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In the apocalypse, the first weapon Adrian will have to upgrade is himself. He's an operations manager overseeing a construction job in the wilderness when an unknown energy force changes the very nature of life itself — from the smallest organism to the top of the food chain. The earth's surviving inhabitants, environment, and the very laws of physics have undergone fundamental transformations. Luckily, this has happened to other species before, and everyone receives an interface that survivors of similar events have used to navigate an alien landscape. Adrian is stranded in the middle of nowhere, with days or weeks of travel between him and his family, in a world full of monsters and mayhem where survival means beating the learning curve.

Each year, teens around the country are spirited away to other worlds to fight on their behalf. One government department has been empowered to bring them back. Cole had his entire career planned — another year in the Airborne, then Ranger School, then Special Forces — until his fireteam was plucked from a war in Syria and thrust into a world of demons with an endless appetite for human hearts. Barely getting his squad to safety with the aid of the Department of Otherworld Rescue, Cole joins as an elite operative: venturing into dying, desperate worlds to retrieve stolen children and teens. These worlds run on strange rules enforced by vindictive gods and omniscient systems, filled with monsters, demons, and worse. But playing in their sandbox lets Cole and his team share in their rewards — rewards that could elevate even an ordinary soldier into a one-man army.

The gods were the enemy — slavers who chained humanity. With dreams of paradise, humanity slaughtered them and stole their powers, opening the path to ascend. Instead, they nearly destroyed the world. Vast hive cities now serve as the final bastions against a crumbling reality, and within the greatest of them, New Vultun, ascenders wage war to determine the very laws of existence. Avo was born a weapon — a slave to his instincts and his masters, made to burn New Vultun to ashes. Everything changes when he gains immortality and becomes heir to an impossible legacy. To free the world from its chains, he must ascend the megacity and challenge the tyrants who usurped the gods.

Takemi wakes in a battlefield triage tent — bloody, battered, and with no memory of his name, his past, or what happened to him. The battle is not over, and the enemy is not content with victory alone. In an ether-ravaged post-apocalyptic world cast back into the dark ages, feudal lords fight for control over land and resources. Takemi has friends at his side willing to challenge their cowardly leaders and fight for his survival. Mental constructs called mind palaces grant cultivators game-like perks and near-superhuman abilities — and knowledge may prove to be the greatest power of all.

The dragons are dead. Their colossal forms, once the lifeblood of an empire, now rot in the wastelands of a cursed continent. The people they empowered have been driven to madness by their absence, and a creeping decay smothers the land. Magus Montgomery Maldrak, driven by a desperate need to save his daughter lost on the decaying continent of Draya Calyrex, crafts a solution that skirts the edge of life and death: puppet-automatons animated by necromantic sorcery. Through their lifeless eyes, he will walk the ruins of a dead empire, searching for the truth behind the plague, the madness, and the dragons' fall. Some truths, however, are meant to stay buried.

Lee and Jak's world changes forever when a System message appears before them at noon: Earth has been integrated into the Multiverse. A status screen, health points, and then — the monsters. The duo must get stronger, learn how the system works by capitalizing on their rare classes and skills, save their town of Gilbert, and then find a way to travel to Albuquerque to rescue the people they love.

Derrick is no one's hero. He is barely dealing with his mundane life when all of humanity is forced to confront the extraordinary. Overnight, across the world, mysterious machines appear offering people the chance to purchase almost anything they can think of — weapons, medicine, even superhuman abilities, seemingly for free. But following these machines come the Scourges: the most dangerous creatures, diseases, and machines that infest the universe. Ever growing and battling, these empires of horror and hunger will overwhelm and devour the Earth and its inhabitants unless Derrick and humanity can stand against all the horrors that battle between the stars.

Tragedy had reduced James to a nobody — washed up and homeless in New York City, certain his life was over. Then a message appeared in his vision: the 60,000-year countdown had ended, and Nemesis 1 had been released. As the world falls apart, as billions die, as society collapses and all hope seems lost, James discovers a powerful truth: he was wrong to think himself a nobody. With the dawn of the Void, he'll become the most important person to have ever lived.

Evahn Wynst was no more prepared for the apocalypse than anyone else. When disaster struck, it came swiftly and without warning, turning the world over in an instant — order one moment, chaos the next. In an unfamiliar world teeming with equal danger and wonder, he will have to find his place amongst the rubble and navigate a new and dangerous reality. Luckily, he's not alone. He has himself. And himself.

All Dan wants is to find a way home. He'd settle for a beer, a bite to eat, and a place to sleep off his hangover. But Dan has accidentally noclipped into the Backrooms — a bizarre, extra-dimensional world cobbled together from twisted carnivals, abandoned shopping malls, janky laundromats, and condemned asylums, overrun with horrific nightmare creatures known as Dwellers. No one ever gets out. If Dan wants to survive the week, he'll need to harness the strange game-like magic of the Backrooms, make some very sketchy allies, and carve out a little safe haven to call his own. He's also being hunted. The Flayed Monarch of the 999th floor has marked him for death, and no one walks away from the Skinless Court with their hide intact.

