Prepare to Die: A Soulslike LitRPG

"I admit, I've been feeling a bit misanthropic for a while now." Arkadia Léon has all but given up on the ascension she was promised. When she first awoke in the Realm Encased in Mists, she had one goal: become strong enough to kill the Eternal Wraith. It was the task given to her from the moment she awoke from the dead with nothing to her name but a rusty dagger and a set of fragmented memories. Tooth and nail, she clawed her way through an unforgiving world to stand before the Wraith. Then, she defeated it. And nothing changed. The Mists are rife with hopelessly difficult challenges and painful consequences, and Arkadia has experienced every one of them—multiple times. She’s conquered all the world has to throw at her, but each time she faces the Eternal Wraith, she finds herself sent back to the beginning. Her stubbornness has carried her for a long time, but now, she’s losing hope—and in the Mists, losing hope means a slow, agonizing loss of humanity. The countless shells of former adventurers who haunt the realm are proof of that. But then, a new kind of pain arrives in the form of the Jackal. A level-one adventurer, Jack has few skills and fewer smarts—but still, he persists, and Arkadia finds his optimism as compelling as it is obnoxious. As they fight their way through the world Arkadia has come to loathe, she begins to wonder if Jack is the key to escaping the loop—and what she’ll be willing to give up when the time comes.