12 Miles Below
Mark Arrows
The surface is frozen. The depths filled with monsters. Extreme sub-zero temperatures suffocate the surface, freezing structures of bygone eras across massive ice-wastes, while survivors guard rediscovered technology. The only escape is beneath the surface—a shifting contraption-rock realm where monstrous machines lurk and unhinged demigods war as if it were a game. When an expedition into the far uncharted north goes wrong, Keith Winterscar and his father are trapped in a desperate fight for survival, stumbling upon an ancient war of titanic scale. They must set differences aside and struggle against gods, legends, and the secrets of the realm below.
Progression: Explicit weak-to-strong progression is central and marketed as 'Progression Fantasy Epic' on every volume. Keith Winterscar advances from stranded survivor to warlock-tier occult engineer via systematic mastery: scavenged relic armors and Feather shells (god-tier construct bodies), occult (forbidden machine-spirit engineering), mite-mediated prophecy and Division Stone quest, and warlock trials under Hexis and Tenisent. Each book escalates measurable power tiers—clan-scale raider wars, Undersider city sieges (Capra'Nor), theft of Feather shells, and eventual liberation of To'Wrathh from Relinquished's unity fractal—with dungeon-delving into shifting underground contraptions, prophecy-driven milestones, and revolutionary engineering creating new abilities.
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