Aetheral Space - Chapter 31:2.13: Sleeping Giants (Part 1)

[COMPLETE] Can a royal Romeo and Juliet find their happy ending?

Ayleth, Princess of Zenithra, is secretly trained in hand-to-hand combat, and collects swear words she doesn't know how to use. During the Festival of Peace, in which every royal son on the continent will be at the castle for a month, she is instructed by her parents to find a husband. Yet, Ayleth has never even been kissed—until the very first ball, when she meets the man in the Lion mask.

Etan is a seasoned warrior, and the Prince of Summitras. He attends the Festival hoping to find a powerful wife who will help him conquer the dark sorcery of their bloodsworn enemies, the Kingdom of Zenithra. But at the very first ball, he discovers the masked woman who captures his heart is the Heir to the evil empire.

Ayleth and Etan face an impossible battle. Will their love survive? Or will their parents' dark dealings keep them apart forever?

[Mature content. No sexual violence.]

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“You…” She stepped back. Then back again, her mouth dropped open. “You… You cannot be…”

“I am,” Etan said, and his hair raked back as he pushed his mask off his handsome face. So handsome her heart raced.

His hair was ebony black, his skin a warm brown that threatened to fade in in the winter months. He stared at her with glittering green eyes, over high cheekbones and a noble nose, his jaw tight and shadowed this late in the day. His chin was high over the pillar of his neck that she’d just touched with its hard lines and steel strength, so different to her own. And his chest... She gasped and covered her eyes. She’d humiliated herself revealing her stupid, childish curiosity.

“No, Ayleth. This changes nothing.”

“How can you say that? It changes everything!” She was horrified to realize she was crying.

“Ayleth, please.” His voice cracked on the plea and she stared at him, shoving her mask up and off, despite how it would pull her hair out of the beautiful twist the maid had managed for her.

His eyes locked on hers and she couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe.

She had met her One. And he was the son of her bloodsworn enemy.

She stared at him as he stepped forward again, offering both hands, palm up. “Touch me,” he whispered. “Hold my hands. This is real, Ayleth. I don’t know how it happened, but this is real. Please don’t deny it.”

She couldn’t resist. She raised a trembling hand to his cheek, letting her palm catch on the scruff of his jaw. He blew out a breath and put his hand over hers, and that jolt that happened whenever they touched shivered through her again.

“Please, Ayleth.”

“I cannot deny it,” she whispered.

Ever since he was little, Xi Jia’s yin energy was strong, and every day he saw ghosts and ran into ghosts. One day, he accidentally broke the protection amulet. Celestial Master Ye Jingzhi happened to pass by and helped. Are ghost catching Celestial Masters all legit masters? WeChat official accounts, Taobao online shops, looking at gossip tabloids every day. Since then, Xi Jia has refreshed the lower limit again and again, and met a group of completely unreliable Celestial Masters. Binding spirits, doppelgängers, the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, the ghost market of Poyang… The door to a new world is slowly opening.

Set in an urban city with supernatural elements, this is a love story between Xi Jia, who has a body of extreme yin, and Celestial Master Ye Jingzhi, nicknamed the King of Hell. The seemingly weak Xi Jia, in actuality, can rip apart ghosts with bare hands; the seemingly cold Ye Jingzhi, in actuality, is shy and gentle. A marriage contract binds the fate of two people together. See how the two people overturn the heavens in the gossipy and wacky metaphysical world.

- Description from Novelupdates

A silhouette of a man standing upon a boulder with the crescent of the moon shining behind him.

A kukri dripping with blood in one hand and a pistol in the other.

The image of burning flames surrounding him.

The countless mercenaries screamed as they saw this scene.

“It’s a demon!”

“World conquest was never part of the plan.”Yu Chen was just an ordinary programmer, slaving away at his desk, fixing bugs for a popular kingdom-building game.His life was a cycle of endless work, sleepless nights, and little appreciation. One fateful night, while struggling to fix a game-breaking bug that granted players an absurd amount of upgrade points, his exhausted heart gave out.But death wasn't the end for Yu Chen. He awoke in a world strangly familiar... he had transmigrated into the very game he had been working on, now inhabiting the body of a notorious tyrant emperor, Arkanos Bloodbane, whose empire was on the brink of destruction.Surrounded by enemies, with rebellions simmering within and war on every front, Yu Chen, now Arkanos, quickly realizes the gravity of his situation.But to his shock, he discovers that he still has access to the game's system interface—complete with the million upgrade points from the bug he had tried to fix!With his knowledge of game mechanics, strategic mind, and a wealth of upgrade points, Arkanos sets out to turn the crumbling empire into an unstoppable force. He begins by summoning legendary heroes, deploying advanced technologies never before seen in this world, and revolutionizing his military and infrastructure.As he pushes his empire to greatness, Arkanos must navigate the treacherous politics of the imperial court, fend off treacherous factions, and outmaneuver the rival nations that seek to destroy him. But with each victory, he realizes that this world is not just a game—it's his new reality. The stakes are higher, the dangers more real, and the consequences of failure more dire than ever.[Reminder, contented intended for mature audiences.]