A Record of Ash & Ruin: The Grieving Lands - Chapter 23Book 1: : Lucky Strike

The Intergalactic Bureau of Change is an organization that helps certain people start over with their own Truck-kun delivery service to transport souls across dimensions.Hiroshi Tanaka, a 28-year-old convenience store worker, meets one of their field agents. For any otaku, this would be a dream come true. There's just one problem.The agent turns out to be a scammer.Now Hiroshi is trapped in another world as an “extra” hero. His stats are garbage. His unique skill actively works against him.He wasn't chosen by fate. He was tricked by a cosmic con artist.Survival wasn't part of the contract. But Hiroshi refuses to be just another victim.What to Expect:• A protagonist who starts weak and stays realistic.• Strategic combat using knowledge over strength• Psychological exploration of being “expendable” in a hero's world• Dark humor mixed with genuine survival stakes• A broken system that wasn't designed for him to succeed• Slow, hard-earned progression where every level matters• Morally gray situations with no easy answers• Deconstruction of isekai tropes from the perspective of someone funny.---Tags:#Isekai #WeakToStrong #DarkFantasy #Survival #Hero #LitRPG #PsychologicalDrama #StrategicCombat #Underdog #SystemApocalypse #Betrayal #FantasyAdventure #CosmicHorror #NoHarem #MaleProtagonist---

The Thousand-Year Clan, the Ten-Thousand-Year Battle, deities play games with mortals' lives, fostering myriad tribes like nurturing parasites — with defeat meaning oblivion and victory ensuring sole survival.Only the one who prevails can earn the gods' faint smile.A youth named Qin Chuan, endowed with the power to stop time, leads humanity into the battlefield of countless races, only to discover that this is not their first foray onto this battleground...

[From the Author of Author's POV...]

Emotions are like a drug to us.

The more we experience them, the more we become addicted.

The hardest part is not letting them consume us.

But it's already too late for me.

I've already been swallowed whole.

***

I had no knowledge of the game.

I was meant to have died.

And yet, I found myself in this situation.

A game I had never played before. A character I was unfamiliar with, and... A world that seemed to want to swallow me whole with every move I made.

What the hell is going on?

...and who am I?

……………………………………………………………

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This is a bizarre and mysterious world filled with various sinister cultivation methods. Once a person begins to cultivate, they will either undergo mild changes in appearance and temperament, descend into madness, or become a great elixir for evil beings to consume...Duan Yun, having transmigrated into this world, unexpectedly comes across a supreme elixir cultivation manual, the 'True Explanation of the Jade Sword.'To his surprise, he is a one-in-a-million cultivation genius who, unwittingly, transforms the manual into something extraordinary. Guided by the Jade Sword, he is able to pierce through everything.Later, as his mastery over various methods grows, Duan Yun, carrying the philosophy of 'the enlightened benefit the world,' never keeps secrets and spreads martial arts across the land.Who would have thought...“Duan the Demon misled me! He said this technique enhances yin and yang, but now I can only squat to pee, boo hoo...”“It was the Demon who taught me this 'Seven Parts Returning Qi'. Instead of blessing me, it brought disaster—I either get killed or step in dung. The fortune-teller said I've lost seventy percent of my luck.”“Don't trust a word of what Demon Duan says! The fairy of the Myriad Wonders Palace was supposed to ascend the whole palace to the heavens, but in one night, she was possessed and turned into a demoness, all due to that old demon Duan's handiwork!”...Duan Yun finds this incomprehensible. All he did was practice martial arts, spread techniques, and occasionally emulate the laws of nature, so how did he become notorious as a demon?This is slander!The same techniques cause no issues for me, so the problem lies with you all, not me!