Childhood Friend of the Zenith - Chapter 8: Nine Dragons Day (2)

Reincarnated into the muddy guts of a cursed swamp as a tsetse fly, former office worker and master-level cynic Buzz Windbreaker quickly discovers that survival is both absurd and magnificent. The air is thick with poison, the predators are many-limbed and spell-woven, and the prey? Just as desperate as he is.Yet with every drop of blood he drains from beast, beastkin, or unlucky mortal, Buzz unlocks fragments of an ancient arcane lattice that spirals beneath the skin of the world itself—a system of runes, incantation spirals, and primordial energy flows forgotten by even the highborn mages.His evolution isn't just physical: it is architectural. Each new form is built like a spell—symmetrical, efficient, cruel. Wings shimmer with sigil arrays. Proboscises become siphons of mana and memory. Legs are sharpened to runic blades. Jokes sting. Death stings harder.Soon, Buzz isn't just hunting. He is ascending.

After leaving earth in a pathetic way, Asher finds his soul in the body of a baron's bastard son.As the last surviving member of the Ashbournes, Asher must take up the mantle and build his territory or die in the jaws of a beast or the blades of hungry nobles greedy for his territory.Luckily, he did not enter this man-eat-man world without support.[Ding! Soulbinding successfully completed.][Would the host like to upgrade your bronze-ranked butler to a powerful silver-ranked swordsman? Yes or No.]

The year he was fifteen, Ling Ke realized he was gay, and that he fell in love with a hot guy the same gender he was! Ling Ke spied on the other’s online friend group, payed attention to that person’s every move, and privately, started his fanatical fanboying actions. Unfortunately, the hot guy he liked was someone who changed girlfriends like he changed clothes, a pretentious and straight male.

A few years later, Ling Ke and the hot guy he was secretly in love with got into the same university and became good friends. In order to prevent his beloved from hating him, Ling Ke repressed his true feelings and forced himself to pretend to be a 24k, pure gold straight guy.
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Having high-spec looks, Qi Feng was a networking expert, but in order to preserve his all-around shining and popular hearthrob image, he always hid his true sexuality, that he was gay. He got himself (fake) girlfriends all throughout school, literally playing himself into being branded as a skirt-chaser.

Until one day, he met his true love. The other looked delicate and gentle, cold and out-of-reach, as if the ideal lover he’d dreamed of in his heart.

Except, there was just one thing. That guy also looked completely straight……

In short, this is the love story of two scared, in-the-closet gay guys pretending to be straight while mutually trying to feel the other out.

- Description from Novelupdates

35000+ Words Before Lock.THE SLAYER ASCENSION.....In a world where saints are worshipped and demons are hunted, power decides who is holy… and who is damned.I am both.A contradiction.A human blessed by divinity…yet bound to a demon that never sleeps and craves blood.Hunted by demons.Feared by the saints.Watched by beings far older than gods.There is only one way forward…Ascension through slaughter.Every demon I kill drags me further from humanity.Every miracle I wield pushes me closer to damnation.The devil believes he doesn’t feel fear.I will make him prove himself wrong.This is no hero’s story.No one survives untouched.Because this is…THE SLAYER ASCENSIONCheck out the author note in the auxillary chapter before reading, it will clarify few things.