Shadow And Bone

“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be back,” Kaelan said. “We need to leave.” Kaelan picked the four daggers up then headed for the door. The duo left the room and made their way down the stairs. “Huh? Are you leaving?” the innkeepers voice sounded behind them. Two scythe is hand, each connected to chains. “You havent paid your clean up fee. Im sure you two messed up the room with your fun.” Kaelan raised a brow, but Lira spoke first. “How much?” “Ten Sarls.” She didnt complain. She placed it on the front desk beside and asked, “can we leave now?” “Yes, yes. Do come again. I like customers like…” the innkeeper paused. His grip on the scythe got tighter. “Tch, they are back again.” Liras ears twitched, and her hand tightened around her dagger. “They are here,” Kaelan said, while looking around. A shadow moved across the broken window. Then, the door burst inward, splintering at the edges. Three assassins tumbled in, cloaked in black, daggers flashing in the dim light. One lunged straight for Kaelan. Kaelan bent to the side, letting the blade slash past him. He grabbed the table and swung it, smashing the first attacker into the wall. The impact sent dust into the air, and the man groaned. “Hey! My Sarls,” yelled the innkeeper. Glass shattered as assassins came in through the window. “I’m gonna kill ya,” he said and charged at them. Lira was already moving, slicing, dodging. Her attacker was fast, but she was faster. Kaelan tossed a dagger at him. It pierced his neck from behind. Lira turned to him, but he didnt pause. He grabbed the third assassin, swung him like a rag, smashing his back into the wall. Kaelan bolted out the inn and Lira leapt after him.

Marcus Chen, the youngest five-star general in modern history, dies in disgrace—poisoned in a military prison after being framed for a war crime that killed 1,400 civilians. He wakes up ten years in the past, on his first day at the National Defense Academy, with a mysterious Warden System bonded to his soul. The system gives him a mission: prevent seven catastrophic disasters over the next ten years or detonate, taking half a continent with him. Armed with future knowledge and system-enhanced abilities, Marcus begins saving lives while hunting the conspiracy that destroyed him. Each mission he completes reveals a darker truth—he wasn't framed by accident. He was chosen. As Marcus dominates academy training with the tactical genius of his former life, he draws the attention of people who will shape his destiny. Instructor Kane, who seems trustworthy but harbors dangerous secrets. Aria Volkov, the intelligence operative who died in his original timeline but now investigates his impossible knowledge. Leon Cross, the congressman's son who starts as an enemy but becomes an unlikely ally when he discovers his father's role in the conspiracy. And Dr. Sophia Reeves, the psychologist who unknowingly created the weapon slowly killing Marcus. With each prevented disaster, the conspiracy tightens its grip. Firebase Theta—the atrocity that destroyed Marcus's life—isn't just coming. It's accelerating. Marcus realizes he can't stop it. He can only expose it. He forms a team of outcasts and traitors, sacrifices his career and identity, and wages a shadow war against an enemy embedded in the highest levels of government. But prevention comes with a price. The Warden System is burning through Marcus's lifespan, the line between hero and weapon blurs with every mission, and the conspiracy's true goal is more terrifying than revenge: they're not trying to destroy him. They're trying to recruit him.

Weston Hale was once the underworld's most feared asset, codename the Calculator, a man who never carried a weapon because he never needed one. He mapped routines, found weaknesses, and let his targets destroy themselves. When a rival faction under Dorian Kessler killed his pregnant wife trying to kill him, Weston let the world believe he'd died too. Seven years later, he's a quiet small-city accountant, stepfather to Sienna Cortlandt's two children, rebuilding a life he never thought he'd get to keep. That life ends the day developer Garrick Vandermere sets his sights on the family's home. His enforcer, Cole Whitfield, escalates from paperwork to threats to violence, unaware he's provoking a man who doesn't fight, he calculates. Weston dismantles Vandermere's empire with quiet precision, but the very skill he uses to protect his family is the signature that alerts Kessler he's still alive. As Kessler closes in, Weston discovers Vandermere's project was secretly bankrolling Kessler's operation all along, and that his own former handler, Priya Osei, made a deal years ago that helped Kessler find him. Worse, he uncovers the truth Kessler never knew either: the order to kill Weston's family didn't come from Kessler at all. It came from The Ledger, the shadow agency Weston used to serve, because Weston had started protecting people the agency considered expendable. His new life wasn't an escape. It was a leash. To save Sienna, Judson, and Nora for good, Weston must destroy the organization that made him, using the only weapon he's ever trusted: the numbers. This is a story about a man forced to choose, once and for all, between the ghost he buried and the family he refuses to lose.