LightReader

Umbral Rune - An Undead Progression Epic

Somnio
Would you challenge a sacred hell if it meant a second chance? He will shed undeath. He will eat and love and not be hunted. Skell will achieve all these things. Even if it means infiltrating the Templar Order - an organization hellbent on eradicating every murderous undead in the nation - and stealing the secret of resurrection right from under them. Skell has trained. Been gifted a magical disguise. He's made solid allies and even unlocked a scarce few memories from his past life and the magical arts therein. But to be a Templar and learn their secrets, one must overcome the Sacred Ordeals. Prodigies from every corner of the country and beyond pool into the capital to compete. Hundreds are culled into an elite handful. With a shortage of experience and a passable level of cunning, Skell must beat the nigh-impossible odds and become a champion. A Templar. …A masked undead in a Citadel of undead slayers. (This is an evolving blurb, changing as the story continues from one arc to the next.) Expect: ► A Chapter Every Wednesday At 11am CST (Read Eight Chapters Ahead On Patreon + Free Trial) ► Cerebral, Choreographed Battles Akin To Naruto/Demon Slayer ► Seemingly Medieval World That Hides Much More ► One Underdog MC, One Experienced MC ► Focus On First-Person Prose And Character Development ► No AI, Harems, Overpowered Protagonists, Or Game Mechanics ► Long-Running Mysteries, Bestiaries Of Powerful Creatures, Earned Power, Secret Identities, Deceptively Deep Magic, And A Cooking Skeleton Edited by: My Lovely Partner Art by: LeeKent on DeviantArt
Table of contents
Latest Updates

SAMBALETA

In Hell, a demon lord reaches for the throne of Lucifer, and a bolt of light that belongs to neither of them casts him across the wall of the universe. In a valley too small for any king to name, a boy carries a pie through the rain. When Etreuf, proudest of the fallen, wakes inside sixteen-year-old Elliot's body, both of them learn the terms at once: no door out, no way to part, your death is my death. The demon knows nothing of this world, its monsters ranked by letters, its seven kings crowned by strength alone, its guilds that vault weapons too dangerous to sell. The boy knows nothing of his own inheritance: an unreadable iron coin left by a mother who fled something no one remembers, and blood that two god-forged blades have been waiting eleven years to answer. Together, hostage and host, arithmetic and heart, they walk out of the valley and into the ladder of the world: a gravedigger who buries the dead for free until he owns everyone who ever handed him a body; a strongman with twenty-two years of monsters written on his skin; a courteous hollow man who plays a sleeping god like an instrument. Behind them, a company is born with a ledger anyone can sign and a name kings will laugh at. Ahead of them, a bounty with no reason on it, a temple that is a door, and a stranger with a flaming greatsword who weeps at a boy's promise. And far above all of it, something has begun, very quietly, to conduct. SAMBALETA is an epic fantasy web serial about the ladder of power and the cost of climbing it kindly.
Lazaro_Martin · 40.5k Views

One Piece: Starting Out as the Monkey King

Stranded on a deserted island as an eight-year-old boy in the brutal, monster-filled world of One Piece? Definitely not an ideal start for a transmigrator. However, fate had other plans when a careless birthday wish was granted. Armed with meta-knowledge of the future and a god-tier Devil Fruit—the Mythical Zoan: Monkey-Monkey Fruit, Model: Monkey King—the boy, now named Bardock, refuses to be a mere background character. With an indestructible body, Fiery Golden Eyes that can perceive the microscopic, and the Flying Nimbus, he tames the savage island and dives into hellish training to survive. His journey truly kicks off when he manages to hitch a ride on the Red Hair Pirates' galleon. There, he not only becomes Shanks's favorite barbecue chef but also unexpectedly awakens his own Conqueror's Haki (Haoshoku Haki) while witnessing a sky-splitting duel between Shanks and "Hawkeye" Dracule Mihawk. Now, Bardock has dropped anchor at the Sabaody Archipelago—a chaotic hub crawling with wanted pirates and corrupt World Nobles. Crewless, completely broke, and blocked by World Government bureaucracy from returning to the West Blue, Bardock has to get creative to make some quick cash. And so, an absurd legend is born. Hidden behind sunglasses and a familiar blue hat, Bardock starts cleaning the streets of low-bounty pirates in the dead of night with nothing but a metal baseball bat. Concealing his true monstrous strength, he cashes in his targets at the Marine Base under a pseudonym that will one day make a certain reindeer doctor cry in absolute frustration: "Tony Tony Chopper," the infamous bounty hunter dubbed "Blackjack Chopper." With no cheat system to hold his hand and no powerful patron to protect him, Bardock is determined to assemble his own crew and carve his name into the annals of the sea. This is the story of a boy wielding the power of the Monkey King, ready to turn the Grand Line upside down in his pursuit of absolute freedom!
lestusk · 600.7k Views

The Anti-Villain King

In 1983, the world lost its nuclear teeth and found its claws instead. Every warhead on Earth vanished overnight, leaving humanity terrified, defenseless, and desperate for a scapegoat. They found it in the NovaBreeds. Ninety-six years later, World War III is in a perpetual, bleeding stalemate. In a world where the war never ended and "heroes" traffic NovaBreeds for profit, the cost of survival is paid in blood. Governments conscript superpowered children as weapons. Corporate "heroes" smile for the cameras while secretly backed by the Big Boys—a shadow syndicate orchestrating the global trafficking of human lives to the highest bidder. Enter the Renegades. Operating from the dark edges of New Kong, this rogue unit is ready to tear a corrupt empire apart from the inside out. But lines blur, and saving the innocent in a rotten world demands crossing them. It demands killing the "untouchables"—becoming the monster everyone already fears. The heroes preach that killing is always wrong. But some evil cannot be reformed, only eliminated. Mercy has its limits. The villains claim that only power matters. But power without purpose is just destruction, and strength without conviction is meaningless chaos. The system dictates that anyone outside the law is a criminal. But when the law serves corruption, when justice is bought and sold, when the innocent suffer while the powerful profit—then the law itself is the crime. There's a space between these absolutes. A gray area where the desperate operate. Where hard choices get made, and the burden falls on those willing to carry it while everyone else debates philosophy. Because sometimes, the world doesn't need saving. It needs someone willing to burn down the parts that are rotten. Updates: Wednesday and Saturday
midmanstudio · 127.9k Views