Ice Breathing Demon Slayer

They killed my family. Stole my empire. Forced me to marry their daughter as a "peace offering." For three years, I played the worthless son-in-law; beaten, humiliated, spat on by my wife's family. They called me a coward who abandoned the Chens during the massacre. They don't know the truth: I was drugged, framed, and left to rot. On the night my wife signed our divorce papers, her brother left me bleeding in an alley to die. That's when IT awakened; the Ancestral Blood System, a Chen family legacy that activates only when the heir loses everything. But this system doesn't give free power. It demands SACRIFICE. Want money? Trade your memories. Want strength? Endure torture that breaks your soul. Want revenge? Lose the ability to feel joy. Every victory costs a piece of my humanity. Every choice drags me closer to becoming a monster. The five families who butchered my bloodline think I'm still that pathetic son-in-law. They're about to learn what happens when a caged lion breaks free. My mother-in-law mocked me? I'll buy her company and make her beg. My wife's new fiancé tried to kill me? He's the mastermind behind my family's murder and he has a system too. The world thinks the Chen Empire is dead? Watch me build something even gods will fear. But here's the problem: The more I use this power, the more it corrupts my soul. At 100% corruption, the system consumes me and unleashes an ancient demon that will end the world.

Silence. Like a nice bucket of shhhhhhhhh. Everyone shut the effing fudge UP! That's all I've ever wanted. *Sigh.* But silence comes in different flavors. There's mint - the peaceful kind that wraps around you like a blanket. The kind I chase at 2 AM. I've cried once. Just once. With a bucket beside me, watching heroes with super suits and impossible strength tear each other apart. Somehow that feels less broken than my reality. Then there's the suffocating silence at school. Not an ice cream flavor. This one tastes like metal and shame. High school is my personal hell. Empty wallet, empty lunch tray, empty seat beside me like I'm radioactive. Empty soul on Wednesdays because middles are always the worst. *The usual.* But Emily made the silence bearable. Mint-flavored again. Until she broke something between us. *Snap.* One moment she's whispering secrets with me, the next she's weaponizing them. She scattered my private thoughts, added her own twisted lies. The betrayal burns hotter than the stares drilling into my back. I went from invisible to spectacle. Being a ghost feels like luxury when you're dodging spit balls and "accidental" lunch trays. But somewhere between my third panic attack and contemplating switching schools... *Something shifted.* Like in those games you play, when your character suddenly glows and the screen flashes: "New Skill Unlocked" And it wasn't just in my head. I tested it. Small things at first – a pencil moving across my desk when I focused hard enough. Then books. Then someone's lunch tray right as they walked past Emily. *tap tap tap* I used to think rock bottom was the end. *Well ladies and gentlemen,* it's just a really messed up spawn point. And now? I don't stumble from cliffs anymore. I swim in gravity, and dive head first.

Jamie Aldridge never asked for this. He never asked for the system, for the power, for the missions that drag him deeper into Seattle’s underworld. But when life throws a digital demon into your head, what choice do you have? Play the game or get played. Simple. Except it’s not that simple. Because this game? It’s rigged. And the stakes? Well, they’re higher than Jamie could ever imagine. "Who the hell are you?" Jamie demanded, his voice rough with exhaustion, and his mind a tangled mess of fear and fury. The Broker smiled, a thin, calculated curve of lips that held no warmth. "I'm the man who’s going to change your life, Jamie. Or end it. Depends on how well you play." "Play?" Jamie spat, barely holding back the urge to punch that smug look off his face. "I’m not playing your game. Not anymore." The Broker’s eyes shone with a dark and knowing aura. "Oh, but you are. You just don’t realize it yet." Now Jamie’s on a collision course with forces beyond his control—shadowy figures who pull the strings, secrets buried so deep they might as well be myths, and a system that seems determined to push him to the brink. And just when he thinks he can’t take any more, life throws him another curveball: Emma. His unbearable bully of a wife. Pregnant. Yeah. Ain't gonna end well. In a world where survival is a day-to-day battle and the lines between ally and enemy blur with every step, Jamie has to figure out one thing—how to win when every move feels like a losing one. Because failure? It’s not an option. Not when his life, and the life of his unborn child, hangs in the balance.