
by ButterflyBougie
Mary is all kinds of illegal. Her mere existence is a death warrant. A forbidden death elemental and half of a catastrophically overpowered locked pairing, Mary has enough power to terrify kingdoms. There’s just one problem. Mary wants nothing to do with the most powerful parts of herself. She resists her death element, merging with her elemental soul, her bond with Mercurio—and even breeding when she learns the survival of the universe may depend on them doing exactly that. But the world isn’t going to wait for Mary to accept what she is. Her brutal father is hunting her, war is spreading across human streets and elemental kingdoms, and an ancient curse is driving death elementals toward extinction. Mary should be powerful enough to fight them all. If she can stop fighting herself first. Break the curse. Continue the death bloodline. Survive her father. And take his throne. For all my grimdark lovers: Prepare for an adrenaline-fueled drop into a dark, unforgiving fantasy world. The story grows substantially darker as it progresses, hitting you with heavy psychological horror, execution, war, and raw consequences — with the occasional laugh in all the wrong places. A Note on Progression: This is long-form progression fantasy. Mary’s progression is repeatedly interrupted by war, survival, politics, and expanding story threads, but it never stops. Abilities and training introduced early continue developing toward later breakthroughs, including formal Death tiers and deeper mastery beyond them, with additional progression systems for her Siren and other evolving abilities. Because this world is so expansive, Mary's journeys span both the human and elemental realms, constantly introducing new characters with their own intricate threads—but the story always returns to them. Nothing is forgotten; some things simply take a long and dangerous road to earn. ⚡ New chapters every weekday — Monday through Friday. ⚡ New readers can start here. Book 1 adds deeper lore and world history but is not required. Everything essential is included here, along with an Optional Reference Guide. Mature Content Warning: Dark themes, intense psychological trauma, graphic fantasy violence, gore, profanity, and highly mature suggestive content/themes. Intended for mature audiences.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 08:38 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 08:38 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.
Coupled 14-day outlook
rs-joint-entry-copula-v1
Any eligible RS entry
22%
Two or more lists
2%
Likely threshold order: Romance → Action → Fantasy → Main.
Leading bundle: Romance (20%).
Estimated from one fitted shared story path; category probabilities are not multiplied as if lists were independent.
Separate entry forecast; this probability does not enter the ranking score.
Overall Rising Stars Shadow RS rank
#6056 of 12,184 · 6006 below RS #50
By genre
beats 99% of similar stories
beats 14% of similar stories
beats 23% 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.