Barliona. A virtual world jam-packed with monsters, battles - and predictably, players. Millions of them come to Barliona, looking forward to the things they can't get in real life: elves and magic, dragons and princesses, and unforgettable combat. The game has become so popular that players now choose to spend months online without returning home. In Barliona, anything goes: you can assault fellow players, level up, become a mythical hero, a wizard or a legendary thief. The only rule that attempted to regulate the game demanded that no player was allowed to feel actual pain.

But there's an exception to every rule. For a certain bunch of players, Barliona has become their personal hell. They are criminals sent to Barliona to serve their time. They aren't in it for the dragons' gold or the abundant loot. All they want is to survive the virtual inferno. They face the ultimate survival quest.

In a former life, Jack was gifted, meaning he possessed peculiar abilities. If rich folks found themselves in a jam, Jack could use his talents to get them out of it. Where others were sure to fail, Jack’s aristocratic clientele could always count on him to finish jobs cleanly, efficiently, and leave no trace, for which his services commanded a hefty fee.

But one day, Jack picked a fight with the wrong man and his old life came to an end. But, as it turned out, his story was far from over.

A mysterious supernatural being whisked Jack's consciousness away and into the body of a young nobleman living in a different world in the multiverse – a magical one.

In it, he must play the part of Max Renard, illegitimate son of a traitor who was recently executed on orders from the king, which caused Max to lose his home and be forced to dwell in a small town on the western outskirts of the kingdom.

And now this new life – his last life – is the one he must lead…

From book 1:

At long last, an extraterrestrial civilization reached out and made the First Contact. However, no one on Earth took their communique for the genuine article. In a similar vein, very few people appreciated just how little time our new suzerains had promised to keep our planet safe. Regardless, the end of their message showed humankind how to access a mysterious game. The objective of this game is unclear. No one can say where its servers are located, and its inner workings are beyond comprehension. But the game slowly gained momentum, pulling in more and more players. Soon enough, it became impossible to ignore the fact that things that happened in the game had a direct impact on our reality. And not only ours...

But as people figure out this mysterious game, the countdown timer ticks away. And no one can say exactly what will happen when Earth’s safety is no longer guaranteed.

Earth, 2074. After World War III, a single world government rules the planet — the UN.
The planet’s population now exceeds twenty billion, at least a third of which are non-citizens, people declared useless to the community, which means they have no rights to the benefits of civilization. Citizenship is divided into categories; from A with the highest status, the social elite, to L — the lowest.
At the recommendation of the UN Department of Education, every teenager between ages fourteen and sixteen must spend at least one hour per day in Disgardium. This is considered an essential part of a well-rounded education to give teenagers the social skills they need and prepare them for adult life.
The student Alex Sheppard takes the in-game nickname Scyth. After making his character wrong and having trouble leveling up, he quickly loses interest in the game. For over a year, he just spends his mandatory hours in the sandbox, sitting on a bench outside the tavern.
His parents are planning to divorce, which will lower their citizenship class and income, and they won’t be able to pay for Alex’s education to fulfill his dream of becoming a space guide. The colonization of Mars has begun, and plans are in the works to correct Venus’ orbit.
Half a year before school ends, Alex is forced to start playing Disgardium for real to earn enough for his studies.
To maintain balance, the game’s developer company Snowstorm initially introduced the policy of ‘Threats’ to knock out imbalanced players. Any player-threat identified by an artifact of the True Flame can be thrown out of the game permanently with the help of a simple ritual. The eliminator receives rewards based on the Threat’s potential, and the Threat is also rewarded: the higher its level, the greater the compensation, but the harder it is to defeat. If the Threat’s status reaches extreme highs, it can be tough to eliminate. This means that the eliminators (or ‘preventers,’ as they call themselves) gain more by eliminating Threats before they power up.
The Threats themselves need to hide and level up. Their reward after elimination comes not from their potential, but from their current status level, where A is the highest and Z is the lowest.
Scyth becomes a Threat with potential A after a series of unlikely events converge.

From book 1:

Rostislav Grokhotov, an ordinary clerk working for a privately-owned company, just wanted to earn some extra money in the game. He had no specific plans for his new character. Little did he know that his new nickname Rosgard would become the game's next greatest legend.

Even the game's Crèche zone may contain items of interest if you're observant enough. Rosgard's find didn't just change his own life drastically — it enveloped an entire game world in a turmoil to boot! The adventuring player becomes a valued prize for Waldyra's leading clans. Our hero has to conceal his real name, since he's in danger in real world as well, and that's no game anymore. There are millions at stake — and the currency in question isn't Monopoly money. Rosgard holds the key to wealth and power in both worlds.

Should you play your own game or throw in your lot with the strongest? This is the question that needs to be answered by the protagonist, whose luck is incredible. Whose side does one take without becoming a pawn in anyone's game?

Clan Dominance: The Sleepless Ones is a perfect example of a classical LitRPG novel. The events in the virtual world and the events in the real world mesh closely together as the plot thickens and becomes more and more dynamic from one book to another. The series has thousands of diehard fans in Russia! Now in English — for every true fan of the genre!

I was the most powerful healer in my world — the best, having devoted my entire life to mastering the art of healing. And yet, for whatever reason, my brother feared that I sought to claim his throne, and he marshaled his forces against me.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter, all the same I’d been planning on trying out a certain ritual and now...

I’m in another world altogether!? And this body I’m inhabiting, well, it’s not mine, but some young guy’s! And what’s it mean that in this world the gift of the healer is downright pathetic?

Apparently, they simply don’t know how to handle power.

Well, I’ll show them...

I was a Hunter, and I honored the Code. For my services to humanity and for leading a ‘proper’ life, I was to be rewarded. A new life after death, and a new world to give me some well-deserved rest.

But something went wrong. Once again, I must fight. The Monsters that face me here are far more terrifying than those of my past life. They are cleverer, crueler, more unpredictable. And their name is…

What does a master artificer need after eliminating a threat to the future empire? Nothing but a chance to finally pursue his craft in peace.

I cheated death itself and returned to the glorious city on the Neva, the one we built together with the Czar. Three hundred years have passed, and everything has changed. I’ve awakened in the body of a young count with a scandalous reputation.

But I am still an artificer. I am home. And I can become even stronger now—just as soon as I deal with a few lingering problems… and put a couple of particularly irritating nobles in their place.

I was once a mighty Paladin of Darkness, mother of all the Elements. The one and only of my kind.

Some called me the chosen one, a savior destined to rescue the world; others insisted I would be its downfall.

I never got the chance to discover who was right. Society conspired with the traitors to trap me in the deadly Element of Time.

But a year later, I managed to break free... wait, how has it been 700 years?

From book 1:

When the shattered fragments of the Black Moon collapsed onto planet Earth, splitting continents apart and flooding them with raging oceans, Darkness descended onto our world. The eruptions of hostile energy from behind the Edge distorted the laws of the physical world, creating new life forms which now threaten to take over the planet. The last remaining vestiges of humankind, too desperate for their own survival, have nothing to offer against their advance.

So it’s time to activate Incarnation: the last instruction issued by Project Stellar. In a situation when there’re not enough living beings to protect planet Earth, the dead fighters will have to rejoin the defenders’ ranks.