
by Leslie Greenwood
When a brutal alien invasion turns out to be a galaxy-wide reality TV show, Chad Jenkins, a broken man given wolverine-like regeneration must team up with an android, a sasquatch, and a teen tentacle abomination in order to save humanity from enslavement. Humanity isn’t just expected to survive this invasion; they are expected to entertain. To this end every sentient being on Earth gains new superhuman powers with which to make things more interesting. These powers are not created equal, however, as some are inconsequential F-tier powers, while others are godlike S-tier powers. In this world where attention is the only currency, they must achieve incredible ratings in order to attract sponsors that can upgrade their power. Chad is the only one who truly understands that entertaining the audience is the key to survival. His new teammates do not accept this idea so readily. They are far more concerned about the new bodies they did not choose. After all, who would want to be a big, hairy beast, or have their human brain turned into a computer, or be made entirely of leeches? They do not find sympathy from the alien audience or showrunners, as their plight is little more than content to be farmed. Sixty billion bugs rain from the sky as our misfit heroes transform into their new bodies. Can they learn to use their new powers to survive? Will the alien sponsors be interested in them? Can Chad make it through a fight without dying? Find out by reading the first exciting installment of Defenders: Reign of the Bugs.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 11 Oct 2026, 13:38 UTC
Entry forecast updated 11 Oct 2026, 13:38 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 13% of similar stories
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Both levers trail the field
Traffic and conversion are both below comparable stories. Cadence is the first lever — stories posting near-daily reached 25 followers 17% of the time; stories posting every few days almost never did. Get the flow going, then re-check conversion.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.