To Be a Power in the Shadows! - Chapter 1

Kenji’s life was hard. During the day, he worked in a bookstore. At night, he served ramen. He did it all to take care of his family. His mom was sick and needed medicine, and his little sister needed money for school. His best-paying gig was working for a mysterious author, illustrating the manga for a popular web novel. There was just one problem: he hated the story.He was in the middle of drawing the academy arc when his frustration peaked. The story’s villain, a rich kid named Azrael Ashveil, was weak. He made dumb mistakes and died unfairly. Kenji thought the character deserved better. After finishing a panel showing Hero's Victory, Kenji collapsed from exhaustion.He wakes up not in his small apartment but in a fancy bed with silk sheets. Looking in the mirror he sees the handsome, violet-eyed face of Azrael Ashveil. He has entered the story he hated and is now the doomed villain.Worse, he's arrived late to the party. The original Azrael has already made a mess of things. The story's golden-boy hero, Kaelen, already despises him. His beautiful wife, the half-elf heroine Elvara, is terrified of him. And all of his death flags-the events that lead to his execution are right around the corner.Azrael must use his knowledge of the future just to stay alive. Can a minor villain with no power of his own really change his fate, or will he just find a new, even more tragic ending than the one he was trying to escape?

In a world governed by cultivation and power, Li Tian was once a formidable warrior, feared and respected. However, betrayal led to his untimely death. Reborn in a new realm, he awakens as a 17-year-old bastard child of a powerful family, ridiculed and ignored by those around him. Retaining the memories of his past life, Li Tian is determined to seize this second chance.As he navigates the treacherous waters of his new existence, Li Tian finds himself entangled with numerous captivating women, including his alluring stepmother, Xu Fang, and his charming fiancée, Zheng Wei. With a system that reveals his hidden desires and offers him tasks to complete, he must confront his inner struggles while forging bonds and gaining strength.Will Li Tian rise above the stigma of his birth and carve out a destiny worthy of his past glory, or will the shadows of betrayal continue to haunt him? Join him on a journey of self-discovery, love, and conquest as he seeks to transform from a mere bastard into a legendary figure of the cultivation world.

In the post-apocalyptic age, men were damned.

[Congratulations, you have earned +9 coins. You have repaid 999,999,999 / 1,000,000,000 Coins. You need 1 more coin to repay your debt.]“You’ve got to be kidding me.”______After living a hundred lives, Lucian finally managed to repay his debt to the system. World after world, he fought, bled, and struggled—all for the freedom he had foolishly given up the day he begged the system to save his life.At last, he had done it. 999,999,990 coins. Just one more mission, one last world, and he would finally be free...Or so he thought.But this was no joke. The system had screwed him over one final time.Still, there was hope. With only a single coin left to repay, the system could no longer play its tricks. Freedom was just within his grasp—if he could survive this last world.All Lucian had to do was reach the end. Simple, right?Except this time, the world itself seemed determined to destroy him.