Nightmare realm summoner.., p.1

Nightmare Realm Summoner: A LitRPG Adventure, page 1

 

Nightmare Realm Summoner: A LitRPG Adventure
Select Voice:
Brian (uk)
Emma (uk)  
Amy (uk)
Eric (us)
Ivy (us)
Joey (us)
Salli (us)  
Justin (us)
Jennifer (us)  
Kimberly (us)  
Kendra (us)
Russell (au)
Nicole (au)



Larger Font   Reset Font Size   Smaller Font  
Nightmare Realm Summoner: A LitRPG Adventure


  NIGHTMARE REALM SUMMONER

  ©2025 ACTUS

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.

  Aethon Books supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact editor@aethonbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Aethon Books

  www.aethonbooks.com

  Print and eBook design and formatting by Kevin G. Summers. Cover art provided by Admira Wijaya.

  Published by Aethon Books LLC.

  Aethon Books is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Also by Actus

  Nightmare Realm Summoner

  Nightmare Realm Summoner 1

  Nightmare Realm Summoner 2

  Rise of the Living Forge

  Rise of the Living Forge 1

  Rise of the Living Forge 2

  Rise of the Living Forge 3

  Rise of the Living Forge 4

  Return of the Runebound Professor

  Return of the Runebound Professor

  Return of the Runebound Professor 2

  Return of the Runebound Professor 3

  Return of the Runebound Professor 4

  My Best Friend is an Eldritch Horror

  Blackmist

  Greenblood

  Duskbringer

  Voidwalker

  Dawnfall

  Realmbreaker

  Want to discuss our books with other readers and even the authors?

  JOIN THE AETHON DISCORD!

  Calling all LitRPG fans: be the first to discover groundbreaking new releases, access incredible deals, and participate in thrilling giveaways by subscribing to our exclusive LitRPG Newsletter.

  https://aethonbooks.com/litrpg-newsletter/

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Interlude

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Thank you for reading Nightmare Realm Summoner

  Groups

  LitRPG

  1

  The System told the world it was coming a week in advance. It was a cruel joke. Humans couldn’t stop killing each other for a single day, much less unite to face an apocalypse. If anything, the warning just made things worse.

  Governments tried to reach out and assure everyone that everything would be all right—that all people had to do was fall in line and they would be protected. The police and armies came out in force to control the riots that sprung up in just about every city.

  That didn’t last long. When people got a magical message in their head telling them that the world as they knew it was going to end, threats from talking heads hardly held the weight they once did.

  By the time the week came to its end, the world was on fire. It was chaos. Supply chains collapsed. Soldiers deserted. Communities divided. Everyone was desperate to find a way to survive for just a moment longer.

  And, as the world collapsed, Alex had a pizza party with his best friend.

  “To us.” Alex laughed as he raised a red plastic cup full of flat soda to the air. The smell of burnt rubber and ash filtered through their window from the distant fires on the street below. “It’s been shit, but sometimes it was slightly less so.”

  “As eloquent as always.” Teddy pushed his glasses back up his nose, then matched Alex’s grin and raised his own glass. “I rather liked it myself.”

  “That’s because you were actually good at school.” Alex downed his soda. He considered throwing his cup behind him but opted to set it down by his side, next to the go-bag he’d prepared. The end of the world didn’t mean he had to start littering.

  Teddy tossed his cup over his shoulder. He brushed his long, blonde hair away from his face, tying it back behind his head in a bun. Despite the impending apocalypse, it was still somehow perfectly taken care of. While everyone else had rushed to the stores to steal food and other necessities, Teddy had bought every last bottle of shampoo he could get his hands on and stuffed them into an old blue knapsack that now rested behind him.

  Alex’s own backpack was stuffed full of food, an old medkit his late mom had forced him to bring to college that he’d been fortunate enough to keep purely because he couldn’t bring himself to part with it, and a few crumpled-up old exams that had snuck their way in.

  “Any reason you chose that as your last outfit before the end?” Teddy asked, arching an eyebrow as he sent a critical look at Alex’s shirt.

  Alex pulled at the collar of his stiff dress shirt. The tie hanging around his neck was somehow both too tight and too loose at the same time, and his black slacks weren’t exactly the most comfortable clothing he’d ever found.