Sky Memoriam is one of the last surviving humans on an Earth ravaged by cataclysm thousands of years ago. In an isolated valley, the remnants of humanity scratch a living from what little nature remains — life is hard, but peaceful, and Sky's days are filled with preparations to assume a role of responsibility. That's what Sky thinks, anyway. When a spaceship from the broader galactic community carrying a modified combat AI designed to interface between humans and Things That Are Better Off Not Thought Of crashes outside Sky's village, life starts getting weird. Also violent. An eldritch punk / horror comedy with light progression elements — numbers go up, but they are not the main focus.

Ryan's life sucks. His brother is a jerk, his mom is sick, and his legs are next to useless thanks to a neurological disorder. In a post-nuclear world where what's left of humanity lives underground, the only escape is the massive VR world of Crystal Shards Online — but even there, Ryan can't play a combat class, so he works as a miner barely scraping by. When Ryan discovers an item that grants the ability to dodge any attack, he has the chance to become one of the game world's most elite players: a Dodge Tank. To save his mom's life, Ryan will have to overcome his disability and level his way to the top — but the real-world consequences reach far further than he ever imagined.

Something is wrong with the world. Beyond the eldritch horror encroaching from beyond and invasive man-eating aliens, the Federation of Man just isn't right. Superheroes aren't much of heroes anymore, and super villains — well, they just aren't super. The Federation is desperately lacking a proper villain. Luke was fine being a cashier, watching villainy be made a mockery of by amateurs. But after being robbed, electrocuted, and beaten all in the same week, some screws got knocked loose. The state of villainy is not fine, and Luke is bored, crazy, and stupid enough to believe he can change it. A mystic entity called the Architect apparently agrees — planting a system on Luke that wants only one thing: evil done right.

A few minutes ago, Meghan Moretti's biggest concern was getting the kids' athletic clothes washed in time for practice. Now, Earth has been forced into participating in high-stakes intergalactic reality television. All electrical wiring has been slagged, combustibles neutralized, and evil space rodents are appearing on the front lawn. Like any parent, Meghan's first instinct is to keep her young kids safely away from the monsters. But an odd stroke of luck brings her advanced information about this dangerous game — including the fact that her kids will have to fight too. What's a mom to do?

She's a puppy. She's a girl. And she's going to evolve. Waking up one day in a litter of puppies, her human life a fading memory, she quickly falls into the flow of things — playing and hunting with her pack, taking naps, and leveling up. With five siblings who all have unique powers, a protective Dog Mom and three-headed Cerberus Dad, nothing seemed like it could go wrong. That is, until human hunters attack her family and kidnap her brothers and sisters. Now alone in a harsher world, she won't give up — she'll continue to level and evolve, and become powerful enough to take revenge and get her family back.

Alex Smith had many regrets: a dead-end minimum wage job, an estranged sister, and friends who had left him behind. Then the apocalypse happened and fantasy became reality—but Alex's life still did not change. After fifteen long years surviving the Integration, his life came to an end against an enemy he could never hope to beat. When fate sends him back to the very beginning, Alex is faced with a choice. He will not hold back this time.

Eight internet friends meet in person for the first time at a mountain cabin — and instead of a long weekend get-together, they're caught up in the end of the world. Strange messages float in the air announcing a "System Start." Now magic works and technology doesn't. Cell phones won't work, cars won't start, and it's ten miles to the nearest town. Some of them have families to worry about. Some don't even believe this is real. All of them have secrets they'll have to overcome if they're going to work together and make it back to town alive. Ten miles doesn't seem that far — but by the end of it, they'll have faced some of the worst the System can throw at them. And then things really get interesting.

When the world comes to a sudden and horrifying end, med student Shari and coder Mace are among the few survivors. Hyper-aggressive undead creatures hunt anything living on the surface, where even the grass and trees can kill. Their only escape is a virtual world where Shari can use her healing skills and Mace can focus on something other than his fears. But Shari is a light elf and Mace a drow — ancient enemies whose people would never welcome the other. Still they strive to come together in the game while scavenging for food and fighting to stay alive in the real world. With their food eventually running out, their best hope for survival may be finding a way to upload themselves to the game permanently.

When mana arrives on Earth, Coop finds himself isolated on a tropical island with one real option to survive: claim a civilization shard and level up. By carefully selecting a class and committing to progression, he grinds thousands of monsters to compete on the system's leaderboards while upgrading his settlement to represent the factionless.

Frank isn't exactly a model citizen. He's also not here to save Earth — he just wants his favorite curse word back. Too bad the World Dungeon drops him in as a zombie with a level cap of 1 and a profanity filter that turns every F-bomb into "frank." Earth has been repossessed and rebranded by a megacorp called DungeonCore. The prize is ownership of the planet, and this season is Hardcore Mode: death means getting stuck in his Lair until the next expansion, losing everything. Humanity gets a head start, but deep-pocketed aliens are lining up to buy in. To make matters worse, hero classes went to the NPCs while actual players got saddled with monster classes. Frank spawns as a lowly zombie with only stubbornness, handyman's grit, and an accidental Universe First achievement that lets him build a class of his own. He's not a hero — he's not even technically alive. But he might be petty enough to move mountains for the sake of one four-letter word.