7786 Book(s) Related to the selection the one

"You were meant to be my death. Instead, you've become my damnation."
Aria Thornwell has spent three years as a healer in her town, attempting to forget the night her former fiancé publically humiliated her by selecting her affluent stepsister instead—taking Aria's family fortune with him. Now, she lives quietly, utilizing her skill to aid the underprivileged while her stepfamily flaunts their stolen fortune.

But on the winter solstice, everything changes. She's chosen as the ceremonial bride for the vampires' holy Winter Feast—a "honor" that guarantees death at daybreak following the Christmas Eve rite. Dragged to the Crimson Vale with five other human tributes, Aria is prepared to meet her fate with dignity.

Until she meets him.

Lord Sebastian Thorne, the ancient vampire who has presided over the Winter Feast for eight centuries, is meant to drain her at dawn following the binding ritual. It's tradition. It's law. It's survival—the ceremonial blood maintains the vampire realm for another year.

But as Sebastian's lips brush her throat in the ceremonial hall, something unbelievable happens. Her blood doesn't simply sustain him—it wakes something in him that's been dead for generations. And in a move that shocks the whole vampire court, he refuses to complete the rite.
"This one is mine," he proclaims, his old strength sweeping the hall. "Anyone who touches her answers to me."

Trapped in the Obsidian Palace as Sebastian's "protected bride," Aria discovers three frightening truths: Sebastian isn't protecting her out of mercy—he's dying from an ancient curse, and her blood is the only thing keeping him alive past Christmas; the vampire court will do anything to kill her and reinstate the ritual; and her "ordinary" healer's gift is actually a rare and dangerous power that vampire nobility has been hunting for generations.

Three years ago, I was the sole surviving legendary mage of Ash Valley. To fulfill my comrade's dying wish, I married into the Robert family, becoming a despised and bullied son-in-law . For three years, I endured torment and humiliation; my entire family treated me like trash . My wife handed me divorce papers , then accepted the marriage proposal of a nobleman. On my wedding day, I walked into the hall in old clothes, and everyone laughed, thinking I was crazy. Until I shattered all magic with a wave of my hand, my legendary presence overwhelming everyone present, the woman who had once despised me finally cried and asked me: Why did you lie to me?

Erin Brown has just begun her internship in a new art gallery in town where she finds a painting depicting an image of her werewolf persona alongside an unknown male werewolf. Her new boss, Devon Grey, calls her by a strange name and claims to be her mate even though she does not know him and had never met him before that day.

Determined to convince her that his claim is true, he gives her an ancient dream stone that will transport her back in time and prove to her that they are indeed fated to be mates in this lifetime.

Erin takes him up on his offer and goes to bed with the dream stone under her pillow, only to wake up in another era in the middle of a werewolf civil war. Curious to know how the war ends and yet afraid for her life, she is torn between exploring the erratic bond she shares with her mate or returning to "reality" with many unanswered questions.

Derek Fraser is a successful businessman at the head of a billion-dollar tech empire who works hard and plays even harder. Rachel Lane is a part-time dance instructor and YouTube content creator. They meet in a club where he is hanging out alone after a busy day at work, while she is there with her friends to celebrate her birthday. They run into each other at the bar, sparks fly and they leave the club together and end up having a one-night stand at his place.

Two months later, she shows up at his office, pregnant. Derek is shocked and denies being responsible for Rachel's pregnancy. Disappointed and heartbroken, she leaves his office, determined to raise her baby on her own. One year later, he comes across her YouTube channel and sees that the baby he had rejected is now an adorable toddler and he yearns to have the child in his life.

Derek tracks down his baby mama, trying to mend bridges with her, but she would have none of it. Now, he has to find a way to woo her and convince her that he is a changed man and he is ready to build a family with her. On the other hand, Rachel cannot help but feel that he is only trying to buy her affection, even though she is beginning to get attracted to him and he is turning out to be a great dad to their child. Should she give him a second chance or would that turn out to be a mistake that she might regret forever?

