To do list for the post apocalypse:

1. Survive the orcs rampaging through your city.

2. Survive the pod trying to steal your mind.

3. Pull off the greatest heist of all time.

It still amazed Eric how much the world’s end mirrored the movie his obsessed mother had put into production… set to release just three days after the Apocalypse.

Only problem was, in the real world there were no chosen ones destined to fight the beast hordes now slaughtering countless millions in every major city on Earth.

But humanity wasn’t entirely helpless.

You really could level up in this brave new world, and embrace magic, peril, and limitless power!

So long as you didn’t mind a 90% mortality rate in alien vegetative pods as happy to turn you into topsoil as give you any shot at mastering a System designed to benefit elite invaders. Not fragile humans just trying to survive.

But Eric was all about beating the odds…

Even if it killed him.

Author's Note - This story is for anyone who enjoys visceral combat scenes and slow-rise-to-power story arcs!