More by William D. Arand
Runner has a problem. He and 499,000 men and women are trapped in a game. He also just happens to be the only person from IT who could log everyone out safely. And he doesn't remember his password.
He, like everyone else in this nightmare, had their memories scrambled or lost in the process of being loaded into the game. A single garbled message is his only clue on how to save everyone.
The problem is that whoever loaded them into the game, loaded their minds completely. If they die, their brain gets wiped.
Now it's time for Runner to flex his skills as a power gaming min maxer and see what he can do. Because every time he levels, he might gain the memory of the password. Time to go Hardcore.
Warning and minor spoiler: This novel contains graphic violence, a harem, unconventional opinions/beliefs, and a hero who is as tactful as a dog at a cat show. Read at your own risk.
This is the Omnibus edition of the Otherlife Trilogy. It contains all three books. Only the description of the first book has been included to prevent spoilers from occurring.
Book 1: Product Link-(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01...)
Book 2: Product Link-(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01...)
Book 3: Product Link-(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01...)
Wayne dreamed of piloting a thirty-foot-tall walking robot that was closer to a battle-tank than anything else.
They were called Walkers.
They were armed with laser cannons, rockets, missiles, and heavy kinetic weapons more similar to artillery pieces than guns, and everything that went with that.
Unfortunately, he had been declined military service.
His only avenue left to become a Walker Pilot was to make it happen all on his own.
Under his own power.
With his own hands.
Literally.
Working his fingers to the bone, saving all he could, and digging through junkyards and salvage pits, Wayne made it happen.
One part at a time.
He was now, finally, at the starting line.
Having built a very rough Walker that he had cobbled together himself, he scavenged a few weapons that were perfect for starting out and had just enough money to afford ammunition. His long-term dream was just about to start.
Perhaps even forming his own Walker Mercenary company and hiring people to work with him.
Except just as he finally moves forward, his home world is about to take a gigantic leap backward.
With Wayne at the center of it all, without ever truly realizing it.
In a world full of super powers, Felix had a pretty crappy one.
He has the ability to modify any item he owns. To upgrade anything.
Sounds great on paper. Almost like a video game.
Except that the amount of power it takes to actually change, modify, or upgrade anything worthwhile is beyond his abilities.
At least, that was until Felix leveraged a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give himself a great deal of points.
Investing in Super Heroes and Super Villains and owning them. Using them, Felix built up an empire.
An organization by the name of Legion.
Felix got what he wanted.
He pushed, pulled, fought, and dug his way through the world to get Legion, or more accurately, the Association, to the fore-front of the world's politics.
In doing so, he lost something he couldn't afford to.
Andrea Elex had been lost in the final moments of everything coming together.
Now Ryker and Runner have come calling to get those favors repaid he promised them, except he only has one thing on his mind. Getting Andrea back and as soon as possible.
Fighting against Zeus with the Overgod and the Architect, finishing his business with the Guild of Heroes and League of Villains, pushing the Association and the Legion to the pinnacle of power.
All of those things were on his to do list, but to Felix there was only one real answer.
Andrea First.
An existence spent being forced to kill others to satiate a Monster.
Where the only thing to look forward to was the blessed, if brief, period of time between paying that bribe.
Except that very same Monster is and isn’t Rene.
It just happened to live inside his own mind and force him to do what it wanted. Rather than being an actual Monster.
That was Rene’s entire life until a fateful day changed that.
A day that the career as a hitman for hire built on the Monster’s needs will end. Where Rene will be forced to atone for his actions. To be held accountable and judged.
Except the verdict is already long since passed and needs no deliberation.
His sentence was being sent hundreds of years into the past, into a different world even, where he must live a life for the betterment of others. Every action judged as it happens and weighed out against him.
But even this new idyllic life he’s been living in for eighteen years is now completely off the rails and Rene has gone back into a life lived in the underworld.
Armed with a few gifts granted to him by the one who judged him, gifts better suited to a fantasy about living in a video game, Rene has to maneuver his way through all the twists and turns in his new life while using all the things he’d learned in his old one.
Except using those skills is a double-edged sword. If he’s not careful, he’ll end up right back where he started.
Or so he would hope.
War is on the horizon and Felicie is in the crosshairs.
Or more accurately, the Mask is.
Warning and minor spoiler: This novel contains graphic violence, undefined relationships/harem, unconventional opinions/beliefs, and a hero who is as tactful as a dog at a cat show. Read at your own risk.
An existence spent being forced to kill others to satiate a Monster.
Where the only thing to look forward to was the blessed, if brief, period of time between paying that bribe.
Except that very same Monster is and isn’t Rene.
