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Arab Chronicles - From a Banished Prince to Ruler of the Arab World

Some men are born into destiny. Others are cursed by it. In the golden age of the Arab world, where Sultanates rise and fall on the edge of a blade and magic flows through the very soul of every living thing, a child was born in the palace of Faras under a sky that made the Saints tremble. They saw many futures. Most of them ended in the destruction of the world. Shehzade Ali al-Shirazi enters the world with a weak Rooh and a prophecy that follows him like a shadow. Rooh al-Shamoos, the Dark Sun, a fusion of fire and shadow so rare and so volatile that the Saint delivered a single quiet verdict to Sultan Bahram al-Shirazi. Kill the boy. Before the boy kills the world. The Sultan could not do it. The child was the last memory of Begum Maryam al-Shirazi, the woman he loved above his throne and lost in the same breath he gained an heir. So instead he built a cage of silk and called it protection. The finest tutors. The highest walls. A prince kept carefully distant from a world the Sultan feared his son would one day consume. Ali grows up knowing two things with equal certainty. That his father loves him, and that his father is afraid of him. He does not know why. Nobody would tell him why. So he finds his own answers in the dark. On the rooftops of Shiraz, where the Sultan's eye cannot follow, a different version of Ali exists. Al-Barez. The Black Thief. He moves through the night like a rumor, stealing from the corrupt and returning what was taken to those the powerful have forgotten. The streets worship him. The nobles curse him. Nobody connects the phantom of the rooftops to the fragile prince who never leaves the palace. Nobody except the Wazir who has been watching far more carefully than anyone realized. When Ali's double life is laid bare before his father, the Sultan's grief and fury collapse into a single devastating decision. The prophecy warned him. The Saint warned him. No cage, however gilded, can hold a Dark Sun. Ali is banished from Faras with nothing but the clothes on his back and a mark on his inner wrist he has carried since birth. A small dark sigil that has never glowed, never spoken, existing quietly like a word written in a language the world has forgotten how to read. Cast into a world he only ever watched from above, Ali falls hard and fast. Debt and desperation deliver him into the hands of a merchant in Basra who recognizes useful when he sees it. A sharp mind, sharper instincts and nothing left to lose. Ali works. He survives. He learns what the palace never taught him. That the real Arab world has teeth and does not care about prophecies or the colour of a man's Rooh. But the merchant has his own agenda. And the road he points Ali down leads in one direction. Misr. A burned mansion stands abandoned at the edge of the city, cursed in the memory of all who knew it, its secrets buried under a decade of ash. Nobody goes there. Nobody dares. Whatever happened inside those walls left a wound that never fully closed. Ali goes there anyway. What he finds will crack open everything he thought he knew about himself. His weak Rooh, his cursed mark, the Saint's prophecy and a shadow organization moving quietly through every Sultanate in the Arab world like a rot nobody has yet named. The Saint saw two futures above all others. In one, Rooh al-Shamoos burns the Arab world to nothing. In the other, it is the only thing that saves it. The secret buried in Misr will decide which future Ali walks toward. But first he must answer something the prophecy never accounted for. Whether a man born under a dark destiny is bound to follow it. Or whether he is the one person capable of breaking it entirely.
NerdAstrologer · 271 Views