Katrina Ford thought she had it all with Matt Hamilton. But when she catches him in bed with her best friend, Melissa, her world shatters. He gives her divorce papers ending her happiness in a blink.

"You're just a nuisance, Kat. Sign the papers and get out of my life." Matt eyed her.

Kat is broken and hurt. She vows to make them pay. She shocks them when it is revealed she is the heir to a European sovereign's fortune. Kat sets out to destroy the Hamiltons for good.

"I'll bring you to your knees, Melissa. I'll destroy all of you!" Kat sneered.

But then she meets Percy Hamilton, a billionaire architect with the face of a god. Their explosive encounter sparks a forbidden romance, but can Kat trust him? After all, he's a Hamilton.

"I love you, Kat." Percy admitted in the heat of passion.

"I love fucking you." Kat moaned.

Kat's revenge reveals secrets and new alliances are formed but also enemies. Will her thirst for vengeance consume her, or will the love she denies redeem her?

The system made me an outcast live-in husband in a werewolf clan for three years. The mission reward: 80 billion dollars. Now there's only half a day left until retirement settlement.

The arrogant pure-blood Alpha wants to force me into a deadly full moon execution array, roaring for me to kneel and die.

I don't even lift an eyelid. Right at quitting time, I directly withdraw my soul, leaving the body to the original owner "Ancestor Wolf Emperor" to handle, while I return to my Manhattan penthouse, sink into the leather sofa, and start a holographic livestream.

"Enjoy your night shift, everyone." I take a light sip of hot coffee, coldly watching the screen as the Wolf Emperor crushes that pure-blood Alpha's spine into mush with one foot, shocking my mission wife and mother-in-law into idiots.

In the sixth year of my life as a Scale-Stripper, I finally gathered the hundredth vial of Dragon Breath Essence.

I knelt before the altar, cradling the crystal bottle in both hands. The golden light swirling within it cast a warm glow across my scarred knuckles. Six years — six years of wandering the most dangerous battlefields of the Five Clans and the plague-ridden wastelands, using dragon breath to heal the wounded. For every person I saved, I had peeled away a living scale from my own flesh, baring the raw, bleeding meat beneath.

Seven scales left on my back.

Only seven.

But as long as it saved my brother Lucien, it was worth it.

Six years ago, during the Dragon Slaughter War, our parents had been assassinated by humans. An ancient curse had struck Lucien; his scales were crumbling away, day by day. He told me that only a hundred vials of Dragon Breath Essence could break the curse.

I held the crystal bottle out to him, my voice trembling with barely contained emotion. "Lucien, a hundred vials. We finally have enough."

Lucien took the bottle and glanced at it.

Then he tossed it off the altar without a second thought.

I went rigid.

Lucien stood at the top of the altar.

"I was never cursed," he said.

My hands were still cupped in the shape of holding the bottle, all ten fingers suspended in midair.

"Our parents never died, either."

"The Dragon Slaughter War six years ago, I planned it. The only one left crippled, with broken wings, was you."

I am originally of royal vampire bloodline.
But because of one sentence from my adoptive father, I hid in the human world for decades.
The Church called me a "filthy heretic" because vampire blood flowed in my veins.
Yet they burned a blind girl to death, her crime being that she "couldn't see."
They burned an old blacksmith to death, his crime being that he wanted to learn medicine.
They burned a young mother to death, her crime being that she refused to be violated by the captain of the holy knights.
Bathed in holy light, I realized for the first time—
The demons... are in the light.

Four months pregnant, I walked into the OB-GYN clinic filled with joy—this was the child Archer and I had waited three years for.
But the moment the ultrasound report was handed to him, his gentle gray eyes twisted violently.
"Abort it. We absolutely cannot keep this child."
My stepfather watched coldly. The stepbrother who doted on me most slapped me hard across the face. My own mother wielded the scalpel and removed my uterus.
Half a month later, they picked me up from the hospital with roses, only to turn around and lock me away, feeding me psychiatric drugs until I died.
Reborn, I thought that as long as I hid the report, I could save my baby.
But they forced me onto the operating table once again.
It wasn't until I saw the report with my own eyes—
That I finally understood why my child had to die.