  “I never really got a chance to use this crap before. I bought it for interviews. Figured I might as well get at least one go out of it,” Alex replied. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t kill for a sweet suit like this?”

  “It’s not a suit. It’s a shirt that you didn’t properly tuck into your pants.”

  “Closest thing to a suit I’ve ever worn. I’m rounding up.”

  Teddy let out a snort. The two of them fell silent for a few moments.

  “So, what do you think is going to happen?” Teddy asked abruptly.

  Alex shrugged. The smell of smoke grew stronger. A restaurant had completely been engulfed in flames, and thick black clouds were rising up from it in a pillar that aimed to claw its way into the heavens. “Aliens?”

  “I’

m hoping it’s more demons and wizards and the like. If I die, I’d rather die to a cool orc than a tentacle monster.”

  “Neither will make you any less dead. I’d rather live through this whole thing myself.” Alex took a bite of frozen pizza. It tasted like wet cardboard that someone had slapped with a sausage. The electricity to their college dorm was long gone, but he’d let the pizza sit out in the sun for a day to warm it. It wasn’t exactly cooked, but food poisoning was the least of his worries.

  “Like that’s going to happen.”

  “Says the guy that constantly carries around four sets of his glasses in case one of them breaks.”

  “And look how it paid off.” Teddy shot Alex a smug look. “I’m a genius. Twilight Zone had a message in it, man.”

  “If I were the last guy alive, I think I’d just kill myself. That sounds awful.”

  Teddy tilted his head slightly askew, then inclined it in agreement. “Fair point, man.”

  A twinge of nervous excitement swirled in Alex’s stomach, but he didn’t let it show on his face. He’d never tell Teddy—or anyone else for that matter—but the day he’d gotten the message from the System had been one of the most exciting ones he’d had in years.

  Life is a waste. Wake up, go to school, take shitty exams for a subject that I don’t care about, and then go to bed. Rinse and repeat until I get a job and then spend the rest of my life slaving away for something that doesn’t even matter.

  That’s not how things should be. In just a few minutes, everyone gets screwed. No more work. Just a fight for survival—and that means we’re all on even ground. The System wouldn’t warn us it was happening if we didn’t have a way to survive. That means we’re going to get challenged, but there should be a way through.

  A challenge that isn’t ripping my hair out trying to make a piece of code run correctly… I think I’m actually looking forward to the end of the world.

  A bulky watch on Teddy’s wrist let out a shrill beep. He’d sworn by the thing for years, claiming it was the greatest watch ever made. He claimed it was somehow hooked up to the true clocks that were always perfectly accurate. Alex was convinced the damn thing was slow by a few seconds, but he didn’t have the heart to tell Teddy. They both fell silent, looking down at the piece of plastic as it went off, its shrill scream breaking their calm. Teddy reached down and turned it off.

  “One minute until the end.” Some of Teddy’s bravado faded away, and he set his droopy pizza down, swallowing. “What are the chances that this whole thing is just a really elaborate prank and the apocalypse never happens?”

  Alex looked out the window. The street was littered with shattered barricades and broken glass from protests and fights between the campus police and students. Cars sat abandoned, most of them demolished. Distant sirens rang, but most of them had already run out of battery or had their electricity cut.

  “I think it already did.”

  “In that case, I’ve changed my mind. I hope I get magic. It would be badass to start slinging fireballs around.”

  “You’d probably blow yourself up.”

  “Probably,” Teddy agreed.

  The two of them fell silent. Seconds ticked by on the watch.

  10.

  9.

  8.

  “Alex?”

  “Yeah?” Alex raised his eyes from the watch. Staring at it wouldn’t change anything.

  “It’s been⁠—”

  The rest of Teddy’s sentence vanished in an earth-shattering roar. Brilliant blue light lit up the day with such intensity that it momentarily blinded Alex. He threw his hands up, crying out in surprise.

  I knew his goddamn watch was off.

  A booming roar slammed into Alex’s mind, echoing through his very being. Golden letters scrawled through the air before him.

  Welcome, Planet 274-50, colloquially known as Earth.

  Your warning period has ended. Earth will now begin to be assimilated into the Infinium. Please sit or lie down for the first stage of Initialization to avoid being injured.

