So, first off, this book is really good by most standards. The worldbuilding is good, the LitRPG elements are straightforward and are surprisingly interesting and unique, and the characters are believable. There is an interesting past-present storytelling gimmick, and to Kal’s credit it’s handled in a way that doesn’t break up the pacing or make the story hard to follow. Much of Ryun’s story is interesting and engaging, which is good as it makes up the vast majority of this book. Overall, great book.
The only problem I have is with the framing of the story. The summary combined with the first 4 hours of the book presented a intriguing revenge story between Zachary and Ryun. There was really good potential for a tale where Zachary was consumed by his hatred and commits worse and worse crimes in pursuit of the power to fight Ryun, and where Ryun, separated from all of the hate and pain of Earth, slowly regains his humanity and finds some form of redemption.
It was what I was expecting, and it could have been a really interesting story that explored redemption of even the most evil of people (Ryun’s arc), how justified the “lesser evil” truly is (Zach’s arc), and whether the ends justify the means (both their arcs). With a setting as solid as the one Kal provides in this book, I think this would have been a truly enthralling story had it taken that direction.
Unfortunately, as you must have guessed, that is not what happened. This fact is my main issue with this story, aside from (medium spoiler) the Melody/Eternal Hunt plot point. And while I am indeed salty that my headcanon got contradicted, I have actual reasons why the real story beats that occurred are less interesting than what I proposed above. (And it’s not just unfounded theory-crafting on my part, my headcanon is pretty much what anyone should have expected based on the first few chapters.)
So, instead of a balanced story with Zach as the unstable but noble hero and Ryun as the tragic but malevolent villain, we get a power fantasy story focused on Ryun’s own adventures while Zach is fully sidelined. While there is a pretty even past-present Ryun-Zach balance in the chapters early on, the story slowly shifts towards a mostly present-day Ryun focus as we get towards the middle (~10 hours in). I didn’t mind that shift for the most part, as Ryun’s chapters are quite interesting in the way that the world, magic system, and characters are explored, but eventually I couldn’t ignore the negative implications this change had on the quality of the story and had to put it down.
(Medium storybeat spoilers for the rest of the review)
So, there’s nothing wrong with putting focus on the antagonist, but fully sidelining present-day Zach after setting up how evil and dangerous Ryun is doesn’t make any sense, either character- or story-wise. Zach was set up to be Ryun’s counter, his nemesis both personally and tactically, the only person who understood how dangerous Ryun was and one of the few people that could seriously threaten him (i.e. Zach’s ability to seal away Ryun’s power). This was a wonderful setup, as it would allow Ryun to be a powerful and threatening villain while still allowing Zach to have a reasonable chance of defeating him. However, because of the way that the story focus was divided up, Ryun (who was already incredibly powerful) got to spend a ton of time power-leveling while Zach dicked around playing cop in the countryside.
Considering that the only reason Zachary stood a chance of prevailing against Ryun’s apocalyptic levels of power in the third chapter was because Ryun didn’t know about Zach’s sealing ability, and by giving Ryun the ability to continue growing his power while Zach stagnates means that the next time they fight, Zach will have no chance at all against Ryun. Ryun was already so much more powerful than Zach when they first entered the Internal Realm, and now that Ryun is aware of the threat Zach’s sealing ability poses and has even more power to bring to bear against Zach, Zach has literally no hope of winning.
This, in turn, means that the entire vengeance plot is functionally useless (because Zach will never be able to even threaten Ryun). Also, because of how much time is devoted to Ryun’s character growth while Ryun is separated from Zach, the vast majority of his redemption arc will likely end up being completed without input from the person who hates Ryun most (i.e. Zach), the person who Ryun hurt the most (Zach, the others are too dead to care), and the person who is closest to Ryun (still Zach). Seeing as Ryun is pretty much the sole POV character by hour 20, This pretty much severs all of Zach’s importance to the story and is a terrible decision on the author’s part.
Given that Zach has no further relevance to either the vengeance arc or the redemption arc, he essentially serves no other purpose in the story, and becomes nothing more than an old toothless enemy of Ryun. Even the author seems to have recognized this (in part), because after the first present-day section with Zach, Zach expresses only the most token interest in challenging and stopping Ryun. This means that Zach has, for all intents and purposes, abandoned the quest to destroy Ryun. This is despite the fact that the quest is UNILATERALLY necessary and good, given all the information we are provided (at least up to hour 20).
While it is true that Ryun had reasons for genociding the whole world, that doesn’t take away from the fact that he genocided THE WHOLE WORLD. Like, seriously, he is personally responsible for the deaths of at least a BILLION people and majorly responsible for the literal extinction of humanity (as he and Zach are the only survivors). Zach is the person who witnessed all of Ryun’s crimes and suffered immeasurably from Ryun’s actions, and the choice to make him give up on his quest in all but name is a truly horrible decision on the author’s part and is THE reason I am dropping this book.
While the premise was wonderful and all of the supporting elements were great, the way that Zach and Ryun’s dynamic fell apart and was discarded by the author (in all but name) was really disappointing to me. Also, (major spoiler) the fact that Ryun’s removed memories are more complex than “Melody died and it’s my fault” feels like overkill. Like, Kal, do you understand how devastating losing your loved ones is, just on it’s own? Did you really need to make it into “intertwined fates, irrevocably soul-bonded” magic nonsense? Love by itself was more than enough to cause all of the consequences Ryun suffers. Kinda undermines their relationship, to be honest.
Might be worth pointing out that I could tell that it was going to ruin Zach and Ryun’s dynamic all the way back from hour 8, and I still enjoyed the book up to hour 20. It is truly a good book by most standards, I’m just picky (and salty).
TL;DR Overall, the book is great, but it ruined a bunch of really good potential and I’m mad. Ryun steals way more of the spotlight than makes sense, which allows him to be even more OP, Zach’s nemesis potential is fully ignored, which further unbalances Ryun’s already OP build, and I mean FULLY ignored, which in turn ruins Zach’s character, and without their interesting and morally grey dynamic I have no interest in the power fantasy plot this book devolves into. Even then, it’s still good.