I've been married to billionaire Joseph Miller for three years. Pregnant three times. Aborted three times.

Every time, my husband stood outside the operating room, watching them wheel me in.

The first baby, my mother-in-law Victoria said had spinal deformities. The second, my father-in-law Richard showed a "report" claiming heart defects.

I believed them. I thought it was my fault, something wrong with my body.

Until the third pregnancy.

This time I secretly went to another hospital—DNA showed 99.9% match with Joseph, every prenatal indicator perfect.

I rushed home clutching the report, thinking I could finally save my child.

Victoria glanced at it and tossed it on the coffee table. "You are carrying a healthy baby. But the Miller family doesn't need it."

My in-laws forcibly dragged me to the clinic. I screamed to Joseph for help: "That's your child!"

His eyes were red, but he still let them kill my baby.

Desperate, I demanded a divorce. He coldly refused, tearing at my clothes: "Stop being dramatic. Time for the fourth."

I finally understood—I wasn't his wife. I was their breeding machine.

But why? Why force me to keep getting pregnant, only to kill every healthy baby?

Until that night, I pushed open the attic door that had been locked for three years—

And finally understood everything.

They gave him 24 hours to hand over the girl.
He gave them 30 seconds to regret .

Jack Cole was supposed to be nobody—just another quiet college student.
No records. No past. No trace he ever existed.

But when a powerful family tries to take his cousin as part of a dirty deal…
and a billionaire heiress becomes the target of a professional kill team…

Something buried comes back.

The campus?
Just his cover.

The truth?
He’s a weapon trained for war—
the kind governments deny, and enemies never see coming.

Now the richest family in the city wants him dead.
A private army is moving in.
And a global biotech empire is pulling strings from the shadows.

They think they’re hunting him.

They’re wrong.

Jack isn’t running.
He’s choosing who dies first.

After getting mated to an Alpha from the Mountain Pack, Jade happily follows him home to start her new life but she's totally unprepared to discover that he's part of a set of triplets who are her mates too!

It's an unusual situation but it comes with exciting days and steamy nights. She was having the time of her life until she becomes pregnant and the brothers begin to fight over the unborn baby's paternity.

Unable to cope with the chaos, she goes to her childhood home to escape from the conflict. Her unexpected visit starts a chain reaction that leads her down a dark rabbit hole filled with secrets, lies, betrayal and a world of unpleasant surprises.

Will she eventually have her happy ending or is she doomed to a life of endless confusion?

They betrayed her, framed her, and left her with nothing.
Penelope Odel was never the favored daughter—only the forgotten one. Forced into a political marriage with Alpha King Killian Steelclaw, she expected cruelty from a man the world feared.
Instead, she found safety… and love.
That became her downfall.
A deadly conspiracy destroyed everything, turning Penelope into a murderer overnight. Hunted and broken, she disappeared into the human world carrying a secret.
His child.
Two years later, she has built a new life under a new identity.
Until Killian finds her.
She is alive.
She has his heir.
And he wants them back.
But some betrayals cut too deep to forgive.

A hot billionaire needs a wife to receive his inheritance, Nathan Rossi does not give a damn about many things except his inheritance. Nathan does not want any commitments so he meets Rachel and arranges a proposition that he feels would benefit them both. This is how Nathan and Rachel's story begins but it gets more complicated, hot and very steamy coupled with a rollercoaster of emotions. Maybe there will be a happy ending for them both.Then again, maybe not.