It just happened to live inside his own mind and force him to do what it wanted. Rather than being an actual Monster.
That was Rene’s entire life until a fateful day changed that. Where he died in a mission gone wrong.
When he met the Watcher in the afterlife, and took on a new life. A life of idyllic bliss that involved having a family.
Until he was kidnapped and taken to a new city. A city where Rene broke free, set down roots, opened a business, an orphanage, an underground gang, and began taking over.
Rene has become the Hood, the Mask, and young Anatolis all in one.
Where he continues to take more power with the Anatolis bankroll, his blade, or someone else’s blood.
Except as he gains more power, he becomes more of a target.
With every day, more people are targeting one of his lives and what they can take from him.
The city is about to be pitched head-first into the front lines of more than one fight to the death.
It has no idea, and it’s one true defender is a serial-killer turned hitman who became a bounty hunting money-lender that moonlights as a gang leader.
All before the month is over.
Warning and minor spoiler: This novel contains graphic violence, undefined relationships/harem, unconventional opinions/beliefs, and a hero who is as tactful as a dog at a cat show. Read at your own risk.
Reports to write, forms to fill, coffee to drink, leads to run down, organized crime syndicates to break.
Gus’s life had been a tedium and boredom he’d grown comfortable with. One that he sought out after he’d come back from his tour of duty.
That was before Melody, a contractor, more or less blew his life up as if it were a building packed full of c4.
Then helped him make a new life, which he himself ended blowing up.
A cushy new job with the FED, thrown out the window with a single gunshot.
All based on an assumption of who was working for who, and that he’d been on the wrong side of the equation.
And so ended his career in law enforcement after he became the assassin of a presidential candidate.
Now Gus is on to the next job. This time, working for his contractor and wife. The job they’re about to be given is a high paying one.
The thing is that the people they’re going up against? They’re just out to see the world burn. To send it screaming back down into the dark ages.
It’s a good thing that he’s a Boogieman.
Because being an apex predator that made the entirety of the Paranormal world fear him was something he could fall back on even in this situation. To hunt, investigate, and watch from the shadows.
Wouldn’t be the first time he’d put his life on the line either.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the long forgotten and primordial past was rearing its ugly head.
Gus knows he can certainly punch above his own weight class, but this case might just be the one that ends him.
Warning and minor spoiler: This novel contains graphic violence, undefined relationships/harem, unconventional opinions/beliefs, and a hero who is as tactful as a dog at a cat show. Read at your own risk.
In a world full of super powers, Felix had a pretty crappy one.
He has the ability to modify any item he owns. To upgrade anything.
Sounds great on paper. Almost like a video game.
Except that the amount of power it takes to actually change, modify, or upgrade anything worthwhile is beyond his abilities.
At least, that was until Felix leveraged a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give himself a great deal of points.
Investing in Super Heroes and Super Villains and owning them. Using them, Felix built up an empire.
An organization by the name of Legion.
Felix has brought it into the world once again, hiding it behind the name of the "Association". A neutral party he's building up to walk the line between the Guild of Heroes and League of Villains.
The foundation for all his plans is now in place. The time has come to work toward branching out into becoming a global power. A power that governments can't touch. Nor would they willingly want to.
It was time to push Legion right into the forefront of everyone's mind, without them ever realizing what they were looking at. Operating from the sidelines while controlling everyone.
There was no way Felix would let go of this chance, nor could he even consider the possibility of failure.
Kit and Lily were going to come home and Felix was going to make it happen.
Regardless of whatever government or organization might try to get in his way.
Legion First.
Ryker only had one goal in his life right now:
Turn a certain adventuring guild into a flaming wreck while dancing merrily through the smoldering ruins. All for the chance to get back at a handful of people.
It didn’t work out that way though.
At all.
He’d died, been forced into the body of an Avatar, absconded with the queen as her castle fell to betrayal, kidnapped a little kid who is obviously more than he seems, and to top all that off, he killed his undead father.
The smoldering ruins of the Queendom have cooled, the patterns reset, and Ryker has a task that is more than likely too much for him.
Take the Queendom back, destroy two armies, and give Lauren, the rightful queen, back her crown.
Warning and minor spoiler: This novel contains graphic violence, undefined relationships/harem, unconventional opinions/beliefs, and a hero who is as tactful as a dog at a cat show. Read at your own risk.
Ryker only had one goal in his life right now:
Turn a certain adventuring guild into a flaming wreck while dancing merrily through the smoldering ruins. All for the chance to get back at a handful of people.
It didn’t work out that way though.
At all.
He’d become the Count of Dungeon, made a hostage, married off to the false queen’s daughter against his will, and had his county made ground zero for a religious war.
