It was a day like any other when suddenly the world changed. The universe reached a threshold humanity didn’t even know existed, and it was time to finally be integrated into the vast multiverse. A place where power is the only thing anyone can truly rely on.

Zac was alone in the middle of the forest when the world changed... The whole planet was introduced to the multiverse by an unfeeling System... or God. A universe where an endless number of races and civilizations fought for power and dominion. Zac finds himself stuck in the wilderness surrounded by deadly beasts, demons, and worse. Alone, lost and without answers, he must find the means to survive and get stronger in this new cut-throat reality.

Fight, survive, adapt, and rely only on yourself. That is Derek’s creed and what's got him through the System Integration on Earth. Everything changed when the System came. Cute bunnies and beautiful butterflies became savage killing machines. Then the Invaders arrived with a single goal: to obtain ownership of this new habitable planet. War has raged ever since. None of this mattered much to Derek, aside from making living a little more perilous.

Skree loved playing Massively Multiplayer online role-playing games. When he becomes the first player to reach level 100 in his favorite game, he is offered the chance to test a brand new game. Never one to read the fine print, he jumped at the chance to be the very first player to see the brand new game. But some opportunities are just too good to be true. Awaking to find himself trapped in a brand new world and struggling to survive, James must find a way to master the game and escape the world of Raiya.

Deep within Heroes of Mythian, a game world where retirees exchange their physical bodies for an eternity of adventure, Howard learns a terrible secret: The game is glitched, and it’s killing its mightiest players forever. Desperate to save his friends and countless innocents, he hatches a plan to fix things. Doing so will require skill, determination, and help from a number of unlikely heroes along the way.

Silas is inducted into the System, becoming the last in a long line of Earth's "forerunners." The rewards are great, but the danger is greater. We are not alone in the universe. The fate of five worlds hangs on how their forerunners perform. Will Silas have what it takes to win Earth a place in the multiverse? Or will Earth become another mining world stripped of all resources and left a barren husk floating in the cosmos?

For Daniel, a zombie apocalypse couldn’t have happened at a worse time. If he’d been back at the farm, he might have stood a better chance than most. Instead, Daniel woke up in a distant hotel room armed with nothing but a hangover.

Larek Holsten is different from most people living in the Kingdom of Androthe, where his seven-foot-tall frame is looked at with suspicion and anger from its shorter residents; but as long as it helps him become the best Logger he can be, he doesn’t let it bother him all that much. He and his best friend, an axe with a powerful Fusion that causes it to become sharper and stronger than a normal tool, are feared by the trees in the magical forest north of his home, as he can fell the quickly growing monoliths faster than anyone else in the community.

Surviving the first days of the apocalypse, William is a wreck and hiding in an attic. The daily acid storms, floating elementals, and bizarre mutated animals are the least of his problems. The reality-warping apocalypse has rules and a system much like those in video games. To survive, he must learn how the new uncooperative system works, choose a class without any real knowledge of what it does and create a place safe from the spawning horrors.

Marc's home from college on break, spending his time laughing about some of the crazy news stories he's found online, and gaming. When a message appears in his line of sight, blocking out absolutely everything else, he nearly freaks out. The message warns that the world has been in a variant Natural Laws beta test for millennia and that it's about to revert to the norms.

An AI calling itself Schema has assimilated Earth into its System. As a consequence, everyone gained access to status screens, power-ups, and skills. This AI turned these concepts from fiction to fact. It's easy to become intoxicated with leveling up and becoming stronger. To some, it's too good to be true, like living out a dream. For Daniel, however, it's closer to a nightmare.

He thought it was the end, and his gun sat ready to make sure. But an oddball offer from his last friend comes at the literal last second. Curiosity gets the best of him, and he finds himself sucked into iNcarn8, a game claiming to be a whole new life. Now, as Montana, the larger-than-life tank warrior, he has one more last time to get his life right.

Jason and his friends just wanted to spend a week at the lake house. Time to relax, hang out, and catch up on old times. Then the System arrived. It only took a few hours for their world to become a real-life roleplaying game; trading some downtime for the need to learn new skills and powers while trying to defend their new home, their families, and survive. They don’t know the rules. They don’t know what’s coming next. What they do know is; they need to reinforce and expand their fort while protecting it, keep leveling up, and explore a dangerous new world.

Because about four weeks ago, the world simply turned. One day we had iPhones and GoPros, Mickey Mouse and hamburgers. The next day we had magic and monsters. And us humans? We became players with levels, items, and classes. Pretty ironic considering how many times my parents told me to “quit gaming and experience real life” while I was growing up. And then real life grabbed us by the balls, and it was the gamers who were prepared.

After the collapse of the known world, Rowan Wilder opened his eyes and found himself on the first floor of the Tower. With a flawless memory and a mere eight cards to his name, he must venture out and prepare himself for the coming calamity.

Welcome to the challenge. You're an absolute nobody here—nothing, a zero, a useless lump of meat filled with bones. You're but a delicious morsel for your antagonists and those who got lucky at the start. The only goal you can have in your miserable existence is to kick the bucket as soon as possible.

Jarl Beckström dreams of one day becoming a great warrior. Sadly, he had the misfortune of being lowborn-classless, unable to level up. He lives the mundane life of a poor mud-farmer, subjected to the whims of the infamous battleborn and the magical fireborn. But legend says that deeds of great courage can change a person's class. When the Clan Lord's son unexpectedly disappears, Jarl sees an opportunity to prove himself a hero and rise above the lowly station of his birth. He goes against the traditions of his people to seek his destiny...and possibly even his death.

