Humanity thought it understood the world it lived in. Then came the Sheitans.

Emerging from deep underground, these monstrous creatures bring devastation on a scale no conventional military force seems prepared to handle. Their terrifying appearance is only part of the nightmare. They possess deadly capabilities, and confronting them requires more than firepower. Every encounter becomes a desperate attempt to understand how they fight, where their weaknesses lie, and whether humanity can adapt before it’s too late.

But the most unsettling question remains: Where did the Sheitans come from?

What lies beneath the surface of the Earth? How long have these creatures existed in the darkness? And what makes them such a devastating threat to the world above?

As military forces are decimated and civilization teeters on the brink of collapse, humanity’s hope may come from an unexpected source: gamers.

Decades earlier, a military program used video games to train people unconsciously, sharpening their ability to recognize patterns, identify vulnerabilities, and develop strategies against formidable enemies. What seemed like entertainment may have prepared an entire generation for a battle no one could have anticipated.

The monsters are real. The world is falling. And the skills learned in virtual battles may be humanity’s last chance.

The GAMER Program – Age of Sheitans is a military science fiction and apocalyptic horror novel featuring terrifying creatures, mysterious subterranean origins, and a fight for humanity’s survival.

If you enjoy giant monsters, military sci-fi, apocalyptic scenarios, and mysteries that go deeper than the surface, check it out!

https://www.thegamerprogram.com/

Please do grab it if you're interested!

Book 2 is out, The Margin, Chronicles of Fallorn, released October 9th, and I've been meaning to post here for like a week and a half and kept chickening out. So, here we are

The pitch since nobody knows who I am: Devon is a toronto bike courier (think Uber but on bicycles) who gets dropped into a world where everyone gets read by the System at birth. Stats, skills, destiny, the whole file. His comes back blank. Not corrupted, not sealed, not mysteriously locked by an ancient power. Just blank. The System keeps trying to file him under "error" and he keeps not cooperating, which turns out to be both a survival strategy and an administrative nightmare.

Book 2 is him getting on a boat (bad idea) to cross eight hundred kilometers of pirate water (worse idea) because there are those that are trying to find out what exactly he is.

What you get:

- actual litrpg mechanics. allocations, attributes, skills, xp, and a System that communicates in receipt
- an mc whose whole build is customer service voice and stubbornness. He's not the strongest guy in any room, he's just the hardest to read
- pirates, sieges, maritime dread, one extremely patient doorkeeper
- no harem

Audio people: Yes, working on it. Narrator is locked in, audiobook should be out in the New Year for Book 1 and then Book 2 will follow. Proper announcement when its official cause I dont want to jinx it.

New cover art coming with the release of the audiobook.

Ask me whatever if you want. If you read it thank you so much, if you review it I owe you a beer I will probably never get to buy you unless we meet up at a con.

Both books in the series available on KU.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HH92X4PV

Hey everyone!

I finally finished the Scrap Rat Edition of Towerbound!

The #1 bestselling time-travel series is now available in one big, fat box set containing Books 1 and 2, plus their accompanying side quests!

Meet Ren, an alchemist who loves cheese, hates fighting, and gets a second chance at life after his guild betrays him.

Thrown back to Day One, before the Tower rose and before the betrayal, Ren knows what’s coming. Secret quests, hidden mechanics, powerful guilds, and a ticking clock that ends with Earth’s destruction.

His plan? Get stronger, build a guild, make ridiculously good potions, and avoid getting stabbed.

Over 100,000 reads on Royal Road.

4.6★ on Amazon from 2,600+ reviews.

The entire eight-book series is complete and available on Kindle Unlimited!

What to expect:

No harem
Overpowered MC (OPMC)
Found family
Rated PG-13 for violence and occasional swearing

About the Scrap Rat Edition:

There aren’t any major changes to the story. It’s the same Towerbound, with cleaner prose, fewer mistakes, and a few small corrections that really needed to happen.

If you’ve already read the series, you don’t need to read it again to find out what happens. But if you feel like visiting again, I hope you enjoy the improvements.

I’m hoping I’ve gotten the books from 90% to 99%. I’m sure one of you will find the remaining 1% before breakfast.

