Fantasy meets horror in this gore-soaked, standalone LitRPG adventure!
It had seemed like a dream offer. Paint a mural. $15,000. How could Duke not jump at the chance?
But it came with a catch, as these things often do. He had to first see what his client wanted him to paint.
A private server. A digital playground. An alliance of the world’s most sadistic, most depraved minds. A place to bring their prey, to hone their skills.
Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon. Survival horror. One of the most brutal, most terrifying full-immersion games ever made. A place where fantasy characters such as elves and dwarves clash with technology, where giant monsters roam the hills, entrusted with protecting the gates of heaven from the demons who would tear it all down.
A game where one plays the last of the battlefield surgeons: a healer tasked with keeping the behemoths alive at all costs.
But on this server, they don’t care about the game. That’s not why they’re here. They’ve come because of the game’s most unique feature: Full pain. Realistic anatomy. The ability to bring their victims well beyond the body’s normal breaking point. And most importantly, the ability to bring them back and do it all over again.
Trapped in a bloody, merciless nightmare, Duke only has one goal. To survive. And in order to survive, he must play the game. He must win the game. And to do that, he must become the most cruel, most ruthless monster of them all.
My Opinion: 844 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
OMG, this is such a weird, dark, gory, mind messing story. There are some parts that feel like more normal XP grinding and quests. But there are other parts that just stand out as either weird, gory, or a messing with your mind. I was cool with the biological gore, where the main character was exploring the inside of the Kaiju, fighting gross parasites, or traveling through organs. Though that scene in the testicles was a bit much. Other scenes, like that one with the 50 points of amplification, was too graphic and I skipped over that part. On the other hand there were scenes that brought me to tears, they were so sad. And that end, what a weird disturbing twist. I cared and emphasized with the main character, even as I was appalled by some of the dark decisions he made. There are no heroes in this story, though there are heroic moments, just like there are terrible dark ones.
On the game mechanic side l, I was really happy. The idea of an RPG where your task is to help heal Kaiju monsters by killing their parasites and diseases is just cool. I really liked the game storyline and the themes of revenge, redemption, and desire for forgiveness where touching. Good stuff that kept the game quests interesting once they got tied together.
Overall, this novel isn't for everyone. It's weird, dark, sad, and sometimes gross. It's not for the squeamish. But it has some great pieces that stuck with me for hours after I'd finished reading.
Score: 8 out of 10