A Black Market LitRPG - Chapter 118: Intrigue

[Your shadow is alive.][Feed your shadow, devour souls, level up, gain skills, complete quests, and grow stronger.][Do you wish to view your current stats?]In the magical world of Aetherus, Damon Grey is the weakest student at Aether Academy, relentlessly bullied and ridiculed for his lack of power and defiant personality. Yet, he endures the torment, clinging to his scholarship—the only thing providing him with the funds to keep his sick sister alive.After a brutal attack leaves him near death, Damon encounters a dark viscous entity in the forest that fuses with his shadow, awakening the Living Shadow System. This strange power grants him unimaginable abilities but comes with a grim cost—a relentless hunger for souls and flesh to feed his shadow.Now, with his shadow alive and insatiable, Damon faces a terrible choice: feed it to grow stronger or starve it and die with it.In a world ruled by ruthless nobles, deadly monsters, and power-hungry demons, Damon must decide if his newfound power is a curse or the only way to survive. With the Living Shadow System, his fate is clear: devour or be devoured.

They whisper my name in fear. Justin Black. The guy who sits in the back of the class, always in black, always untouchable. The one everyone watches but no one dares to approach.They don’t know me. Not really.Because if they did, they’d stay the hell away.I don’t do friends. I don’t do relationships. I don’t do attachments.But then there’s her.June Matthews—cheer captain, golden girl, a walking distraction. She’s everything I hate… and yet, she’s in my way. Assigned to me. Forced into my space. Testing my patience.She thinks she can handle me.She’s dead wrong.Because I have a secret. A place where I go to release the darkness inside me. Where names don’t exist, where pleasure and pain are one and the same. A world where people fulfill their deepest, most twisted fantasies.June doesn’t belong in my world.But the longer she stays, the more I want to pull her under.And once I do… I’m not sure I’ll ever let her go.

“Each betrayal leaves a scar… and hers ran the deepest.”Once, Aveline Laurent gave her heart to Damien Ashford - the man who promised her a future, only to cage her with sweet lies.She endured it all with a smile… until fate dragged her back to the very beginning.Now, with a second chance hanging by a fragile thread, Aveline returns.Not to plead, but to punish.
Not to forget, but to make him remember.But revenge is never simple. The path is fraught with shadows—and an unlikely ally–Alaric Lancaster–whose loyalties remain as mysterious as his gaze.

People know that ghosts are terrifying, but ghosts understand the malice in human hearts.This is a traditional supernatural novel.