Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance - Volume 20, Prologue

Zhou Yan was a prodigy son to the once infamous genius.Despite being the son to an extremely skilled and talented father, he was born untalented and crude.It seemed that no matter how hard he had struggled, he would end up disappointing everyone who had high hopes for him.However, something unexpected happened to him on one fateful evening of his arduous training—he had inherited the will and knowledge of a mysterious old sage.Through that encounter, his skill and powers improved by several folds.Follow our main protagonist in his exciting journey to become who he was meant to be!

Derek Carter never asked for a System, an apocalypse, or the pressure of being humanity’s so-called “last hope.”He was just trying to survive the daily struggles of being an orphan in Paleview City—dodging bullies, scraping together meals, and lying his way into school. Life was already hard enough.Then, one day, a blue screen pops into his vision:[Warning: The world is doomed. Try not to die.]Yeah, great. Just what he needed—cryptic doomsday messages and no instruction manual.Now, monsters are creeping into the city, reality is unraveling, and Damien’s “legendary” starting stats are barely above zero. The System promises him power, but there's just one tiny problem—he’s never won a fight in his life.Armed with sarcasm, questionable decision-making skills, and the sheer refusal to die, Damien is about to embark on the worst (and possibly last) adventure of his life. Because if the world really is ending… he’s at least going to make it someone else’s problem first.After all, heroes are overrated—survivors get to tell the story.

I have calculated for people before I was born, and I have all five yin, and I am born with fierce ghosts. A knowledgeable gentleman said that I will not live to be seven years old. After death, I will cultivate blood-clothed little ghosts to harm people.

In order to save me, my grandmother married me a child-in-law, so that I had an Ann birthday, although I later discovered that the daughter-in-law and sister-in-law are not human…

I have been lingering and panting since I was a child, and I have been accustomed to accepting it, but my grandmother was killed.

For this reason, regardless of karma, I inherited my grandmother’s job of raising ghosts and vowed to send everyone who killed her to hell.

- Description from MTL

A weary historian dies and finds himself in a different world awakened in a life as the notorious young Duke of a southern state. His nation is weakened, his army underfed, and his neighbors revolve around his lands menacingly. No one believes his land is going to hold out until winter.But this newfound duke is no naive simpleton his enemies recollect. He carries with him the experience of centuries of war and empire, of starting and ending monarchies. From Caesar to Napoleon, from the Mongols to world wars, he has learned from each of them—and his strategy is to make history his very own arms.He organizes his smashed levies into well-trained formations, rebuilds his castles, and turns his villages into supply centers. Where others see defeat, he senses opportunity. As he triumphs, rumors spread: of a pennant red as winter snow that shall not go to ground, of a bloody duke who writes his name in gore and flame.Is he a savior who's constructing a new empire, or a tyrant who's going to bring the world to endless war?