This book was pretty standard edgelord power fantasy (not inherently a bad thing). The mc got handed the power he needed to exact a modicum of revenge and that’s about it. With a little more fleshing out Riley would have made a better protagonist. MC was as one dimensional as the antagonist and neither showed and character growth or change, unless you count an ai manipulating brain function as character growth.
A lot of the dialog word choices were a little off, which is highlighted when listening. The narration sounds like the Grandpa from Troll 2, except for Jerry, that seems to work better than anything else. Along with dialog and word choice, the more often you use a words lessens the impact. Yes, every time the mc does something, “unholy light” this dark mana that. One last thing, if you’re going to say “trebuchet” 50 times, it helps to pronounce it correctly.