The air smelled like burnt metal and old blood.
Damian stood in the center of the throne chamber, breath dragging through his teeth. His coat hung in scorched shreds, half of it peeling off his arm. His hands shook knuckles raw, blood running down his forearm in thin lines.
The Demon King's body twitched behind him. What was left of it. Charred flesh, splintered bones, four horned skulls that had whispered promises of death.
All quiet now.
It was over.
He lowered his weapon just a jagged blade now, chipped and nearly broken. He could barely hold it. The weight wasn't in the steel anymore. It was in his arms, his legs, pressing down on his skull like lead.
His boots were soaked. Filthy demon blood, mostly. Some of it his own.
Behind him, seven people watched in silence.
He didn't turn around. Didn't want to see their faces, he had to fight him alone.
"Is it done?" someone asked.
He didn't answer. Just dropped the blade with a dull clang and walked toward the broken altar.
The gate was still open. Barely. A thin crack in space, pulsing with corrupted light that oozed out like blood from a wound.
He crouched next to the Demon King's corpse and reached into its ribcage. His hand sunk into sticky black matter. Something pulsed against his palm.
The final fragment.
He pulled it free and stood, legs wobbling. The shard hurt to look at—its texture shifted, showing him things that weren't there.
One more step. That's all it would take.
He started walking toward the gate.
Footsteps echoed behind him. Casual. Like this was just another day.
"You going to seal it?" Elena asked.
He didn't answer. Just reached the gate and held the fragment out. His hands barely responded anymore. The seal on his wrist burned, sensing the artifact.
This would take everything he had left.
He braced himself.
Someone step forward.
And then something cold pierced through his back.
Damian blinked. Looked down.
A blade tip pushed through his chest.
He didn't feel it at first. Just pressure. Then warmth. Then blood.
The shard fell from his fingers.
He stumbled forward, catching the altar's edge. Tried to breathe but nothing came. His legs folded like wet paper.
He hit the ground hard.
The gate pulsed. His blood spread across the floor, filling the cracks.
He didn't look back. Didn't need to.
Seven people. His comrades. His friends.
Not one spoke.
He stared at his reflection in the gate's surface. Pale. Blood trailing from his lips.
He tried to ask why.
Only silence answered.
"I'm sorry," Marcus said, voice flat. "But we can't let you have all of it."
"The power," Elena added. "We need it."
The light came. Bright. Cold. White.
He thought it was the end..
***
The had light faded.
Damian's eyes opened.
He was staring at a ceiling. White, cracked, stained yellow at the corners. A cobweb swayed from the ceiling fan.
The air smelled clean. No ash. No rot. No blood.
Something soft was underneath him.
He sat up fast. A blanket slid off his chest.
His hands clean. Pale. No burns, no scars. The fingers he'd broken dozen times were straight.
He looked around. Plain grey sheets. Thin mattress. The same ripped poster his sister had put up years ago, hanging by one thumbtack.
This was his room. His old room.
He stood on shaking legs and walked to the window. Outside, birds chirped. Cars honked. Normal sounds.
The world hadn't ended.
He grabbed his phone from the desk. The screen still had that crack across the top.
07:43 a.m. Tuesday March 28, 2027
His chest tightened. He had come 17 years into the past and that was the day. The day the first gate opened in Moscow.
"Damian?"
The voice came from the hallway. Soft. Familiar.
The door creaked open.
She was standing there. Same tired hoodie. Same fuzzy socks. Hair messy like she'd just woken up.
His sister. Alive.
"You're crying," she said, stepping forward.
He hadn't noticed. But the tears were there, hot and silent.
He crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her.
She made a surprised noise but didn't pull away.
He held on tight. Like if he let go, she'd vanish. Turn to ash like before.
"I'm back," he whispered. "I-I'm so sorry."
She pulled back, confused. "Sorry for what? And since when do you hug me without trying to put me in a headlock?"
She didn't know. Didn't remember dying in his arms five years into the gatefall.
"Did you have a nightmare?" she asked. "You look like shit as always."
He didn't answer.
She frowned. "You're weird today."
She turned and walked down the hallway. "I made toast for breakfast. You can have mine."
The hallway light flickered. Same broken bulb.
Same house. Same morning. Same life he'd lost.
He shut the door and leaned against it.
So that's what this was. He'd gone back. All the way back to the beginning.
For a moment, his mind spiraled. Every death. Every mistake. Every choice that led to that throne room. The comrades who smiled while they let him bleed out.
