Cutting to Life: an NPC LitRPG (Battle Royale)

Nikola is an NPC in The World of Wills, a video game where players can feel sensations as if they were truly there. She leads a life of bloodshed and murder - that is, until one day she wakes up sapient. Just as she begins thinking real, non-scripted thoughts and making connections, she and the players in the game are told that if they die in the game, they die in real life - and it's time to get killing.

But what of Nikola, the emerging AI consciousness? How does she win in a game that can only end in her being wiped from existence at the end of it all?

Updates once or twice a day until the story hits the same chapter on all platforms.