Defiance of the Fall

I really like this story. Here are some bullet points of the things I like about it.

•  Survival- The MC is lost in the woods during a system apocalypse. Always like when a character needs to survive and acclimate to dangerous surroundings, both when it's happening and in the future when the MC gets compared to other people. That seems a long way off, though.
• Realistic Knowledge- Related to above, this story actually has an MC who doesn't know how to immediately game the system. There are a lot of functions of the system that he doesn't know, and even more that he doesn't know he doesn't know, simply because he missed the tutorial. Rarely, you'll see him do something and say, "what an idiot that's clearly not the optimal choice", but all his choices are rational given the amount of information he has. He's super ignorant of what's going on, but using context clues to help himself rather than an deep knowledge of "What to Do when the System Arrives for Dummies".
• System- Its a cool system, fairly background, and kind of sentient. He doesn't immediately get skills and upgrades, it's honestly him surviving as a (albiet super strong) human.
• Struggle- The power creep is good, he struggles for a while, figures out ways to overcome those struggles, and then new stuff pops up to struggle against. Not in the "he'll never see or get hurt by level one mobs" way some xianxia stories do, more like they're there but no longer as much of a threat due to training.
• Plot- Seems like there's some depth to the plot, he's got semi-manditory quests to complete and that may take awhile, day to day survival offset with hints of all the other pieces of the multiverse.
• Realistic Knowledge- The MC is doing fairly well for himself considering, but is by no means a Mary Sue. He's bled for every step forward he's taken. He doesn't immediately know bush craft or how to make armor or anything, it's refreshing to see someone struggle this long. He actually may be at a disadvantage compared to other humans, but is finding a different path to strength, helped in part cuz everyone else is stuck in the tutorial whilst he suffers. He uses his limited resources pretty well, spear stake traps and such.
• Human Emotions- The character actually seems to have to deal with the fact he's stuck alone in the woods forced to fight for his life, rather than just being a mannequin devoid of human emotions. I stress, it really sucks for him almost constantly for the first 30 chapters, but that makes it better IMO cuz there's actually stress when he gets in fights. He actually behaves and feels and thinks in a way that a guy stranded alone might.
• Consistency- All the system stuff is real consistent. The way skills and classes and items work all make sense in this universe.
• Enemies- The monsters are pretty cool

Those are some of the things I like about the story, so far I only have a couple minor negative things to mention

• Lucky- his initial luck in the system, literally a rigged dice roll he shouldn't have won, but that's over and done with by chapter 2 and the plots gotta happen somehow. There really wouldn't be another way to make the same general character and story in a more believable, less lucky manner.
• Town Building I just generally don't like settlement/town management stories, it's nowhere close to getting to that point yet but it seems like a mechanic that's gonna pop up eventually. That's just something I personally don't want to see happen in any story, and it's barely present so far in this one, I just like to whine.

All in all a very well done survival litrpg, with some wuxia elements blended in.

It's been pretty good for what it is so far, mc doesn't disappoint and is actually behaving like someone trying to survive his situation, will need to read more chapters before I can give a better review but so far so good, it's worth a shot. This is as of chapter 24.

(This is meant as a constructive review, for a fairly good story)

As a survival / Wuxia story, the style and pacing works well with the themes. 

Admitably, for a lit RPG I feel like the system is a bit lite. Almost like it's less of an RPG world and more like the RPG system is how the Wuxia world measures everything. Which makes the whole system seem tacked on at times. It's not a bad problem per say, but one that feels a little distinct at times when the only real game element is a stat or quest page popping up every few chapters.

For a minute there it looked like more was going to happen with the 'settlement system', almost like Zac would build up a survivalist encampent to make his day to day easier, but all its really been used for so far is to improve his Wuxia training, so I feel like that falls back into the main issue of being more a tool for the Wuxia elements than an actual system.

The only real problem I have with this story itself is... As a survival story, I understand that a solo-protagonist is kind of a given, but at the same time I feel like half of a character's... well, character is how they interact with others. And this lack of interaction compounded with the near non-stop fighting/ training/ survival at times causes a sort of action fatigue, from never giving a proper rest after a long action / survival sequence.

Early on there were a few points that fleshed out Zac and his past by having him give opinions on the people he was camping with, or his thoughts on his family. Given how he's spending days on end alone, I feel like bringing these memories up more often could help flesh him out more throughly, as well as giving a slight break to help keep away any fatigue from the longer survival scenes.

With that said, I will give bonus points for both making the SYSTEM apropriately d***-ish in its few interactions after taking the world over, as well as having Zac be a little deeper than: "I'm a loner in a video game world and must survive. The best way to do this is to shove my hand in a blender until I'm resistant to everything!" 

Both problems tend to get glossed over in most stories by saying it's the 'logical' way of things working. So its nice to see those pitfalls avoided for once...

Overall Score:

My personal enjoyment: 3 / 5 Stars

I liked it, but since I came for the Lit RPG elements I didn't love it.

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Estimated enjoyment for others: 4/ 5 stars

Over all, it's a good story especially if you're a fan of Wuxia or Survival fics.

If you're like me, you scan this site all the time for good series to read but constantly find at least 1 or 2 things about each that are dealbreakers. For me, it's stupid MCs, harems/annoying "romantic" plotlines, and annoying side characters. After having read 30 chapters of this series, I can safely say, for now at least, that it has none of those things. Instead you'll get a visceral story about a pretty realistic MC trying to survive in a hostile world. Just give it a try, I think you'll like it.

I agree with almost everything he (Garrdor) says except the point:

< Town Building I just generally don't like settlement/town management stories, it's nowhere close to getting to that point yet but it seems like a mechanic that's gonna pop up eventually. That's just something I personally don't want to see happen in any story, and it's barely present so far in this one, I just like to whine.> 

Very solid story with enough depth and detail to keep it interesting. While there is only 1 real character as of chapter 26 (the mc), he shows the characteristics of a real person (doesn't act and make decisions like a robot). The fight scenes are fleshed out with just enough detail to keep them immersive while not drowning you in it like some xianxia/wuxia stories do. Overall the story started out great and has kept on getting better so far.

13 chapters in, MC gets screwed over by system a few times and hasn't done much. Maybe it is a slow burner? Sloooowwwww

Listen good reader what we have here ticks the boxes that myself and many of you have waited for on this hellsite; 

- Melee Protag 

- None of that cowardly magic stuff 

- Axes 

- Savage action 

- Decent character and world building 

- Axes

I rate stories based on how much I enjoy them and how much others will as well. That’s what gives this fiction a five. There are grammar errors, more than  perhaps a five star story should have but they don’t really detract from the story. It’s a system apocalypse and if you like that genre you’re going to like this one. 

Chapter 13 illustrates perfectly one of my major complaints so far. He improved his combat stats by a total of thirty points earlier. About twenty percent. He can obviously feel this increase, which is good. That makes sense. The issue is that, as far as I remember, he didn't even mention feeling a difference when he was fighting the first demonling. Before that first fight, his stats increased by more than 200%. I understand he had never been in combat before, but it seems a little silly that he never noticed all of his stats tripling at once until he saw them on his sheet. Other than that, good work story wise.

Writing wise, I noticed a few issues but nothing too major for a webnovel. You should probably go back through the first few chapters and ctrl+F for 1st person pronouns like me, I, and we. It should only take a few minutes of your time to fix a relatively major error. You also have a habit of repeating the same phrase throughout a sentence or paragraph. This is an issue that many beginning writers make. It's a bit jarring and a stylistic issue, but one I suspect will be fixed naturally as you continue writing and get more practice.