Parasite Gold

Mia Donovan was a low-level makeup assistant on the show Ascend. Her younger sister Lily had secretly signed up for the competition and made the cut; Mia joined the production team to stay close and protect her. But during a live awards ceremony, Mia watched the previous season's champion rapidly age and collapse on stage—going from 24 years old to a drained husk in three seconds. The broadcast was cut, the incident covered up, but Mia began digging for the truth. She gradually uncovered the terrifying nature of the "starphysique," the real whereabouts of past champions after their "retirement," and the "Immortal Buyers Alliance" of global elite billionaires behind the show. As Lily advanced through the competition, getting closer to being implanted with a port, Mia had to find system vulnerabilities from inside the show, unite other victims, and destroy the entire parasitic network before her sister was "connected"—or, after the "connection" happened, expose all the ugly truths of the rich to the world via global broadcast...