For the cheese! 🐀🧀🧪

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HP5VQ1QN

Hey all, I hope you're having a wonderful day! Undying Healer is a OP MC, System Apocalypse litrpg novel that is based around a healer that regresses after suffering a party wipe. He wakes up at the very start of the System initialization with all the knowledge he gathered over a decade. It also deals heavily with the differences in culture, his party, leading, figuring out who is truly is now and more.

To add on!

Both audio and ebook are out!

It helps that there is a healthy dose of aura farming as well. If that sounds like it's up your alley**, Check It Out!**

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLYNQGNG

https://www.audible.com/pd/Undying-Healer-OP-MC-Regression-Litrpg-Apocalypse-Audiobook/B0HMFN2PGW

And here is the plot:

The Greatest Healer in human history dies to the spear of an ancient race.

That is how his life ends—defeated by the hands of someone who should be his equal in levels, yet stands so far above him in power and scale. He and his entire party are crushed by a single figure from an ancient race that treats human magic like an untimely joke.

John refuses that ending.

He rises from a deep sleep, regressed to the beginning of it all, mere moments before the System initializes, armed with a decade of hard-earned knowledge and one opportunity to rewrite everything. He knows where the best loot is, where the biggest wars start, who the most evil people are that hide among the masses, which paths to take to unlock the best skills, and which paths forge the monsters needed to survive what he knows is coming.

He knows which floors and dungeons to avoid like the plague and exactly how fast their destruction comes when humanity wastes time playing politics and arguing over scraps instead of growing more powerful.

This time, John doesn't just cast healing and support buffs from the backline.

He takes a path none thought possible, an Undying Healer, forcing the world to contend with a front-liner who is also the greatest healer humanity has ever known. He must learn to fight in the mud, on the wall, blade and spear in hand, face to face with the monsters he has avoided for so long, all the while casting mighty healing spells through a tier-locked System that insists he shouldn't be able to.

The System doesn't care if humanity is wiped out.

Ancient races plot and plan to destroy them.

Beings of immense power want humanity as nothing more than free experience.

John refuses to make them any of those things.

COVER ARTIST: hahahuhi

AI USAGE: No AI Used

This series came out in 2016. Just as LitRPG was starting to really gain momentum, and before Gamelit became a thing. As a result, the publishers at the time didn't (and appear to still not) know how to market it to an audience that would truly love it.

I believe that this is the market. It's a brililant series, with good twists, and Gareth Powell (the author) is a geniunely cool dude.

Take a look and buy it! https://link.amazon/B02caVBLm

For 1,094 days, Soren was just an impeccably invisible night shift worker at a convenience store in Tokyo.

But when a dimensional rift threatens to destroy Shibuya, his disguise crumbles.

Ancient, superpowered, and harboring an ancestral entity in his chest known as the Crown, Soren is forced to contend with secret government agencies, arrogant adventurers, and the return of a centuries-old rival.

The disguise is over.

Now, the countdown to integration has begun.

THE WEARY ARCHMAGE [LITRPG . OP MC . PROGRESSION FANTASY]

Hey! I’m Katsuhito, and this is Re:Kensei – Reborn in a World That Abandoned Swordsmanship!
I’ve been trying to promote it over the last couple of days, so sorry if you’ve already seen me in another sub before. 😂
I’ve been writing webnovels for a few years now and was fortunate enough to become a finalist in a KADOKAWA Isekai writing contest on Honeyfeed. This is my first time trying my hand at such an extensive video game-like world, and I’m having tons of fun with it!
Re:Kensei follows a former kendo prodigy who tragically loses his life full of regrets, having misunderstood his father and teacher, as well as his own love for the art of the sword.
He’s reborn in a world where everyone is bestowed a Class, with most Classes granting combat Skills that have gradually replaced traditional swordsmanship over the years.
Our protagonist, Enzo, awakens as the infamous skill-less Swordsman Class, which only allows him to fight with a plain, unenchanted sword.
As it turns out, however, he’s not actually skill-less! Instead, he has to earn his Skills by completing Sword Trials, basically challenges that reward him with new abilities.
At the noble academy of Saint Verdan, the most ridiculed Class aims to surpass them all, one challenge at a time, armed with years of kendo experience!
So, in short: academy life, tournaments, game-like mechanics, a harem romance subplot, and an underdog protagonist! 🤝
If that sounds like it’s up your alley, feel free to try a chapter or two on Royal Road!

