Casse-tête

“Don’t make a scene, Marcus.” Quinn’s eyes, always so cold, flicked over him as if he were an unwanted stain. “A Saintess can’t be sullied by a man like you. Keep your distance.” For three years, Marcus Steel was a ghost in his own marriage. His wife, worshipped for her holy power, never let him near—not even a touch, not a night together. Yet every gathering, she let Alexander—her so-called ‘brother,’ his former best friend—rest his head in her lap, her hand stroking his hair, their laughter intimate and careless for the world to see. “Does it ever bother you?” Marcus whispered one night, desperation thick in his voice. “That you give him what you never gave me?” Sophia only smiled, distant as ever. “Alexander needs me. You… you’re just my duty.” When the earthquake shattered the banquet hall, Marcus reached for her through the falling debris. “Quinn! Please! Just take my hand—help me!” But her golden barrier was already around Alexander. She didn’t even look at Marcus as he screamed, “I’m your husband! Don’t leave me—” “I can’t save everyone,” she said, voice like ice. “Alex is injured. I promised to protect him.” As rubble crushed his body and hope faded, something ancient awoke in Marcus. Flames danced in his blood, power surging from the pain, the betrayal. From the ashes of humiliation and heartbreak, a dragon roared to life. Marcus Steel is dead. The Dragon King rises—and the Saintess will beg for mercy she never showed.

Damion Lancaster has worked as a pizza delivery guy all his life. After his girlfriend betrayed and humiliated him, he fell into one of the darkest moments of his life. People kept bullying him. They trampled on his dignity because he was poor. But what they didn't know was that Damion was a secretly rich man. Those who didn't know his bank account was loaded with money mocked him over and over again. And Damion said to himself, “They will regret it!”

Poor Dalton Hester, a man at the age of 39, ended his own life when everything around him went to hell. Losing his wife in an accident which he believed wasn’t one as it was planned by another to have it happen. The person he knew to believe to be the one to have his life killed was a criminal Dalton had put away thanks to the job of being a lawyer. That chain of events leads the poor man on top of a tall building holding a bottle almost empty of liquor. He takes a single sip from the bottle last time and then lets his own body fall forward flying towards everyone else. Dalton didn’t hold much faith in places called heaven or hell, but he had somewhat of a feeling that what a person like him did wasn’t going to be up, instead of more likely down. When darkness finally came Dalton awaited to open his eyes again to witness the flames of hell, but something different happened where he was still alive or to say reborn into a new body that wasn’t human and a new world that was like a fantasy book, movie or game. So looking at this as another chance at life Dalton decided to take it to the fullest to enjoy all the things that were different from his old world even when it was good or bad.

In Neo-Veridia, time isn’t money. It’s life. Nineteen-year-old Evan is an anomaly. In a city addicted to the dopamine rush of The Exchange—where a roll of the dice can win you a decade or kill you instantly—Evan never gambles. He works. He saves. He survives. He is the only person in the slums with a serious face and a "clean" wrist. But the House always finds a way to break you. When his father is struck down by a rare, fatal glitch in his Life-Clock, Evan is handed a death sentence in the form of a bill: 50 Years. Due in twelve hours. With no collateral and time ticking down, Evan is forced to break his one rule. He enters the neon-soaked underworld of high-stakes gambling. But as he sits at the table, surrounded by desperation and sharks, Evan realizes something terrifying. He isn't just lucky. When he looks at the spinning wheels and shifting cards, he doesn't see chance. He sees math. He sees trajectories. He sees the future. Evan is about to play the most dangerous game in history. He isn't just playing for his father’s life anymore; he’s playing to bankrupt the system that enslaved humanity. The odds are one in a million. Evan likes those odds.

Can you live carefree knowing that nothing is right? Being born in a dystopia. Spending all your life locked up in a little town, where everything is eerie; everyday is a drag and there's no hope of change. My only source of joy was my big brother but since he was no more, I wouldn't be put down and locked up by 'fate'. Living in cage all your life just to die the moment you are set free... I didn't believe in that. I wanted freedom.

“Captain Spark, you’re insane,” Michael said hoarsely. “I’m an actor, not a cop. I’m not a monster.” “But you understand monsters, don’t you?” Ashley shot back. She pointed to the playback monitor showing his recent scene. “That look in your eyes, the way you enjoyed the kill… You’re more convincing than half the criminals in our files.” Michael had no response. Because she wasn’t wrong. The system made it easy, too easy, to empathize with darkness.

