——— CHARACTERS ———
🎀✨ Sica Wolf (FL)
bright, innocent look, flustered, a bit…dumb
acts like a child
naive to the human world
enlists as a mercenary. Never mentioned again
abandoned at birth. Raised by wolves. Then magic tower
little to no experience in fights
🦋⚔️ Karsus Lian (ML)
composed, fake cheery, teasing, possessive
a master aura user. One of the Masters
and mercenary. Doesn’t hesitate to kill
doesn’t like getting too close to people
⚔️🍂🛡️ Utulu Mihas
serious, honourable
Also a Master swordsman
bickers a lot with Karsus
⚔️🌟📣💬 Orut Alcurans
another Master swordsman and knight.
bright, talkative
🕷️🩸🔮 Laurence Trabel (villain)
spoiler: FL’s twin
two-faced, apathetic, controlling
—— THEMES / TROPES ———
- Nice art
- Fast to moderate burn romance
- FL that signs a contract without reading it
- Evil beasts, enchanters,
- FL looking for her twin brother
- A secret past and mission
- ‘The Veil’ separating our world & world of Evil Beasts
- A pull, drawing main characters together
- Very simple scripting. Over explains
- FL with a secret
- Humans that use Evil Beasts to kill (‘Savages’)
- Tribes and the Empire
- The villain is looking for his sister
- Child hybrid experiments with Evil Beasts
- Ch 64. Time travel.
——— PROBLEMS ———
No initial world building. A lot of small info dumps throughout. And A LOT of special vocab. Like the Stragglers (sorcerers who abandoned teachings of Tower) or Savages (humans using Evil Beasts to kill) or the Masters or Aura Cores etc
The romance is kind of sporadic and…odd. Like it’s a fairly casual scene of the FL helping in an attack (very little interaction) then afterwards there’s an internal dialogue with the ML about how much he’s drawn to the FL and getting so much closer but there’s like no evidence of how or why that feeling developed. While the FL acts shy and blushes but it seems mainly out of being flustered (which is her reaction to a lot of things) and linking with her first love that looks identical to the ML.
In ch 63, the FL wakes up after mind control. ML thinks she’s still controlled and terrified of him but then boxed her in on her bed and says ‘even if you cry out for help, no one will come’ and that there was no point trying to run while thinking of cutting her legs off so she couldn’t escape from him ?!! And just a chapter before was talking about having to drag her away with him crying (because she’s been controlled) but that it was fine as long as she was his?!! Like wanting to protect the person you love but it’s bordering on a creepy possessiveness.
Sudden ending — the villain ends up just suddenly giving up on his dream and does a complete 180, decides to help the FL and apologised for everything. It’s explained as their magical connection being severed and him wanting to meet the being on the other side of the veil. Felt too much like a last minute attempt to wrap up the story.
And in the process of closing the rip in the veil, the FL loses her dark powers (or has them taken away by the dragon). So, she isn’t half-beast anymore? Why? That was always an integral part of her character (the fight then acceptance of her other side). Why take that away for her happy ending?
Loose ends — the other side of the veil. The creature that gave Sica and her brother their powers. Laurence’s ending after crossing. Karsus’s father mentioned, never appears. The magic-blocking collar (used on controlled FL in past) ML kept even after she lost her dark powers and they got engaged, later replaced by something in a green box (hinted. Confusing)
CONTENT WARNINGS
hunts, death, mercy death, self-hatred, partial nudity, colourism (the only people with darker skins are in tribes called ‘Savage tribes’ that wear coloured feathers, tattoos and fur-lined skins. And who immediately becomes enemies when they attack Sica), torture, attempted filicide (memory), parental death, parental abandonment, gambling, kidnapping, selling people, threat of rape, sexual assault (forced kiss), prostitution/sex work, human and child experimentation, parricide, incest (biological brother wants sister as his ‘bride’. May just be bad translating), suicide ideation, feeling like a burden to your parents
(+7)
(-1264)
