POWER AT ANY COST

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Nina, a young woman, finds a way into a fantastical world created to host an endless battle, Good and Evil building up and then grinding down Heroes since before memory.

She is set on the path to become a Hero fighting for what is "Good" and "Right".

But Nina has no "Goodness" in her own heart.

She has no ability to feel empathy for others at all.

She only has one singular desire. To manipulate this world so that she is above all people. All beings. All gods.

If that takes saving a billion lives, or damning them, she cares not at all.

The only thing that matters... is POWER.

-A LITRPG story

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2024
Author: Harry Wolf Bogosian

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 96
Views: 38,352

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(3)

toddRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I don't have time to write out everything I liked, but this is a gem of story. It's a fairly significant twist on the standard "Gods throw heroes into a gamelike world to fight for them" and walks an interesting line between fully realistic and manipulated by a system. The protagonist is a delightful little monster- manipulative evil rather than just tortured and grim- who is boldly charging forward to collect the power she deserves. There are a lot of secondary perspectives, but they're quick and serve to flesh out the world in ways that otherwise would have been impossible.
For all that the setting can be remarkably grim, there's an upbeat pulse underneath everything, and a surprising amount of humanity thrown into side characters. It's fun evil, and in such a dark world, almost feels justified at times.
Definitely recommend checking it out for those craving a villain fix, or just an interesting take on the classic Good vs Evil settings that a lot of fantasy has devolved into. Those looking for ant-heroes masquerading as a villains won't find what they're looking for here though.
AmphitriteRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
POWER AT ANY COST takes the reader into a world designed for perpetual conflict, where the battle between Good and Evil has persisted since time immemorial. At its center is Nina, a refreshingly ruthless protagonist who defies traditional heroic expectations. Her utter lack of empathy and relentless hunger for power create a compelling and morally ambiguous narrative that keeps readers questioning her every move.
The story’s litRPG elements are seamlessly woven into its world-building, adding structure to Nina’s cunning manipulation of the system. This is not a tale of a virtuous Hero rising to greatness—it’s a cold, calculated journey of a woman determined to bend the rules, and the world itself, to her will.
Bogosian crafts a darkly intriguing character study that explores power, morality, and the consequences of ambition in a realm where the lines between right and wrong are blurred. While Nina’s single-minded pursuit might alienate readers looking for a more relatable or traditionally “good” protagonist, her intelligence and unyielding drive make her a fascinating antihero to follow.
For fans of litRPG stories with dark themes, morally gray characters, and an unapologetic focus on ambition, POWER AT ANY COST delivers an engaging and thought-provoking read. Just don’t expect any heartwarming heroics—this is power, pure and simple.
Hedon_in_BlissRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
Although I enjoyed parts of the world-building, interesting artefacts, and the -to me- smooth & clean transitions between various character POVs, I struggle to read further.
Also, this is my opinion, I am a creative of the visual variety, and I would like to applaud any creative outcome that inspires me to write a review. I hope that this serves as feedback to encourage, although I am opinionated in my review, as I would not have been engaged for more than 10 chapters if this were not to some extent well written and worth commenting on. To me, work that provokes though, is worth learning from. :)
Style:
The first-person style of each character is extremely coherent, I don’t usually read novels with multiple character perspectives as I struggle to keep track of characters and the plot, but I believe this was a key factor that kept me reading. The chronology of this piece is smooth and time skips are clearly stated. I struggled to identify when and where other characters were situated in the story, this was a minor detail for me that mostly didn’t affect my reading experience.
Story:
The plot is driven by the MC’s motivation, which is as the title states, to achieve absolute "power at any cost”. The issue I have with this is that the characters’ motivations are contradictory to their identity/personality and are not fleshed out at all. Throughout the story she is described as never having felt any emotion, although in the description it says she feels no empathy towards others, both herself and other characters (the cursed book) note that she has never felt any emotion or feels indifferent towards pain. This makes her desire to become stronger feel ungrounded and a bit of an afterthought, if this were solely a character defect I wouldn’t mention it here, but it's the whole plot.
This story also struggles with a bit of plot device use. The MC doesn’t seem to completely be affected by stat disparity, affecting individuals with much higher levels, even though both her s