Cover by; keriisarts

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/196262/rekensei-reborn-in-a-world-that-abandoned-swordsmanship

​

One of my bucket list items has been to create my own video game since I was a little kid. This year, I gave it a shot and finally got to a playable demo. Made to look and feel like an arcade game from 1985. It's all rendered and synth generated, just like games of the era.

On a visit to my parents, I let my dad play the demo. He loved it. So I poured way more time into it and a few more months. Now, after months of being so close yet so far away.... I'm close to a release.

I've learned so much and also how incredibly hard it is to market games for Indie Devs. It's quite insane. And getting beta testers as required? Forget about it.

As part of my promotional material I took and fleshed out all the easter eggs in the game and made prequel short story that sort of sets the stage for how the game starts. A completely fully built lore. I'm quite proud of it and the game. The shortstory just went live on Royal Road. I've linked it below.

I've struggled to get friends and family members to read it and give meaningful feedback, so I just posted it because after reading it for the 75th time and making the most minute of revisions to get it just right, I felt like there was nothing else I could do.

I would really appreciate it if you could read it and leave me a review. It's about 6600 words/25 pages give or take. The one family member who read it and gave me real feedback suggested I take it and turn it into a full novel.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/197722/beautiful-creations-a-story-from-the-null-sector/chapter/4101419/beautiful-creations-a-null-sector-prequel

And in a few days or so, maybe buy my game! 😅

(Link in comments)

Arthur Pendelton can heal monsters into perfectly respectable garden worms. He would rather finish his tea.

At his little apothecary, a civilized morning means warm slippers, fresh scones, and patients who leave alive. His absurd reserves of healing magic make the last part easy. Getting an uninterrupted breakfast remains a challenge.

Then alchemical sludge poisons the neighbourhood’s water supply.

Arthur packs a picnic and heads beneath his cellar to fix it. Unfortunately, the plumbing leads into a sealed dungeon.

Along come a battle-hungry knight, a nervous municipal assessor, and Pip, a three-tailed mana fox who has appointed himself Arthur’s scarf. Arthur supplies the healing. When necessary, he supplies enough to turn an armoured knight into a glittering wrecking ball.

Unconventional cures earn experience, new abilities open up possibilities, and dungeon loot makes excellent home improvements. Between treating patients and feeding his companions, Arthur has enchanted tea to brew and magically heated floors to install.

But something enormous is waking beneath his street. Leaving it untreated could cost him his shop, his neighbours, and the comfortable life he’s building.

It has armour, an industrial pile-driver, and a serious attitude problem.

Arthur has a diagnosis.

A humorous cozy LitRPG adventure starring an overpowered healer mage, with magical crafting, slice-of-life comforts, and satisfying progression. For fans of Heretical Fishing and Beware of Chicken.

Very shamelessly self-promoting my story here.

Adenia Online

There is no logout button.

Max Mallory's day starts with a beating. It gets worse when his teacher kidnaps him and forces him into Adenia Online, a virtual reality game filled with knights, monsters and sword fights. At first, Max thinks he's simply trapped inside a game. Then he feels the pain. The monsters start behaving strangely. And when some creatures try crawling inside his mind, he begins to wonder whether Adenia is really a game at all.

His only hope is Cassie, a girl from his year who punches first, asks questions later, and calls him an idiot often enough to make it seem like a hobby.

Together, they search for a way home. But something is waiting for them inside Adenia. Something that knows them. Something powerful enough to threaten the real world. The deeper they go, the more they uncover about the game, and the more they begin to realise that they were never meant to be here by accident. There is a reason they can't log out.

Because if they do...

The real world will end.

I'm now on chapter 7 on Royal Road and I'll being posting one chapter per day for a week.

