System of Nil

Nathan Cheng, known as Nil, is a game developer with four consecutive game jam wins — but a gaping hole in his heart from his sister's untimely murder. When he wakes up in an arcane world with a familiar System, he's given one mission: defeat the dark king, or die. Success means returning home on the day before his sister was killed. Only Nil's knowledge of the System — and his perfect memory — can let him advance fast enough to avoid being overwhelmed. Every powerful weapon, item, and skill is gated behind tricks, traps, and unimaginable horrors.

Despite his resounding victory over the dark king, Nathan returns to a world still teetering on the brink of despair. His mission is to resurrect the realms of light from the ashes — rekindling dying embers into a great empire. Before any building can begin, Nathan must obliterate marauding armies of darkness, hunt down monstrous creatures, and delve into treacherous dungeons. It's a dirty job — and he can't wait to get started. But there's another summoned interloper, and while Nathan's been gone, his enemy has been busy.

With the skeleton banished and his friends recuperating, Nathan can return to his primary task: reforging the world into an unassailable empire of light. For a former game developer, there is nothing more enticing than taking an idea and making it real. Unfortunately, success breeds enemies of a different kind. Backstabbers, naysayers, grifters, and saboteurs ooze from every dark corner. The dark takes many forms — and all are deadly.

Nathan's hard-earned victory should have brought peace. Instead, it's drawn the wrath of something far darker. Cast into a cruel and alien world, he's stripped of his allies, his power, and his certainty. Now Nathan faces a realm ruled by twisted systems, with traps in every shadow and enemies that thrive on his suffering. Armed only with his knowledge as a game developer, he must outwit the forces of chaos to survive — or be consumed by this broken world.

He's conquered horrors, shattered chains, and endured the unendurable. But now Nathan faces his greatest trial: ascending to the plane of the rulemakers. To become a godlike architect of worlds, he must enter the void between realms, where broken realities spiral into madness, and find the flaws in the design. Beings of decay and desecration will rise to defend their twisted creations. Armed with a developer's ingenuity, Nathan must outthink, outfight, and outmaneuver dark forces determined to stop him at all costs.