Adding Friends Can Make Me Stronger - Chapter 8 - The Puppet Valley and the Aperture Connecting Realm!

Xiang Shaoyun is the young master of an influential and powerful sect and is blessed with an extreme latent talent in martial cultivation. From talent comes confidence, and from confidence comes a declaration to give all the so-called geniuses a head start of ten years before catching up to them.

[Your shadow is alive.][Feed your shadow, devour souls, level up, gain skills, complete quests, and grow stronger.][Do you wish to view your current stats?]In the magical world of Aetherus, Damon Grey is the weakest student at Aether Academy, relentlessly bullied and ridiculed for his lack of power and defiant personality. Yet, he endures the torment, clinging to his scholarship—the only thing providing him with the funds to keep his sick sister alive.After a brutal attack leaves him near death, Damon encounters a dark viscous entity in the forest that fuses with his shadow, awakening the Living Shadow System. This strange power grants him unimaginable abilities but comes with a grim cost—a relentless hunger for souls and flesh to feed his shadow.Now, with his shadow alive and insatiable, Damon faces a terrible choice: feed it to grow stronger or starve it and die with it.In a world ruled by ruthless nobles, deadly monsters, and power-hungry demons, Damon must decide if his newfound power is a curse or the only way to survive. With the Living Shadow System, his fate is clear: devour or be devoured.

Yun Che, a big shot in the doomsday, who even the militaries drooled upon, finally died in the hands of his beloved and family. After reincarnation, he wanted to live for his own!

Xing Feng, a rooting third military generation, didn’t lay his heart in the army at all. So when he turned to 20, he chose to leave the army and went into business. When the doomsday came, he accidentally met Yun Chen and started a new chapter of his life, meanwhile, his moral bottom line kept hitting a new low…

- Description from Novelupdates

There was nothing left to lose in his life.He had lived as a hero. He had started at the bottom and worked his way up to the top, at the end he become the best, yet he had always been betrayed by those he had tried to protect.Humanity did not deserve his protection.When everything went out and he could no longer even hope to beg for his life, he could do nothing but look up at the blood-red sky among the corpses of demons and angels.He wished for one more chance, just one more chance.And when that chance was given to him, he swore that he would change everything. He would no longer be a hero to save people, but an anti-hero to save the world.Sacrificing hundreds of people to save an elf, poisoning hundreds of people to save a group of half-demons.He didn't care about any of that anymore, he would protect those he cared about and send everything else to hell.Not even the gods or goddesses could stop him.