The Grandmaster Strategist - Volume 1, Chapter 9: Military Retainer

I despised her. I despised how she schemed to get married to me. I despised her because of her arrogance.

“Li Rui, you don't know how many times I have wished to kill you.”

But all of this was my illusion. Everything was a mysterious trap of lies. A trap that was laid to trap me.

“Rui, I want to protect you from this whole world. I will not ask you to love me.....just don't hate me. Hmm....”

The story of a lover that was never destined to get the girl he loved but his fate led him to her.

Kai’s life was small—coffee-stained mornings, cracked recipes, and a system in his head that tweaked toasters and dough like it was nothing. Then the sky shattered. Aliens—Skraiths, jagged and brutal—invaded, tearing his city apart with green-glowing weapons and relentless claws. Superhumans rose to fight back, fire and lightning blazing through the chaos, but Kai’s world crumbled with them.Hiding in his apartment, Kai stumbles on blood—human and alien, smeared on his wall after a superhuman battle. His system, once just a tinker’s tool, awakens, offering him a choice: mimic their powers, temporary and wild, through the blood itself. Desperate, he takes it—stealing pyrokinesis, then electrokinesis, then kinetic energy, each power burning through him, fading fast. But it’s not enough. Armed with a humming Skraith weapon and a body tougher from alien blood, Kai joins a ragtag crew of enhanced fighters—Liv, Rylan, Jace, and Tucker—scraping to survive in a warzone where every shadow hides death.As Skraiths swarm and the city burns, Kai’s system pushes him deeper, analyzing, integrating, crafting minor enhancements—durability, strength, sparks of power that could make him a target or a savior. Government factions, rogue scientists, and the aliens themselves start sniffing around, drawn to his strange tech and blood-stolen abilities. By the time Kai crafts his first super-powered enhancement—an artificial strength boost—he’s no longer just a tinkerer. He’s on the edge of something bigger, something dangerous, where blood and sparks could forge a hero—or break him entirely.In a world unraveling, Kai’s fight for survival becomes a desperate race to master his system, outrun the Skraiths, and confront the truth: the power he’s chasing might destroy him—or remake the world.

A princess's duty is to be beautiful, quiet, not loud, to be seen and not to be heard, which was how Dahlia lived most of her life. Bound by the expectations of her title, she spent years trying to prove to her father that she was more than just a princess and capable of being more than an ornament in his court but each time she never got the chance. Instead, she was forced into a marriage of convenience with the bravest knight in all the kingdom, Reagan Hawthorne.Dahlia thought she would use this marriage to escape the brutal crutches of her father and glide out of her cage but Reagan’s cold disdain was an unexpected prison of its own. While he waged wars on distant lands, she stayed behind, holding his household together and protecting the people he seemed to ignore. But Dahlia carried a dangerous secret. By day, she was the perfect wife. By night, she became the “Black Knight,” a masked vigilante fighting for justice in the shadows.Reagan returned, ready to focus on his personal mission: avenging his father’s death. To him, Dahlia was just another pawn in his plans—a spoiled princess he needed to tolerate. But as cracks began to form in her perfect façade, Reagan couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to his wife than met the eye.Now, with enemies circling closer and their secrets threatening to collide, Dahlia and Reagan must confront the lies they’ve told themselves and each other. But when masks fall and truths are revealed, will their fragile bond withstand the storm—or will it shatter beyond repair?One wound. One secret. One night that changes everything.

There is no rebirth through time, and there is no system of heaven to cut melons and vegetables;

There is no secret book under the cliff, and there is no great return pill from the dead;

There is no such thing as a full-fledged lust with a strange root and a sacred blood.

If it is said that Shi Jianren is an expert who has attained the Tao and joined the WTO,

Then Bai Haonan was a dazed fellow who smashed his head into blood.

The key is that he still feels that he is living a very happy life!

A story similar to the golden right foot,

A story about a dream,

It depends on what tinted glasses you are wearing.

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