The sky above Seoul bleeds crimson.
Kael Ardent stands alone on the ruins of what used to be Lotte World Tower, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Below him, the city burns. Ten years of fighting, ten years of loss, and it all comes down to this moment. His hands tighten around the grip of his sword—a blade forged from the core of a Floor 87 boss, now cracked and leaking violet light.
The Harbinger rises from the crater at the tower's summit.
It towers thirty meters tall, a grotesque fusion of flesh and metal, its twelve wings spread wide against the burning sky. Each wing drips with black ichor that sizzles when it touches stone. The creature's face—if it can be called that—shifts constantly, cycling through the visages of everyone Kael has lost. His parents. His friends. Sera.
Always Sera.
"SSS-rank Hunter Kael Ardent," the Harbinger speaks, its voice layered with a thousand screaming souls. "You are the last. Humanity's final champion. How does it feel to be so utterly, completely alone?"
Kael doesn't answer. Words are wasted on the dead.
His status window flickers in the corner of his vision, the numbers that once meant everything now just reminders of how far he's fallen:
```
[STATUS]
Name: Kael Ardent
Rank: SSS
Level: 384
HP: 2,847/45,000
Mana: 982/52,000
Title: Humanity's Last Hope (Hollow)
```
Hollow. Even his titles mock him now.
"Ten years ago," the Harbinger continues, circling him like a vulture, "when the Towers first descended, humanity had such hope. Eight billion souls looking to the sky, wondering if this was first contact with alien life. How quickly hope turned to terror."
Kael shifts his stance, tracking its movement. The creature is stalling. Why? It's already won. Earth's remaining population—roughly eight hundred thousand souls—huddles in scattered safe zones that won't last another month. The Towers have won. Humanity lost.
But he can still take this thing with him.
"Do you want to know why we chose your world?" The Harbinger's current face settles on Sera's features. Her ice-blue eyes stare at him from that monstrous skull. "Of the thousand worlds we've harvested, yours was the most... entertaining."
Rage floods through him, hot and sharp. His mana surges, responding to his emotion. Violet lightning crackles across his body.
"There it is," the Harbinger laughs. "There's the fire. Show me, Kael Ardent. Show me the strength that made you SSS-rank. Show me the power that killed the other Guardians. Show me—"
Kael moves.
The tower's summit explodes beneath his feet as he launches forward. His sword blazes with concentrated mana—every last drop he can channel without killing himself. The blade sings through the air, a streak of violet death aimed at the Harbinger's core.
The creature blocks with one wing. Metal meets flesh-metal with a sound like reality tearing. The shockwave levels what remains of the tower's upper twenty floors. Kael rebounds, lands, attacks again. His blade is a blur, each strike carrying enough force to split mountains.
The Harbinger blocks every one.
"Predictable," it says. "You fight like a man with nothing left to lose. Reckless. Desperate."
Its counterattack comes faster than Kael can track. A wing slams into his chest. Ribs crack. He crashes through three support pillars before impacting the far wall. Blood fills his mouth.
```
[HP: 847/45,000]
[Warning: Critical condition]
[Recommended action: Retreat]
```
Retreat. The System still thinks there's somewhere to run.
Kael spits blood and laughs. The sound is bitter, broken. "You're right. I have nothing left to lose. That's what makes me dangerous."
He pulls himself upright. His body screams in protest—ten years of accumulated injuries, wounds that never fully healed, damage that even SSS-rank regeneration can't completely fix. He's held together by sheer will and spite.
Perfect.
His hands move through a series of gestures, each one precise despite the pain. Mana circles bloom in the air around him—not one, not ten, but fifty overlapping geometric patterns. Each circle represents a spell he's mastered, a power he's earned through blood and sacrifice.
"Composite Casting," he says quietly. "You know what happens when an SSS-rank uses this technique?"
The Harbinger's expression shifts. For the first time, Kael sees something like concern in those stolen eyes.
"It kills them," Kael continues. "The mana drain alone would empty my reserves in thirty seconds. The physical strain would tear my body apart in sixty. But for those sixty seconds?" He grins, feral and wild. "I become something beyond SSS-rank."
The circles ignite. Pure mana floods his system, far more than his body was designed to handle. His skin cracks, leaking light. Pain beyond description screams through every nerve. He channels it all into the sword.
"Eclipse Severance," Kael whispers. "The technique that doesn't exist because everyone who tries it dies."
He swings.
