A hundred years ago, thirteen towers arrived on Earth. Each year at noon on the summer solstice, the tower gates open, admitting any who wish to climb. Those who survive return with incredible powers and riches. Over the decades, the worlds inside the towers have leaked free, changing Earth and her inhabitants.
Except for the Thirteenth Tower — the Unconquered Tower. Nobody has ever left it. Every year it leeches more life out of the world, turning the American Southwest into a growing graveyard. If it isn't cleared, it will consume the planet.
Roan doesn't care about that. The tower has long been the gravestone for his family, as generations have tried to best it and save their ancestral homes. All he wants is to put one burning question to rest: are they dead? He only needs to clear the tower to find out.
Nar was born in darkness and was meant to die there — a slave, shackled by a sin long forgotten, doomed to a life beneath the surface. His eyes were never meant to see the Infinite Nexus or the wonders of the Endless Labyrinth. He was never destined for power, a class, or the System.
But he made the choice few sinners dare: to Climb. Now he must forge a hybrid tank/DPS class, conceal a secret that could destroy his party, and achieve the impossible to save his dying father. With every step toward the City Without End, Nar unknowingly draws to a close a play that has spanned eternities — and no one is expecting him.
Born talentless, Iro has all but resigned himself to a life of drudgery — watching others hop across massive space titans for supplies. When a titan explodes and his sister is killed, Iro finds new determination to take her place.
When the fleet encounters a new titan filled with powerful monsters, deadly traps, and mysterious cloaked figures, Iro is the first to spontaneously manifest a new talent. Sent to a different ship to train with others far beyond his strength, Iro will have to work twice as hard just to catch up — and to uncover the mysteries of the titans.
Choosing a college when your family is struggling is hard enough without a meteor crashing nearby. In the aftermath, Matt's home city is locked down by a mysterious dome, corporations race to monopolize new resources, and people are suddenly developing powers through a System with seemingly sinister intentions.
Matt decides to use his stealth class to adapt and survive — but staying hidden in the shadows of a LitRPG apocalypse, where the price of failure is death and the prize for winning is beyond imagination, is harder than it sounds.
Jack Atlas, self-proclaimed 'World's Best Assassin', had a simple plan: retire in style and marry the girl of his dreams. Then he gets placed in The Tower — a divine deathtrap where gods pit their creations against each other for the ultimate prize. The catch? If you lose, your chances of finding a decent bar in oblivion are slim.
Jack soon finds himself on the wrong side of the Black Centipede, a notorious assassin cult with a charming recruitment policy: join or they'll murder everyone he loves. If anyone's crazy enough to not just survive but win against The Tower, it's Jack.
Rescued from the slums by a kindly Sage, Molly discovers a talent for magic unlike anyone else's. While others chant to shape Root and Structure, Molly sees the symbols in silence. When she awakens her true Affinity — [Epilogue] — she learns her power doesn't just use archmage-level magic. It ends it. Even the gods fear the silence of Epilogue.
When her mentor dies, her final wish is simple: hide, enroll in the academy, graduate, find a party, and do not end up alone again. Disguising a divine-level threat as an average hero-in-training is hard enough — harder still when the heavens are watching, waiting for the one mortal who holds the key to their undoing.
In a world where only those with a voice are heard, can a mute girl defy the pantheons?
Earth was invaded, conquered, and humanity was subjugated — 400,000,000 people culled in a second, without any chance to fight back. The Peacekeepers claim to be benevolent: they don't want to rule Earth, they just want humanity to stop playing around with AI and genetics.
Willing or unwilling, Morgan and the rest of humanity are now members of the Collective. And like every species in the Collective, they have to learn to play the Game. When an AI offers you the opportunity to play the greatest tower-defense game the universe has ever created, you accept — and figure out the rules for survival later.
Morgan certainly thinks so. But when aliens are attacking your station and giant six-eyed rats are eating your robotic face, doubts start to creep in.
