Pale Lights - Chapter 70 - 23

The year was 2026, and the world wasn't what it used to be. Ever since the Abyss Gates cracked open three years ago, spilling monsters and dungeons across the planet, life had turned into a chaotic mess. Cities were half-ruined, half-rebuilt, and people clung to whatever normalcy they could find. Hunters—those brave or crazy enough to fight the monsters—became the new heroes. Everyone else? Well, they just tried to survive.Fin wasn't a Hunter. He wasn't a hero either.He was just… Fin. A lanky 19-year-old with messy brown hair, a chipped front tooth from a dumb skateboard accident, and a power that everyone called useless. Absorption. Sounds cool, right? Like he could suck up energy or steal someone's strength. Nope. All it did was let him “feel” things he touched a little more than normal. He could tell you the exact texture of a brick wall or how warm a coffee mug was—big whoop. No fireballs, no super strength, no flashy moves. Just a glorified touchy-feely trick.“Fin, you gonna eat that sandwich or just stare at it like it's gonna confess its life story?” Meg's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.He blinked and looked across the rickety table at his best friend. Meg was short, loud, and had a wild mop of dyed purple hair that she swore made her look “intimidating.” It didn't.

The middle boss of the AAA-class game produced by the company. The villain who dies 999 times out of 1,000 times. Deculein.That person, was me now.“You’re going to die on almost every route.”Deculein, like all villains, inevitably dies.[First and foremost survival goal: Be what the game requires you to be]I’ll have to survive even if it means twisting my fate if I am destined to die.

Everyone knows that the eldest young master of the Fu family is cold and noble, sinister and cunning.Few people know that he has loved a woman for over ten years and even has a child, making him a true hypocrite.Until one day, in front of the media and under the spotlight, he holds the woman firmly in his arms, tender and affectionate—“Marriage, children, the whole package. After so many years, you still refuse to take responsibility for me?”

A new emperor rules each year in Yohuachanca.Only the most delicious of food graces his palate; the realm’s most beautiful women fill his harem; his palace dazzles the mind in its beauty; and four priestesses counsel him in all matters. The life of an emperor is good, luxurious, and short. For at the year’s end, he is sacrificed to the Nightlords under the light of the Scarlet Moon.I am Iztac. A pisspoor orphan and the year’s emperor. A sacrifice bound for the altar. But the vampires have made a mistake this time. For I am a sorcerer, whose soul journeys into the secret underworld to plunder the secret spells of the dead. There, in the darkness, hides the power to drag the Nightlords off their throne. I have a year to find it, or perish for good.I may not be the first emperor, but I will be the last.