Demon Core: A Dungeon-Core LitRPG

Demon Core, Book 1

By: D. M. Rhodes, Razzmatazz

Narrated by: Armen Taylor

Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Shattered by tragedy, consumed with rage, a young man surrenders his soul for the power to destroy humanity in the first novel of this dark fantasy series.

After the death of his beloved mother, Swain is left at the mercy of his drunken father. His only respite from all the beatings and abuse lies in the words he scribbles down, seeking beauty in an ugly world through poetry. He has no friends until one day he meets a girl near his mother's grave. A restless spirit who calls herself Goose, over the years she encourages Swain's creativity, eventually helping him tap into a magical ability he never knew he possessed: a dark energy entwined with his despair, fueled by his anger, and controlled by his poetic verse.

But this revelation is swiftly followed by a cruel betrayal that devastates Swain. Unleashing his power, he transforms into the Demon King and spreads a plague across the land, infecting every living creature in his path. He knows there's beauty to be found among the base and selfish people he encounters—the graceful dancer, the perfectionist painter, the master chef—and he twists their artistic desires to serve him. Hollowed out and reborn as undead entities, they join the corrupted army of inhuman beings bent on conquering those the Demon King believes allowed the world to become a horrid ruin.

Ruhr, the half-elf river-sorceress adventurer, is in the city when it's besieged by demonic forces. The invasion is her opportunity to earn royal wealth and favor. But while her water magic purifies the monstrous legion, the Demon King marches on to remake the world according to his warped vision of beauty . . .

The first volume of the hit LitRPG fantasy series—with more than 300,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Audible and wherever ebooks are sold!

©2023 D. M. Rhodes and Razzmatazz (P)2023 Podium Audio

Decent except one lingering thing

The narration is wonderful, the story is good fun, but the stats and descriptions are a bit too frequent. It felt unnecessary to constantly refer to the characters names, status, and location every single time it was their turn to have their story told. I would have preferred to have been made aware of those things through typical storytelling elements rather than hear an introduction prompt each time. That said, I really enjoyed the characters, the dialogues between each other, and the use of artists by the MC.

Instead of your normal monster fantasy troupes, the MC uses strategies and abilities in a slightly different fashion that I found pretty interesting and refreshing. All in all, I’m curious to see how the author adapts and am excited to check out his next work. Keep it dark and brutal and I’ll definitely keep spending credits.

Also, Armen Taylor really nailed the voices. Especially the Demon King’s.

Wow

This is one of the reasons you don’t judge a book by its cover. I was expecting a light hearted dungeon core book. What I got was a well written and detailed story. Some of the amazing details that wen’t into describing the eldrich horrors even made me go oh god. I can’t wait for the next book to come out.

Unique and great.

At first it was a bit weird, but once you get used to the writing style it becomes a wonderful journey into a real horror show. Masterfully done and I can't wait for the next one. I love it.

Fantastic Narrator

If your looking for a typical dungeon core story this is not it. If your looking for an evil mc who is unabashedly evil but not cruel this is for you. Swain is just a normal kid at the beginning. he loses his mother and his dad spirals and becomes an abusive drunk. He tries to find beauty in writing poetry but everyone mocks him for it except one girl. he finds himself falling in love with this girl over the years only to discover he magically brought her to life with his poetry the girl tricked him into writing a poem to return her to death betraying swains feelings and using him to be brought back to the afterlife. in a fit of rage seeing the world as lacking beauty he uses his poetry to become the demon king to destroy the world to find true beauty.it's more nuanced but that's the gist of the first chapter. I tried looking for the first chapter on royal road because the description mentions it was there but it's not anymore so I couldn't check it out before I bought it. the narrator does a fantastic job bringing out the dark emotions in Swains tone while still being able to make the regular other characters feel unique.

Incredibly dark and brutal yet sprinkled with humo

Narrator was amazing with his performance, I have nothing but positivity. Story was dark yet refreshing, brutal and imaginative. I yearn for more evil or morally gray mcs. The only things that I didn't like was the constant status update, the name and location was fine but gender and level over and over.

Maybe on a written medium that is ok, but in an audiobook, it is a bit repetitive. I love the banter between river mage and soldier, felt real and gave me a light chuckle.

Overall the story timeline seemed to progress a bit too fast, the demon lord just got out and everyone seems to have deployed armies in mere days from continents away. Saying that, I loved the book and will continue the story.

Dark and gritty without overdoing it

Started a little slow and confusing but picks up quickly and gets you into each attack from the demon king. Although very good and fun, the jumping around characters’ stories can get a bit jarring.

Another fantastic book by Razz

This is a great dark fantasy book, I’m excited to listed to the next part. It really stands out from the usual series talked about in the LitRPG / Dungeon Core circles. We get to see the plot play out from multiple, very fleshed out perspectives, the characters are rich and unique while avoiding being cliche, and the story itself is unique. It’s dark for sure, but it also isn’t a story that glorifies the MC or tries to make them seem cool like so many other books with anti-hero MCs.

Between this and Final Core Razz has two of my top rated LitRPGs now. I hope they keep writing!