The Villainess is a Marionette - Chapter 55: Scene 10. A Strange Hostage

Joseph Sullivan is at an all-time low. He lost his job, his fiancée dumped him, he moved back to the Midwest and currently lives in his parent’s basement—oh, and his workout was just interrupted with the arrival of the System.Earth has become a playing field in a contest amongst the gods, where mortals are the pawns. The winning god gets the glory, and their chosen champion gets a single wish. The first stage of this game: Tutorial – Class Selection.Provided the ideal stat array for a physical, combat-focused class, the choice for Joe is obvious. Until he fat thumbs the selection screen and ends up selecting Spellcaster. His starting Intelligence stat? 1.With a useless class selection and only his raw testosterone-fueled strength to back him up, Joe decides class optimization is for dummies. Pumping all stat points in Strength, he hopes to not only survive the contest of the gods, but to win the whole damned thing.After all, a real wizard should be measured by how much they can bench!

Odelia Grace, a beautiful and smart woman, a secretary of a big company, had to give up the career she had at a young age for a marriage with the CEO of another company, Vincent Percy.The marriage was filled with love and support for each other for 4 years. However, they did not have a child.Vincent's family became furious, and continued to demand and pressure Odelia. A beautiful marriage turned into a nightmare because of their abuse.“You barren woman! My son is jinxed because of you, he shouldn't have married you in the first place!” snapped her mother-in-law.Until one day, Odelia was kicked out of her own house and went to a hotel for the night. She accidentally met a man who was drunk.Unintentionally, there was a hot night between the two of them.And after that night, Odelia finally realized that she was not barren and that she was carrying a baby.The baby of her ex-husband's enemy, Sean Osbert.

Anton is a great-grandfather. He is living quite a happy life, despite his advanced age and declining health… until a group of cultivator bandits moves into the area. The nearby guardians of the area, the Order of Ninety-Nine Stars, are unable to track them down as they continue to ravage nearby towns. During one desperate winter Anton is out on a hunt when his family- his entire village- is killed or taken as slaves by the bandits. He lacks the strength to fight them, and he wasn’t even present for their arrival to die with his loved ones. At the pit of his despair, he wonders if he ever had any chance to change things. What could he even do? He cannot even pull his best bow, and his eyesight is failing. If he had been a cultivator… perhaps there might have been a chance, but he was decades- perhaps even most of his life- too late.Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge (2022)Notes on cultivation levels:There are five general stages of cultivation, though the fifth is extremely rare. Each cultivation style might have their own name for the stages.1. Body Tempering2. Spirit Building/ occasionally System Creation (Ninety-Nine Stars)3. Constellation Formation (Ninety-Nine Stars)4. Life Transformation/Galaxy Construction (Ninety-Nine Stars)5. Ascension

My surname is Wu, and everyone calls me Xiao Wu.

Listen, brother, here are some of my experiences-

Don’t listen to what it says when you fight with the dragon, just fight until it dies;

It’s a little more troublesome to beat the goblin, it’s better not to let it see you, you have to shoot the black gun;

It’s a word to engage in orcs, naked!

If the devil dares to come to trouble, he will break his horns, and he will kneel;

Okay, I’m going to fight at the bar now, I’ll write more about the introduction when I get back

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