
by Einsword
The story is 100% writing by me. AI is used only for translation, and I do my best to polish the quality. Right to the very end, he gripped the hilt of the blade that had claimed hundreds of lives. The world blurred, and the sea breeze struck his face for the last time with its biting scent of salt. His eyelids fell, swallowed by a thick darkness. He didn't yet know that he would never smell the sea again. After all, to breathe, you need lungs—and to feel, you need flesh. Death on the battlefield was supposed to be a long-awaited release for a soul burned to ashes. But instead of peace, he received a dubious deal from a god of the dead. Now, he is a sentient undead in a harsh, alien world. He has no skin to feel the bitter frost of the icy wastes, and no vocal cords to scream in pain. He travels with companions whose shadows hide far too many secrets. Instead of the familiar weight of steel, he is left with unknown magic and a voice echoing directly inside his empty skull. The memories of his past life are shattered into pieces, and an unseen puppeteer has already arranged the figures on the board. But he is a soldier. And if higher entities believe they have acquired a compliant bone puppet, they are dead wrong. Because bones know no fear. Author's Note: The original story is already written in my native language for 3 full volumes (over 450,000 words, and it continuous!). I am carefully translating and editing it for Royal Road, which guarantees consistent updates.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 19 Oct 2026, 21:18 UTC
Entry forecast updated 19 Oct 2026, 21:18 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 73% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 1% 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.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.