Showing results by author "Charles Dean" in All Categories

Although he was once the promising young CEO of a successful corporation, Lucas abandoned everything he knew and retreated from both the real world and his demanding life following a horrific accident. In order to cope with tragic loss, he began spending his time in virtual reality, lazing about in the sun, and living a carefree life. When he learns that his escapist paradise is being threatened and is about to disappear, however, Lucas is once again forced to take action and do what he does best: take charge.

"Kill. Kill them all." It's the first four words Lars usually wakes up to every morning, a voice telling him she's just giving him a "quest" that will help him "level". But even if he wanted to do it, he can't. They're cultivators: beings with ancestral bloodlines that have powers he could only dream of, while he is stuck as a puny human. Even if he could kill them, the people who bullied him, beat him, treated him like a punch-bag pariah for being a "tailless worthless human", he wouldn't. That is, until a vicious group of murderous psychopaths called a "sect" descend on his village.

Getting strong enough to survive was only the start. What was once horrific is now becoming an addiction. When an elder cultivator powerful enough to destroy Lars with a gesture spirits him away to the Sect of the Spring Rain, he ends up as the subject of a twisted plot to uncover and exploit his secret cultivation technique. Can he navigate the treacherous power struggles of the sect within, or will he be killed off by the factions vying for power? What happens if his grisly methods are exposed? 

A crazed princess, royal intrigue, relentless assassins, and a merciless army—Lars must overcome all these and even deadlier challenges as he navigates new threats in the brutal cultivation world he had thought he finally understood.

This anthology of Christmas stories is a unique collection of Christmas tales, reflections, and poems from beloved authors across the centuries and makes the perfect gift for the book enthusiast in your life. This beautiful treasury will take you back to firesides, simple gifts, and warm family moments of Christmases past as you cherish the timeless truths and joys of the season.

After conquering all of Hesse, creating a devilish new dungeon, and establishing himself as the villain that everyone loves to hate, Lucas decides to continue his quest to create new content by taking over as a dungeon master on the mainland. Unlike the dominant force on the island he left behind, however, the once-mighty Imperium only controls a single capital city in a rapidly shrinking territory, leaving a group of scheming nobles to bicker among themselves and fight over scraps of land.

After a night of drunken debauchery following the defeat of the academy's headmistress, Lucas awakens to trouble on all fronts. The steady balance of power within the Imperium has been shaken by his presence, and the resulting aftermath is a town full of heavily armed and well-staffed enemies that seek Lucas' death. Lucas must not only survive their assault but also manage his own slowly crumbling internal affairs when his party begins to fracture. Angered by Lucas' increasingly selfish actions, some of his closest allies are tempted to turn against him. 

Draw your blade. Fasten your armor. Prepare for war. The Unsheathed collection brings to life nine powerhouse tales of epic fantasy filled with daring duels, gruesome slaughter, and the ringing cacophony of battle. 

Lee is a quiet and unassuming office worker who leads a life of solitude, comfort, and routine. Day in and day out, he shuts off his brain, keeps his head down, and goes about doing his job and minding his own business. That is, he does until a drunken god shows up randomly one day and whisks him off into another world, demanding that Lee serve as his pawn in a game between the gods. Now, trapped in a completely different world full of danger, magic, and creatures, Lee has to figure out how to stay alive long enough to make it back home.

Desperate to save as many people as he can from a horrible fate in the cruel game of the gods, Lee and his small group of friends abandon the relative safety of Satterfield for the great city of Kirshtein. Tensions within the city have reached a breaking point after the arrival of an enemy Herald, and Lee is soon caught up in the struggle for power.

Struggling to recover from his losses in Kirshtein, Lee is swept back into the fray when a dangerous new Herald sets her sights on him. Hell-bent on reshaping the world in her own image and with her own ideals, she is willing to commit even the most immoral acts in her pursuit of righteousness. At risk of losing everything he has worked so hard to create, Lee has to find a way to defend the weak against a madwoman whose deranged sense of justice has twisted the limits of the game.

After receiving a request for aid from a beautiful and mysterious messenger, Lee and his inner circle travel to nearby Birnefeld, a large and prosperous city ruled by the dragon king. Before he ever arrives, however, Lee encounters a group of marauders ransacking the countryside, meets a strange new herald who has set up camp in the region, and receives the dire news that the hero Brigid of Kildare has gone missing. To make things worse, a powerful new enemy is stalking him from the shadows, toying with his dreams, and striking at his closest relationships.  

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Darwin, a video game addict, is sitting in his bathrobe and slippers playing his favorite MMO on a Christmas night when an uninvited guest breaks into his house to steal his belongings. After the scuffle is over he finds himself transported into one of the sword and magic RPG-style MMOs that he has always loved to play, albeit one he has never heard of, where he has to overcome trials and tribulations at every turn as he fights for his life alongside new companions.

Having gone from a simple video game addict to the leader of a band of refugees, Darwin continues to cut his way across the world of Tiqpa searching for a home. Be it his home in real life, or one for his people in the game, the sleepless warrior presses forward. Unfortunately for him, each step he makes changes the fate of Tiqpa, a fact that is not welcomed by those who inhabit the lands.

Our hero carries on down the path that has been laid out before him. He must wrestle with the task of leading a new race of Demons and grapple with a madness that threatens to completely consume him - all while working with a bounty on his head and thousands seeking to kill him. 

Lee has barely established his foothold in the kingdom of Birnefeld, and yet enemy forces are already rushing to attack. Almost all of the other Heralds have been stamped out of existence by the anti-religious zealot King Ramen, and now that the ruthless rule of the empire has turned his sights toward the newly conquered realm, and started marching a massive army easily capable of crushing the entire kingdom beneath their feet straight toward Lee's doorstep. With no other choice, Lee has to turn to the nemesis who plagued his dreams, the Mistress of Shadows, for help.

Enchanting, tragic, and hilarious fairytales for adults and children grace this audio. An initial glance might lead you to assume that these are satirical versions of classic Christmas ghost stories. However, beneath the humorous stories involving ghosts, repentant sinners, miracles, and good peasants who find well-deserved happiness, lies a psychological undercurrent that sharpens the sense of intrigue and plot movement. Often this is aided by the unrelenting social exposure of the authors who always understood how intangible the bourgeois paradise truly was.

When a diplomatic mission goes off the rails, Locke quickly finds himself between a rock and a hard place as old urges and new desires clash to shape the life-and-death decisions he is forced to make. He soon realizes that a mysterious new organization is pulling everyone’s strings and calling the shots from the shadows, and it seems to have the uncanny ability to anticipate his every move. Ultimately, he must choose between saving a friend’s life or a kingdom from the brink of corruption.

Tiqpa, the first VRMMO to hit the markets, has become a world in and of itself with its own burgeoning political structure and growing strife between kingdoms and players. This unknown terrain, ripe with opportunities, becomes a new frontier that Locke, a blacksmith, tries to use to pay off real-world debts. But when he is betrayed by one of his business partners, he finds himself caught between his growing lust for revenge and his very real need for capital.