The Hero Returns - Chapter 25

[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.

Akira Tsukihara was a romance author who despised love. Though she wrote best-selling novels filled with idealistic romance, she harbored nothing but contempt for the genre and the readers who adored it. Love, in her eyes, was a lie—an illusion that blinded people from the true forces of the world: power, betrayal, and ambition. One night, in a fit of frustration, she cursed love itself... and woke up trapped inside one of her own stories.Reborn as Aira, a nameless peasant girl in the Kingdom of Seraphis—a world she had meticulously crafted—Akira quickly realizes that reincarnation isn’t the fantasy dream she had written about. She isn’t a noble, a princess, or a heroine blessed with beauty and power. She is a nobody. A commoner, struggling to survive in the harsh realities of the medieval world she had once designed as a mere backdrop for her grand romances.As Aira, she faces starvation, endless labor, and the crushing weight of insignificance. But Akira was never one to accept fate. If she couldn’t escape this world, she would rewrite the story on her own terms. She would carve her name into history—not as the lovestruck heroine of a cliché romance, but as the mastermind who would bend the world to her will.In a land ruled by noble bloodlines and political schemes, where the romance tropes she once loathed play out before her eyes, Aira sets her sights on one goal: destroying the very ideals of love that had imprisoned her in this wretched world.Even if it means becoming the villain of her own story.

He was a loser in his past life, useless, but at least he never truly lacked anything. He had money, food, a roof over his head, and everything he thought he needed.He had never fought a day in his life, he didn't need to struggle for his life.Then he got hit by a bus… and woke up in another world.A world where destruction and bloodshed were the norm. A world shattered by apocalypse, where people lived on floating islands and sailed across the skies in airborne ships. A world where the weak had no place to survive.Now, he inhabits the body of a Dragon, the weakest of the royal bloodline. A cursed runt abandoned by his siblings, carrying their curse.He is now known as Kaedros, the Dragon of the Sun.He was banished and thrown into the human territory, to fend for himself in the midst of the enemies that wanted him dead.But now as a Dragon, given a second chance, he didn't want to waste it by being a loser a second time. This time, there's inheritance to claim, territories to conquer and galactic, dimensional enemies to fight._________________So I'm going to add this. The pacing is going to be in the middle, not fast or slow. And the MC won't just get insanely overpowered at the start.He's not going to be a weakling either, after all from the title, you already know how things are going to end.I value character developments, so you'll see a lot of that as well.Things are going to develop in a reasonable way.Ps— you're already adding this to your library, so just start reading now!!

After hatching endless plots and suffering innumerable hardships, the demons of the Demonic Realm finally managed to resurrect the Ancient Demon King.

The demons of the Demonic Realm had hoped that the Ancient Demon King would not only lead them in waging a war against the Heavenly Realm and enable them to lord their superiority over the Immortals, he would also ultimately gain control over the entire realm.

Gradually, however, they discovered that their thoughts were very, very wrong.

Whilst it is true that this Ancient Demon King still retains his aura of superiority and possesses unlimited powers, he…

He seems to be a mental case…

It’s alright even if he changes orders and does things in an incomprehensible way.

But what’s with his habit of muttering under his breath, nagging and conversing with himself the entire day!

Small Orchid: He’s not ill, he’s just despicable (贱jian)…can’t stand to see (见jian) people live a good life.

Dong Fang: I am only unable to endure seeing you live a good life.

Small Orchid: …

*T/N: The Chinese pronunciation for the word “despicable” is the same as the word “see” – thus, the author is trying to show that Small Orchid, while trying to scold Dong Fang, is also careful not to incur his wrath, which is why she tried to imbue another meaning into her sentence after scolding him.

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