Apocalypse Mode - Initiate

By Damian Peterson

The update wasn't a feature. It was a purge.

Jax is Unit 7734. In the real world, he's a nobody living in a debt-stack. In "The Realm," the hyper-immersive VR simulation where humanity works and plays, he's a bartender grinding for credits he'll never pay off. It's a life of low-poly misery, but it's stable.

Until the sky cracks open.

A sudden system-wide event labeled Apocalypse Mode] locks every user inside the simulation. Logout is disabled. The physics engine is crumbling. And the streets are flooding with high-level undead.

But the zombies are the least of Jax's problems.

The "Admin Knights"-invincible moderators clad in liquid chrome-have descended from the cloud. They aren't here to save the players. They are here to sanitize the server. To them, the poor, the indebted, and the weak are just "corrupted data" to be deleted.

When Jax discovers that the system crash is actually a cover-up for a horrific corporate harvest targeting his own family, he refuses to be deleted. Armed with a steel pipe, a stolen rifle, and a glitchy interface, Jax must lead a ragtag squad of broken survivors across a city that is literally dissolving into the void.

Their destination: The Survival Estate. A golden fortress built for the elite, and the only place with a hardline to the truth.

The Corporation thinks Jax is just a variable to be balanced. They're about to learn that even the smallest glitch can crash the whole system.

The game is rigged. It's time to break the board.

Apocalypse Mode: Initiation is a gritty Cyberpunk LitRPG thriller featuring a non-OP protagonist, high-stakes survival, settlement building elements, and a fight against a dystopian system. Perfect for fans of Dungeon Crawler Carl and Cyberpunk 2077.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9199133601
• ISBN13: 9789199133607
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Ink Root Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"