his family- his entire village- is killed or taken as slaves by the bandits. He lacks the strength to fight them, and he wasn’t even present for their arrival to die with his loved ones. At the pit of his despair, he wonders if he ever had any chance to change things. What could he even do? He cannot even pull his best bow, and his eyesight is failing. If he had been a cultivator… perhaps there might have been a chance, but he was decades- perhaps even most of his life- too late.Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge (2022)Notes on cultivation levels:There are five general stages of cultivation, though the fifth is extremely rare. Each cultivation style might have their own name for the stages.1. Body Tempering2. Spirit Building/ occasionally System Creation (Ninety-Nine Stars)3. Constellation Formation (Ninety-Nine Stars)4. Life Transformation/Galaxy Construction (Ninety-Nine Stars)5. Ascension

I was a genius in the Earthen Plane.

Akira, was born in the slum and wishes to get out but the only way he could was to risk his life in these ruins as a hunter.