4.58· 689
Base BuildingDungeon CoreDungeon CrawlingLitRPGPost-apocalypticSci-fi+2
Life has always been a battle — but for some people that is especially true. Not everyone can take living another day for granted. And that was before the world started ending.
Now that the [Trial] is here and everything is going up in flames, life is not getting easier. Trapped in the [Trial], John is faced with a painful reality: if he wants to live, he has no choice but to climb. And if he wants to survive long-term, he needs to keep climbing — even if that means heading directly into danger.
4.61· 569
Dungeon CrawlingGameLitLitRPGSystem ApocalypseTower ClimbingWeak to Strong
Almost half a century has passed since prison ships discovered the mysterious Tower rising out of the Indian Ocean, known as Gaia. Monarchies and trading giants came together to build a city around it and contain the monsters spilling out of its rune-covered structure. The few who dared enter and climb it learned the magic of Gaia's runic cards.
Most people enter the Tower seeking fame, fortune, or power. Not Diya Sen. He climbs hoping to find clues about his missing brother and to solve Gaia's mysteries — but warring noble houses stand in his way. Perhaps the talents of a Spell Thief will help where the direct approach cannot.
4.31· 696
Hard MagicMysterySecondary WorldSkill CollectionTower ClimbingWeak to Strong
The gods are real — and they hate you. This wouldn't be true for most people, but for Samuel Lin, whose first interaction with a god was cursing them out, well, you get the idea. Sam was behind on his Master's thesis when he was selected as one of humanity's representatives in an interstellar battle royale: a fight to the death on the grandest cosmic scale.
Dropped through a portal onto the slopes of Mt. Olympos, he discovers the only way to survive is to climb, and the only way to climb is to fight. Surrounded by enemies and marked for death by grudge-bearing gods, Sam faces a very interesting question: does he have what it takes to kill a god?
Each Ring of the climb is a new world with new quests, new party members, and new ways to die.
Dabu's life has been far from easy. Born with a crippling lung illness, he has never been as strong as his father or brother, both of whom disappeared after attempting to challenge the Trials of Ancients. In the wake of the Tyrant King's war, his village has fallen under the control of the Purus, a vicious gang of magically enhanced cutthroats.
The Trials offer the promise of power to any who can clear them, but Dabu has been forbidden from entering. After a violent encounter leaves his family in danger, he faces a difficult choice — leave to challenge the Trials or stay and risk starvation.
The Trials are monstrously difficult, filled with dangerous beasts, deadly obstacles, and tribes of challengers who control the areas within. But if he can make it out alive, Dabu will gain the power he needs to drive the Purus from his home.
4.32· 333
GameLitLitRPGSecondary WorldStatsTower ClimbingWeak to Strong
Launch day. That was what they called it — the day over four million people vanished from Manhattan, the day a one-hundred-and-one-kilometre tower rose from the wreckage, and the day every screen displayed a single message: The Great Emperor has issued his challenge.
A hundred floors and a hundred challenges await the worthy. To the victor goes a Wish of Unlimited Power. Cayden Caros yearned to play that game, but the Terms and Conditions barred anyone under sixteen from entering.
Forced to wait two years, Cayden researched, practiced, and prepared — because when it came to catching up to players with a massive head start, being a SpeedRunner was a very particular kind of advantage.
Bing Xue spent eleven thousand years in a brutal world of martial arts and cultivation, ascending to its absolute pinnacle — only to find herself unable to escape the Heavenly Will's grasp. She gambled everything on a final act, fleeing into the Outer Cosmos.
She expected an end. Instead, a black hole spits her back to Earth, a planet now transformed: a Tower connects it to countless worlds, dimensional gates spew monsters, and awakened Hunters climb floors in a desperate bid to save humanity.
With her mother and sister still alive, Bing Xue brings eleven thousand years of supreme cultivation to bear — against the Tower, the gods who run it, and anything else that stands between her and the people she loves.
