Heaven's Shadow - Chapter 181: Yearning for Freedom

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.

Introvert!? Me!? The hell am I an introvert? I stay indoors all day because I am afraid of getting my butt kicked.Until I contract my beast, I won’t be walking freely. This is a promise I made to myself.My name is Ryder, and I am black-marked. The planet where I live is dominated by summoners. If you guessed it, then you are right—we contract beasts from the Astral Shadow Plain and summon them at will after successfully forming a contract.A mark appears on the left shoulder of every human after a period of maturity, a mark given by the beast that chooses you. There are five different types of marks—the brown, the orange, the red, the black, and lastly, the white.Of all the markings, I was marked black. I was chosen by a supreme demon monarch of the Astral Shadow Plain—the Dracogon.There was only a 0.5 percent chance for me to survive the contraction process. However, with a slight twist in the original outcome, contracting a creature from the black-marked plain was nothing compared to the catastrophe I caused shortly after—I opened a link between the beasts of the Astral Shadow Plain and the planet of humans, Terra.Everyone on my planet has been endangered because of me. The fact that no one knows when the link will trigger and cause a breach that pours mindless creatures into my world makes it all the more unsettling.Now, with no other choice, I have to find a way to resolve the mistake I made—alone, just like I caused it.

Shen An travels to the Douluo Continent with the Fame System. As long as his fame spreads, he can draw various magical characters and items. The first magical character he draws is... Tom the Cat![Tom, let's go!]Shen An shook his head and said, “Sword Uncle, your sword is not fast enough nor ruthless enough, but don’t worry, my cat has figured out something better!”After a sword battle...Chen Xin stared at Tom the Cat holding a longsword, lost in self-doubt: “I’ve practiced swordsmanship for decades; how am I having such a back-and-forth fight with a cat?”Dugu Bo, who is renowned for his poisonous abilities across the continent, was dumbfounded as he watched the poison he had painstakingly researched being casually neutralized by Tom pulling a few weeds.Tang San couldn’t believe his eyes as all his hidden weapons missed, saying in disbelief, “How could my Tang Sect’s hidden weapon techniques be dodged by a cat?”Finally, Shen An looked at Tang Hao: “The most powerful weapon spirit on the continent, the Clear Sky Hammer?”“How do you plan to deal with my Tom’s million-ton hammer, sir?”Xian Renxue: “I declare that Tom the Cat will become the Sacred Beast of our Spirit Hall. From now on, the Spirit Hall’s uniforms and tokens will all feature Tom's portrait.”Zhu Zhuqing and Ning Rongrong: “Such a cute little cat, I want to pet it!”

The gong has loved the shou for a long time already but he does not dare to confess his feelings. Without any better option, he joined forces with a system to kidnap the shou, dragging him through many quick transmigration world in an attempt to capture him. Afterwards…

Shou: This bed partner is very good. Can develop into a long term bed partner.

Gong: Why is it just a bed partner? Let’s agree to love each other!

Ye Jun Ge: Did you take your medicine?

System 004: …QAQ

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