Castle of Black Iron - Chapter 1939 - Breaking out of the Egg

Five years ago, Gu Jiayu, who climbed out of the mountain nest, entered the entertainment circle in order to cultivate, and in order to overcome the shortcomings of emotional gaps, he used an excellent acting skill to hook up a Chinese “little nobleman” abroad. After a month of falling in love and feeling love, he ran away with guilty conscience after the other party proposed marriage.

Five years later, Gu Yingdi had become popular all over the country, but he had a four-year-old son beside him. 

One day, the little handsome guy pointed at the man who took up the entire page in the financial newspaper and said, “Dad, this man looks like me!” Gu Jiayi glanced at the calm, handsome man in a suit and shoes in the newspaper, and asked with a guilty conscience, “He has an onion head, and his body is black and black like the top post. Are you sure you look like him?” That night, “Top Door Post” came to the door … Gu Jiayu, “My son, hide your tail!”

- Description from Novelupdates

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

A fourth chance at life. The last chance.Zarek remembered when he first experienced the Godsfall Apocalypse. Those tears of red and sparkling rouge that split the skies, opening up one dangerous realm after another.That feeling of helplessness had been palpable, heavy... suffocating. It hung above his head like a guillotine, an edge graced by death's kiss...He grinned at it.One last ride, no Talents left on his stat screen, and nothing but a dull machete and his girl by his side. What was a better thrill than that?How could he possibly fail a fourth time?Unfortunately, there were others. Other Rebirthers. Some that might have been on their last attempt just like him, or some that still had more to give to this cruel world.None of it mattered, though. He had planned everything out meticulously, each life playing its own role.He would come out on top this time. How could he not?He was Zarek Ashborn.

The end of all worlds approaches.

The Demon King Order harvests lives from all manners of living beings.

Within this darkness full of despair,
A single person escaped from space-time, returned to before the world collapsed, determined to change the fate of the past.

But as time pass, he gradually finds out that the Apocalypse isn’t quite as simple as he thinks…