I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI - Chapter 128: The Price of Loyalty

What would happen if someday, someone gave humans the opportunity to have the power of the legends?Total Chaos!That's the answer to that, people started killing, r*ping, extorting and torturing, to become the strongest.In such a world, a nerd like Eric became one of the strongest.With the resolve of a better life for his family, his loved ones, he managed to flip his destiny around, and become the strongest, and built his Empire.He went so far, that he was close to ascending to the Immortal World, that world of dreams.His story looks like one of a fairytale, but a fairytale it's not.Just as he was about to ascend, he was betrayed and killed, by his closest friends, and his half-brother.At the death's door, he learned about his brother's atrocities, but his time had finished.If only he had another chance!If only he could have another shot at life!He would definitely live differently!But could he!?At that moment his soul was transferred into a black space!

I am the best when it comes to taking divergent paths. With just a flip of my hand, I shall take the path less commonly travelled. I search far and wide, only to find myself unbeatable and unrivaled. So now I ask, who else can match my awesomeness?

Acting tough is second nature to me and I am a lone wolf.

The road is long and winding but I shan’t feel lonely as long as I am able to act tough!

Life and death bore me and I do whatever I deem fit.

“Young man, way back when I started acting tough, you were still learning how to put on your underpants!” Xu Que thus decided to take the path of acting tough. He decided to act tough every single god-damned day. If he wasn’t acting tough, he was scheming for the best way to act tough!

Book I: Lost ThingsTristan Abrascal is a thief, one of many making their living under the perpetual twilight of the greatest city in all of Vesper. Quick wit and a contract with a capricious goddess have always kept him one step ahead, until one night he crosses a line by accident that burns all the bridges he had left. But not all is lost, as his mentor offers a way out of peril that turns out to be more than a simple escape.It is also an opportunity to get even with the infanzones, the nobles he’s lived under all his life, and it so happens that Tristan has a full ledger’s worth of scores to settle with them.Lady Angharad Tredegar has fled halfway across the world, leaving behind a ruin of a life: her family butchered by a ruthless enemy, their estate torched and their nobility revoked. Yet no matter how far she flees the blades of assassins follow, and she finds herself growing desperate for any protection. She has one relative left to call on, her estranged uncle, but she finds that the safety he offers comes at a cost.Angharad has sworn revenge, however, and her honour will allow for no compromise. She will do what she must to survive so that one day bloody vengeance can be visited upon her enemies.The paths of the two take them to the doorstep of the Watch, but for desperate souls like them enrolment is a lost cause. They will have to do it the hard way instead, by surviving the trials on the isle known as the Dominion of Lost Things.Where every year many go, and few return.Book II: Good TreasonsThe trials of the Dominion are over.The four survivors have become students of Scholomance, enrolling together as a cabal, yet even on those infamous grounds they soon learn none are beyond the reach of their pasts.Angharad Tredegar is returned to a semblance of the world she left behind, but finds her honor sorely tested by bargains offered - every bit as tempting as in the stories and even deadlier.Tristan Abrascal needs answers. Mysterious enemies keep trying to abduct him, his classroom does not exist and he’s now had several conversations with dead people. Worst of all, his carrots keep dying.Maryam Khaimov is going mad, which would worry her less if it were happening on schedule. More frightening yet is the possibility that she is not, and there truly is someone else going around wearing her face.Song Ren must forge the others into a functional unit, all the while fending off enemies on all sides: rival cabals, vengeful countrymen and the deluge of implacable foes her companions simply cannot seem to stop attracting.Failure is not an option, for Song must bring back honor to her family’s name whatever the cost: it is the only way to keep their disgrace from literally eating them all alive.And as the four chase shadows in Scholomance, in the distance looms the greater test awaiting them in the Asphodel Rectorate. Asphodel is a faded power, the rotten carcass of what it once was, but under that rot looms darker things - of which monsters might just be the least dangerous.Besides, is treason really such an evil when you have the best of reasons for it?

“I, Lethia Ashcroft, accept your rejection, soon-to-be Clown Alpha of the Rotten Obsidian Pack, as my ungrateful mate. May your divorced life find its hellhole.”*****Year 2666.Werewolves and their kin have long embraced civilization, seamlessly blending into the high-tech world alongside humans.It is the year Lykon Haven hosts its once-in-seven-year event to select a new leader—one who will govern the shifting dynamics of werewolf packs across the country.It is also the year Lethia Ashcroft faces the ultimate humiliation when her mate, her husband, rejects her because of the infidelity she never committed.It cost her the inheritance she and her late father had worked so hard for.When she tries to flee exile while pregnant, she is caught in an accident—one that leaves her possessed by a seductive spirit fox.The creature needs a vessel to ignite her beads and, in exchange, grants Lethia the power to protect her unborn child.But that untamed spirit entangles her with three dangerously irresistible Lycans from Lykon Haven—men who have severed themselves from the fated mate bond.A stoic, protective doctor.A brooding, dominant businessman.A charming, playful celebrity.All Lethia wants is to reclaim what was rightfully hers and live a peaceful and comfortable life, alone with her baby. And she must get it—no matter what.But the mischievous Moon Goddess seems to take great pleasure in twisting her fate.