Dark Creation

When Gabriel James mysteriously appears in 17-year-old Melissa Martin's English class, she is not prepared for what she experiences or how she feels the first time they speak. With otherworldly attractiveness, gallantry, charm, and intelligence, he is everything boys her age are not. But Gabriel has a secret - a dark secret. His secret threatens to rip them apart and unleash an evil on the world so horrific, humanity will be forever changed.

The last thing I expected was to gain the spells of the woman in my bed. Hell, I didn't even know magic existed until I'd cast a spell that morning. Then a beautiful teacher from a magical academy told me I could become the universe's most powerful mage. To get there, I need to become stronger. I need to ace all my examinations. And, most of all, I need to master the most potent spells. But I have to start somewhere.

I've collected the souls required to speak with my dead father, and he's got a lot to tell me. Hopefully, what he has to say will help me succeed in the coming Mage Game Qualifiers. Because if I get through, then I'll finally find my mother's white staff.

Evaline Manor took her revenge and met her immortal fated mate. After narrowly escaping Kembertus, discovering she had magical abilities was the last thing she expected. Maddox Vicor finally got the girl; now he just has to take her back to his kingdom and keep her safe there. But nothing is ever as easy as it seems, and soon there are threats everywhere he turns. With new foes after Evaline and powers she doesn’t understand, she must navigate this new life and the consequences that come with it—including answering a curse that requires her to save the world.

In the mercantile realm of Minarin, greed weaves a tapestry of despair, and a prophecy of destruction draws in discredited wizard Arthur Wells as he attempts to prove his innovative prophesying methods. Armed with his predictions, he finds the reality outside his tower far more puzzling than a simple vision. While food prices soar, Lee faces starvation in his home in the sunless Moltam Forest. When news of a quest for a relic promises salvation for his family, he throws himself into a world full of danger that he barely understands.

For Clive, death isn't the end. But with almost a year until his body is reborn, it is a dangerous setback. With Armies to lead, alliances to maintain, and enemies ranging from the gods to the imminent return of the psychopath Natom Hilgresh, he needs a workaround. He needs an Avatar. Achieving this lofty aim will require sacrifice and hard work—for his followers, at least. So while Clive practices with his ethereal powers, they attempt to push their budding god up through the Ethereal Stages and bring him back to the world of the living.

The Dark Tide is rising. Forgotten by most of Secramore, a race of demons is determined to resurrect their dark god, Ocranthos. Essential to their plans are three elements: the Silver Sigil, the Key, and a Vessel, all of which are nearly in their grasp. As the demons seek to recover the triad, the only force that stands to oppose them is in turmoil. Loyalties are in question, and inner strife threatens to crumble the fragile unity among Kariayla, her daughter Charasida, Wraith, Scorch, and the Demon.

Terraform the barrens. Create life with your bare hands. And defeat the wild hunt. Garrett Andrews will have to do all that, plus develop a mining colony on two separate planets if he wants to stand a chance at defeating the ancient, primordial evil bent on destroying the universe. Worse, since his own planetary systems are starting to produce sentient life, he’ll have to level up those creatures and release them back into the wild, all while trying to fend off a former champion turned evil.

High in the Craster Mountains sits a small town protected from the outside world by a godly barrier. But that barrier is the work of no god, it was created by Clive, a warrior, a leader and a very angry chef who just wants a peaceful life. Hordes of vengeful enemies amassing along the borders of the Forsaken Land are going to make sure that doesn’t happen. For while Far Reach is safe, Clive’s allies are in imminent danger of being swept away by the coming storm.

It took everything to defeat the feared Natom Hilgresh. Turns out, that was the easy part. Now the clock is ticking for Clive to return to Far Reach and prepare for the second coming. Of course, it isn’t exactly a Sunday stroll. Navigating unforgiving terrain across the war-torn country of Kalabri, the vast armies of Destruction and Justice swarm the land, killing everyone in their path.

Victoria Defau Trahan, a reserved forty-year-old eccentric and recluse, has spent over two decades attempting to maintain a semblance of normalcy despite struggling with profound social anxieties. However, this fragile equilibrium is shattered and she is suddenly thrust into a nightmare after receiving distressing news concerning her estranged twenty-two-year-old daughter, London.

Creation of Chaos: Volume IV is a collection of 11 new dark and twisted short stories, plus two unedited stories from the author's years as a young teenage author. There is also an afterword with the author's thoughts on each of the stories within this collection and the inspiration behind them.

Not all that is right comes from the gods. Sometimes, they demand much that is wrong. Liana and her twin are an anomaly at the heart of a kingdom bound by unyielding tradition. The crown princess is the first female marked as Herkun's heir, and her existence has unfortunate consequences. When her uncle leads a coup with the intent to kill her, Liana and her twin brother are spirited away to a place where not even the stars are the same.

The Marauders of the Inferno have not heard the call to crush spirit and will for 80 millennia. We, the Blisserack, have waited, stoking the heat of our rage until we could once again immolate and break the foul corruption named creation. But our liege has manipulated the weakness and vices of the living world. They have given rise to Crayaht’En, our chosen one, our messiah of annihilation. He has already called a Devourer of the Siege from the bloody seas of the realm of malice and it glutted itself on hundreds of humans.

As an artificial intelligence operating as the help function for Mystic Seasons: Mythopoeia, the world’s premier full-immersion RPG, Hollen shouldn’t care that his server is being downsized, but he does. He issues a quest to a new player to find a way to keep him alive, and together they discover hidden aspects of the game. But Hollen isn’t the only AI trying to escape. Acarus, an in-game god, has developed a virus to infect players and propagate into the real world. Can Hollen find a new host before the server crashes or the moderators delete them all?

With the wildling Signar in tow, Tzarik and Sybal track Tarkan to Alika only to find he’s in a race to the mythical Mahit’Nomicon against the would-be sorcerer Abigor Sharar. Now on the hunt for two of the most dangerous sentients to have ever existed, the Runers come closer to finding out that their paths might not have crossed with Sharar’s entirely by chance and the hunters may have in fact been the hunted.

He has no name but is known by many. He is a Demon, surrounded by the chaos inherent in his own shadowy nature, and it is the magic of Shadow that is killing him. Unwilling to accept his imminent demise, the nameless Demon embarks on a mission to find the witches who may hold his cure. He discovers the alternative to his death may be a greater price than he is willing to accept, and what is acceptance in a world full of Humans?

There is no life without death. No love without cruelty. No freedom apart from bondage. There must be one to have the other.

Black Ice. It is a substance of magic mined from the earth, an Enhancement of the senses, and a diversion for the aristocracy who consume it. To Arythan Crow, “Dark Wizard of Cerborath,” it is nothing more than a black crystal, and his role is to harvest and purify it. But when this crystal becomes the object of attacks, a kidnapping, and the near demise of the prince, he has to wonder what more is to be learned of this Enhancement.

Afflicted by the incessant rot of beasts, the people of Asthradele have never known life without war. The threat of the next Bestial Tide has always been enough to keep the realms united. But what's it all worth if the world is dying? Seb du Monte is one of the many men and women dedicated to fighting the Tides. As a newly fledged Knight-Questor from a venerable lineage of beast slayers, sworn to protect Asthradele, his journey begins in earnest when he leaves his home to undertake the Questing Rites. But a powerful force threatens what he holds dear....