Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 556: Last effort(1)

The ordinary world is not ordinary, ordinary people are not ordinary, and safe places are not safe.

This is a story of a passer-by male protagonist who is entangled by various girls with strange hobbies or even non-human beings while surviving in the cracks and opening a harem.

- Description from novelbuddy

She believes in true love.He doesn’t believe in love.But what is love, really?She is the epitome of success—a star people look up to and admire. To him, however, she is merely a business transaction, a partner chosen to enhance his status. To his friends, she is just a fool in love, a pathetic figure begging for affection.Then shocking news emerges: her first true love returns, throwing him off guard. He realizes he has been nothing more than a substitute for her first love.He should be angry, but instead, he finds himself overwhelmed by emotions he can’t express or understand. Is this possessiveness, or is he finally learning to love her?She is determined to return to her first love, but inside, she is torn. Did she really treat him as just a substitute, or did she actually come to love him?What are they supposed to do when love is a question mark?

A terrible calamity has fallen onto Zhang Fan, not only becoming one of the three survivors of Grass Temple Village, where everyone else was horribly massacred, he was also tasked to carry one of the most evil artifacts, the Sinister Bead, and taught one of the most secret teachings of the Skysong Sect, the Brahmin Wisdom. Now he cultivates in the Jadeon Sect, his knowledge and possession will draw him into a chaotic story where he will have to carry some of the greatest burdens of the Martial World.

The Apocalypse is in full swing. Defiled - powerful creatures corrupted by the Great Collision - prowled the lands in search of prey. Unfortunately for them, the human race had long since retreated behind the secure walls of the Sanctuary of Everlast. During one of his regular excursions outside the Sanctuary, Alden is separated from Celeste. - his childhood friend and crush. In that moment, he came to regret never summoning the courage to confess. Somehow managing to survive thanks to some trickery, Alden awakens as a mage. Instead of receiving a normal power, he gains the ability to decay. What’s more, during his ascension, he received a vision from his future self advising him not to trust the Asterons - celestial beings who had saved his race from inescapable doom. Normally... such a revelation wouldn’t faze Alden. However, there was only one major problem with the declaration, though. Celeste was bound with an Asteron. And not just any normal Asteron... She had made a pact with one of the Divine Sovereigns.