Survival, Dragons, and Other Poor Life Choices
**What happens when a broken man gets a second chance in a world that's just as broken as he is?**
Knox Ashford died inside long before he was pulled into another world. A year after losing his girlfriend to addiction, he's a hollow shell going through the motions—surviving, not living. When a cosmic goddess breaks divine law to transmigrate him to her dying world, Knox trades his numb existence for something infinitely more dangerous: Shadowfen, a continent-sized murder-swamp where everything wants him dead and the forest itself might be sentient.
Armed with nothing but survival knowledge gleaned from binge-watching TV shows and a dry sense of humor that refuses to quit, Knox scrapes by in a world of crystal arachnids, shadow beasts, and flying goldfish with tiny arms. He's not a hero. He's not special. He's just a guy trying not to die while eating questionable mushrooms and talking to himself because loneliness is a bitch.
Then he finds the egg.
A primordial shadow dragon, abandoned and dying, imprints on him the moment he touches it. The soul bond is permanent, absolute, and changes everything. Suddenly Knox isn't alone anymore—and neither is she. As his tiny dragon companion grows from clingy shadow-puppy to fierce protector to something far more, Knox discovers that survival isn't enough. Not when someone depends on you.
But Shadowfen is just the beginning. When Knox enters the planet's deadliest dungeon—an SSS+ ranked nightmare that breaks minds and reshapes souls—he goes in human and comes out... something else. Stronger. Darker. Powerful enough to terrify gods. In his fear and semi-madness, he builds a fortress and tries to hide from what he's become, until his dragon's transformation into her humanoid form forces him to confront the truth: he's not just surviving anymore. He's living. And people—gods, dragons, even the planet itself—are noticing.
Aetheria, the tsundere world-spirit, has claimed him as hers. The Goddess of Fate who transmigrated him is obsessed. His dragon wife has established a "First Wife hierarchy" that's causing problems. And the human supremacist empires hunting non-humans? They're about to discover that the world's newest apex predator has very strong opinions about genocide.
Knox just wanted peace. Instead, he got an accidental harem, cosmic-level attention, and a front-row seat to a war that will reshape the world.
**Some men are chosen by destiny. Knox was chosen by a lonely goddess, a dying dragon, and a planet that refuses to let him go.**