At the Morello family’s Christmas dinner, I stood beside Vincent, waiting for him to announce our engagement.
Instead, in the very next second, he walked in holding a little boy and claimed him as his son.
And the woman he said he was going to marry? Scarlett Morello. The one he had always introduced as his “sister.”
The whole room erupted in applause. I stood there frozen, like a nail hammered into the floor.
Later, in his study, he took my hand and said, “Scarlett is dying. Late-stage breast cancer. She only has six months left. After she’s gone, I’ll marry you.”
But there was no guilt in his eyes. No love, either.
Then he told me to go to his villa that afternoon, to take care of the woman who was supposedly “dying.”
I opened the photo he sent me. Scarlett was lying in a hospital bed, pale-faced, an IV in the back of her hand.
A professional tennis player who had been playing in an exhibition match three weeks ago, and who had dropped three grand at Louis Vuitton on Fifth Avenue just five days ago.
But sure. She was “dying.”
At three in the morning, I was curled up by the front door of my apartment, crying so long I lost track of time.
Then my phone lit up. A text from an unknown number:
[Elena, I’m downstairs. When we were kids, you told me that once I controlled the docks on the East Coast, you’d marry me. The docks are mine now. Does that promise still stand?]
I pulled back the curtain and there he was. Ethan Vitale, my first love, leaning against the door of a black Cadillac, lifting a hand in a lazy wave.
Three years ago, when he left New York, he was only a Capo.
Now, he was the Don of the Vitale family.
He didn’t rush me. Didn’t pressure me to come downstairs.
He came for one reason only, to let me know he was back.
I wiped away my tears and texted back:
[It still stands.]
Because I wanted to see for myself just how long that woman could keep up her act.

Six months ago, a yacht explosion consumed everyone I loved: my husband Leonard, my parents, and my brother.
I escaped only because of stomach pain that kept me from boarding. My adopted sister Claire became the sole survivor.
Since then, I've become an empty shell.
Even after being diagnosed with terminal uterine cancer, even while carrying my late husband's child, I've endured the agony of chemotherapy alone, exhausting what little strength remains to scrape together money for Claire—who hides away in a private care facility, claiming severe PTSD.
Until this winter day, with a blizzard approaching.
Dragging my dying body to my husband's memorial to pay respects, I discovered a credit card statement—charges made three months after his death.
Following the address on that receipt, I pushed open the door of a luxurious suburban villa.
Inside, it was warm as spring. My parents and brother, who should have been at the bottom of the ocean, stood there perfectly alive.
At the center of the room, my husband—the man I'd grieved for day and night—was kissing my adopted sister, his lips tender against hers.
The whole family was celebrating, raising glasses to toast the infant cradled in Claire's arms—barely a month old.
There had never been any disaster at sea.
It was all a meticulously planned hoax—their twisted way to erase me from their lives forever.

I burn through eighty years of my life raising three dogs that turn around and tear into me.

My vampire husband, Damian, used to be an outcast covered in festering sores, cursed to fear the sun. I cut my wrist and gave up thirty years of my life so he could become the most powerful man among the bloodlines, in control of half the world's wealth. Cold and ruthless to everyone else, he only ever bares his fangs for me.

Knox, the werewolf boy I grew up with, was born with a genetic flaw that kept him from ever shifting. I gave up another twenty years so he could have the strongest bloodline of all. Wild and reckless, he used to swear he'd carry me on his back for the rest of his life.

Julian, my human brother, got burned beyond recognition saving me from a fire. I spent my last thirty years giving him back a face people would pay a fortune for. He used to send crates of his paintings to my room, the kind of work people would kill to own.

Then a woman named Daphne shows up, and all three of them lose their minds over her.

And somehow I become the jealous, vicious wife everyone wants gone.

She cries that I pushed her, so they drive blades of blood straight through my bones.

She says I'm cruel to the staff, so they break my legs in front of a crowd.

And when I'm dying, they drain my blood to keep her alive.

If you're all going to treat the life I gave you like trash, then I'm taking it back. The strength, the face, the life. All of it.

[God, I take it back. I want everything I gave them returned to me.]

I spent five years letting men degrade me at a club, all to save $300,000 for my blind brother Joren's eye surgery.
The day I finally raised the money, I excitedly told him he would be able to see again—only to discover he was never blind to begin with.
My husband’s "bankrupt" company had been thriving all along. My parents, who supposedly died in a plane crash, had been living luxuriously abroad.
My husband even took my "stillborn" daughter and gave her to my adopted sister.
My entire family conned me for five years to "teach me a lesson"—all because my adopted sister claimed I bullied her.
Now, they are forcing me to donate my liver to the woman who stole my life, threatening that I'll never see my biological daughter again if I refuse.
But what they don't know is that I have terminal liver cancer, and I only have two days left to live...