The year is 2245, and the world has undergone explosive growth in multiple industries. The age of Virtual Reality came long ago, opening up new fields for people to enjoy and seek employment. There were even those that chose to sacrifice their physical bodies, becoming digital existences that lived within Internet communities. But with the age of VR, everyone still dreamed of that next step, the next level of adventure.

As a 10-year-old orphan, all Wick ever wanted was money, power, and well, what else was there? Enough is never enough. His father's death left him only with a glass amulet, his trusty spade, and two level one skills. Six months in the backwater city of Outlast, Wick has finally decided to make his move for a brighter future. It may cost him the beating of his life, but he lives by the Sprawler's Code: The strong live long, but the bold get the gold. Follow Wick on the beginning of his new life as he explores new powers and manipulates anyone foolish enough to get in his way.

Axel Nal is out of luck and out of time. He has failed every single induction ceremony and it is his last chance to Exceed to a higher class. At his wit's end, he desperately tries one last time at Exceeding, putting all his chips on the table...except something was different this time. Time freezing, a mysterious voice, and a new Exceed Mark? Had lady luck finally given him a boon? Had he received a class the world had never seen before? One thing is for sure, he's changed. And now he has something called...the Gambler's System.

Will refused to admit to the HR lady at Radical Interactive that he'd never played their debut virtual reality MMORPG The Realm. With the company's failed attempt at entering the gaming industry, they switched their sights to focus on smaller scale educational programs. Being a beta tester for Radical Interactive was not the dream job that Will had envisioned, but he had hoped it would get his foot in the door to one day becoming a graphic designer for the company. He never realized that he was literally signing his life away.

And so it begins.... In the United States, the Department of Defense and the NSA computer networks have been hacked. A nuclear-armed CIA drone has lost all flight control. North Korea...Iran...Russia...and soon the gates of Hell will open. Humanity's most terrifying nightmare has become reality. Bombs are detonated, missiles are launched, counterstrikes are ordered, and within minutes, untold thousands of megatons have left countless millions dead or dying. Devastation of biblical proportions has fallen over the land...and the USA has been hit the hardest.

Betrayed by those closest to him, Viktor's soul couldn't move on for decades. Pitied by one of the Gods, he was given the chance to participate in the next round of bets between the gods. It was an eternally violent game known as Towers and Rifts. The world he found himself in was nothing like the one he'd spent centuries cultivating and becoming stronger. He was right back at the bottom along with everyone else but for the knowledge he retained.

Last I remember I was saving my high school crush from the path of an oncoming truck. Now I'm a skin-and-bones weakling wearing nothing but my hospital gown. Oh yeah, the world is also full of monsters, and I'm the only human left. It turns out a godlike System evacuated humanity but decided to leave the vegetable in the bed. I could crawl into a corner and wait to get eaten by a kobold, but after years of being asleep, I have a new appreciation for feeling alive. I'll have to find the tenacity to survive, the courage to fight, and the strength to face some dark truths about myself.

Arktania is a virtual game with a steampunk style. It's a place where magic spells, enchanted artifacts, steam-powered machines, firearms, and mechanical golems are a part of everyday life. Gamer Andrew Falk begins his journey in a small village on the border of Orcish territory. The locals are the keepers of many secrets, but their behavior is too realistic for characters in a game; so realistic, in fact, that Andrew starts to treat them as if they were real people.

Some people just knew how to go out in style. Tim had never been one of those guys. Tim was always a planner. The plan was to get into college, graduate, and find a well-paying job. That plan was coming together nicely until he saw a presentation to get paid to play The Etheric Coast. At his graduation ceremony. After watching the company's employee recruitment video, Big Richie's words had a whole new meaning. He could spend his life going from a cubicle at work to a one-bedroom apartment and back again...or enter a virtual world of unlimited possibilities.

After container ships carrying black-market nuclear bombs are detonated in American port cities, millions are killed and the country is thrown into panic. In Greenwood, Nebraska, Paul Edwards learns about the devastating terrorist attacks on the news. As the power grid goes down, his fear is magnified by the knowledge that his wife and daughter are a thousand miles away in Atlanta. When his prepper father-in-law, Buck, insists on being part of the rescue, things go from bad to worse. Paul and Buck have hated each other for years.

Skree loved playing Massively Multiplayer online role-playing games. When he becomes the first player to reach level 100 in his favorite game, he is offered the chance to test a brand new game. Never one to read the fine print, he jumped at the chance to be the very first player to see the brand new game. But some opportunities are just too good to be true. Awaking to find himself trapped in a brand new world and struggling to survive, James must find a way to master the game and escape the world of Raiya.

There are whole anthologies of stories out there about what humankind does when a game enters their world. But what about when they're living in one where a game arrived thousands of years before? What if they're the survivors of a bloody struggle, having fought for and earned their place on the planet? Tailyn Vlashich was a young nobody far away from all those grander issues. All he cared about was one thing: making his way through a harsh world where the emperor, evil foes, and an impartial god held sway.

You don't always get a second chance...unless you're a pawn for an eldritch horror that: A) can bend time, and B) is a sore loser. Justin Thyme is not a good man, nor one destined for glory. He was meant to die in obscurity, yet another level 82 Templar that was just about to get chewed up by a horde of skittering monstrosities clawing at humanity's last enclave. One short conversation with a time-splitting monstrosity later, and Justin finds himself flung five years into the past-right when the Earth was first chosen to host the 9,947th Gladiatorial Games.