The Dungeon Slayer Series

The Dungeon Slayer is Konrad Ryan's flagship LitRPG series beginning in 2020, following Tad Harrington through a post-apocalyptic Earth where dungeons have been appearing for fifty years, threatening to block out the sun entirely with their emitted darkness whilst releasing monsters that have forced humanity to develop Slayers - individuals who gain power through Rebirth at age sixteen to fight the dungeon menace. Where most Slayers receive power as a gift at Rebirth and 99% receive nothing at all, Tad's unique Rebirth grants him something unprecedented: the ability to level up and grow stronger through effort rather than receiving ready-made abilities, creating a progression system that rewards dedication in a world where power is typically inherited or absent.

Dungeons are appearing all over the Earth, with humanity scrambling to close them before the accumulating darkness smothers the sun completely. Slayers race to enter and conquer these lethal labyrinths, using their Rebirth-granted abilities to fight the monsters and bosses within. Tad Harrington - bullied relentlessly throughout his life - approaches his sixteenth birthday and the Rebirth it brings with equal measures of hope and dread, knowing that his entire future depends on this single moment and that his luck has never been particularly good.

When Tad's Rebirth occurs, he doesn't receive the instant power that successful Slayers gain, but neither is he left entirely empty like the 99% of duds. Instead, he gains access to a leveling system - the ability to see stats, grow stronger through defeating monsters, and progress through ranks by earning every shred of strength rather than having it gifted. This unique ability makes him simultaneously weaker than established Slayers at the start and potentially more powerful than any of them if he survives long enough to climb through the levels.

The series is influenced heavily by Korean manhwa "Solo Leveling," with Ryan adapting its core premise - a weak protagonist in a world of powerful hunters who gains system-like abilities to control his own growth - to a Western epic fantasy context. The progression mechanics include classes, stat systems, rank-ups, transformations, and the gradual accumulation of power through dungeon exploration and boss battles.

The series currently spans six books with a seventh forthcoming: The Dungeon Slayer (2020), The Dungeon Destroyer (2020), The Dungeon Leader (2021), The Dungeon Phoenix (2022), The Dungeon Predator (2022), and The Dungeon Titan (2023). Each installment raises the stakes whilst deepening the mythology of the dungeons, the mysterious Raekast who first brought this apocalypse to Earth, and the larger forces operating behind the dungeon appearances.

Common themes include earning strength through perseverance rather than inheritance, sacrifice accompanying power, transformation through trials, friendship forged and lost through shared danger, and one person's determination to rise when the system suggests they shouldn't exist at all.