MTL - Best of Hollywood - Chapter 4 USC Pride

Six months ago, tens of thousands of black phantom towers appeared all over the world, floating above the cities. Chemists, physicists, religious people… all of them could do nothing.

In a world where power is marked by glowing runes and monsters bleed through the fabric of reality, **Ryu** is nothing—an orphan with no name, no status, and no hope. Beaten down by nobles who wield their divine-given strength like a whip, he survives on scraps and stubborn defiance.But when a black rift—an anomaly unlike any ever recorded—appears in the dead of night, Ryu faces a choice: die a beggar, or risk everything by stepping into the unknown.Inside, he finds a nightmare. Kolasis, a legendary predator, hunts him through a twisted forest. The rules here are simple: kill or be killed. To survive, Ryu must forge himself into something sharper than the claws of monsters and crueler than the nobles who cast him aside.Yet the rift has its own secrets. The same power that could make him a legend might also break him—if the monsters don’t tear him apart first.

What comes after death?

Val has a definite answer.

It's reincarnation!

After dying on modern-day Earth, he found himself waking up in a strange world!

The world was so strange that after death, humans would turn into zombies.

Negativity could give birth to devils.

There were also dungeons that, if left unchecked, could spell disaster!

This strange world was called Eldrich.

In this strange world, Val gained a chance at life when he acquired the Devil system!

[You have gained ownership of the Devil System!]

[Please choose the type of devil you would like to become.]

[Option 1: Shadow Devil.]

[Option 2: Blood Devil.]

That night, he grinned and the world witnessed the birth of a devil!

...

A scene from the novel:-

The Anthrolisk's antennae twitched violently, its bloodshot eyes narrowed, and it gritted its mandibles. Rage bubbled up within it like boiling tar, yet it kept its fury in check.

“I admit,” it managed to grind out through clenched teeth, “you're stronger than me. On my own, I might not be enough to defeat you. But when my children come into the picture, everything changes.”

Val's eyebrow raised, “What children?”

The Anthrolisk responded by clapping its hands elegantly. Suddenly, the ceiling overhead split open, and gigantic cockroaches, each half the size of a human, crawled out. Their shiny exoskeletons gleamed ominously under the faint light of the chamber.

“Shocked, aren't you?” The Anthrolisk gloated, a wicked grin stretching across its monstrous face. “Let's see how you fare against my children! Little ones, get him!”

With the command given, the cockroaches crawled down the wall in an eerie synchronicity, their multitude of tiny legs clicking against the stone walls of the chamber as they closed in on Val.

Val, however, merely smirked, causing an ominous chill to creep down the Anthrolisk's spine. It could feel that something wasn't right.

“You're not the only one with henchmen,” Val retorted casually, his smirk broadening into a wicked grin that mirrored the Anthrolisk's earlier expression.

A sense of foreboding filled Anthrolisk and it moved to stop Val from doing whatever he was planning to do.

However, it was too late.

“Descend to the living realm, my horde of the undead!” he commanded.

Suddenly, reality seemed to bend and ripple around Val, as if it was a mere illusion.

Out of these distortions, countless undead emerged, tearing through the very fabric of space itself to answer their master's call. Their hollow eyes burned with a spectral fire, their skeletal forms imposing and dreadful. It was a sight to behold, a haunting spectacle that sent chills down the spine of the Anthrolisk and its children.

A little about Val:- Val is not good or evil. Ask long as it benefits him, he can be a saint or a devil, or both!

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The story is about a boy entering high school, who answers a strange call from a public phone one night. The caller challenges him to a bet: She’ll remove the birthmark which he sees as the cause of so many problems, and he’ll have fifty days to win the heart of a girl he’d considered far beyond his reach. And with this, a very strange summer begins.