I was driving my dad's luxury car to pick up a friend when his secretary stopped me on the spot.
She mistook me for the lover who had sex with my dad in his office.
So she used car theft as an excuse to drag me into the basement, beat me up, and took nude photos of me.
When my dad found out, he asked me to apologize to her.
That's when I realized that in his eyes, his reputation mattered more than his own daughter.
If that's the case, he doesn't need to be the figurehead CEO anymore.

Do all men lose interest in their wives after marriage?

We’ve been married for five years, and he never touched me.

At first he said he wasn’t well, so I was understanding. Later he recovered, but still kept me far away.

On our fifth wedding anniversary, my sister came in for a check-up, clearly pregnant with his child.

The truth hit me hard: he wasn’t incapable. He was just incapable with me.

I drew up the divorce papers, ready to end this empty marriage.

On the reason for divorce, I wrote with my own hand:

“Male sexual dysfunction; no marital relations in five years.”

He only smiled coldly when he saw it.

A week later, in the urology clinic.

I put on my medical gloves, looked at him, and said calmly:

“Sir, will you undress yourself, or shall I help you?”

His disapproval didn’t take away my confidence.

I still embraced better things in my career and love life!

But his life started to be filled with one accident after another.

On a stormy night, a horrific crash unfolded on the overpass. The victim was brought to the city forensic center.
My husband, Ethan, slipped on his gloves and expertly examined my shattered body, his voice detached. "Record this: Female, approximately twenty-five years old, suffered severe trauma before death."
His assistant sighed. "That's rough. Not a single family member showed up."
Just then, the assistant slid a misshapen silver band off my mud-streaked finger.
"Sir, this ring... isn't it identical to the one you keep in your desk drawer?"
With a sharp clatter, the scalpel slipped from Ethan's hand and hit the floor.

On the seventh wedding anniversary, I woke up in the lounge and found a big word "BITCH" sprayed with red paint on my chest.
The culprit, holding a spray-paint can, had a naive-looking smile on her face and said, "I'm doing you a favor. Your white outfit's way too boring."
I was just about to take action when my husband rushed in to protect her, frowning and scolding me: "She's just a little girl; she doesn't know any better. Do you have to be so petty?"
At this moment, looking at the man in front of me who had risen because of my family's influence, I suddenly laughed.
He probably forgot who had given him this overwhelming wealth.
I unscrewed the red-tipped thick paint pen and walked step by step towards the trembling girl.
"Your face is boring, too. Let me do you a favor."
As for my husband?
I'll make him know that without me, he's worse than a dog.

"Let Aria have the Stanford recommendation. Quinn owes her."
I stared at the family group chat—the one I wasn't in—and let out a cold laugh.
In my past life, I went completely hysterical over this, only to earn my family's disgust and a miserable death.
Now, reborn and given a second chance, I looked at the room full of guests celebrating My success, and walked straight to the microphone.
"Everyone, the party is over. I'm turning down the Stanford spot."
Under my family's stunned gazes, I dumped my champagne into the trash bin.
This rotten family? I'm done with them.

For Joey, I shouldered the blame for a commercial crime and survived five years behind bars—alone, even through a miscarriage.

With only five days left on my sentence, his secretary flaunted a “bonus” transfer from him—521,314—and when I left one mild comment, she blocked me.

I got released early on Christmas, wanting to surprise my husband. Instead, I pushed open our bedroom door and found Joey and Betty in our marital bed, deep in their sick little games.

And then I overheard a phone call that shattered everything: my little sister, Sansa, hadn’t died from a surgical “accident” at all. Joey had bribed the surgeon and had her heart cut out—so his mistress could gain a werewolf’s healing ability and keep having some perverted sex on bed.

He lied to me, used me, murdered my sister—and still mocked me for I was nothing without him.

