The Ultimate Skill System: Absorb, Upgrade, Create, Transfer - Chapter 21 - : Shadowcarver

A Lovecraft- inspired darker, grittier One piece fanfic. A fanfic based on emotion and madness. A fanfic not for the faint hearted.----------------Regret. I have been drowning in it for far too long. I’ve regretted every choice I’ve made, every mistake I’ve carried, every moment of my past. I’ve regretted the present I live, the path I walk. Even my future, uncertain as it may be, has been tainted by regret.But not anymore. I refuse to live under its shadow. Yet, I know the truth—I don’t have the power to escape it completely.Am I not like a flicker of flame? So fragile, so fleeting—one puff, and I’m gone.Regret has burdened me, weighed me down to make me climb the towering wall of greatness. But I press on.It was all I could do. All I ever wanted to do.

Some crowns are forged in blood. Others are drowned beneath it.In a city strangled by smoke and silence, where children are shackled to machines and shadows rule behind gilded masks, Keiran is just another forgotten soul—until the mark appears.Buried beneath the factory’s foundations lies a world long erased from history. Ancient oaths whisper through stone and water, and something older than memory begins to stir. As Keiran is drawn deeper into the abyss, he uncovers a legacy not meant for mortal hands—a crown shattered in defiance, a flood sealed by sacrifice, and a power that demands a price.Hunted by tyrants, haunted by echoes, and bound to secrets he never asked for, Keiran must choose: drown in the tide of what came before, or rise against the current and reclaim what the world was forced to forget.But the deeper he goes, the more the truth unravels…And beneath it all, something still breathes.

In a world where 80% of humanity has awakened supernatural talents, life is a brutal competition.College loser Kim Do-hyun is barely surviving on game bots, instant noodles, and debt. That is, until a government-mandated awakening throws him into the spotlight… only to declare his power total trash.Cloning? Level one? Cooldown? One body? What a joke.But this clone is real. It sweats. It works. It eats. And when it trains… Do-hyun's stats increase.Now, while the clone grinds 24/7—running, working, even getting beat up—Do-hyun chills in bed, reaping the rewards.His strength rises. His body transforms. His life begins to change.But power attracts attention.And when an S-Rank hunter known only as The Jumper starts watching, Do-hyun realizes something terrifying:He might not be the only one cheating the system.