A Stepmother's Marchen - Chapter 17

Somebody once told a joke.A man ran in place all his life. He worked a job he didn't love for people he couldn't stand. But at the end of the day, the number in his bank account went up.That man got a second chance at life. He woke up in another world, full of adventures and romances and monsters and gods. And floating above his head he saw the number “1”. So what did he say?“Gosh I better make the number go up.”Not today. Not for this old soul. Reborn as a beast of battle meant to live a short life and die screaming, Garek refuses. He puts the madness of skills and levels behind him and sets out to found a little farmstead. He grows crops. Maybe someday he'll get a pig, and have bacon.It's a shame the world won't let him be. It's a shame that the warmongers and level-grinders hate nothing more than a soul at peace.He put down his sword for a plowshare, but when trouble comes calling, he'll pick it up again.

Earth fell long before Auron Drex was born. By the time he turned nineteen, the skies were brown, the air filtered through broken machines, and humanity had retreated underground, outnumbered, outgunned, and slowly fading.Auron was one of the last unmodified humans, no implants, no neural lace, no connection to the system. Just blood, flesh, memory, and a little bit of fight left in him.Then he died.Killed in an invasion with the machines, Auron thought that was the end. But something else was waiting for him.The Goddess of Death.She offered him a contract. A second chance at life, a new world far from Earth, and one simple promise: when the time came, he would help her. No explanation. Just a bond, sealed in death and carried into life.Now, Auron wakes in a world nothing like his own. A cultivation realm, where beasts roam free, ancient sects dominate the mountains, and humans wield godlike power through spiritual force and brutal discipline. It’s a world where strength decides everything, and weakness is an invitation to die again.But he’s not alone.The Goddess of Death, bound to his soul, follows him, watching, guiding.He doesn’t know her true reason for bringing him here.He doesn’t understand what help she’ll need or when. But he remembers Earth. He remembers the silence. And if there’s a chance this journey will give him the strength to return, to fight back against what destroyed his home, he’ll take it.He was forged in a dying world. Reborn in one that lives by the sword. And somewhere between them, Auron Drex will carve out who he’s meant to become.

Is there anything as true happiness?Even a mute girl like me wonder.Once lost in my world of oblivion but now in light of the dirty secrets that played behind me.Murder like common theft and even crime, like the play of little children.who would lead the dynasty? I wonderlies after lies, hypocrisy stench like the smell of laundry making me pounder.It is no longer a mere selection but now the survival of the fittest.I have to become the heiress which I've been named either by hook or by crook, even if it means relaying on the influence of the man I've been sold toit's now time I cause havoc and disrupt the peace of many, causes the downfall of many, and place many on their toes as they try to discover who the orchestrator isBut who would ever suspect a mute?

Pendulum clocks replaced sand glasses; the world’s first pocket watch ticked through its 100th year. Steam power welcomed the advent of machinery; industries took over farmlands. The study of Science brought humankind out of the clutches of superstitions and pushed them to a path of endless possibilities. And one man witnessed it all.

He was a moth among mayflies, fluttering through as generations replaced generations- fuelled by an endless thirst for knowledge. But fate decided to introduce him to a butterfly- someone alike, yet so different.

Follow ‘The Actor’ Xavier Godwin and ‘The Seeress’ Yue Lin as they delve into the world hidden from the common eyes- a world of magic and mysticism- as they evade the sights of countless hidden organisations, and create a secret society of their own.