To save his family, he had to stop being human. Twenty-four-year-old Jid has spent his life in the dirt, breathing the rust of the Bulwark slums. As the sole guardian of his younger sister, Sommy, his world is measured in scraps of bread and the hours of backbreaking labor he sells to the powerful guilds. He doesn’t dream of glory; he dreams of a roof that doesn't leak and a meal that doesn't taste like ash. But the world outside the walls is changing. The "Infected" are evolving, and the shadows are growing teeth. When a high-stakes raid into the forbidden zones turns into a bloody execution, Jid is the one left behind. Betrayed and gutted by the monsters in the dark, he should have died in the mud. Instead, something ancient and hungry found him first. Jid wakes up to a world he no longer recognizes. The pain is gone, replaced by a cold, mechanical pulse in his mind and a shimmering gold light in his eyes. A strange, haunting interface now dictates his every move, granting him powers that defy the laws of time and biology—powers that the ruling corporations would kill to own. But the "System" isn't a gift. It’s a tether to an outer-world threat that views humanity as nothing more than ink on a page, ready to be erased. Now, Jid must return to the city that abandoned him, hiding the monster he is becoming while using his new abilities to protect the only person he has left. He survived the death of his old life, but as the hunger grows and the "System" begins to rewrite his soul, Jid realizes the hardest part isn't surviving the dead—it’s surviving the thing he’s turning into. And whatever is coming for him.

147 monsters. Kaelen Venn remembers every single one of their final apologies. Not out of sentimentality, but because most of them used to be human. In the haunting world of Elegy’s Cradle, ignored grief doesn't just fade away—it transforms. It morphs into hollow, hungering beasts that used to have names. Kaelen is a Grave-Warden. His job? Hunt these creatures down before they spread. His second, unwritten job? Make sure he doesn't become one of them. To fight the darkness, Kaelen has deliberately fractured his own soul, transforming the world’s raw sorrow into devastating power. But this magic demands a terrible toll. He has already forgotten the sound of a laugh he once cherished—he doesn't even remember *whose* it was. Six Wardens carried this burden before him. All six became the very monsters they hunted. Kaelen has survived longer than any of them, but survival feels like a curse. Until he meets **Solm Veylan**. Solm doesn't look like a monster. He looks like a peaceful savior. With the ability to strip away a person's grief, Solm leaves people smiling, calm... and completely empty. Now, with agents embedded in every global faction, Solm aims to awaken a two-thousand-year-old entity to erase grief from the world forever. He calls it ultimate mercy. Kaelen calls it an apocalypse of the soul. Flanked by **Mira**, a half-transformed twelve-year-old girl he chose to save rather than execute, Kaelen stands as the final wall against this blissful annihilation. Because grief isn't a disease to be cured; it is the raw, agonizing price of love. Kaelen has been paying that price for eight years. And he will keep paying it—even if it tears his soul apart. ---

You were nothing, Mocked by family. Dumped by your lover. Fired and humiliated in front of a crowd. Rock bottom didn’t just greet you, it crushed you. Then came the letter. Gold-sealed. Hand-delivered. Signed by the richest consortium the world has never seen. “Congratulations. You are the sole heir.” Overnight, you go from broke to untouchable. Private jets. Infinite credit. Empires at your fingertips. The same people who spat on you? Now they’re kneeling. But money isn’t just power. It’s poison. With every billion, new enemies surface. Dark secrets claw their way into the light. And the ones closest to you? They’re the first to sharpen their knives. Now, you’re in a world where loyalty is currency, and betrayal is the cost of doing business. This isn’t a rags-to-riches story. It’s a war. Can you rise as the king of the new world… Or will the throne devour you before you ever sit on it?

In 3015, a virtual world game called "ActivatedLand" was officially released in New York City by the Cyberpunk Technology Corporation, a giant virtual game development company that was well-known and was a pioneer of other virtual games. The virtual game in question wasn't just played using a tool like an X-box but took players to a virtual world where the game was played. It didn't take long; within a week of its release, the game became viral and extremely famous throughout the world. The head of the Cyberpunk Technology Corporation is Dmitry Sergey, a Russian national who has settled and become a citizen of the United States. Most people who don't know Dmitry think he's just a billionaire who owns a giant company. In truth, Dmitry has a dark and terrible past due to his arrogance in America. And now, he begins his mission for revenge!