Valkyrie's Shadow - Chapter 1Before the Storm: Act ,

“Any who don the title of 'king' or anything of the sort in my presence is nothing more than an ignorant fool. This is my land and I shall be reclaiming it soon. I am Cacophony, the Vampire Empress!”As those words left her lips, every cell in my body reacted. It was unreal—no, it was otherworldly. Her beauty, her power, and her overwhelming arrogance. It might've been then that I realized that my normal life had ended.How did it come to this?Ah, it was curiosity. Yes, a deathly curiosity brought me to that graveyard that day.It was there that I stumbled upon her coffin. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing then, and even now I have no idea what possessed me to touch it—that single moment changed the course of history for the entire world. I found myself delving into a completely unknown world.Should I regret it? Maybe. But the truth is, I don't.Exploring the world’s hidden secrets, forging unexpected bonds, and living alongside the revived empress—it’s exciting.“Even if it's wrong, I think I'm going to enjoy every moment of it.”

Reina Suzuki was an overworked office worker—until she died and woke up as Lavinia Devereux, the infamous villainess princess of the Elarion Empire.She knows how this story ends: she’ll drink poison and die. A painless, easy death. So why bother changing fate? Villainy, revenge, redemption—sounds like way too much work. She decides to do absolutely nothing and let the story play out.But her terrifying father, Emperor Cassius Devereux, won’t ignore her like he’s supposed to. He watches her, questions her, and—worst of all—starts acting like he actually cares.Lavinia just wanted a quiet villainess retirement… so why does everything keep changing?

Born into a wealthy family, Gu Shenwei was spoiled and carefree. However, at the age of 14, his entire family were brutally murdered, and he was caught by some bandits who sold him into slavery. As a slave boy, he entered Golden Roc Fort by chance and found the man who had slaughtered his family. He endured insults and worked hard to improve his kung fu while working as a slave boy. He learned from and plotted against his enemy under the enemy’s nose. He became increasingly ambitious as he became more and more powerful. He would only be satisfied if he completely destroyed his enemy—by fair means or foul. Gradually his bitter experience turned him into a totally different person.

It’s the 3rd of March of the Immortal Martial era.Under the Sect Leader’s unremitting efforts, the Qingyun Dao Sect finally welcomes its eighth disciple, Ye Ping.In order to make Ye Ping stay and to earn his respect, everyone in the sect resorts to all sorts of tricks to deceive him.They boast and pretend to be peerless Sword Dao experts, geniuses in cultivation, alchemy, refinement, divination, alchemy arrays, treasure appraising, and sons of destiny.For the sake of maintaining the image of geniuses, they teach Ye Ping all sorts of nonsensical things.They make Ye Ping try to gain an epiphany out of a random sword mark.They take out a random big pot and make Ye Ping refine supreme-grade pills with it.They take out a random copper coin and make Ye Ping deduce the ultimate heavenly secret.They initially hope to just delay the time that Ye Ping discovers the truth so that he would stay in the sect for a while longer.However, to their surprise, their new little Junior Brother… manages to learn everything.