Audiobooks
Sky Pride Audiobook: The Feral Daoist Arrives October 20
Sky Pride audiobook preview: The Feral Daoist, read by J.S. Arquin, is dated October 20, 2026 on Audible and Kindle, and Royal Road stubs Vol. 1 on Oct 17.
The Sky Pride audiobook starts with The Feral Daoist, book 1 of Warby Picus's cultivation web serial, and Audible dates it October 20, 2026. J.S. Arquin narrates, the length is 14 hours 28 minutes, and the publisher is Shadow Alley Press. The Kindle ebook comes out the same day. Three days earlier comes a Royal Road date: the fiction's title reads "Vol. 1 Stubbing October 17. Read Now!" Everything below was checked on October 10, 2026, before release, so it is a preview: no reviews of the recording exist yet.
TL;DR: The Feral Daoist (Sky Pride, book 1) is a pre-order on Audible and Kindle, both dated October 20, 2026. J.S. Arquin reads it; it runs 14 h 28 m. If you want to read volume 1 free on Royal Road, the title says it is "Stubbing October 17". The serial itself keeps going, one chapter a day on weekdays.
Key Takeaways
- Audiobook: The Feral Daoist, 14 hours 28 minutes, narrated by J.S. Arquin, Shadow Alley Press, dated October 20, 2026 on Audible.
- Ebook: Sky Pride - Volume One: The Feral Daoist, 420 pages on Kindle, also October 20, 2026 (pre-order price USD 4.99 when we checked).
- Royal Road: volume 1 is the first 50 chapters; the page title says "Stubbing October 17".
- Still running: 418 chapters on Royal Road, ONGOING, more than 26,000 followers.
Overview
Sky Pride is a cultivation serial on Royal Road by Warby Picus. Its first chapter went up on March 8, 2025, and the page blurb ends: "A broken boy will defy the heavens, and soar." As of October 10, 2026 the page lists 418 chapters across six named volumes, marks the story ONGOING, and gives the schedule as "-1 chapter a day M-F. Volume 7 is already complete." It had more than 26,000 followers and over 20.7 million total views.
It is also a common pick among Cradle readers: Sky Pride was named in 10 comments in the r/ProgressionFantasy threads behind our books like Cradle list, ninth of the ten series there.
Cover: Audible product page (Shadow Alley Press)
The Feral Daoist: Audiobook and Ebook Details
| Audiobook (Audible) | Ebook (Kindle) | |
|---|---|---|
| Title | The Feral Daoist (Sky Pride, Book 1) | Sky Pride - Volume One: The Feral Daoist |
| Release date | October 20, 2026 | October 20, 2026 |
| Length | 14 h 28 m | 420 pages |
| Narrator | J.S. Arquin | n/a |
| Publisher | Shadow Alley Press | Shadow Alley Press |
| Status on Oct 10, 2026 | Pre-order ($24.09) | Pre-order (USD 4.99) |
Audible's series page for Sky Pride lists one book so far, and Amazon's Kindle page says "Book 1 of 1". Arquin is not new to the genre: Audible lists him as narrator on other LitRPG and progression titles, including book 12 of The Path of Ascension. For more long cultivation listens, see our best LitRPG audiobooks list.
Cover: Amazon product page (Shadow Alley Press)
Step-by-Step: How to Start Sky Pride
1. Decide on audio or text: the audiobook and the Kindle ebook of book 1 both arrive October 20, 2026.
2. If you want to read volume 1 on Royal Road, do it before October 17: the fiction's title reads "Sky Pride [Vol. 1 Stubbing October 17. Read Now!]". Volume 1 there is called "Sky Pride V. 1 The Feral Daoist" and holds chapters 1 to 50.
3. After book 1, continue on Royal Road: volumes 2 to 6 are posted there, and new chapters arrive Monday to Friday. Per the author's chapter notes, Patreon is "fifteen chapters ahead".
4. Check before you buy book 2: no second book has an Audible or Amazon listing yet.
Cover: Royal Road (Warby Picus)
What "Stubbing" Means for Royal Road Readers
A stub on Royal Road is a story whose author has taken chapters down, most often when the ebook goes into Amazon's KDP Select (Kindle Unlimited) program. In a Royal Road forum thread on how to stub, one user explains: "You have to manually delete the chapters. However, the chapters still remain in the site's database, and you can repost said chapters at a later date from the chapters page should you choose to remove your works from KDP Select (a.k.a. KU) exclusivity." Another notes: "It's a site requirement that you mark your fics as Stubs, and one the staff enforce pretty well."
Other series show what that looks like after the fact: our Primal Hunter reading order describes a Royal Road page that keeps chapters 1 to 8 and then jumps to the latest book. Sky Pride's page does not say which chapters will stay up after October 17, so we cannot tell you how much of volume 1 will remain.
Cover: Royal Road (Warby Picus)
What Readers Say
In r/ProgressionFantasy, u/RevArtillery answered a September 2026 request for books like Cradle: "standard recs for cultivation here are Beware of Chicken and Sky Pride." (comment, September 14, 2026). In an earlier thread, u/GregDK22 described the lead as "basically cradle mc with severe emotional and physical damage, but gets to meet the girl more quickly in his journey" (comment, February 28, 2026).
Our take
Based on the listings above, October 20 is the date to watch: audio and ebook land together, so listeners do not have to wait behind readers. At 14 hours 28 minutes, The Feral Daoist is a short first book for the genre (the Cradle and Defiance of the Fall openers we cover run about 9 to 23 hours), which makes it an easy trial. The one thing to plan around is October 17: if you would rather read volume 1 free on Royal Road, start now, because the title gives October 17 as the stub date and the page does not say what stays. Since the audiobook was not out when we checked, we cannot say anything about the performance yet; we will update this page once it is.
How we checked this
On October 10, 2026 we opened the Audible product page for The Feral Daoist (structured data: release date, length, narrator, publisher, series) and the Audible Sky Pride series page, Amazon's Kindle page for Sky Pride - Volume One (publication date, print length, pre-order price, series line), the Sky Pride page on Royal Road with its chapter and volume lists (status, schedule, followers, chapter dates), the author's chapter notes, and the Royal Road forum thread on stubbing. The Reddit comments were copied from thread data we saved that day. A site-agent then compared every number in this article with our source table; the lines it flagged were fixed before publication.
Related Reading
- Defiance of the Fall reading order: a long cultivation LitRPG with all 17 audiobooks out.
- Cradle series reading order: the finished cultivation series it is most compared with.
- All audiobook guides
Frequently Asked Questions
When does the Sky Pride audiobook come out? October 20, 2026, per Audible.
Who narrates the Sky Pride audiobook? J.S. Arquin; 14 hours 28 minutes.
What is The Feral Daoist? Volume 1 of Sky Pride: the first 50 Royal Road chapters.
What does "Stubbing October 17" mean on Royal Road? The author takes chapters down on that date; the page does not say which.
Is Sky Pride finished? No. It is ONGOING on Royal Road, with a chapter every weekday.
References
About the author
Editorial desk
The LevelUpShelf desk. Every article is built from a source file: publisher and Amazon pages, Audible, Royal Road and dated Goodreads counts, each linked in the article.
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Disclaimer
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