Struck down in battle, a Hero and a Demon King meet their end at the same moment. As their souls linger on the edge of the afterlife, a mysterious force intervenes — merging their fragmented souls into a new being: Rusty, a living suit of armor.
Affected by the memories and presence of both predecessors, Rusty embarks on his own quest. Will he seek revenge for the Hero's betrayal, fulfill the fallen Demon King's desires, or forge an entirely new path?
Lars wakes each morning to a voice in his head urging him to kill — claiming she's just handing him quests to help him level. He ignores it. The cultivators who bullied him his whole life are as far above him as gods, and killing isn't in his nature anyway.
Then a murderous sect descends on his village, slaughters everyone he knows, and takes his mother as a slave. Lars has no choice but to trust the voice, complete her quests, and find a way to grow strong enough to get her back.
4.30· 963
Anti-heroCultivationGameLitGrimdarkLitRPGWeak to Strong
Julia is a practical person. All she wanted was a home and family to call her own — a small piece of the world she could say was hers. Instead of arriving home one evening, she finds herself in the Abyss, trapped inside a cursed body.
The curse may have caught her, but she certainly won't let it — or anyone else — tell her how she has to live. To escape, she will need to become strong enough to descend to the Abyss's deepest reaches, where the most dangerous secrets lie in wait.
There is darkness in the Abyss, and a darkness within her that might draw it in — but she'll need to risk its strength if she ever wants to get home.
After failing as an apprentice cooper and a town guard, Eli finds his place at the Rockbridge archives as the oldest junior scribe — and he's good at it. Then he completes an apparently insignificant project, and the brutal reaction shocks him, setting off consequences that shake the world.
Eli gains powers: rare and inhuman abilities. He progresses slowly, steadily, and not without setbacks — and changes in ways that blur the line between hero and monster. Set in the Valley, the only human empire to survive a Final Battle, the story follows a soul that may prove the war was never truly over.
You are an absolute nobody — nothing but a useless lump of meat, a delicious morsel for those who got lucky at the start. The only goal anyone expects of you is to die as quickly as possible.
But this particular piece of food eats back.
Once the promising young CEO of a successful corporation, Lucas abandoned everything after a horrific accident and retreated into virtual reality, lazing about in a carefree digital life.
When his escapist paradise is threatened with deletion, Lucas is forced to act — and do what he does best: take charge. This time, however, he returns not as a hero but as the villain. He overthrows local lords, assumes command of the evil Imperium's forces, and begins designing a dungeon no player would ever want to miss.
As he evolves his monsters and builds an entourage of minions to become the greatest villain the game has ever known, Lucas realizes it won't be nearly as easy as it seemed.
After the events of Gold Morning, Taylor reincarnates into a world of sorcery and cursed spirits, born into a family of sorcerers.
Her new life carries curses of its own: orphaned, raised by a clan of evil sorcerers, and scorned for being born a girl within it. Taylor's only desire is to survive, grow stronger, and find freedom.
Huon is weak — a surgecaller who escaped into the wilds with only one goal: survive. Now he is Oathbound, forced to fight in an arena and become stronger than he ever thought possible. As he realizes he can grow powerful, a new goal forms: kill the dragon rider, the Immortal of Fire.
His goal is impossible. To succeed, he'll have to advance beyond anything the realm has ever seen — in a world with magical beasts where surgecallers can cultivate essence to strengthen their weapons, enhance their bodies, and wield elemental magic.
4.23· 995
Anti-heroCultivationHard MagicSecondary WorldWeak to Strong
Wang Tian Gu, the Tyrant who massacred countless warriors in Jiang Hu for 600 years, has died — taking with him the Soul Reversing Sutra, one of the Eight Treasures of Jiang Hu. Through a whim of fate, he transmigrates into the body of a young woman in a world far different from his own.
This new world is ruled by levels, status, and skills, where heroes and demon lords clash and beautiful warriors fight for dominance. Other transmigrators have already planted roots here, backed by divine boons and cheats. For them, this is a game. For him, it is reality. Watch as the Heavenly Poison King raises havoc upon this world — all for the sake of his Dao, and for the sake of revenge.
Lord Archlich "Boss", the greatest undead of all time, could conquer the world with his mighty collection of undead knights, dullahans, shadowlings, resurrected expired food, and skeletons. But that's too much work.
So why not tour the world he hasn't set foot in for over a thousand years? From the mighty Holy City of Aon — home to the greatest undead hunters on the continent — to the mystical Sorcerer City-States, Boss will tour them all.
Hide your artifacts, hide your religious sites, hide your long-held traditional values. Boss will ruin them all, unknowingly.
4.56· 6334.50· 2
Anti-heroComedyNon-human MCOverpowered MCSatireSecondary World
Created as the ultimate dungeon trap — a living suit of armor that devours any adventurer who dons it — this cursed mimic has spent eternity serving a master who delights in betraying heroes at the moment of their greatest triumph.
