MTL - Mercenaries and Adventurers - v4 Chapter 199 , The Darkest Moonless Night (End) - The Burning Vault

Qiao Mei transmigrated into a novel as a supporting character with the same name as her who lacked presence. This supporting character was a country bumpkin who couldn’t get married due to her obesity. According to the original script, this country girl Qiao Mei was a fatty spoiled by her grandfather. However, their relatives were all vicious and cruel people. Her grandfather had poor health, so once he died, the relatives would divide and swallow up his assets. Hence, her grandfather’s greatest wish was to marry Qiao Mei off. For this, even sacrificed and betrayed his good friend’s grandson, Xia Zhe. Grandpa got Xia Zhe drunk and had Qiao Mei forcibly take the strong and handsome Xia Zhe with her body which weighed more than two hundred pounds. Then, grandpa would catch them the next day and force Xia Zhe to marry Qiao Mei. However, that eventually caused the start of Qiao Mei’s unfortunate life.

Liam was a nobody, whether it was grades or sports or appearance or social life. Not because he didn't have a brain but because his luck was just that bad. However, everything changed when a mysterious game called 'Evolution Online' was suddenly launched. The world he knew changed upside down!

There was blood, death, and carnage everywhere. While everyone from small companies and big governments scrambled to get a foothold on this mysterious video game, some people's lives turned for the better and some for the worse.

Liam, unfortunately, being the latter, still somehow ended up at the bottom of the barrel. His insignificant life was squished like an insect and his loved ones were destroyed right in front of him. In the end, he was already dead without ever having a single chance to fight back.

But his story did not end there. Liam found himself returned back to the time before everything began!

Watch as the young man who was once a nobody reaches for the pinnacle of strength and power wreaking havoc on the world that destroyed him once! This time everything will be different!

Deep below the earth's surface, a mystifying subterranean seascape lurks, an archipelago bathed in inky blackness where suspense and horror hold court. Here lie strange islands and even stranger monsters, far beyond the realms of human imagination. In this domain, mankind is far from dominant; instead, madness and death rule supreme.

Pleading for mercy from the unknown creatures of the deep only leads to a slow, tortured existence. The trapped survivors gradually distort, losing what made them human, both physically and mentally, to the gloom as they remain trapped in this eternal obscurity. Their only hope? A perilous expedition into uncharted sea territories.

Fueled by determination, Charles embark on this daunting voyage aboard his steamship, aiming to reclaim humanity's past glory. Together with his crew, they sought a way out of this hidden sea world, a path back to the sunlit world above, where humans once stood tall.

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I read a few comments from Chinese readers that compared this novel with Lord of Mysteries because of similar elements: Lovecraftian, western fantasy, first industrial revolution, and steampunk. However, I have yet to finish reading Lord of Mysteries to do any actual comparison, but I do think those who have enjoyed that novel would enjoy this as well. Also, the author of LotM, Cuttlefish That Loves Diving, also did a shout-out for this novel, so I guess he approves of it too?

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s a self-professed no-lifer, Yuri idles his days away in front of a computer. This all changes the moment his life in Japan comes to an abrupt end and he finds himself reborn in the strange new world of the Shiyalta Kingdom. His new life includes everything he once lacked: loving parents, a comfortable home, and a promising future breeding and raising birds on his dad’s ranch. For centuries, the kingdom he now calls home has enjoyed peace and prosperity, shielded by friendly nations that, like Shiyalta itself, were established with the collapse of a once-great empire. War is a distant problem, relevant only to Shiyalta’s ruling families whose warriors periodically set out to join the fighting upon massive birds trained by Yuri’s dad and others. But this peaceful existence can’t last forever. Something rotten lies at the heart of the kingdom, and it doesn’t take someone with Yuri’s exceptional intelligence to realize that those distant battles will only remain irrelevant for so long.