Awakening Horde: Shieldwall Academy LitRPG Series

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Against all odds, a defiant street rat takes on a ruthless empire.

Pax, a cunning orphan without a class, navigates life in a city constantly threatened by monstrous beast waves. He's dedicated to keeping his crew safe and fed, especially after his family vanished without a trace. But when his best friend is captured, Pax risks it all—even his freedom—on the eve of the Awakening.

Caught and thrust into the Astan Empire's war machine, Pax must adapt to survive the perils of the empire's elite mage academy. While struggling to harness the forbidden magic surging within him, he must avoid the attention of corrupt leaders determined to snuff out any hint of rebellion and maintain their iron grip on power.

With ancient secrets, and long-lost spells at stake, can Pax triumph against his foes, defeat fearsome monsters and secure a future for himself and his crew?

- Stat-filled litRPG series

- Slow-burn-to-OP MC

- Found family crew

- Tamed pets

- Forbidden magic

- Corrupt empire and brewing rebellion

- No harem or swearing

Regular release schedule: 3 chps/week. T, Th, & Sa.

Read first on Royal Road andPatreon, months before Amazon!

Currently postingTriumphant Dawn: Book 6chapters which is the st arc finale!

The first five books are onAmazon and Audibleas of 10/3/25, free to read in Kindle Unlimited and with 20+ hours each!

FYI:Apologies, but Amazon requires the removal of ebooks from RoyalRoad, in order to publish in the KU program.

Royal Road and Patreon will continue to get the newest chapters of Book 6 first. Thank you for your support!