THE HERETIC ENGINE

Garrett Cole was never a good person—just a functional one. He learned early that society had rules, and following them was easier than explaining why he didn't feel what everyone else seemed to feel. People were puzzles. Relationships were transactions. Engineering was perfect because systems made sense where humans didn't. He spent fifteen years in war zones rebuilding infrastructure, not because he cared about the people he helped, but because broken systems were interesting puzzles. He had colleagues, not friends. Professional respect, not affection. A reputation for cold competence that served him in boardrooms and failed him everywhere else. He died at thirty-four saving eleven workers from a building collapse in Turkey. Not heroism—spite. Someone had corrupted his work, substituted substandard materials, turned his design into a deathtrap. The insult overrode his survival instincts. He went back for one more person because stopping felt like losing. The ceiling came down. His last thought was fury at himself for breaking his own rules. He died angry. He woke up the same way. Garrett didn't land in a random corpse. He woke inside Kael Ashford—Thornveld spy, traitor, and mass murderer. Ashford had been ritually executed by the Ascendancy, but before death, he'd made a deal. His body was promised to a fire entity older than the church, payment for services rendered. Now Garrett is squatting in contested property. The entity wants its vessel back. Ashford's enemies want revenge on a face they recognize. Ashford's handlers want their asset returned. And the body itself carries abilities that haven't yet awakened.
Dpress_Law · 671 Views

Wizard Hunters

Eight years ago, magic destroyed a city. The Red Night erased New Dawn from the map, left eight races traumatized—and proved, beyond any doubt, that unchecked mages were an existential threat. In a single night, a Celestial was slain, the Sentinels were nearly exterminated, and humanity lost its last illusion of safety. Aedran survived. Once the most effective mage-killer in the Guard, he is now a broken lieutenant: an alcoholic, cynical, openly insubordinate man who has done everything possible to disgrace the uniform he still wears. He has no grand ambitions, no faith in redemption—only an obsessive need to ensure that the Red Night never happens again. When the Celestials order the systematic hunting of mages, the Guard responds by creating the MAD—the Magical Anti-terrorism Division, later known as the Wizzard Hunters. Aedran is placed in command. His unit is a collection of rejects: outsiders from other races, cowards, the traumatized, the unwanted. Together, they are tasked with doing what magic itself can no longer be trusted to do—control magic by force, knowledge, and technology. As humanity turns to technocamelium, experimental armor, and pre-industrial innovations to survive in a hostile world, Aedran must confront not only rogue mages, but the consequences of a world rebuilding itself through fear, adaptation, and blood. Wizzard Hunters is a dark, character-focused fantasy about trauma without despair, progress without idealism, and the brutal rebirth of humanity after near extinction. What to expect: • Anti-hero protagonist • Dark fantasy without hopelessness • Violent action and mature themes • Cynical, sarcastic tone • No harem, no romance focus • Hard Magic System It will be published in a one-day-on, one-day-off format. Enjoyed this story? Early chapters & extras on Patreon: patreon.com/DanielJNoble
DanielJNoble · 5.4k Views

My School Life As a Figuran

​"Beautiful..." Reina whispered. She took off her coat, letting the mountain breeze sweep against her white dress. ​I stood a few steps behind her, watching how the white petals fell and got caught in her black hair. In this place, with no one watching, Reina didn't look like "The Princess" or the perfect "President." She looked... fragile. Like the petals she was staring at. ​"Izumi," she called out without turning around. "Do you ever wonder... what if we had never entered that room? What if you had never agreed to work on those stupid fliers?" ​"I’d probably be a very successful unemployed person by now," I answered. "And you’d probably still be the most feared person in school, yet the loneliest person in your own world." ​Reina turned around. Her eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made me want to look away, but I forced myself to stay still. ​"The world out there is so noisy right now because of that video," she said. "Everyone has an opinion about us. They all feel like they own us. But here... under this tree, no one owns us but ourselves." ​She took a step closer. One step. Two steps. We were now only inches apart. ​"Tell me," she whispered, her voice nearly swallowed by the wind. "Who is Nakamura Izumi to Kurokawa Reina, when there are no cameras recording?" ​Love. ​The word felt foreign on my tongue. It felt too "shiny" and disgusting for someone like me. ​But, her silhouette under that white cherry blossom tree... the weight of her head on my shoulder... the way she looked at me when no cameras were watching... ​It all kept replaying in my head like a broken film that refused to die. ​My mind was spinning. I swallowed hard, looking into her eyes which reflected the shadow of the evening sky. I paused for a moment, then took a deep breath. "For me, you are..."
Rareksha4qua · 8k Views