Reincarnated as the Demon King's Son - Chapter 55: Crush The Crystal

When a glorious old civilization was toppled overnight, a strange purple moon rose and thus began the Purple Moon Era.

The Mayan ceremonial dagger had an inscription in the ancient language that read: “Offer thy heart”. It's obviously an instruction left by the past inhabitants of this forgotten place, but who would be stupid enough to stab himself in the heart with a rusty old knife found inside a tombstone?After activating my battery pack the dagger shimmers brightly in a cyan light, the creatures are coming, I can hear their steps.

An alien abduction romance. Updates Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.Grant has a tolerance for boredom. Late shift in a middle-of-nowhere facility? Sign him up. If the money's good, he'll happily take the peace and quiet of a long night watching an empty cell.And then he meets Subject B-31. Blue, beautiful, and completely inhuman. Her captors call her Batty, thanks to her big ears and the way she hangs upside down by her tail.He's told not to talk to her. He's told to think of her as a test subject, not a person. He's told to cash his checks and live his humble life. He's told to ignore the sorrow on her face and the desperation in her crimson eyes. Maybe he should have listened. When he finally busts her out, the rescue isn't a rescue at all: it's an abduction.Batty is Princess Sykora, of the tyrannical Taiikari Empire. She commands the Black Pike, a massive voidship on the imperial frontier. Grant must learn a new life, in a firmament filled with ambitious nobles, deadly rivals, and the sinister smiles of the Taiikari Imperial Court. And he'll have to learn fast.Because when the Princess of the Void looks at Grant, she doesn't just see a savior—she sees a husband.And she isn't asking.

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.