Shroud Arcanum - Chapter 21 - - Next Trial

[Are you crippled?][Did your fiancé break the engagement?][Did you lose your family to a demon attack? Are you the last surviving member of your clan, seeking revenge?][Does your family look at you with pity because you're the only one without any innate spiritual roots?][Are you tired of being told that you're a 'waste of resources'?][Are you stuck with no way to progress? Are you tired of being weak and helpless?][Well, have no fear! This Supreme Master is here to help you!]

[Mature Content]I was born a bastard to the Archduke of Beloria, scorned because of my odd-looking hair and sickly body, maltreated by my stepmother and sister.And my father? He never looked my way. I was the reminder of a mistake he could never accept.My entire life should've been trying to live through my days as a labeled whores daughter and the taint to the noble house but everything changed when my marriage to the Lycan Monarch was announced.Lycans are apex predators, superior beings, beastmen, and originators of those horror stories your parents told you about to make you behave. My father saw fit to throw me to the beasts as a means to reclaim the lost lands.I was the bargain for a better future for the last human kingdom, but I felt more cursed than blessed. Forced into training to please a beast and ensure I was fit to be his wife.I dreaded the day I'd wed the Monarch and be treated no less than human meat. I've heard stories about him, and they are far worse than any combined. They call him a mindless beast, merciless, the ultimate feared being in the entire realm, and the terror that bested the vampires in war and ended it under his rule.My future was bleak.But when the day arrived and I set my gaze on the beast I'm meant to marry... I realized Drevon Balthar was unlike the rumors; they didn't tell the whole story.

Alan, a ruthless Archmage who slaughtered an entire Magistracy for revenge, finally meets his end… only to awaken in the body of a broken fifteen-year-old boy dangling from a noose.Now inhabiting the skin of Severus Snape, Alan brings with him memories of blood-soaked battlefields, forbidden runes, and magic so terrifying it makes Avada Kedavra look like a child’s prank.He has no interest in Dumbledore’s war, Voldemort’s ideology, or teenage drama.

After a decade of clawing through brutal Gates, top Ranker Ace Avalanche finally storms Heaven’s Gate—only to learn Earth’s apocalypse was just the tutorial.He cashes in his one wish and wakes in his broke teenage body, three months before the first Gate descends. The multiverse blocks his every active skill and seals his heart, yet the System still flags him as a Ranker. Exploiting that loophole, Ace quietly stacks passive skills like Attack Speed, Critical Strike, Lifesteal, and more while the world marches blind toward its first apocalypse.