After a deadly encounter with a forest wolf, Rowan Black survives thanks to stem cell therapy and experimental bionic brain implants. Rowan's body recovers but the treatment leaves his memories fragmented and his psyche shattered into something inhumane, irritable, and callous—and a tad bit lustful. When his doctor fails to notice this, his parents reluctantly sends him back to Westwind Highschool, resulting in the murder of Rowan's past bully.
Rowan serves two years of juvenile detention in a psychiatric center and after his 18th birthday, he is offered a choice by a powerful corporation: Either spend the next decades in a psychiatric prison or play in their fully-immersive virtual reality game, Aeon Chronicles Online, and grow into the role of the world's next major raid boss that players must defeat.
Will Rowan regain his old psyche? How will Aeon Chronicles' AI controller react to Rowan’s unique mind? Will Rowan receive help in a team-oriented game or is he alone? Find out in this 130k+ word, dark LitRPG novel!
Warning: Contains gore, profanity, and traumatizing content plus some sexual content and romance.
My Opinion: 562 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
*Graphic sex and gore in the story*
You can tell that there is an Awaken Online influence in the novel. The main character (MC), Rowan, is tortured by a bully, he has an amoral attitude that lets him make ‘evil’ choices others wouldn’t, he gets a necromancer class, and makes a deal with a dark God to create an undead city. However those are where the similarities end. The rest of the novel is different and there are lots of unique memorable characters.
This is a dark story. The MC has brain damage that is repaired with mechanical implants. The side effects being that his personality shifts and he becomes a psychopath with anger issues. In one early scene having the MC slit a classmate's throat and then stab him in in the eye. While in jail, he gets the offer to become a major upcoming immersive MMO’s villain and he takes the offer. There he can do all the dark, evil things he wants to and all he has to worry about is not getting caught. It’s genuinely fun to read about the MC figure out just the right way to murder his way to his goals.
The story relies heavily on this evil storyline and does a good job explaining why you should root for the MC.
Overall, I like this novel. Though, I’ll admit game mechanics are decent and I’m not a huge fan of the power leveling of the MC. Still, this is a good novel. Plenty of dark action, some city building/conquering stuff, and PVP.
Score: 7 out of 10.