The city celebrated as though the sun had risen for the first time. Bells clanged, merchants shouted, and the streets were a riot of color and noise. Priests cried out that darkness had been purged, that the villain was gone, that the world could finally breathe.
But the air was heavy, unnaturally so. Rain had fallen earlier, leaving puddles that reflected the torchlight in crimson streaks. Dogs whimpered from the shadows. A hawker's cart toppled with a crash, spilling its wares, and for a fleeting moment the crowd's laughter faltered. Old women muttered under their breath, warning of uneasy days ahead, yet none dared truly believe them. The world, drunk on its triumph, ignored the omen.
---
Beyond the mortal veil, where thought and being merged into the void, the villain's soul drifted. He should have ceased to exist. The noose had done its work; the rope had tightened, the neck snapped, the world had cheered. Yet in the eternal dark, a presence stirred.
It was neither god nor demon, neither light nor shadow. It was the Origin — the one who created and could erase everything. It observed with an interest that was neither cruel nor kind, but complete.
"Mortals amuse me," the Origin thought, a vibration felt across the void rather than words. "They believe a rope ends you. Yet, without you, the game collapses. No… I will not erase you. Not yet."
And so, the villain's soul was pulled back from oblivion, dragged away from the final world, the plane of endings, and hurled through time itself.
---
Pain. Darkness. Silence.
And then — breath.
He gasped. Eyes snapped open. He was alive again. The air smelled of old wood and dust. His body was younger, unscarred, as it had been long ago. And yet, inside him, every memory of the world he had left remained: the hero's face, the laughter of the crowd, the rope swinging in the square, the cheers that had filled the air. He was reborn, but fully awake to the future he had already lived.
He laughed, bitter, sharp, and loud. "So the world wasn't done with me after all…"
---
When he rose from the bed he had remembered from years past, he caught his reflection in a tarnished mirror. The first thing he noticed was the mark. It was jagged and shifting, etched into the skin as if alive. It glowed faintly with a power neither mana nor shadow nor holy light could produce. It was chaos — the same energy the Demon King had wielded, now branded upon him.
He traced it with a fingertip. The sensation made his blood thrum, cold and electric. Questions surged like a storm: Why had he survived? Who had marked him? Was he a pawn, a curse, a weapon, or a savior? He had none of the answers, only the knowledge that nothing would ever be simple again.
---
He flexed his fingers. The memory of old powers flickered, unstable, alien, and yet potent. He knew what was coming: the Demon King would rise, nations would quarrel, heroes would stumble. Humanity was blind, divided, fragile and without him, it would fall.
And yet, now armed with foresight, chaos, and second chance, he could act. He could bend the pieces of the future, play the game differently, laugh in the face of what mortals called fate.
"So be it," he whispered, the grin curling across his lips. Dark amusement danced in his eyes. "The world that killed me… will have to depend on me now."
---
Far below, in a quiet street where the celebrations were fading into the night, a child tugged at his mother's sleeve. His voice was small, barely rising above the hum of the crowd dispersing.
"Mother… what if he was right?"
The mother stiffened, her face tightening as if she had been struck. She glanced around quickly, ensuring no one overheard, then pulled the boy close.
"Don't say that," she whispered, her lips trembling despite her attempt at calm. "Don't speak such things."
But her words felt hollow even to her. The air pressed in, heavy and strange, and the storm that had earlier passed left an unnatural stillness in the streets. Somewhere in the distance, a crow cawed, too loud, too deliberate. Shadows stretched longer than they should have, twisting and writhing under the torchlight.
The boy's question lingered. The world had celebrated the villain's death, but the truth of what had happened the impossible, the unseen hand of the Origin, the chaos branded upon the man they thought dead hung in the air. The city, the people, the hero… none would realize the danger, not yet.
And somewhere, far from their streets, in a timeline both familiar and different, the villain smiled.
The world had not ended. But it would be tested once more.