The Rise of Millwal - Chapter 499: Finding Home, Dismissing Rumors

Mason was a mercenary, until the day he died on a mission after being betrayed by his unit.

WARNING!!! -Explicit-For years after Livana lost her sight, she lived in the gilded cage of her family’s expectations—engaged to the man chosen for her, confined to the shadows while he managed the empire her mother left behind. But blindness didn’t make her powerless. She heard everything. The whispers in the other room. The treachery in her fiancé’s voice. The betrayal woven into every conversation with her cousin, all caught by the devices she secretly planted.She had a plan to escape—one she’d crafted meticulously. Until her sister proposed something far more dangerous.Involve the Blackwells.Their family’s most hated rivals. The ones Livana had been raised to despise. And the man her sister suggested? *Damon Blackwell.* The arrogant bastard who had tormented her since childhood. The same man she’d once—*against her better judgment*—ended up in bed with after being drugged and set up.The idea was reckless. Madness. But the thought of burning her engagement to Knox to the ground, of watching her father and stepmother’s fury as she tied herself to their enemy? Delicious.What she didn’t expect was Damon’s obsession.He was ruthless. Unhinged. Exactly what she should have anticipated from the heir to the Blackwell mafia. But Livana was no damsel. If he thought he could control her, he was wrong.She had her own games to play.And this time, she wouldn’t be the one losing.

After being defeated by the protagonist Chu Yang, Xu Zimo unexpectedly returned back to the days of his youth!The days of security when he was the young master of the True Martial Saint Sect, back when his father was the Vice Sect Master. The days before Chu Yang destroyed him, his father and his sect.Xu Zimo has resolved himself! As a real villain, he will kill Chu Yang, execute his wives and loot his treasures!In this era, he will seize the Heaven’s Will and ascend as the Immortal Emperor!This is the story of a villain’s rise into a true devil!

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.