When the newest member of a quartet of dungeon crawlers dons the armor, something shifts. Maybe it doesn't need to spend eternity in the dark waiting to devour would-be heroes. Maybe it can take over this new identity, masquerade as an adventurer, and leave — betraying its master and its purpose to find a new one.
The only problem: hopefully the new companions won't realize their friend is not who — or what — they think.
4.29· 917
Anti-heroDungeon CrawlingNon-human MCSecondary World
The future became a peaceful utopia in the Core Regions — no crime, no wars, no conflicts, even rude behavior is rare. People grew complacent and lazy.
The main character isn't a hero or a typical protagonist. Calling him an opportunist would be the least offensive description. In an age of enforced peace, he sticks out like a sore thumb — particularly when nobody is around to notice a few shady happenings.
The battle against the Kobar Empire was utterly lost, and as Luca lay dying a strange blue screen appeared: he had the aptitude to be a Player, and if he accepted, the game would reset. He accepted — and the reset went wrong, leaving him as only a partial player: Active Players: 0.4.
Luca is neither clever nor strong. He will die. A lot. But with enough resets, he'll learn and grow. A slow-burning, character-driven story about an underdog using time-loop deaths to inch toward something better.
Jensen Weller was the world's most infamous professional killer — a shadow in the night who struck fear into the hearts of politicians, businessmen, and terrorists alike. Living life under fire, he always knew his number would come up.
After finally falling during an intense gunfight, he awakens trapped inside the body of a teenage girl. Now afflicted with an extreme compulsion to laugh boisterously at the drop of a hat, the newly renamed Maria Walston-Carter must attend the nation's most prestigious boarding school and do her noble family proud.
What initially seems to be a peaceful existence in a magical world undergoing an industrial revolution soon proves to be anything but — Jensen's skills as an assassin aren't ready to be put away just yet.
4.48· 670
Anti-heroCompetent MCLGBTQ+ReincarnationSchoolSecondary World
Fantasy collides with the modern world in an epic struggle for power and survival. An emperor born from divinity and a dragon harbors aspirations for godhood. In a twisted act of ambition, he orchestrates a deceitful pact with a devil and sets in motion a quest to harness unclaimed souls from another realm.
His pathway to divine ascent takes an unexpected turn when a rift opens in Ohio, bringing him face-to-face with a resilient human community unprepared to bow to a new deity. As magic clashes with machinery in the skies and fields of Ohio, alliances are tested, friendships forged, and the true cost of ambition laid bare.
Demon King Erizen thought all Heroes were insane. For one thousand years he ruled the continent of Thalmyra while lunatic bands of Heroic Chosen Ones tried and failed to end his reign — until a random peasant girl from a back-end village manifested the Holy Sword, led a Crusade to his door, and ended his life before dying herself seconds later.
As he died alongside the smiling Heroine, Erizen could not understand: why did heroes not care for their lives? What gave them such suicidal strength? When the System offers him reincarnation, he makes the only choice that makes sense — he will reincarnate not as a Demon King, but as a Hero.
If even a peasant's heroism was enough strength to kill him, then this heroic Demon King vows to become nothing but the strongest.
Sabina lived to 104 — manufacturing weapons during the war, running bakery and clothing chains, teaching teenagers — and by the end, boredom was doing her in more than her failing body. Then she is transmigrated into a Xianxia cultivation world, inhabiting the body of a 13-year-old commoner named Sa Bina.
The problem: nobody believes she's a commoner given how she speaks and carries herself, and she winds up enrolled in a school for nobles. All she wants is to have fun in her new life, but everyone keeps expecting her to grow up and take responsibility.
Nox is an alchemist by trade, but he dreams of magehood. Fate dealt him unfavorable cards, yet he has learned to compensate with scholarly pursuits, tenacity, and sheer grit — qualities that catch the attention of Woodson University's scouts.
The Department of Dungeon Studies values the mind and its ability to overcome all limitations. After all, they stripped the divine of their titles, turning gods into Dungeon Lords and their domains into Dungeons. The department will give Nox the tools to achieve his ambitions, and his limitations will push him to the forefront of arcane discovery.
More immediate challenges remain, though. Nox lacks the means to pay the university's ridiculous tuition. Only alchemy and smart business deals will earn him the hundreds of gold coins he needs.
Eve Redding was seized in a dirty alley and injected with a virtual reality chip, a GPS tracker, and her first Seed — making her a Player. At first she loved the miraculous ability to level up any aspect of herself.
Then she was yanked off her world and sent to fight for her life on a vicious alien planet, where other Players are just as dangerous as the monsters, and failure means death. Eve is the type to cling to life by the tips of her bloody fingernails — and she hates it when people try to control her.
Erika may have been born lowly, but she knows she is destined for glory and greatness. Street rat, trash, orphan — these labels are mere fetters to be shattered. One step at a time, Erika will claim everything that is rightfully hers. And what the world cannot give her, she will take by force.
A darker, grittier, and more realistic take on Pokémon with xianxia elements and a unique power system.