He walked to the mirror. He didn't look like a hero. Just a tired 22-year-old with dark bags under his eyes.
He pulled out an old lighter from his drawer. Cheap, scratched, held together with tape. He flicked it open. The flame caught.
In his old life, this lighter had survived everything. Even him.
Something stirred in his chest. Not power. Just memory.
Of pain. Of betrayal.
And the promise he'd made while choking on his own blood.
This time, he wouldn't trust anyone. Not blindly. Not again.
***
He didn't go to college that day.
He sat in his room for hours. The toast went cold. His sister knocked once, then left him alone.
He scrolled through news feeds. Same headlines. Reports about earthquakes. Weather shifts. Animals acting strange.
All leading up to what he knew was coming.
The first gate would open in Moscow tonight. At 11:47 PM. On camera.
Everyone would laugh. For some time.
Then they'd scream. Begging for help.
He closed the phone. His reflection stared back from the black screen.
The old world had returned. And with it, so had he.
This time would be different. This time he'd save the people who mattered.
And kill the ones who didn't.
Fix his mistakes. Do what he couldn't before.
The gate pulsed in his memory. The fragment rolled across the blood-slicked stone. Marcus pulled the blade free while Elena stepped over his body.
He remembered their faces. Their names. Their betrayal.
They thought they were so clever. Waiting until the very end to stick a knife in his back. Using his sacrifice to keep the gates open, to steal what was mine.
Not this time.
This time he knew what was coming. Knew who to trust and who to kill. The filthy demons would come through those gates just like before, but he'd be ready.
He'd been the world's greatest hero once. Saved millions. Killed powerful beings.
And they'd murdered him for it.
His sister's voice drifted up from downstairs, talking to their mom about school. Normal conversation. Normal life. Everything he'd fought to protect.
Everything he'd failed to save.
The lighter clicked in his hands. Open, closed. Open, closed.
Six months. That's how long he had before things got really bad. Before the gates stabilized and the real monsters came through. Before people like Marcus and Elena started gathering power, building their little empires on the bones of the dead.
Six months to get strong. To find allies he could actually trust. To prepare.
The first gate would open tonight. Some college kids with a camera would livestream it, thinking they were documenting a hoax. The footage would go viral for all the wrong reasons.
Within a week, every major city would have one. Within a month, the first wave of refugees would start fleeing the dead zones. Within three months, governments would start falling.
He knew it all. Had lived through it once.
The question was: what would he do differently?
His phone buzzed. A text from his friend Jake, asking if he was coming to class. In the old timeline, Jake had died in the third wave. Ripped apart by Wraiths while trying to evacuate civilians.
Good kid. Deserved better.
Damian typed back: "Skip today. Trust me."
Another buzz. This time from Sarah, his study partner. She'd lasted longer—almost two years before a Devourer got her during the Seattle evacuation.
"Something big is happening tonight," he typed. "Stay home. Lock your doors." Like an overprotective brother.
He went through his contacts, sending similar messages to everyone who mattered to him. The ones who'd died early. The ones who'd trusted the wrong people. The ones who'd simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Most wouldn't listen. But some might.
His thumb paused on Marcus's contact.
The traitor. The one who'd driven the knife in, slow and deliberate — like he was doing Damian a favor. Like betrayal was mercy.
Right now, Marcus was probably lounging in his dorm, clueless. Still thinking this was a normal world. Still breathing borrowed air.
Damian typed:
"You still sleep easy?"Then erased it.
Pointless.
Let them rest. Let them smile. Let them play innocent a little longer.
When the sky cracked open, he'd be the one standing over them not as their ally. Not anymore.
The lighter snapped shut in his palm. The flame was gone, but he could still feel its heat.
Tonight, the gates would open. The world would change. People would die.
But this time, he'd choose who.
This time, the heroes would be the ones with knives in their backs.
His sister called his name from downstairs. Something about lunch. Something normal and human and alive.
He looked at himself in the mirror one more time. Same face. Same body. But behind his eyes, something had changed.
The boy who'd tried to save everyone was dead. Murdered by the people he'd trusted most.
What was left was something harder. Colder.
Something that remembered exactly how this story ended.
And I planned to write something different from the last one.
It had appeared the first message:
[Level: 0]
STR +0 | DEX +0 | INT +0
[User: Damian Voss]
[Passive ability: Void]
[Ability: Shadow Step]
[New Quest: First Flame Ignition]
[Location: Gate in Moscow]
[Penalty: System Delay for all others]
[Reward: ???]
[Time limit: 168 Hours]