Rebirth from the Ashes - Chapter 26

I found myself inside the game I used to enjoy.But something feels off.

Zane was just a working-class adult with a passion for one thing—Cursed Bloodline Online, the once-revolutionary game that had faded into obscurity. After six long years of grinding, he was finally on the verge of ascension—until everything changed.His bloodline suddenly reset.The world itself changed immediately after.And without warning, everyone between the ages of sixteen to thirty vanished—pulled into the game’s world.Now trapped in the Realm of Bloodlines, Zane finds himself different from the others. While most awaken standard paths to power, he inherits a hidden Bloodline Class—the Cursed Bloodline of the Vampire Progenitor, the same bloodline that mysteriously appeared on his account just moments before the transfer.Alone, hunted, and feared as one of the last of a forgotten, despised race, Zane must fight to survive. To grow stronger before the world turns on him. To uncover the secrets of his cursed identity. And to discover what force brought them all into this deadly game.Slowly but surely, he forgets himself from the past, overtaken by the life of the body he now inhabits and the mysteries that surround it, becoming the very thing that caused the gods to curse his race in the first place.

“The missing ingredient is a test subject with Royal Blood...”Raven Kyzer, a Commoner boy, grew up in an orphanage along with his twin sister, after losing their mother at a young age, having never met their father.After being discovered to possess Royal blood, the twins are abducted by the Church of Persona. Raven is used as a test subject in an ancient form of Forbidden Magic, known as the Homunculus Ritual, while his sister goes missing in the clutches of the church.The Homunculus Ritual is conducted to turn Raven into a powerful but mindless Monster, a loyal weapon for the church with no sense of free will...but something goes wrong, the ritual fails to destroy Raven's mind and he escapes the clutches of the church.Furious at being turned into a Monster, Raven swears revenge against the church, determined to make them pay for what they did to him, as well as to rescue his sister from their clutches.But there's only so much he can do by himself, even with the new powers he gained through the Homunculus Ritual...that's when he has a fateful encounter with the nation's most wanted criminals, a group known as The Irregulars, who, like Raven, have their own reasons to despise and go after the church, as well as the corrupt Nobility that oppresses the Commoners.With their goals aligned, Raven decides to join The Irregulars, taking the first step on his long, arduous path to revenge...

war, blood, and betrayal carved him into something else. A legend. A killer. A mercenary whose name struck fear into both criminals and so-called heroes alike.But now, the world had changed. Lines blurred between right and wrong, between justice and vengeance. Should he step into the light, wear the mask of a hero, and fight for a cause greater than himself? Or should he embrace the darkness that had always been his home, a place where morality was just another illusion?“Don’t box me in with your shallow ideas of good and evil,” he muttered, his voice calm but edged with danger. “I do what I want, when I want.”The air was thick with tension as he moved like a shadow through the dimly lit room. The writer had no time to react—one moment, he was scribbling nonsense about legends and myths; the next, a cold barrel pressed against the back of his head.The figure smirked beneath his mask, eyes gleaming with something between amusement and menace.“You wanna write fiction?” he whispered. “Then let me show you how real legends are made.”A single gunshot shattered the silence.As the writer’s body slumped over the desk, the man holstered his weapon, stepping into the faint glow of a flickering neon light.“It’s that simple,” he said, his voice unwavering. “I’m Deathstroke.”