Harris and his son Leo completed an epic journey to return to civilization after the cataclysm imposed game-like rules on Earth.
But their quest is still just beginning.
Harris has to find his wife Jenny while saving the townspeople from a mysterious pox afflicting them and turning them into mutant monster NPCs. If they catch the plague themselves, their journey could come to an abrupt end, so they will need to level up and gear up to meet the challenge.
To make matters worse, portals are opening around the Earth and otherworldly monsters are appearing randomly to cause havoc, but the real danger are the otherworldly players who come through the portal to hunt…
It was an OK read and I like the writing style. I is not easy to write a book so the author deserves praise for the effort.
The characters are consistent but the setting is getting darker and the action is getting more forced. The main character group has little to no agency and are basically railroaded through the book. The plot is non-existing in that it is just "survive" and grow stronger. Most of the worlds people act like NPCs and don't seem to be forced into dangerous situations.
Here is why I rated it 3 stars. It is kind of tiring to read about how they struggle against enemies above their level and then do the same against enemies at their level. The plot is coming across as a never ending series of unbelievable fights where the main characters are continually pitted against enemies at a much higher level and plot armor keeps saving them. There is no "end game" in sight which means that the overreaching plot for the "Arena" is for them to just fight higher and higher level enemies until they die then move on to the next set of main characters. I'm not sure why I need to keep reading the story. There is nothing special or different bout the characters that make the reader want to know more or need to continue. I am am sure there will be ratings higher and lower than mine and for this book, I think giving it a try is a good choice if you liked the first one.
The family is reunited amidst an action scene. I was expecting new developments, but I was still surprised by Jennie. Still enjoying the family relationships in this series.
I don't want to give any spoilers, but there's a new wrinkle added to the System's progression, and it was unexpected. I liked the new characters, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens in the next book.
One thing, the action/fight scenes happened one right after the other, with little room for rest or for the character to catch their breath. It got a tiny bit tiring.