What he doesn’t know is that I’m the daughter of an Alpha. I cut my family off for him once. Now I’m taking everything back—divorce, vengeance, and a rec

The Percy Family Heir's Scandal Leaks Again!

Cecilia Davis sat curled up in the master bedroom, scrolling through photos of Edward Percy and Jessica Brown.

The photos were taken secretly, but from a sharp angle.

Through a car window — the two of them, going at it hard.

Cecilia let out a cold laugh, tossed the photos into the trash, and felt a wave of deep exhaustion wash over her eyes.

"Do I really have to cut it?"

"Ma'am, this is Mr. Percy's request. Only if you cut your hair as short as Ms. Brown's can we clear up last night's rumors. Of course, you don't have to go — that is, if you never want to see your brother again."

Edward's assistant Leo spoke with a dismissive air, not a trace of respect in his eyes.

As if she, the so-called Mrs. Percy, was nothing more than a joke that nobody needed.

And honestly, that's exactly what she was.

An S-Rank [Thunder Tyrant]?

I watched coldly as the "good brother" who had betrayed me in my past life strutted around, stealing my woman and humiliating my F-Rank skill.

What he didn't know was that every time he channeled his lightning, his talent was draining his lifespan. In our past life, I was the one who used my skill, [Status Reset], to restore his life force time and time again.

Reborn for another lifetime, I decided I was done playing the saint.

When the crimson behemoth shattered the dome, Brad laughed maniacally, summoning a storm of lightning. But in an instant, the fierce backlash turned his arms into brittle charcoal, shattering in pieces across the ground. I stepped over his rolling, mutilated body and picked up a piece of rusty scrap metal.

"Reset."

The dead rust was eradicated. The scrap metal instantly reverted to a fully charged, high-frequency combat blade.

Gripping the blade in one hand, I faced the overwhelming tide of corpses and carved out a path of blood.

I came home early from a business trip and overheard the woman Joseph always called his “poor stepmother” clinging to him in his office, begging for a kiss. Her swollen belly carried his child.
“When do I get to stop pretending to be your stepmother?” Susan whined.
Joseph’s cold laugh stripped away the last of my dignity. “Soon. Once I drain Emma’s company dry, she’ll be useless.”
I used to think Joseph was my salvation.
After his father died and his pregnant stepmother had nowhere to go, I ignored my family’s objections and brought them both into my home. I poured every resource I had into helping him rise.
I even became pregnant with his child.
Only then did I realize I had never really been his wife.
I was only the stepping stone they used to climb into wealth.
That night, Susan staged a miscarriage.
And Joseph, his face twisted with rage, locked me—pregnant and bleeding—inside a freezing basement.
“A vicious woman like you doesn’t deserve a child.”

Victoria discovered that I hadn't submitted any supplemental medical expense claims for two weeks.
She assumed I had finally been disciplined and had given up what she called "the exploitative nature of the lower class."
Little did she know, my backpack held the signed divorce papers and my mother's death certificate.
As I turned to leave, I was still wearing the discounted trench coat she'd casually given me three years ago when we got married.
What she didn't know was that I, a deep-sea geology genius from MIT, willingly endured three years of her humiliation and ridiculous rules, just so my mother could stay in her conglomerate's private hospital to prolong her life.
Now, my mother has died because of unpaid bills , and even her ashes are carried by me in a cheap canvas bag.
Now that my loved one is dead, there's no need for me to continue being her obstructive dog on Wall Street. The lives she owed with those approval forms, I will settle with the collapse of her entire conglomerate empire.

Seven years ago, betrayed by my closest friend and my fiancée, I was thrown into the lightless Black Sea Death Prison and tortured mercilessly.

Seven years later, I returned through a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, only to find my crippled little sister being trampled in the mud by my former "brother," forcing her to sign a humiliating organ extraction contract.

"A worthless ghost who just crawled out of death row—what makes you think you can fight a billionaire tycoon like me?"

At a grand banquet at the Peninsula Hotel, the treacherous couple threw a bloody dog bone at my feet. They mobilized hundreds of heavily armed SWAT officers to surround me, demanding I kneel, kowtow, and call them master.