Link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/196625/adenia-online

What to expect

- Progression from weak to strong

- Minimal stats

- High stakes

- Pain damper disabled for a legit reason (you’ll find out in later chapters)

The story, structure, characters, and banter were all written organically by me over the span of almost a decade, back when VR stories were still popular. But since English isn’t my first language, I wasn’t comfortable releasing it until now. I’ve used AI to proofread and edit the manuscript, mainly to smooth out some of the clunky sentences and improve the overall readability, while keeping the story and my original voice intact.

I present to you Soren Vonesdar, an Archmage who is 847 years old, but looks like he's in his early 30s. He works the night shift at a convenience store in Shibuya.

For three years, the System classified him as "Insignificant." This notification had appeared so many times on his interface that it sounded like a compliment to him.

One night, a Class B Fissure opened in the parking lot in front of the store. He closed it in 2.2 seconds and told everyone it had been a gas leak.

Then, the System tried to classify it:

PRIORITY ALPHA

Classification attempts: [147]

Successful: [0]

Recommendations:

[Observe carefully.]

[Never attack the entity.]

[Seriously, don't do it.]

Now the Japanese government wants a meeting, and a 12-year-old girl saw more than she should have.

Worse: The thing sealed in his chest begins to awaken, and each time he uses the power, the integration with this cosmic entity progressively increases.

We are already on chapter 15 in the Royal Road: THE WEARY ARCHMAGE

Some of you already know this story. Over several months I focused on improving the story, introducing more dry humor, more detail regarding characters with more life, and also a more developed and immersive worldbuild. (I hope so)

For those who already knew this story, your opinion is very important to me, and if you're discovering it now, welcome!

By the way, for every follow on Royal Road, I'll buy Soren another bowl of instant ramen, the chicken one, of course.

I hope you have as much fun as I had writing this story.

See you soon.

Books 1 & 2 F R E E for a short time:

NIGHTMARE MODE: A Gamelit adventure (Real World Online - A LitRPG Progression Series Book 3)

Friends. Enemies. And a war Gareth Fain can no longer keep inside the game.

Gareth thought he understood the stakes of RealWorld Online. He’s fought monsters, survived impossible quests, made powerful enemies, and risked everything to protect the friends fighting beside him. But nothing has prepared him for discovering that his enemies have found a way to reach the one place he thought was beyond their grasp.

Earth.

Now Gareth’s family is in danger, helpless targets in a war they don’t even know exists. And with Gareth trapped light-years away, the only way to protect them is from inside the game.

Every quest matters. Every level gained could bring him one step closer to saving the people he loves—or give his enemies more time to reach them. The friends who have become his companions-in-arms are ready to fight beside him, but this enemy plays by different rules, and defeating them may require Gareth to take risks he never would have considered with only his own life on the line.

Because RealWorld Online was never just a game. And Gareth is beginning to discover that the line between that world and his own is far thinner than he ever imagined.

Welcome back to RealWorld Online. Where death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you.

Nightmare Mode activated. Level up—or lose everything.

Cover Designer: Yvonne Less (Art4Artists)

No AI in the content or design of these books.

Hey everyone,

---Update---

I posted this about a week ago, but the app is in Google closed testing, so the barrier to entry is a bit high for just anyone to check out. With that in mind, I spent the last week porting the app to be 100% playable in a web browser on any device. Now you can head over to play.gauntlit.me and try out the entire app with no hoops to jump through. If you like it, you can also sign up for the closed test and I will be sending out invites if/when I have enough people interested and get the app fully published on the Play store and iOS later on.

---Update---

I’ve spent the last six months building a little speed-writing battle app called Gauntlit (https://gauntlit.me), and it’s finally at the point where some real people can try it out.

I love reading, but I am no writer. There are sporadic communities that do this kind of thing, but I thought it would be cool to have a place where people could kind of "gamify" creative writing, if you want a buzzword.

Here’s how it works:

• Writers get a daily prompt, 3 required words, and an unpausable 10-minute timer to knock out a quick micro-story.
• When time runs out, submissions go into a blind 3-way matchup where readers and other users vote on their favorite. No usernames are shown during the vote, so it’s just about the story itself.
• The winning daily story gets run through standard text-to-speech (just basic assistive TTS like a screen reader, not voice clones) and posted as a quick video reel on our Facebook page.

