The Villainess Reverses the Hourglass - Chapter 144

【Gunfight + Mystery-solving + Decisive Killing】I had already been backstabbing the underworld, and now you're telling me I was planted as an undercover cop???Dean looked at the boss with eyes that would not close in death, scratched his head, and could only take the opportunity to transform into Los Angeles' five-star good citizen—Detective Dean!Ps:There's nothing supernatural, but there is a dark world out of our ordinary reach, filled with assassins, thieves, and all kinds of bizarre cases...

Anton is a great-grandfather. He is living quite a happy life, despite his advanced age and declining health… until a group of cultivator bandits moves into the area. The nearby guardians of the area, the Order of Ninety-Nine Stars, are unable to track them down as they continue to ravage nearby towns. During one desperate winter Anton is out on a hunt when his family- his entire village- is killed or taken as slaves by the bandits. He lacks the strength to fight them, and he wasn’t even present for their arrival to die with his loved ones. At the pit of his despair, he wonders if he ever had any chance to change things. What could he even do? He cannot even pull his best bow, and his eyesight is failing. If he had been a cultivator… perhaps there might have been a chance, but he was decades- perhaps even most of his life- too late.Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge (2022)Notes on cultivation levels:There are five general stages of cultivation, though the fifth is extremely rare. Each cultivation style might have their own name for the stages.1. Body Tempering2. Spirit Building/ occasionally System Creation (Ninety-Nine Stars)3. Constellation Formation (Ninety-Nine Stars)4. Life Transformation/Galaxy Construction (Ninety-Nine Stars)5. Ascension

Note: There's no magic in this novel. This was previously in the Realistic Fiction genre but it's not included in the choices. So I picked the closest one to it.

Onoda Ruki is just your ordinary high school student. He strived for being the Classmate A who's unimportant to the story.

Despite being the Classmate A. Onoda has a secret desire which he always had ever since young and that was to steal each and every girl from their guy.

Join him as he entered his high school days as he conquer and steal every girl he sets his eyes on. And along the way, the growth in his character and those around him.

*I do not own the cover photo. I will take it out if requested.

*DISCLAIMER

This is a work of fiction.

All names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious way. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Moreover, the ages of the characters appearing in this fiction are 18 and above.

Jaden Cross is a young man trying to survive in the shadows of Neo-Lagos, a futuristic city where the poor live in broken homes and forgotten slums. Orphaned at six and forced to grow up fast, Jaden spends his days fixing scraps and dreaming of a better world—a world he believes he’ll never see.Until one night, everything changes.A mysterious glowing orb appears in the sky and connects with Jaden’s mind, activating the Tech Architect System—a powerful, sci-fi interface that gives him access to futuristic blueprints, instant-building tools, and system quests that reward him for solving real-world problems.His first quest? Restore power to his neighborhood using solar microgrids.Soon, Jaden is building cooling shelters, clean energy systems, and AI-run apartments—one project at a time. But with each success, he draws more attention. The city’s leaders want to control him. A rival from the tech underworld wants to steal the system. And darker forces are watching from the skies, waiting for the Architect to grow.Armed with only his mind, his hands, and the Tech Architect System, Jaden must rise from the ruins of poverty and become the builder of a new future.But in a city full of secrets, will he remain its hero… or become its biggest threat?