Crown of Thorns - Chapter 3

Shen Dongqing is a powerful, thousand-year-old ghost. He had just possessed a body and hadn’t even relaxed for two days yet when he was pulled into a white, parallel world.

On the first day of the Infinite Nightmare Game:
Other players tremble, crying and wailing wanting to go home.
Shen Dongqing eats, sleeps, and plays ‘Fight the Landlord’ (card game).

The second day:
Other players are chased endlessly by ghosts, crying loudly ‘Save me!’
Shen Dongqing eats, sleeps, and plays ‘Fight the Landlord’.

The third day.
Shen Dongqing……
The ghosts finally set their sights on this lazy player. The other players watch on in glee. As a result, who knew that this slim and pale youth would stand up and easily dispatched the ghosts with his bare hands.

Other ghosts: Can’t afford to disrupt this elder. Let’s go, let’s go.

- Description from Novelupdates

Life from birth has been nothing but hell. I lost my parents to some stupid aristocrats whom they offended. Executed for no good reason.

My relatives abandoned me and pushed me aside. They feared for their lives and left me and my sister to starve and wander the streets alone!

No, this is worse than hell!

I watched my sister die of starvation. Her lips were dry and her feet bloody. Her nails were broken and her fingers riddled with cuts. She struggled in my hands and after a few seconds of struggle she passed away. She seemed joyful in death so I prayed mine will come just as swift and merciful as hers.

So I stayed in the alleyway, alone with her rotten corpse awaiting my fate for God knows how long. I could see it already. The darkness encroaching from all sides

Everyone said death is scary but I say it’s the end! Who needs life after death? What is the need for reincarnation?

Who would want to return to this crazy world?

“It’s not yet time for you to go… You have one more task to accomplish as my host” A voice called out to me.

I could barely see or speak but how can I miss such a beautiful face? It was an extremely handsome man who gazed at me with tender eyes.

.....

“Haven’t I suffered enough? Can’t I just rest?” I cried out. Why would I want to stay back in such a cruel world?

“Don’t you want to avenge the death of your parents? Don’t you want to become something greater? I can make that happen!” The beautiful man said with an alluring voice.

“You… Who are you?” I asked with an anxious heart.

My parents always said God is the only one who cares about me! Maybe in my final hours, he has come to save me.

“Call me Death…”

Kaidan (Kaidan refers to eerie tales of strange, mysterious, rare, or bewitching ghosts and monsters from Japanese folklore.) feed on cognition, wield information as weapons, and use information as currency, existing between the peculiarities of neither life nor death.They exist in human rumors and dwell in the shadows of the world.“Does this mean I will become a Kaidan?”In ancient times, they were worshipped as deities, empowered by faith.“Then I am a deity!”In more recent ancient times, they were regarded as demons and fed on fear.“I will become the master of Kaidan!”However, as the tides of time washed over, they gradually vanished, leaving behind only texts considered to be delusions.“To restore the glory of Kaidan is an undeniable duty of ours.”But you are not yet a Kaidan, hmm, nor a person.“Well, becoming a Kaidan counts as success.”

Each stroke of good luck is a triumph over someone else’s misfortune.Jack Grim, the son of two legendary assassins, was born and raised on nothing but coldness — and the skills to spill blood.At seventeen, Jack received his final task as an assassin apprentice under his parents.“Succeed, and you’ll run your own organization — live the life you’ve always dreamed of.”For Jack, it was everything he had ever wanted: the chance to finally become the professional assassin he was born to be.He struck his target at midnight, succeeded, and received everything his parents had promised.But in the wake of victory came a pounding headache, a relentless fever—and then… transmigration.Jack now found himself in Raiden’s body — the keeper of the Book of Ashes, the heart of the Devourer, and the very book the coward Raiden had died protecting with his life.Jack had no desire to live in another world, magic or not. He simply wanted to return to his life as an assassin.But duty had other plans. The balance of this world now rested on his ability to protect the book — and like it or not, the responsibility was his to bear.