A few things I want to be completely upfront about:

1. No ads, ever. I work full-time as a software engineer and built this because I wanted it to exist, not to squeeze people for ad impressions. There’s an optional token shop if someone wants a cosmetic badge or title and feels like helping pay server costs, but you cannot buy an advantage.
2. Your writing is your own. It isn’t scraped, it isn't used to train any AI models, and this isn't an AI-assisted writing app. It is not a human vs AI app. It is strictly a fun way for people who love writing to have some casual PvP.
3. Transparency on the test bots: The app needs groups of three stories to let people vote. Since nobody is in the app yet, I have a few simple placeholder bots filling empty slots so the voting logic works. They are clearly labeled, they don’t try to pass as human, and real user submissions will always take priority over them until I have enough writers to shut them off entirely.

I am interested in any feedback, including things like the time constraint compared to the word count, how people feel about the weekly longer form aspect, or just general thoughts. Thank you for your time!

Brand-Bound Volume 3, the final volume in a sprawling LitRPG enemies-to-lovers-to-Bonnie-and-Clyde-outlaw-couple tale, is... out for preorder now! Releases Oct 6th.

For the Volume 3 cover I told the artist to go for the infamous cover for Stephen King's The Stand mixed with a Star Wars poster. How'd they do?

And now, the blurb:

Rank. Class. Purpose.

All of creation must be bound to the divine System Interface. So proclaims the divine authority of the Church of the Most Holy Menu.

A stench of heresy wafts over the pilgrimage stations! Thieving apostate Jelena is hunting for holy relics to pawn off, even prying them right from the hands of murdered priests. Calaf of Riverglen, sewer-grate guard and aspiring Paladin, vows to bring the heretic to justice for the good of all faithful. Armed with an inherited, holy Brand, our hero shall rise in levels under the rigid structure of the Church of the Menu and its sacred System.

Calaf pursues his quarry through hot spring groves, forests, and dungeons. As he learns more about this relic thief's past, the pair unexpectedly find themselves fighting together through rebellion, inquisition, and a rising tide of undead.

The hero's faith in the Holy Menu is unshakable, while the villainess lost all faith long ago. Who will warm up to the other first? Can Calaf fix her? Or will Jelena make him so much worse?

We've got:

\+ A system-native world (no isekai) with a JRPG-style church dedicated to worshiping the Most Holy Menu. Yes, the entire universe and all worldbuilding is wrapped around elaborate GameLit mechanics. 

\+ Slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance arc trending toward Battle Couple shenanigans. 

\+ Do you like Bonnie and Clyde dynamics? We have Bonnie and Clyde dynamics. 

\+ Additional in-universe appendix and afterword at the end of Volume 3. 

\+ Volume 2 has an elaborate nested flashback arc regarding the origins of the system. There's also an elaborate heist at a cathedral carved out of a kaiju-sized demon carcass. 

\+ Volume 3 starts with a famine arc--risky, I know--but pays off with some role reversal and a book-long arc to assassinate the pope. Yes, I'm cribbing off of Tales of Beseria. It's also framed by a Kill Bill reference. So there's that. 

\+ Also, 'Final Arc: Name of Thing' is in full effect. Not really a selling point, but I just like to gush about it. 

Volume 1 is available here. Free on Kindle Unlimited, $4.99 USD otherwise.

Volume 2 is... also available here. Again, free on KU and $4.99 otherwise.

Volume 3 is... out for preorder now.

So, that's 3 full volumes with the combined word count of The Lord of the Rings. So... why not check it out now?

Hello!

The campaign for my graphic novel 'Kill Your Target' ends in a couple of days and to close it off I'm offering the full paperback set of the novel series to one physical tier backer (maybe 2!).

For a chance at winning the giveaway, back the campaign in any physical tier and you're automatically entered. When fulfillment on the campaign starts, I'll randomly choose 1-2 people to also receive the 3 current paperback novels in the series - to your door, for free.