Almost half a century has passed since prison ships discovered a mysterious tower off the coast of Australia. Monarchies, republics, and trading empires built a city around it to contain the monsters spilling from its rune-covered structure. The few who dared climb it learned the magic of Gaia's runic cards.
Now people delve the tower for fame, fortune, and power. Diya Sen climbs hoping to find clues about his missing brother and solve Gaia's mysteries — but the warring noble houses stand in his way. Only allies and powerful cards will help him function outside the nobility's control. Not all cards are made equal, and as an ordinary man, sources of power are outside his reach. Perhaps the talents of a Spell Thief will prove more useful.
In 2044, "Ascension" has become one of the most popular VRMMO games — a vast world divided into a hundred Floors, each a boundless location with its own countries, tribes, and millions of players. The goal: unlock all the gates and conquer the top.
When Will Thomson joins the game, he quickly realizes he is entirely on his own. Then he accepts his first quest: a Cursed Rat at level 46.
4.25· 789
LitRPGLoner MCStatsTower ClimbingVRMMOWeak to Strong
When a colossal tower lands in the middle of a city, Devin Cain finds himself transported along with 99,999 others to a fantastical world called Gaea, ruled by floating demi-gods who claim humanity must prove Earth is worth saving.
Gaea is entirely controlled by the System — a sarcastic, level-hungry intelligence that grants magical powers, strange classes, monsters, and loot, and forces players to compete in events with no clear endgame. Wielding a cursed katana that hungers for blood and souls, Devin must climb the tower and uncover the truth behind their abduction.
4.09· 871
Class SystemGrimdarkIsekaiLitRPGSystem ApocalypseTower Climbing
Inside the Dragon's Tower, the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Climbers from all corners must brave harrowing floor after floor — each tougher than the last — for a single prize awaiting at the top: a dragon's egg.
To Tem, a farmhand from the frontier, the Tower seemed straightforward enough. The harsh truth involves politics, personal sacrifice, and unfathomable struggles just to keep advancing. The fate of the world rests in the hands of the brave, and Tem is not one to back down.
4.27· 396
LitRPGSecondary WorldStatsTower ClimbingWeak to Strong
Earth had been destroyed by Devils, and as a result humans were transported to Paradise — a new world far vaster than their original planet, chaotic yet still a home. Then the cataclysm struck. Only one man could face the imminent disaster, but he failed. Bradley Crowe let down all those who relied on him.
As his eyes closed for the last time, he was given a second chance.
4.22· 744
IsekaiMilitaryRegressionSecondary WorldTower ClimbingWeak to Strong
She entered the Tower seeking death. Instead, she keeps finding reasons to live.
In this life she is Bella, a jaded med student trying to catch up on centuries of medical innovation — or at least she was, before the Tower appeared. With the promise that she would find whatever she sought at the top, she entered hoping to end her curse. But even with hundreds of lives of experience to draw on, reaching the top is no easy task.
The Tower is filled with wonders she could only dream of, and what she once believed was the peak of power turns out to be only the first rung of a much larger climb. Her foundations are unshakable, but the Tower is deeper, deadlier, and more exhilarating than anything she has ever faced.
Chang-li may be a humble scribe, but he dreams of becoming a cultivator. When a ghost's legacy gives him a chance to follow that dream, he seizes it — defying the hidebound Empire and its vast array of rules and customs as he masters lux and perfects himself.
But a cultivator needs more than just power. He needs a sect. What starts as a scheme to avoid punishment becomes far more as Chang-li and his friends find themselves reviving the ancient Sect of Morning Mist and its lost techniques. A slave can win his freedom. A princess can discard her upbringing. The sect offers a chance to claim what's forbidden — if they can avoid entangling marriages, official scrutiny, and the wrath of more powerful enemies.
Cultivation with a tower-climbing twist. Character-driven and full of action and intrigue.
4.56· 442
Base BuildingCultivationSecondary WorldTower ClimbingWeak to StrongWuxia