Level: Ascension

• Author: David Dalglish
• Genre: Fantasy
• Publication Date: May 13, 2025
• Publisher: Orbit
• Series: Level: Unknown #2

Thank you to Orbit , Oliver Wehner, and Oriel Voegele for providing me with an audiobook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An Epic Fantasy Isekai LitRPG perfect for fans of Accidental Champion and He Who Fights With Monsters.

Conquer the artificial world. Level Up. Find your champions.

The plan to kill God-King Vaan and free Yensere from the effects of the frozen black sun is finally underway. Nick has accrued an impressive array of the guarded spellblade, Frost; the world-generated fire scholar, Violette; and their bodiless AI guide, Cataloger. But they will need more help if they are to build an army capable of slaying a god. Hearing of a potential usurper king—one who can defy death—leads them to rescue a broken champion, Batal the Beast.

Free from his bondage, Batal rampages against his enemies, claiming multiple victories against the God-King. But Batal’s true motivation is a guarded secret and he won’t hesitate to use Nick and his friends to get exactly what he wants.

As Batal schemes, and Nick struggles to grow in power, Frost breaks from the group in search of her missing sister. As they get closer to the truth and Nick learns more about the incredible girl who willfully placed herself in the Artifact’s grasp, they’ll find that sometimes the questions you want answered most are the ones you’ll wish you’d never asked…

The only other LitRPG novel that I’ve read in my entire life was Level: Unknown, book 1 in this series. Since I jumped directly into this book, I think it’s safe to say that I enjoyed it. To be honest, it kind of reminds me of those ‘choose your own adventure’ books that were really popular in the 80s. Maybe it’s because if I chose a path that got me killed, I’d immediately ‘take it back’ and choose the other option, giving me a small sense of immortality.

When I compare this to a ‘choose your own adventure’ book, it’s actually a compliment. I enjoyed those books immensely throughout my elementary school years, and this series gives me the same vibes, except much more complex—characters are in some type of RPG in a medieval-era that takes place in space, but regenerate after dying, as long as they remain asleep. It’s revealed that their bodies still suffer from the damage that they take, and it can become life-threatening if they don’t have enough rest to recover between deaths. Ideally, the characters try to avoid dying more in this book. 

Now that we’re well acquainted with the world of Yensere and where Nick and Frost live when they aren’t sleeping and in Yensere. However, the dreaded frozen black sun is an ominous sign, and when it affects Nick and Frost in their waking life, the pressure falls to Nick to learn as much as he can about Yensere and the frozen black sun in order to hopefully fix it. We’re familiar with Nick and Frost and their hints of brewing romance, as well as Nick’s sarcastic yet well-informed talking sword imbued with magic (obviously), Violette the scholar, and Cataloger, the AI companion that has provided our little band of heroes/found family with information as needed and possible.

I read this as an audiobook, and it was outstanding! With John Patneaude narrating, the nearly 13 hour book felt as if it was flying by. He does a wonderful job with Nick, as well as with the other characters. One of my favorite parts of the narration was the way that it was clear that some information was deliberately censored so that if Cataloger was asked a question about an off-limits topic, she responded with a staticky, blocked out transmission that made it clear she was trying to answer, but she wasn’t able to convey certain things about Yensere and their role. 

Nick, Frost, and Violette soon encounter a potential ally in Batal the Beast. They free him from confinement and torture that has taken quite a gory toll on his body. Seriously, though—if you’re squeamish, this might not be the best read for you. Like them, he has a reputation for being impossible to kill, but was captured and tortured because he was considered a ‘usurper king’ as he led a rebellion. It’s clear as day that Batal has his own motivations, but he holds those close to the vest and is willing to align himself with Nick and Frost because what else do you get a usurper king aiming to make a comeback against the God-King Vaan? Clearly, the answer is a pair of magically talented and deathless demons! 

Batal isn’t the only one who is holding secrets and acting unpredictably. Nick is holding back his mission to find out how to free the black sun and save his own world, strongly encouraged by his brother, who is the leader of his station. Frost has her own agenda as well—she hasn’t given up on finding her sister, and as she draws ever closer to answers, she struggles more with the choices that her sister made. 

Amidst repeated warnings by Nick’s sword, they decide to work with Batal on their common goal—to take down Vaan. They don’t see any other way to defeat an enemy as strong as Vaan without the assistance of Batal, rumored to be an incredible force on the battlefield, and Batal is just as eager to get his revenge on Vaan after being tortured in horrific ways. And while Nick doesn’t always to be the brightest crayon in the box, he actually is smarter than he seemed. For some reason, he reminds me of Frye from Futurama, and both of them became beloved characters to follow. I found myself liking Nick and Frost more, knowing what they were up against and still trying to muster a force that can take down Vaan, and we learn more about them in this book as well. The interactions between them have a definite romantic charge to them, and both are forced to confront things they have kept back from the others. 

For Nick, it’s his loyalty to his brother that leads him to take on a nearly impossible task, and work as hard as he can to help the group. In Frost’s case, she’s searching for her sister and we learn that she’s been keeping her real name a secret, as well as the circumstances of their split and facing her anguish over losing her sister, the person she was closest to in the entire universe. The world-building and magic is deepened in this book as well, and when mentioning the stats provided by Cataloger, I could practically picture the scenes as part of a wider-ranging game. There’s a robust religion that is layered and complex, rigid and intolerant, and it gave me Spanish-Inquisition-Era vibes reminiscent of the overwhelming power and influence of the Catholic Church at those times. I’m not surprised, since oppressive systems of religion seem to play a role in five out of five Dalglish novels that I have read so far.

Frost and Nick have to confront their own vulnerabilities in admitting their emotions, and Frost is also vacillating between stubborn determination and anguish over the loss of her sister and a lack of answers as to where she went, and more importantly, why she chose to abandon Frost. I loved the interactions between all the characters, especially the snarky sword (I often find myself liking non-human characters the best), but appreciated them even more when I could see how they changed over the course of the book.

Overall, this was such a fun read, especially when hearing the tonal differences Patneaude uses for the characters, differentiating them easily. As a world-generated scholar, Violette is helpful but tends to stay out of the way of ‘mortal enemy’ territory, although she comes in handy during a fight, while Cataloger sounds like an AI voice such as Siri or Alexa—robotic and flat. I would question if Cataloger has her own agenda if she wasn’t AI. Okay, it still makes me question because you never know with how reliant we have become on AI devices. This means that after I ask Siri or Alexa something, I always say thank you. I’d rather be safe than sorry! This story starts out fast and maintains that pace for the entire time. There are plot twists galore, and I was never sure of who could be trusted, what they were up to, and where the story would go next. It made for a fun read that was easy to lose myself in, and the reading flew by. This is a fun one, and if you’re not sure about LitRPG novels and might want to try one out, this is the series for you. Just be aware that these books aren’t standalone, and need to be read in order to fully grasp the events of the book. 

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