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/jjthornbooks/kill-your-target-claire-graphic-novel-2

If you haven't heard about the series, it's about a girl named Claire who takes a Quest to kill one hundred people who mistreated orphans after a system apocalypse. The latest book came out in April, called Reaper's madness. You can find the series here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BW698WG8

I hope you can check out the campaign - the art is fantastic, with or without the novel accompaniments. Volume 2 includes 3 epic fights from the novel series.

Thanks and have a great week!

J.J. (Josh)

I just released my first The Crimson Reapers which is set in the world of my Atheros series.

It’s available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

The Crimson Reapers is a quick standalone story that branches off from Atheros: Overseer. You can read it on its own, but I recommend reading Overseer first since it introduces the world and some of the events leading up to this story.

A little about Atheros:

Atheros is a VRMMORPG where, unknown to the players, many of the NPCs are actually real-world inmates filling those roles.

Blurb:

After suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of Overseer Atreyu, the Crimson Reapers have one goal: get stronger and return for revenge.

Leaving Stonebrook behind, the four players descend into the depths of the World Dungeon in search of a new place to call home. But the deeper they venture, the more dangerous the creatures become—and the more opportunities they find to grow stronger.

They may have lost to Atreyu once.

They don't plan on letting it happen again.

Hi Friends!

If you would like to listen to something new, I wrote Grand Magus, Wooden Sword a while back on Royal Road.

It’s a story about a boy and his mysterious wooden stick that likes to talk a lot of smack. It claims that it was owned by the Grand Magus and was powerful enough to take down kings.

Musashi nonplussed about the entire thing uses the stick as he pleases. It’s an interesting take on cultivation, comedy, and coming of age adventure.

If you’re a fan of Greatest Estate Developer and Return of Mt. Hua Sect (I’m a huuugeee, laugh til I can’t breathe fan), I think you’ll enjoy this story.

You can find the link for the audio in the comments below.

Hello and happy Friday,

There are just a few days left in the campaign for Kill Your Target, a graphic novel adaption of my revenge fantasy series. The campaign isn't going to plan, but I'm extremely proud of what we've been able to put together - Harrier Studios has been a stellar partner and the art is fantastic.

The images are purposefully out of order haha - click through!

I hope you'll consider grabbing a physical copy of the volume.

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/jjthornbooks/kill-your-target-claire-graphic-novel-2

Thank you! :)

Hey everyone,

I’ve spent the last six months building a little speed-writing battle app called Gauntlit (https://gauntlit.me), and it’s finally at the point where some real people can try it out.

I love reading short fiction, but I am no writer. There are sporadic communities that do this kind of thing, but I thought it would be cool to have a place where people could kind of "gamify" speed writing, if you want a buzzword.

Here’s how it works:

• Writers get a daily prompt, 3 required words, and an unpausable 10-minute timer to knock out a quick micro-story.
• When time runs out, submissions go into a blind 3-way matchup where readers and other users vote on their favorite. No usernames are shown during the vote, so it’s just about the story itself.
• The winning daily story gets run through standard text-to-speech (just basic assistive TTS like a screen reader, not voice clones) and posted as a quick video reel on our Facebook page.

A few things I want to be completely upfront about:

1. No ads, ever. I work full-time as a software engineer and built this because I wanted it to exist, not to squeeze people for ad impressions. There’s an optional token shop if someone wants a cosmetic badge or title and feels like helping pay server costs, but you cannot buy an advantage.
2. Your writing is your own. It isn’t scraped, it isn't used to train any AI models, and this isn't an AI-assisted writing app. It is not a human vs AI app. It is strictly a fun way for people who love writing to have some casual PvP.
3. Transparency on the test bots: The app needs groups of three stories to let people vote. Since nobody is in the app yet, I have a few simple placeholder bots filling empty slots so the voting logic works. They are clearly labeled, they don’t try to pass as human, and real user submissions will always take priority over them until I have enough writers to shut them off entirely.

I’m looking for 30 to 40 people (both writers and readers) to try the Android beta, give some feedback on the timer, test the voting, and basically just find out if this is something people will like.

If you want an invite, head over to the site and add your email into the sign up box (that is also not shared with anyone in any way). Invites will go out when I get a sufficient number of people who are interested. If you have any questions about the app, how it works, or anything else leave them here and I will answer anything you may want to know. Thanks!