Purgatory Artist - Chapter 1: Prelog

“Kill them all - every last member of House Grim must die tonight!”That was the last thing Renard heard before his world turned to ash. One night was all it took for him to lose everything - his family slaughtered, his home burned to ashes, all because the other Great Houses branded them traitors.They thought they wiped a noble line. Instead, they created a monster.Rising from the despair of losing everything, Renard became the beast Sovereign. He embraced the darkness and rose to the position of the 7th commander of the dreaded demon army.Leading an army of Demons and monsters, he brought three legendary Heroes to their knees and crushed four Great Houses to dust. But just as revenge was within his grasp, the champion of Humanity - Klean Weaver's holy sword pierced his heart.Renard thought that was the end.But something impossible happened.He woke up in the past, in a time when his family still lived and House Grim stood strong among the Eight Great HousesA second chance!A chance to change everything.That wasn’t all.For unknown reasons, he inherited the Legacy of the Devourer, a power that lets him consume the strength of his enemies.Was it a curse? Or a blessing? He didn’t know. But for Renard, it is simply a tool to protect what's his.The Lords of the Great Houses think they're untouchable in their high castles. They have no idea what's coming.This time, the Beast of House Grim hunts first!!

Ning Yue was a military doctor and a special forces soldier. During a mission to rescue hostages, she died from a bomb explosion. Ning Yue thought she was dead, but when she opened her eyes, she had become a woman in ancient times with the same name but a different surname.

This woman’s father was a general, but she lived in the Ning Family Village and was raised by her adoptive parents for more than ten years. A year ago, the people from the general’s residence found her and brought her back. However, they sent her back again a few months later. When the original owner of the body returned to the village, she was pregnant and gave birth to twin sons within a few months.

Another year passed, and the year of the great drought was ushered in. The entire village had to flee. The original owner of the body left with the rest of the villagers with her two sons and slow-witted father. In other words, the current special forces soldier, Ning Yue, was an older single young woman who had not experienced the sweetness of love. She had skipped all those steps, and directly became a mother to two children. She also gained the original owner’s dim-witted father and a body that didn’t work and had hunger pangs after starving for two days. But was that all? Don’t be naive!

“Don’t eat my daughter! Don’t eat my daughter!” The original owner’s father pleaded. “The older one’s meat is too hard, so it needs to be cooked longer. These two small ones have tender meat, so they only need to be roasted for a while. We’ll eat the big one tomorrow!” Ning Yue, who was now being viewed as food, looked up at the sky and said to herself, “Gee, thanks SO much!”

He was weak, he was depressed, he was a loser.
He wasn't even Lvl 10 in the game when Earth was destroyed in the Quake and the players of Redlands were transmigrated to the fantastic world of Zushkenar.
But he lived, learned, and died again.
Now, he was back on Earth, one year and three months before the Quake.
Deciding to rejoin the game earlier and with greater focus, what changes would he bring with his actions?
What life would he live?

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paypal.me/JInDaoran

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There's a map for the lands of Zushkenar posted on the DeviantArt website:
https://www.deviantart.com/kilrain/art/Hunters-Guide-map-cities-grid-b-877682076

It's not complete, but it'll give an idea of the general geography.

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The background image for the cover is part of a landscape by moinzon taken from pixabay.com