Astral Pet Store (WN) - Chapter 1540: Gathering (1)

have you heard of it?

If you turn on the music player in the dead of night, put on headphones, hide your head in the quilt, and listen to the looped single repeatedly.

Fall asleep after looping forty-four times. If you are unlucky and open your eyes again, you will no longer be lying on your own bed, but will enter a strange space that is completely isolated from reality.

That space… On the surface, it looks like the places we usually see, such as our bedroom, living room at home, underground garage, bathroom, basketball court, construction site, etc. But if you look closely, you will find that it is different. …Everything is different.

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This is the experience of an ordinary person who, after acquiring superpowers, transforms and grows step by step in a blind corner, reaching the ultimate level.

- Description from novelbuddy

In a world where the strong prey on the weak and nobles slaughter commoners like insects, Alex was just a weak boy who lost everything to the cruelty of fate.For the sake of revenge, he rose from the ashes, determined to carve his path through a world soaked in blood and betrayal.But there is something the world does not know—something even Alex himself has yet to discover...A power buried deep within his blood, ancient and untamed, waiting to awaken.

“I WILL MAKE THEM ALL REGRET THE DAY THEY MET ME! I WILL MAKE THEM WISH THEY WERE NEVER BORN! AND I WILL MAKE THEM HATE THE DAY THEY THOUGHT OF BETRAYING ME!”“You will, Sweetie. And I'll help you with that...”Those were the last words Avery spoke and heard before passing out in her bloody red wedding gown, on the same day she was supposed to marry her boyfriend from senior high school.~~Avery McCallum, the sole heiress and president of the McCallum Group of Companies, had her whole family wiped out on her wedding day. Framed for her grandfather's murder and stripped of her position, Avery vows to take revenge on those who wronged her. But her powerless state seems to mock her determination.Enter Archibald Donovan. She used to hate the devilishly hot and narcissistic chairman of the A² Corp who also happened to be her older brother's best friend, but when consumed with the need to take revenge, she begged him to marry her in return for fulfilling a long list of conditions. Archie agrees, and a month later, Avery re-emerges as Ava Donovan, a rising actress and the wife of the most powerful man in the country.With her newfound status, Avery systematically destroys her adversaries, uncovering dark secrets and hidden agendas along the way. But as she navigates the treacherous landscape of her new life, she must confront the truth about her family's past and at the end of it all, come back to him.She owed him after all...EXCERPTArchie's eyes darkened when he saw her stumbling out of the wine cellar, a bottle of wine in one hand and her night robe, in the other. She was literally half naked.“Hey...” her greeting came out in a slur, and that was all he needed to know she was drunk. Very drunk, at that.“Why?” he asked simply, knowing she would interpret his question as she usually did.“I...I visited them today. The flowers on their stones were already wilted and...and...it broke me. I wanted to be happy and at the same time, I wanted to cry,” Avery replied, inhaling short wisps of air before she continued, “Then I found the cellar.”“Did it work?”She shook her head slowly in reply, lifting her head up in time to see a mischievous smirk curl on his lips.“Don't be sad, Baby girl. I happen to know a way to make you cry and keep you excited at the same time,” he said.“Really?”“Wanna try it, Mama?”Avery nodded, slowly but firmly as he closed the distance between them.As he promised, she did cry...in pleasure.

“You call yourself a hero? After your greed killed my sister?”What would you do if all of your friends, everyone you ever loved besides your sister, died in front of you?What would you do if, because you were weak, everyone hated you and considered you a Wasted, someone who hurt humanity's chance to survive extinction?Adam continued fighting despite this abuse, because he still had 1 simple goal: even if he was nothing more than cannon fodder or wasted potential, he would keep his sister safe.But then, it wasn't the Kaiju or apocalypse that killed her. It was the Exalted, the strong, the heroes of society.The people he was supposed to praise were the ones who took his last hope in life away before killing Adam as well.So, when he regressed with a villain system that rewarded him for killing Exalted...[First Exalted killed!][Artifact: The Mantle has upgraded to level 2!]