MTL - Pirates: Steel Chain Fingers - Chapter 224 Ambushers and Ambushed

Chen Mo a game designer got sent to a parallel world with advance technology but undeveloped game concepts.

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.

Betrayed. Exiled. Murdered. Reborn.In the war-torn land of Glory, power is everything and Duke Merlin's bastard son has none. Cast out to a starving border town beside the cursed Devil Forest, Kaelor and his mother were meant to die quietly.But when assassins take her life and leave him bleeding in the mud, another soul awakens within him one from another world.And with it, something else awakens too...The Fusion System.A power that lets him fuse nearly anything.Fusing one starving soldier with a dead direwolf gave birth to a Dreadwolf Trooper.Fusing one hundred wild dogs produced the monstrous Cerberus.Fusing two crumbling forts created a living fortress bristling with autonomous ballistas.From broken men and dead beasts, Kael will forge an army the world cannot understand and a dominion no one will dare challenge.

Crimson Vale Academy—where reputation is currency, and failure is a stain you wear on your sleeve.Behind gothic walls and spotless uniforms, students aren't just educated—they're measured, ranked, and pitted against each other in a brutal meritocracy. Privileges are earned, not given. The strong rise. The weak vanish.Enter Kairon Vale, a transfer student marked Rank D—the bottom of the bottom. No badge. Just a stitched black fang, branding him as “Obsidian”—a warning to others.In a system where points dictate your value, Obsidian-ranked students claw for every opportunity to ascend into the prestigious Golden or Platinum ranks—where comfort, power, and influence await. But for most, it’s a losing battle.Yet Kairon isn’t here to fit in, impress, or play by their rules. Cold, calculating, and impossible to read, he watches the system… and waits. Because while the academy judges worth by numbers and names—he understands something deeper:Everyone wears a mask. And every mask can be cracked.Let the games begin.