Gardenia's Heart - Chapter 52: Heart

Betrayed by his former gang and thrown into the Rendhold Underprison, Dantes has spent the last five years scraping by. A whoreson of orcish, human, and elvish blood, he's lived on the periphery of the periphery, lying, cheating, and stealing to survive. After a run of bad luck, he's made a powerful enemy. Luckily, he's also gotten all the tools he needs to turn things around.A slow burn progression fantasy focused on rising through the criminal underworld of a city-state using newfound powers and quick wits.MC's powers will develop slowly, but he will use them in creative ways to get ahead, and in the meantime he's not above just braining someone with a club.Anti-hero/villainous MC with a code.

“Gu Hangshen! Your sister stole my man, and you helped her do it! Your whole family is rotten!”“Whatever my sister owes you, I'll compensate you.”“And what will you compensate me with?”“Me.”“...”Later, he not only gave himself up as compensation, but he also came with a clingy little bundle of joy...

Zheng Tan somehow returns to the year 2003, turning into a black cat. Picked up from a rubbish heap by the Jiao family, he is given the name “Charcoal”, and so begins the life inside Professor Jiao’s family. Zheng Tan remembers that he was once a person, but currently his body is that of a cat. He has no way of speaking the human language, but can understand it, and even retains the thinking and IQ of a young 20 year old youth. Read along as he adapts to this new world, and somehow tumbles from a group brawl to catching a thief.

- Description from Novelupdates

Adrien’s tale is a thunderous symphony of vengeance, mystery, and ascension. Awakened with no memory but wielding a shadow-forged blade, he traverses a fractured world where gods rule through fear and silence. His forgotten blood burns with the legacy of the Godslayers—beings once feared even by the divine. As he hunts corrupted gods and unearths shards of unimaginable power, Adrien evolves from a wandering enigma to a force capable of defying fate itself. Twisting through betrayal, hidden empires, and awakening legends, his journey is not just one of survival, but of reclaiming divinity to break the sky itself.