Apocalypse Baby - Chapter 12: A Rooster Curse

“From death to becoming the master of death, that's my story”[... ]Jake never got a break. Born unlucky, lived cursed, and died alone—struck by lightning on a rainy night. That should’ve been the end.But fate had other plans.In the space between life and death, he meets the goddess of Karma and Fate, who admits his entire life was a mistake—her mistake. To make amends, she offers him a second chance in a brutal new world ruled by magic, martial arts, and monsters.Before he's sent off, Jake draws from five Legendary Cards—and chooses the most powerful of them all: The Legendary Necromancer.Now, Jake awakens in a world where strength decides everything. With his unique talent, he can summon undead endlessly—and harvest power from the souls of his enemies.[You have enough Soul Shards.][Undead Dragon summoned.]But Jake is suddenly thrust into the Hundred Trials that comes once every hundred years in this new world, a deadly proving ground for the elite.To the others, he’s an outsider—unregistered, unknown, and unwelcomed. A threat to be erased.But Jake didn’t crawl out of death to get killed againLet them come.He has death on his side.

'Nina?'The thought hit me before I even really processed who it was. Nina Shoka from my class. She was just walking along, probably listening to music, totally unaware that this car had lost control and was sliding right toward her.I didn't think about it. Didn't weigh the pros and cons or consider my options. My legs just started moving.I dropped my phone and sprinted toward her. The car was maybe three seconds away from hitting her when I slammed into her side, pushing her as hard as I could toward the sidewalk.She went flying, landing hard on the concrete but definitely out of the car's path.Me? Not so lucky.The impact felt like getting hit by a train. One second I was pushing Nina to safety, the next I was flying through the air. Then I hit the ground and everything went wrong at once.I couldn't move my legs. Couldn't really move much of anything, actually. There was this weird warm feeling spreading across my chest and stomach, and when I tried to breathe, it felt like drowning.'Well, this sucks,' I thought, staring up at the sky. 'Guess that's what I get for being a hero.'My vision started getting all swimmy and weird, but I could make out Nina crawling over to me. She had pulled out her earbuds and there were tears streaming down her face.“Why did you do that?” she kept asking, over and over. “Why would you do that?”I wanted to shrug, but my shoulders weren't really cooperating. It seemed pretty obvious to me - she was in trouble, so I helped. That's what you do, right? Nothing fancy about it.She was talking to me, saying my name a lot. I didn't realize she even knew my name, to be honest. We had been in the same class for like three months and I don't think we had ever actually had a conversation.“Kofi, stay with me, okay?” she was saying. “You're gonna be fine. The ambulance is coming.”

They call him Ghost.A name whispered in fear across warzones, black markets, and underworld circles.To the world, he's a phantom—a faceless mercenary who leaves no trace but bodies in his wake.To his enemies, he’s a death sentence.To his brothers-in-arms in Graveyard, he’s family.But to himself... he's a haunted man searching for a past stolen in gunfire and smoke.After a flawless mission deep in the Eastern Province, Ghost returns to the hidden forest base he's called home for sixteen years. Yet the victory is short-lived. His foster father, the commander delivers an unexpected order:“That was your last mission.”Now, Ghost—real name Miles Sterling—must step out of the shadows of war and into a world he’s never known. Guided only by a scarred letter, a fading memory, and the voice of a woman he hasn’t seen since the day everything was taken from him.But war forged more than his body and name.Behind the mask, behind the scars, Miles has another secret.One he’s kept hidden even from his brothers in arms.He’s not just a weapon.He’s a ghost with a fortune—a hidden empire he built in silence, across borders and black markets, forged in strategy and blood.A man of many names, and many shadows.Beneath the bullets, tattoos, and silence lies a truth buried in ashes.And Ghost is about to dig it up—one letter, one enemy, one memory at a time.

We’ve come to a world where the roles of men and women have been reversed. So, of course, women will rush to us. “You don’t have to bring water.” “Oh, okay…” …I guess I’ll just have to live the way I always have.