The blade cuts through reality itself. Space parts before it like a curtain. The Harbinger tries to dodge but Kael's strike transcends distance—the cut appears directly on its core, a wound that leaks not blood but pure void.
The creature screams. The sound shatters what remains of the tower's windows. It thrashes, twelve wings beating frantically, but the void spreads. Consuming. Erasing.
Kael stands motionless, sword extended, watching his final enemy die. His HP drops steadily—500, 400, 300. The technique is eating him alive from the inside. He can feel his mana channels burning out, his muscles tearing, his bones cracking under impossible strain.
Worth it.
The Harbinger collapses, its form breaking apart into ash and shadow. As it dies, its face cycles through every person humanity lost. Thousands of faces. Millions. Each one a story cut short, a future stolen.
Sera's face appears last. Ice-blue eyes meeting his one final time.
"I'm sorry," Kael says to her memory. "I couldn't save you. Couldn't save anyone."
```
[HP: 47/45,000]
[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL FAILURE IMMINENT]
[All vital functions failing]
```
His sword shatters. The blade—his faithful companion for eight years—breaks into a thousand glittering fragments. Kael watches them fall, each piece catching the crimson light of the burning sky.
Poetic, really.
His legs give out. He slumps against the wall, blood pooling beneath him. Seoul spreads out below, a city of ghosts and ash. Beyond it, the world burns. A hundred Towers still stand, monuments to humanity's extinction.
"We tried," he says to no one. To everyone. To the eight billion who came before. "God help us, we tried."
His vision darkens. The pain fades—a mercy, probably. His HP hits zero.
```
[You have died]
```
But then something strange happens.
The System message glitches. Static runs across his vision, colors he can't name bleeding through the standard blue interface. New text appears, written in characters that hurt to read:
```
[Analysis complete]
[Subject: Suitable]
[Regression Protocol: Initialized]
[You have been chosen]
```
"What—" Kael tries to speak but has no breath.
The world inverts. Up becomes down, light becomes dark, death becomes—
—something else.
A voice speaks from everywhere and nowhere, neither male nor female, ageless and ancient:
"Kael Ardent. You have been granted a singular opportunity. The Timeline resets. Your knowledge remains. Save them."
"Who—"
"Save her. Save humanity. Save yourself."
"I don't understand—"
"You will."
The ruined tower, the burning sky, the pain—all of it dissolves. Kael falls through darkness, through time itself, through ten years of memory and loss and desperate struggle. Images flash past him: Sera's death in his arms, Marcus taking a blade meant for him, Aria's final healing spell as monsters overwhelmed the hospital, the day the Towers appeared, the moment before the world ended—
He falls.
And falls.
And falls.
Until he hits ground that shouldn't exist, in a time that's already passed, with a second chance that should be impossible.
Kael Ardent opens his eyes to the morning sun streaming through his apartment window. He's in his bed. His old bed. The one he hasn't seen in ten years because it burned when the first Tower Break hit Seoul.
His phone buzzes on the nightstand. The date reads: June 14, 2024.
One day before the Awakening.
One day before the world ends.
Kael stares at his hands—whole, unscathed, free of the scars that marked a decade of warfare. He's twenty-eight again, not thirty-eight. His body doesn't ache with accumulated wounds. His mana channels aren't burned out husks.
A new notification appears, but not from his phone. This one materializes directly in his vision, written in those same impossible characters:
```
[VOID INDEX: ONLINE]
[Welcome back, Kael Ardent]
[Mission: Prevent the extinction of humanity]
[Time remaining until Awakening: 23 hours, 47 minutes]
[Good luck. You're going to need it.]
```
Kael sits up slowly, his mind racing through everything he knows, everything he lived through, everyone he lost. Ten years of knowledge compressed into his skull. Ten years of warfare and strategy and desperate last stands.
A second chance.
His hands clench into fists. Outside his window, Seoul goes about its morning—people heading to work, students rushing to class, everyone blissfully unaware that tomorrow, the sky will turn red and the world will change forever.
Not this time.
This time, he knows what's coming. This time, he has the Void Index, whatever that is. This time, he won't let Sera die. Won't let Marcus fall. Won't let humanity burn.
"Round two," Kael whispers to the empty room.
His reflection in the window shows a man who died alone on a tower of ash and ruin. But the man sitting in this bed is younger, stronger, and carries the wisdom of those lost years.
The System killed him once.
He's going to return the favor.