They thought their wealth and power made them untouchable on the West Coast, assuming I was still the same spineless weakling from years ago.

That was until an EMP tore through the night sky. Three military stealth fighter jets hovered outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, and hundreds of laser sights from the nation's most classified special forces locked dead center on the foreheads of every elite in the room.

Under the horrified gazes of the city's high society, a four-star general crashed through the window and gave me the highest military salute:

"Tier Zero Task Force assembled! Supreme Commander, please give the order to purge!"

At that moment, the high-and-mighty tycoons finally remembered the terror of being dominated by the abyss.

A gang boss ground my treasured staff into dust with one boot. “A gutter-bred bastard from the slums, and you’re hiding something this delicate? Cripple him. Let him learn who runs this turf.”
I stared at the silver-white powder on the floor. It was the last relic my brothers left me.
I once swore these hands would be used only to save people, never to kill again.
But today, even the heavens refused to allow it.
I lifted my head slowly. The elven ears I’d kept lowered in submission rose one by one in the dark, sharp as a wolf’s.
“You’re asking me who runs this turf?”
My fist snapped out and caved in the boss’s nose.
I twisted backhanded. Three elite enforcers had their bones shattered in an instant, collapsing like sacks of rotten meat.
I grabbed the boss by the throat with one hand and hoisted his two-hundred-pound body into the air, eyes cold as if I were staring at a corpse.
“Three years ago, when I laid down the rules in this district, you didn’t even know where you were playing in the mud.”
“My things are not for you to touch.”

My name is Jack Morris, a bottom-rung janitor on the docks.
Every day, people walk all over me, and I live on moldy bread.
Until one day, an old man I saved handed me a photograph. "This is my granddaughter. She's being held at the Black Swan Casino."
That used to be my place. Ten years ago.
Her father was a brother who died in my place.
I was once the king of the underground.
And now, at the banquet celebrating the tenth anniversary of my death, they're treating that old man's granddaughter like a toy.
If my disappearance only made those animals more brazen...
Then they can finish that drink and celebrate their own deaths next.

With one week left until the wedding, Henry Jones asked me to reschedule the date—for one simple reason:
“On our wedding day, I’m taking Ann to the hospital for her prenatal checkup.”
Ann is the widow of his brother Ethan. She’s also my half-sister. In that private room, they laughed at me for being “almost thirty and desperate to get married.”
Ann put on an innocent face. “If Rory is really in such a rush… I can reschedule my appointment.”
I wanted to break up, and Henry frowned as he lectured me:
“As her future sister-in-law, why do you have to fight her over this one day?”
I asked him, “Do you even remember what Friday is?”
He coaxed me softly: “One day earlier or later—what’s the difference?” I nodded and said “Fine,” thinking I could still swallow it.
Until I pressed my fingerprint to enter his office and overheard Ann questioning him about inheritance, and Henry answered under his breath, “It won’t come to that—I won’t let Rory get pregnant with my child.”
That was the moment I u

The global freeze descended, and the apocalypse arrived right on cue. I seized all the critical supplies and evacuated first, leaving "the perfect base" behind for the two traitors who backstabbed me. They thought it was heaven, but little did they know that the entire fortress was a precision trap constructed of deception, scarcity, and despair. As the outdoor temperature plummeted to minus eighty degrees, I sat by the window, roasting venison and watching them through high-definition infrared, coldly observing as they lost their humanity in the desperate fight for a single bowl of sawdust.

After I retired, I was willing to do the dirtiest work at a small auto repair shop—just to give my sick daughter an ordinary childhood.
I endured my mother’s insults, my eldest brother’s wage cuts, my younger brother’s extortion.
But they actually joined forces to steal my daughter’s life-saving money for gambling, then sold me into an illegal mine to pay off their debts.
When the iron chain locked around my wrist, when my daughter cried in despair, the killing intent that had slept in my blood for three years finally woke up completely.
They had no idea I was once the iron-blooded God of War—commander of a million troops, the name that made enemy nations tremble.