
by ContractorZero
Max Jaeger carved open Hell to save his daughter. He didn’t expect Hell to carve him back. Liz has been comatose since she was sixteen. Something ancient is waking up inside her, and every Demon Lord in existence wants to be the one holding the leash when it does. To bring her back, Max summoned a demon. He didn't sign a contract. He burned it and stole its power. Now he carries a raw, unchained Hellfire that evolves with every soul he frees and breaks every law the demonic hierarchy was built to enforce. The fire has a price. Every chain Max breaks pulls him further from the father Liz remembers. He's dragging a found family of broken people into a war none of them were built for, burning through a world of Demon Lords, secret agencies, and fallen gods to reach the one person he refuses to lose. In a world where power costs your humanity, saving her might mean becoming the thing she fears most. A broken father. A stolen fire. A daughter worth burning for. What to Expect Dark, atmospheric urban fantasy with slow-burn apocalyptic stakes. Gritty, character-driven action. Demonic contracts, mythic horror, and lore-driven power systems. Found family forged in trauma. No stats. No menus. Just fire, blood, and consequence. What You Won't Find Harem. LitRPG mechanics. Overpowered protagonist from chapter one. Anime high school tropes. 5 volumes written. 12 planned. The fire is already burning. Content warning: Violence, psychological abuse, torture, gore. For readers who want the structural horror of Berserk, the moral weight of Joe Abercrombie's First Law, the dark progression of Shadow Slave, and the slow apocalyptic atmosphere of The Last of Us
#7
6/8/2026
Peak #35
0d
#6
6/8/2026
Peak #45
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#5
6/8/2026
Peak #37
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#4
5/9/2026
Peak #44
1d
#3
5/6/2026
Peak #46
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Rank updated 13 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Entry forecast updated 13 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Overall Rising Stars shadow rank
deep field · ~#6624 of 7,628 · 6574 below #50
By genre
beats 83% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 31% of similar stories
Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
At this conversion, the Contemporary Rising Stars bar (≈0 new followers/day) costs about 218 views/day — the story currently gets ~210.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 150+ chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.
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