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2025
Author: M. Zaugg

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 2,716
Views: 130,475

Chapters(98 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

ArginnRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
An ardenous struggle for survival in a magical, monster-infested world. Decently gruesome combat. Slow but weighty progression. A whole lot of mysteries to unravel.
The story, still at the beginning now, is exploring a new world building concept almost as frequently as each new chapter. We are exploring the world together with the main character. It's gripping enough that I personally binged almost all of the available chapters the first day.
The overall tone is mostly serious. There are a few more relatively humorous moments here and there but not one feels forced. We are seeing the world from the pov of the main character so this might change in the future as he develops further.
The LitRPG pieces are the stats/notification/dialogue windows which all the humanoids of the world seem to be able to perceive.
There's an interesting political system in place. The war of civilization against monsters and any lack of support to its cause is used to control the population. The strong feel righteous and justified in any act of culling the weak. There's still a lot of mystery here so will be fun to explore in the future.
Overall, it's a great read!
ljlinthecasaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I started reading and couldn't stop. Took me a while, but I got through all of what is written as fast as I could and was disappointed that there wasn't more. That's not a slight against the author at all, I'm just impatient lol.
It is well written, and the story sucks you in. Even the few changes of POV's make me interested in that character, which is very rare for me.
Eric LonborgRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
A well thought out world, offering interesting and diverse characters. The mc is becoming op, but still faces challenges. His background is as a street kid who lost his parents while old enough to remember. This sets up a nice tension between what he lived and how life might have been. The supporting cast shows that there are good and bad people at all levels of the society.
GruRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I may eventually come back and do a full review, but I have to admit this story has been a very pleasant surprise. I felt like the MC was a little unlikable and generally volatile early in the story, but the whole thing has been playing out very well: from having a world I want to learn more about to having characters that feel like they're characters instead of caricatures or props, it reads well and keeps you reading. The more that I do read, the more I'm appreciating what the author has done here. Most of my questions or criticisms even end up having perfectly reasonable explanations that get revealed within a chapter or two of my questioning them.
Read the summary, read the author bio. If you like the idea of the sort of fusion being described, give the story a fair shake. I certainly can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself, and I have to say that although the styles are very different I'm putting M. Zaugg here up with InadvisablyCompelled (Paranoid Mage) and madisj (Annihilation Core) as one of the most promising among newer authors on RR.
Heather LewisRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
It's quite well written, with a nice beginning mystery and enough action to keep the story interesting. It has a nicely fleshed out world with distinct characters. Looking forward figuring stuff out with the main character and reading it all. I appreciate that the author has obviously gone through and edited it as I have not noticed any grammar or spelling typos.
Kevin_martinRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
It's so good. Read the first book on kindle, couldn't wait so I searched on royal road and quickly got hooked. I finished everything on royal road at like 3am and I was devastated lol I needed to know what happens next, definitely one of the top litrpg series out there!
Shitpost4uRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story has been great to read so far (and I believe Book 1 is scheduled for release soon)!
The magic is a solid, system feels like it meshes well with the story well, and the characters are developing in a steady way. I think some additional and specific descriptions of physical locations and scale could be nice for visualizing the settings. Some spaces seemed less fleshed out so my brain defaulted to "mage errant caves" or "LOTR city." Otherwise, it's a medium pace with magic, an academy, schemes, and a decent bit of promise if it keeps going!
HygolonRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
If u like very long and consistent LitRPGs with a weak main character slowly growing in strength, ambition and innovation and making friends along the way this is definitely a great book for u!
A relatively standard system supports a rich and thought-through worldbuilding with interesting elemental based magic and an interesting approach to a class system which sees everyone put in one of the four main classes with the skills deciding the build and future of the character, stat blocks are given every few chapters in the beginning and getting more rare with the story progressing and taking more space compared to personal growth.
This novel explores the idea of a world in constant defense from waves of Monsters coming at night and humanity being forced to constantly train the young into the various classes to protect the walled-in citys of nightly monster waves, a world in which the long ruling nobility is trying their best to keep everything to the status quo and themselves in power by every means possible.
At the core of the plot we have a street kid MC and his friends slowly transforming into a powerful crew while challenging the outdated and unfair views of the people in charge.
The characters are all in all very satisfying to watch progress (or fall from their high horses), and while mostly very likeable, can be a bit shallow and stereotypical at times (especially the villains), and sometimes i was missing a bit of weight behind certain plot points because of lacking consequences, so maybe a book for people that like their plot a bit more obvious and without big crazy twists.
Still a book i very much enjoyed (and finished) and i would definitely recommend everyone to at least read into the first few chapters to see if it fits ur vibe!
Haunting_ShadowsRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Fun story. some dark themes, but a good system. Nice depth the the world biilding without using an enture page to describe a tree or a rock. Complex and well fleshed side characters that add more than take from mc experience.
So far 90 chapter in its got me wanting more.
JolligreenRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
A compelling story based in a crumbling empire beset by hordes of magical beasts, and stuck in a sociopolitical mire of religious fundamentalism, corrupt politics, oligarchic power-hoarding, and a deep disdain by the folks in charge for the common people. E.g. the perfect place for a classic rags-to-OP MC to rise up from the slums and change sh*t up.
The setting is well fleshed out through a mixture of "show don't tell" and relatively well-placed exposition. The school that forms the main setting of the work is a relatively enjoyable home base to build from. It's in many ways a microcosm of the empire itself, and the ways in which wealthy families and guilds maintain power are slowly being teased out through the story. I'm curious to see more nuance beneath the power structures as the fundamental forces underlying the story create cracks in the coopetition going on amongst the powers that be.
The system involved is satisfyingly crunchy without requiring advanced mathematics to follow along with, and the progression is difficult enough to feel highly satisfying. The mechanical aspects are well reasoned and exciting; this is a magic system different enough to stand out, while still leaning into enough classic elements for longtime fantasy and/or LitRPG readers to rapidly feel at home. I particularly like the ways in which the author visualizes how magic works within living bodies, and there are some great moments involving an anatomy demonstration that I won't ruin for the new readers out there
Characterization-wise, the MC is generally an enjoyable person to spend time with, and to progress with. He's gaining in power but not actually OP at this point; more of a force multiplier than a herculean hero - more fun to read, really, with him using his wits and his unique abilities to help his team succeed. His choices are generally the right ratio of frustrating decisions to satisfying realizations (though there are times when his natural desire to stick it to the man put