Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL) - Chapter 8 - 3: Family meeting (1)

BLURB> He was reborn by mistake. Raised with purpose. Loved by a god. Worshipped by monsters. And the galaxy doesn’t stand a fucking chance.Irvine’s soul took one wrong turn through the wheel of karma and woke up in a body grown by an intergalactic hivemind goddess with boundary issues and galaxy-sized ambition. Now he’s the golden child of a psychic swarm that feeds on control and burns whole worlds for affection.With Crystal at the helm, warriors like Kimchi, relic-weapons like Kiya, and a council of psionic horrors eager to call him king, Irvine must choose what kind of god he wants to be.Because when a hivemind learns to love......it doesn’t know when to stop.The universe will kneel—or get devoured trying.SYNOPSISIrvine didn’t ask to be reincarnated, but the cosmos had other plans. And it didn’t hand him a cheat code or a clean slate—just one random boon, selected by an uncaring divine roulette wheel.Good karma? Bad karma? Balanced as all fuck.Now he's reborn in the body of a psionically tuned alien hybrid, raised from psychic infancy by Crystal, the hivemind queen of a race so advanced they’ve abandoned individuality for shared omniscience. All except her baby boy.Irvine is the singularity inside the swarm, the first soul allowed to think, dream, and desire independently. Trained by warriors like Kimchi, advised by bio-symbiotes like Kiya, loved ferociously by hive sisters like Diane, and shadowed by powers ancient and unnamed, Irvine is both weapon and wielder, saint and sacrifice.But empires don’t run on hugs and handjobs. As Crystal expands her dominion—across star systems and sentient nebulae—Irvine must lead the charge through blood, fire, and psionic flame.His soul is still human. His body? Engineered for extinction. His heart? Not entirely his anymore.

Who could have guessed that the accidental discovery of a pitch-black USB drive would one day turn Chen Chen’s world upside down?

“Master, Xingchen Zi said his master refined a treasure—a huge boat that flies in Heaven—and only his master knows how to do it. Is that true?”“It's true.” Cao Zhen glanced at the super-large flying peak beneath his feet and nodded.“Master, have you heard? The Jiao dragon on Azure Dragon Peak seems to have the potential to become a Golden Dragon!”“Just scoop up an Azure Dragon from our family's Fengshui pond and play with it. Don't interrupt me while I'm cooking.”“Master, I've heard that...”“No matter what you've heard, go to my room and look around, everything... ah, wait a moment, let your senior sister come out first.”

Nicole d'Armand never expected to walk into her apartment and find her fiancé *bleep*-deep in another woman's lady bits. What's a girl to do?Well, after obliterating an 18th-century Meissen vase, delivering a punch that would make a heavyweight boxer proud, and embarking on a night of raucous drinking, Nicole figures she might as well embrace the chaos.But when alcohol and pheromones collide, her wild night spins into something unexpected... Like a ride on the Logan Everett express.Which, naturally, leads to a whirlwind of its own: She's his fated mate. Because of course she is.And he rejects her. Because of course he does.Now embroiled in a mystery bigger than her post-breakup hangover, Nicole finds herself the prime suspect in a murder she didn't commit—no matter how tempting the thought might have been. And the only person who believes her innocence? The same guy who shot down the idea of being her fated mate.Great. Just what she needed: her love life is a crime scene, and the man stupid enough to let her go is holding her freedom in his hands.