  Initialization will take place over 3 stages to minimize critical damage during integration.

  Alex blinked the letters away as a rumble shook the building. Blood rushed in his ears as his spine tingled and his hair stood on end. He and Teddy exchanged a wild-eyed look, but they didn’t have time to say anything.

  As quickly as the first message had faded, a new one appeared before Alex.

  Initialization has begun.

  Welcome, Alex Vaya. Please remain still while your information is processed. You are number 2,105,294,612 in the queue.

  The smell of ozone bit at Alex’s nostrils. Energy crackled through the room, tiny arcs of blue light dancing along the walls and racing around their feet.

  Alex’s hair stood on end. More and more energy gathered around them. Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw a flash of dark energy through his window. A black beam carved through the air, ripping through the ground. A pillar of black crystal erupted where the energy had struck, and a car that had been unfortunate enough to be in its path warped in on itself before getting sucked into an obelisk. Rings of blue light flickered around the rippling black object, humming a shrill whistle.

  It was the very same energy that was filling the room.

  Oh, shit.

  “We need to move!” Alex yelled.

  Teddy didn’t need to be told twice. He and Alex lurched to their feet. The energy gathering around them grew even stronger. It screamed in Alex’s ears like a raging siren. Flashes of blue light swirled around him, forcing him to squint.

  A sliver of black light sliced through the air in the center of the room, directly in front of Teddy’s path. It carved through the ground like a knife and expanded outward, splitting apart everything in its path.

  Alex lunged and shoved Teddy out of the way just as the darkness roared out between them, forming into a crackling obelisk of energy. He hit the ground with a grunt, rolling to the side an instant before the black crystal finished taking form.

  A flicker of blue energy arced past Alex’s arms, and the smell of burnt hair filled the room. He let out a hiss of pain and shook his arm off.

  “Alex!” Teddy yelled. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Alex yelled back, stepping around the obelisk. His heart slammed violently in his chest. Dark swirls of smoke twisted and shimmered within the strange object that had materialized in their room. It was oddly mesmerizing—but not nearly enough to get Alex to stand around for a second longer.

  Teddy scrambled to his feet and darted around the obelisk. Alex felt energy crackle at his back and jumped forward, just barely managing to avoid another obelisk as it slammed into place in their room, roaring with violent energy.

  “Holy shit,” Alex breathed. “That was a close call. We need to get out of here.”

  “Yeah,” Teddy agreed, steadying Alex. For a moment, it looked like he wanted to say something. Teddy’s mouth opened for just an instant before he closed it, pressing his lips together as his features darkened.

  Then Teddy shoved him.

  Alex’s back hit the churning energy, and a roar filled his mind, the words stolen from his mouth as it opened in shock. The determined look in Teddy’s eyes was the last thing Alex saw before the darkness took him.

  Alex was surprised to find his eyes open. He was sprawled across the cold, clammy floor, his body intact and somehow entirely unsevered.

  It was silent. The sirens had vanished, and the crackle of energy and flame was gone. It was so silent that he could hear the thump of his heart like a metronome. Alex groaned and pushed himself upright, the taste of iron stinging his clammy tongue. For a moment, it looked like he was still in his dorm room, but something was deeply wrong with all of it.

  The same ratty walls rose up around him, and he could see the door to his room in the far wall, but that was where the similarities ended. The knitted Shrek rug he’d found in a thrift store had been replaced by warped, glittering stone. None of the furniture was quite where it should have been, and all of it was just slightly wrong. A cabinet twisted like a spiral staircase, a desk with three legs that sat askew and partially lodged in the wall—a mirror that definitely hadn’t been there before, its reflection nothing but a black void.

  What the hell was that? Did Teddy just try to kill me?

  Did he succeed?

  I don’t feel dead.

  Alex swallowed as the dim light revealed shadows that were just long enough to be noticeably out of place. His skin prickled. The feeling of being watched gripped at him, and he turned in a slow circle, but the room seemed to be empty. It certainly didn’t feel empty, though. Alex was denied the opportunity to look around for any longer when a flash of blocky golden lettering appeared before him.

 

Add Fast Bookmark
Load Fast Bookmark
Turn Navi On
Turn Navi On
Turn Navi On
Scroll Up
Turn Navi On
Scroll
Turn Navi On
183