Return of the Swallow - Chapter 557.2: The Status Quo

The Apocalypse is in full swing. Defiled - powerful creatures corrupted by the Great Collision - prowled the lands in search of prey. Unfortunately for them, the human race had long since retreated behind the secure walls of the Sanctuary of Everlast. During one of his regular excursions outside the Sanctuary, Alden is separated from Celeste. - his childhood friend and crush. In that moment, he came to regret never summoning the courage to confess. Somehow managing to survive thanks to some trickery, Alden awakens as a mage. Instead of receiving a normal power, he gains the ability to decay. What’s more, during his ascension, he received a vision from his future self advising him not to trust the Asterons - celestial beings who had saved his race from inescapable doom. Normally... such a revelation wouldn’t faze Alden. However, there was only one major problem with the declaration, though. Celeste was bound with an Asteron. And not just any normal Asteron... She had made a pact with one of the Divine Sovereigns.

There is always such a person in the world, his family background is better than yours, his status is higher than yours, while you work hard and think all the way up, but with just a wave of his hand, you are wiped out. What is even more sad is that he doesn’t even know who you are.

Zheng Jue met Han Jin like this but he didn’t realize this truth until he died. In the end, he had found the wrong opponent and ultimately lost his life.

- Description from Novelupdates

Jianghu was in turmoil, an era of great strife. The leader of Great Qin wielded the Mo Blade, leaving the world battered and bruised. The ageless figures of Jianghu crouched upon the mountains, and with a single turn, they cast the entire world below them. Strong men measured the earth with their feet, and heroes of Jianghu could cleave the heavens with one sword, yet in the blink of an eye, they were drunk in the embrace of beauties. The Taoist carried his sword, the Scholar drunk on wine. Wearing tattered clothes, a beggar grasped a rotten branch and dared to storm the ancestral hall of the Taoist Sect. On the willow-lined causeway, in the long pavilion, a man who had sat withered for thirty years turned and stepped out, holding a peach blossom, with a flick of his wrist, he shattered ten miles of red candles. The era of Great Qin was renamed the Great Yuan Era. The youth with the Wooden Sword left his mountain village behind.

WARNING: DARK AND MATURE CONTENT. Readers discretion advised.Serena Alaric wanted nothing more than a quiet life, far from the shadows of her family’s dark past. But when masked enforcers storm her home and drag her into the clutches of the Council of Vitae, she learns her blood is the key to a deadly legacy she never asked for.Lucian Draven is the cold and ruthless leader of a powerful mafia syndicate, cursed to endure unimaginable pain. The Council claims Serena is his only salvation. Yet beneath the Council’s polished facade lies a web of lies, experiments, and betrayal that runs far deeper than either of them imagined.Forced into an uneasy alliance and given a time limit to produce an heir, Serena and Lucian must navigate a treacherous world of power and manipulation, where trust is a rare commodity. As they uncover the truth about the Council’s sinister plans, their hatred begins to give way to something unexpected—a bond forged in fire and blood.But with enemies closing in from all sides and time running out, Serena and Lucian must decide: will they fight their fates, or embrace the dangerous connection that could either save them, or destroy them both?