Stolen by the Rebel King - Chapter 156: The Shortcut I

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.

Ethan was just an ordinary guy until he woke up in the world of his favorite novel, Gods’ Final Requiem.But this isn’t a story where the hero wins. It’s a tragedy where the protagonist falls, the world crumbles, and the Demi-Gods and Outer Gods consume everything.And now, Ethan is here weak, talentless, and completely insignificant. A nobody in a doomed world.Yet, when an Empire Academy Admission Letter lands in his hands bearing his name he realizes something is wrong.More than that, his status window hides two sealed abilities, something that never existed in the original story.This wasn’t supposed to happen.If the world is truly destined to fall… then maybe, just maybe, he can change it.But first, he has to survive

“Screw magic, I want to learn how to do cool flips and stuff.”

Magic is awesome, until you've studied it for centuries.

Doevm reincarnates into a human to experience the path of a fighter to its fullest and swears not to rely on magic.

There is only one problem, a goddess stands in his way.

She pits him against both the hero and the villain for all of eternity.

How will he escape this, with magic or his fists? Maybe both?

[However, due to mysterious anomalies during host's initial awakening trial, the Aetherfall protocol has been permanently altered.Host will be subject to mandatory sequential trials even after other hosts have been offered options to trials— ALL TRIALS FOR HOST WILL BE MANDATORY.Until Paragon Ascension has been exceeded.Failure to complete any trial will result in the utter and irreversible termination of spirit and vessel.In summary:Host will either survive or be terminated.]---The regular nobody, done in by Truck-kun after being... distracted,transmigrates into the body of a side character from his most hated novel—during the awakening trial.Somehow, he finds a way to survive... or so he thought.In a world where everything revolves around the MC, a side character destined to die can only bring bad omens.He's given a near-impossible task by the trial system of this world—along with no option to reject other than death.And in a novel where characters were once one-dimensional, they’re now being seen from every side and perspective—things are far more complicated than he ever imagined.A world where heroes are hidden psychopaths, villains are deeply misunderstood,teachers are unstable, and teenagers are... Let's just say hormonal.What could possibly go wrong?