Ash jolted upright in bed, lungs burning as if he'd been dragged from the grave. His chest heaved, throat raw, every breath clawing its way into his body. Cold sweat drenched his back, soaking the sheets beneath him. The room was still, yet his breath fogged faintly in the air—wrong, unsettling.
The world around him looked the same… but it *felt different*.
His gaze landed on the cracked terminal screen flickering beside his bed. The digits glowed an eerie blue, blinking with a rhythm almost like a pulse.
**26 / 07 / 2042**
**07:06 AM**
His hands trembled. His fists clenched until his knuckles whitened.
*"No. This can't be."*
That date was etched into his memory like a scar that never faded. Thirty days before the end. Thirty days before the sky fell under an endless storm of frost, and the world drowned in silence and snow.
Ash rose from the bed slowly, every muscle taut as though he were a soldier waking behind enemy lines. His eyes swept across the room. Everything was exactly as he had left it—books stacked neatly on the shelf, a pistol half-cleaned on the desk, a shattered photo frame resting face down on the floor. The quiet hum of electricity buzzed faintly behind the walls. It was ordinary. Familiar. Comforting.
But Ash had died.
The memories hit him like shrapnel.
The cold—not the kind that stung the skin, but the kind that burrowed into the soul.
The betrayal—sharp, merciless.
The face of the man who smiled while stabbing him. The same man Ash had spared when the others wanted him erased. His mocking whisper rang in Ash's mind even now:
**"You were always too soft."**
Ash's jaw tightened until his teeth ached.
He staggered to the mirror on the wall. The reflection staring back at him was his own. Same face. Same scars carved by battles long past. Same hollow, lifeless eyes that once belonged to the man called **Ghost of the Devil**. His left forearm bore the faint, faded mark of **Unit Z**—the world's final shadow weapon against extinction-level threats.
He spoke the words like a curse.
*"Unit Z…"*
They had been assassins of monsters, erasers of chaos, the final hand of judgment when humanity's survival was at stake. Each badge carried authority above governments, above nations. To wear it was to become sovereign, untouchable. But if exposed, their existence alone branded them as an **international emergency**—not because of crimes, but because of what they could *do*. Humanity feared power more than evil.
And Ash—Ghost of the Devil—was feared most of all.
So how was he here? Alive? Did he cheat death, or had death cheated him?
His hands moved on instinct. He unlocked the old black combat vest buried in his closet. The weight of it settled onto his shoulders like an old friend. A knife strapped to his thigh. A pistol loaded with the precision of muscle memory. Finally, the biometric ID tag, long dormant, clipped to his chest.
The device beeped, scanning his pulse. Then a voice whispered through the silence:
> **"Welcome back, Agent Ghost."**
The sound sent a chill up his spine. Not because of the words—but because of the truth behind them.
Unit Z still recognized him. Which meant he wasn't dreaming. He was truly alive. The timeline had reset.
Ash turned to the window. The city stretched out before him, warm and bustling, the illusion of peace woven through its streets. People moved freely, smiling, rushing to work, clinging to their fragile normalcy.
They had no idea.
No idea that the sun would soon dim.
No idea that snow would fall, not from clouds, but from the very *sky itself*.
No idea that the laws of nature would betray them.
But Ash knew.
He had lived through it.
He had died in it.
This time, he wouldn't waste his chance.
This time, the traitors would fall first.
This time, he would remember the only rule worth remembering:
> *"You can save the Devil… but never let a traitor live."*
Ash closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and whispered into the silence:
**"This time… I finish what I started."**