To top all that off, the Dark Lord of the North wants to see Ryker personally.
The smoldering ruins of Dungeon have been cleared, the patterns reset, and Ryker has a task that is more than likely too much for him.
Hold Dungeon, and give Lauren, the rightful queen, some breathing room.
Warning and minor spoiler: This novel contains graphic violence, undefined relationships/harem, unconventional opinions/beliefs, and a hero who is as tactful as a dog at a cat show. Read at your own risk.
Reports to write, forms to fill, coffee to drink, leads to run down.
Gus’s life had been a tedium and boredom he’d grown comfortable with. One that he sought out after he’d come back from his tour of duty.
That was before Melody, a contractor, more or less blew his life up as if it were a building packed full of c4. Then pranced around the ashes of it like it was the end of the world and she was conjuring up the end times herself.
All while breaking in a rookie by the name of Vanessa into the PID. A gung-ho and eager young detective looking to prove herself.
Then commandeering and recruiting a cleaning lady that turned out to be an Elven Dryad Sorceress who viewed killing people as little more than emptying the trash can.
Gus had lived through it though. Made it work for him and had come out of it without too many new scars.
An adventure that he hadn’t wanted any part of that involved the Fed being blowed up, a stadium full of Paras all going into a feral rage, and breaking off a plot hatched by what felt like an organization that rivaled the Fed.
Which apparently was all in a day’s work, right up until they fired you for doing that work because you made the brass look bad.
Without a job, more people relying on him than ever, and no direction, Gus is going to have to put on his big boy pants and figure something out. And soon.
It’s a good thing that he’s a Boogieman.
Because being an apex predator that made the entirety of the Paranormal world fear him was something he could fall back on. He could lean into it and make it work for him.
He’d done it before when he was in the military.
Made a name for himself out there in the bloody desert.
He was The Hunter.
A name that the Elven mothers now used to instill fear into misbehaving children. A name that grown men and women wouldn’t discuss in polite company.
Except, despite Gus’s best intentions to get back to his stable non-life, he’s going to get thrown right back into the fray. Whether he likes it or not, he’s about to be handed a new problem that’s going to mess up what little remained of his life.
Unfortunately, his past was going to catch up to him and meet up with his future.
Warning and minor spoiler: This novel contains graphic violence, undefined relationships/harem, unconventional opinions/beliefs, and a hero who is as tactful as a dog at a cat show. Read at your own risk.
Felix would like nothing more than to take a vacation.A long one.One where he didn’t have to wake up every morning and worry over casualty lists for the day.Ever since he and the Legion had been forced to flee their headquarters four years previous, nothing had gone quite right.In fact, Felix and the Legion have been locked in a shadow war with enemies unknown.Ones with magic that could carve through their technology easily.As the rest of the world fell apart, tearing itself to pieces at every turn with the return of the old gods, the Legion has held the chaos back.The price in blood has been climbing slowly, lately.Felix suspects there’s a change on the horizon. One that he hasn’t prepared or developed a plan for.Or so his paranoia has been telling him.That there’s a change coming now that’ll shake up the world.One that will turn it inside out, Legion and Felix along with it.Felix has decided it’s time to push ahead and act.To finish things and protect his people at the same time.To take his Legion and make it safe.Because that’s all that matters in the end to him.His Legion.And it always came first.
In a world full of super powers, Felix had a pretty crappy one.
He has the ability to modify any item he owns. To upgrade anything.
Sounds great on paper. Almost like a video game.
Except that the amount of power it takes to actually change, modify, or upgrade anything worthwhile is beyond his abilities.
At least, that was until Felix leveraged a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give himself a great deal of points.
Investing in Super Heroes and Super Villains and owning them. Using them, Felix built up an empire.
An organization by the name of Legion.
It grew to heights that could stand toe-to-toe with governments, even at a military level.
Surprisingly, not a whole lot changed despite becoming a mega-company CEO.
Politicians were still corrupt. Banks still held onto your money. And criminals still committed crime.
Governments still wanted to take everything from Felix and Legion.
In the end, Legion had to back down. Retreat back to a new homeworld. Losing important people in the process.
Kit Carrington and Lillian Lux sacrificed themselves to save him and were marooned on a hostile planet. Even as their home world fell into ruin, Felix fell back.
He resolved himself to wait for a chance to get back into the fight after tending to his wounded organization.
Now, the Overgod Runner has just appeared and offered him a second chance.
To rebuild Legion and crush everyone in his way. If he could do that, and take over the government of the country he’s about to be dropped into, he’ll get Kit and Lily back.
There was no way Felix would let go of this chance, nor could he even consider the possibility of failure.
It’s time to get Kit and Lily back.
Legion First.