Life, Once Again! - After Story 138

“Spread your legs...” That haunting command was all she remembered from the grey-eyed stranger—the man she shared a night with.Now, Ariana is branded as cursed. The girl who killed her mother. A silent omen wrapped in whispers and fear. But the truth? It’s locked inside her, buried beneath silence… because Ariana is mute.And when fate cruelly reunites her with the very man who started it all, how can she defend herself—when she cannot even speak?In a world where rumors are louder than truth, will anyone ever hear her side of the story?

In the land of the Xia Kingdom, every human being is born with what is known as a ‘resonance’, either to a specific element or a powerful, mythical beast. Unfortunately, Li Luo was born with an incredibly rare condition known as a blank resonance – as the name suggests, he doesn’t have one! Normally, this would be utterly crippling, but at least he has the advantage of being the young master of the mighty House Loulan, one of the five Great Houses of Xia. Unfortunately, his parents, the powerful masters of House Loulan, have gone missing for many years, and the other Great Houses are beginning to eye their holdings quite hungrily. For that matter, plenty are also eyeing his talented, beautiful childhood friend and fiancee Jiang Qing’e, who has been leading House Loulan in his parents’ stead! Li Luo would much rather keep a low profile and wants to call off the engagement – but Jiang Qing’e has flatly refused. What’s a ‘useless young master’ to do?

The rule had always been this way: the strong over the weak, the rich over the poor. Mark knew this, he'd even experienced it.After his boss fired him for discovering the affair with his girlfriend (who also worked at their small gaming company), Mark vowed never to be humiliated like that again. He wanted to rise above everyone, to become the world's top player, the one who made the rules and decided everyone's fate. But that was wishful thinking. He was just a heavyset, nerdy guy with some programming skills and a large appetite. What else did he have going for him?Hit hard by this reality, jobless and dumped, Mark withdrew into gaming, which also became his source of income. One day, after leaving a bad review for a game he played and streamed, he received a strange reply from the game's creator. Suddenly, Mark found himself transported to Aetherium, the world of that same game, as Magnus Lancaster, the young lord of a crumbling territory.Now, with this new beginning, he vowed never to be weak again, never to leave his fate in someone else's hands.

In less than an instant the world as we knew it was at its end. That’s right. The Apocalypse. In a single blink Zombies appeared and mutated monsters began to rampage all throughout the world. Now it was the human species turn to fight for survival and planetary dominance! On the same day that the world descends into chaos we meet Yue Zhong. Initially only hoping to get to his friends and escape to a refugee camp our protagonist sets out, inadvertently building a team along the way. After a series of fortuitous events and a few serious hunches our hero decides it’s time to do more than just survive! Yue Zhong begins to form the foundations of an enormous survival plan… before he suddenly discovers that he has only gotten over the first hurdle….

Unbeknownst to Yue Zhong and company, the world outside of China is mostly a wasteland! Country sized swathes of nuclear radiation and an extreme shortage of supplies in the world after the nuclear explosions was quickly becoming the “norm”. Mutants, Evolved animals and what’s worse, intelligent out of control dinosaurs had quickly appeared and claimed their own sections of the planet. There were several innately powerful Evolved races which appeared that were more than 10 times stronger than humans, nearly all of them possessing bodies impenetrable by normal bullets. The fabled orcs’ were another of these Evolved races, the leader of which had in fact enslaved many of the remaining human beings. Unceremoniously exposed to such a cold and heartless new world, Yue Zhong is faced with a choice: Find a deep dark hole and hope it goes back to “normal”? Or overcome all obstacles and struggle towards Evolution!!!