The Menocht Loop
Lorne Ryburn
Ian Dunai is trapped in the only maze an arch-decemancer can't escape: Time. Only 1% of the population is blessed with magic affinity at birth, and fewer still have high enough affinities to rule. Ian's decemancy eclipses all, granting ultimate control over Death—he conquers cities with a thought. But power can't break the time loop. Each death resets him to a dinghy in the ocean, forcing endless iterations through a lethal day of skeletons, contagion, and temporal layers. Book 1 reveals he's stuck on layer one; Book 2 thrusts him into an international tournament where the world's most powerful practitioners fight for dominance; Books 3-4 expand through the Eldemari's Wrath and Samsara Crucible, where planes, artifacts, and affinity trials gate progression; Book 5-6 pits him against the thousand-year necromancer Achemiss across the Hall of Ascension and Trials of Descent, where mastering multiple affinities, shadow magic, and ancient artifacts defines the climb. Originally a best-rated Royal Road serial with millions of views, now Amazon best-seller.
Progression: Explicit, central time-loop and affinity-based magical progression. Magic affinity at birth gates power (1% blessed, high affinity required to rule). Ian's decemancy (Death affinity) is the rarest, scaling from impotence to city-conquering. Progression is layered: time-loop layers (Book 1: layer one), loop iterations as training cycles, affinity mastery (single to dual to multiple affinities), international tournament rankings of practitioners, artifact collection to level the playing field against millennium-old necromancers, and plane-spanning trials (Samsara Crucible, Hall of Ascension, Trials of Descent) that quantify and gate power. Each loop death is a progression checkpoint; escaping one layer reveals the next. The system is quantified via Goodreads ratings and narrative tournament/trial placements, with explicit power ceilings being broken (upper limit far greater than thought).
Royal Road
Goodreads
