MTL - My Stand-in is Steve - Chapter 42 Hell... a metaphor?

Cairn is a prince who is already tired of ruling. Faced with an imminent coronation and an overbearing father, he wants nothing more than to drown his responsibilities in cheap liquor and poor decisions. With the help of his sister, he hatches a plan to escape the clutches of the throne once and for all. It all goes terribly wrong, and Cairn finds his priorities shifting in the face of unimaginable tragedy. The change of heart comes too late, however, and Cairn dies. He reawakens to find himself transported ten years in the past. He immediately begins to plan for the future, only to discover his killer has somehow followed him. To succeed, Cairn must unite the kingdom and discover the motivation of his killer, using as many tries as it takes. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++I exhausted pretty much every time loop story ever written and decided to write my own. You'll see a few similarities here between this story and some existing stories, at least initially. There's a lot of inspiration drawn from both MoL and Re:Zero, though in terms of pathos and darkness, this story leans more towards the latter. Be warned, it is something of a slow burn. The main character will grow and become powerful, but a theme of this story is that power comes slowly and often at great cost.

It’s a story that happened long, long ago, in a continent far, far away, about gods and mortals, sword and magic, war and peace, and of course love and hatred.

Amon was a poor miner’s son in a remote town in the kingdom of Hittite. Along with the discovery of a marvelous gem, his fate was changed. People on this land called it Gods’ Tear. But wait, what were the gods? It was said that the gods created the world. Then who created the gods?

Forced by the tantalizing fate, Amon had to struggle to find out the truth behind this world of magic and gods……

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She was floating.. no, hanging! On what?! She struggled to get back on her feet but was pulled into something so.. hard and warm.And It smelt so damn good...She tried looking back to see what was holding her but the 'thing' wasn't having it.She looked down to see a very large pair of strong and hairy arms, wrapped around her torso, sending jolts of unexpected pleasure to her nether region.“Let me go, you dumb brute!!” She screamed, squirming in his arms, trying to slip out of his unyielding grip but stopped when she realized his grip was getting tighter.“What is this?! Tell him I do not want him! I reject mphh...” Her words were cut off by one of the men surrounding her.“I'll only release you so long as you promise to listen to 'us'.” The man holding her said.Who were the 'us' he mentioned?They were none other than the three sons of the Alpha. And I... Who was suddenly caught by them, was an Omega.They wanted to talk, huh? Well, so be it. There was only so much an Omega like her could do anyway.“Fine,” she said, relaxing her stance. “But you have to give me some space. Please,”“Not a chance, princess,” he said, his face bearing a smug that made her sigh in annoyance.“Fine,” she said and he relaxed his grip on her, giving her a chance to at least stand to her feet.As soon as she stood firmly on her feet, she looked up at all three of them and the most crazy thing happened.She heard her wolf purr in her mind.'MATE'What?************Bethany Sage.Your average everyday Omega, had never really liked her average, mediocre life. She loved the peace but had always been one to love more..She had been envious of Audrey-The Beta's beloved and only daughter-whom everyone envisions to be the future Luna of Black River Pack.She always dreamt of having a mate with so much power and not because she thought Audrey was a aggravating - She kinda did- and on her 18th birthday, her dream comes true!!But of course, Selene-The Moon Goddess-has never been one to do things the normal way.. including assigning a mate..or mates..

BLURB> He was reborn by mistake. Raised with purpose. Loved by a god. Worshipped by monsters. And the galaxy doesn’t stand a fucking chance.Irvine’s soul took one wrong turn through the wheel of karma and woke up in a body grown by an intergalactic hivemind goddess with boundary issues and galaxy-sized ambition. Now he’s the golden child of a psychic swarm that feeds on control and burns whole worlds for affection.With Crystal at the helm, warriors like Kimchi, relic-weapons like Kiya, and a council of psionic horrors eager to call him king, Irvine must choose what kind of god he wants to be.Because when a hivemind learns to love......it doesn’t know when to stop.The universe will kneel—or get devoured trying.SYNOPSISIrvine didn’t ask to be reincarnated, but the cosmos had other plans. And it didn’t hand him a cheat code or a clean slate—just one random boon, selected by an uncaring divine roulette wheel.Good karma? Bad karma? Balanced as all fuck.Now he's reborn in the body of a psionically tuned alien hybrid, raised from psychic infancy by Crystal, the hivemind queen of a race so advanced they’ve abandoned individuality for shared omniscience. All except her baby boy.Irvine is the singularity inside the swarm, the first soul allowed to think, dream, and desire independently. Trained by warriors like Kimchi, advised by bio-symbiotes like Kiya, loved ferociously by hive sisters like Diane, and shadowed by powers ancient and unnamed, Irvine is both weapon and wielder, saint and sacrifice.But empires don’t run on hugs and handjobs. As Crystal expands her dominion—across star systems and sentient nebulae—Irvine must lead the charge through blood, fire, and psionic flame.His soul is still human. His body? Engineered for extinction. His heart? Not entirely his anymore.