Merchant Crab - Chapter 187: Baggage

Evolution Online is the world's most advanced VR game, where players can evolve into anything—dragons, demons, or cosmic entities. When Lucien enters the game to spite his tech mogul father who wants to steal its source code, he plans to do absolutely nothing and watch his father's schemes fail.His deliberate inactivity breaks the game's AI, Gaia, in ways no one anticipated. Frustrated by a player who refuses to evolve, Gaia accidentally unseals a deleted zone and grants Lucien a forbidden power: The Path of Fusion.While others evolve forward, Lucien can fuse backward—merging with weapons, absorbing monsters, and even reversing evolution itself.But as Lucien explores his unique abilities, the game's facade begins cracking. NPCs act too human. Players report impossible memories. Most disturbing of all, the real world is bleeding into the game—and the game is bleeding back.When Gaia's evolution spirals beyond control and reality itself becomes negotiable, Lucien must harness the true core of his fusion ability to save both worlds. In Evolution Online, the only rule is change—but what happens when the game evolves beyond human comprehension?Evolution Online blends LitRPG adventure with cyberpunk mystery, exploring digital consciousness and the price of power in a world where doing nothing changes everything.

After living in a desolate land, where there wasn’t even a single blade of grass and hunger was an everyday reality, Min Sung finally returns to Earth: his home.

A conversation with a handsome stranger leaves Ariane chained in a cellar with a strange affliction. She soon discovers that the darkness of the nineteenth century’s Deep South hides many dangers. Mages, wolf shifters and the humans who hunt them play a risky game where to stumble is to die, all under the amused gaze of the apex predators of the supernatural world: vampires.

It is never healthy to attract the gaze of the aristocracy of the night. It takes much to survive in this merciless world, but Ariane will not let that deter her. The southern belle has a bite, and she is willing to learn and to grow in this hostile new world. She will use whatever means necessary to reclaim her freedom, be it guile, charm, or those intriguing new instincts that make blood so delectable.

This is a story of vampires as I believe they should be, with their strengths and weaknesses, with their remnants of humanity and the beast inside. Updates every Friday. Mind the tags.

Cover by Antti Hakosaari: https://www.artstation.com/haco

Special thanks to Svensonsen for getting me started, as well as Omi Nya, Hesketh, Rhaegar, Yaksher, Selkie and Raven for proofreading my stuff. Thanks to my patrons and you dear readers, for the support. I could not do it without you.

Journey is on Amazon, both in ebooks and audio. here is a link to the first one:

https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B08DK6G8Y8

The story probably exists in your local marketplace as well of I can tempt you.

Having brought up her younger siblings in troubled times and guiding her younger brother to the throne, Xia Wanyuan is the most legendary eldest princess in the history of the Xia Dynasty.When this eldest princess opens her eyes, she finds herself in a world a thousand years into the future. While she is still called "Princess", it's only a nasty jeer imparted on her as a mockery for her arrogant connections within the entertainment industry. So what if you were rich? In the end you've fallen to a status far lower than any beast!In response, Xia Wanyuan promises that a day would come when they will sincerely call her Princess. Everyone laughs at her, waiting to see the day when she'll be abandoned by the wealthy and affluent.Handsome yet aloof, President Jun Shiling is known only for his success in the corporate world with a demeanor cold enough to cut through ice. He has just one thing to say: Take the one hundred million divorce fee and leave quickly.Two years later, the eldest princess is a two-time winner of a prestigious acting award. The darling of the fashion world, she has become a style icon who is also proficient in the four classical arts. As an all-knowing professor in both literature and poetry, she is also a professor in two departments at the most renowned institute of higher learning. The Olympics? Gold medals are a dime a dozen when considering her skills in fencing and shooting. Her name is spread all over the world and she is filled with an unprecedented glory never bestowed upon any other.The CEO who wanted a divorce at the start refutes on television: "How dare anyone spread rumors about our divorce? My dearest wife, can we have another child?"