The sky bled crimson.
Kain Voss stood atop the ruins of what had once been New York City, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he clutched the gaping wound in his side. Blood—his blood—pooled at his feet, mixing with the ash and rubble of humanity's final stronghold.
Around him, the battle raged on. Or what was left of it.
Screams echoed through the smoke-choked air as the last defenders of humanity fell one by one. S-rank hunters who had once been celebrities, worshipped like gods, now died like everyone else. Their expensive armor shattered. Their legendary weapons broken. Their hope extinguished.
"Kain!"
He turned his head, and his heart shattered.
Elena Cross stumbled toward him, her white healer's robes stained crimson. Behind her, a pack of shadow beasts closed in, their red eyes gleaming with hunger. She raised her staff, a barrier of golden light flickering to life around a group of cowering civilians—mothers clutching children, elderly men too weak to run.
"Elena, no!" Kain tried to move, but his legs wouldn't obey. His mana reserves were empty. His items used. His skills on cooldown. "Run! Leave them!"
She looked back at him, and even from this distance, he could see the tears streaming down her face. Her smile was gentle, impossibly gentle for the hell they stood in.
"Someone has to protect them, Kain. That's what heroes do, right?"
The shadow beasts lunged.
Kain screamed, but no sound came out. He could only watch as Elena poured every last drop of her mana into the barrier, burning her own life force to keep it stable. The beasts tore into her, and she fell to her knees, but the barrier held.
It held until every civilian made it to the evacuation portal.
It held until Elena's body hit the ground.
It held until the light in her eyes went out.
"No... no, no, NO!"
Kain's vision blurred. Rage and grief warred in his chest, threatening to tear him apart from the inside. He tried to stand, tried to reach her, but a shadow fell over him.
"Still alive, Kain? You're tougher than I thought."
That voice.
Kain looked up through the haze of pain and saw him. Adrian Vexx, the Crimson Archmage, leader of the greatest hunter guild in the world. His supposed ally. His friend.
The man who had just put a spear of condensed mana through Kain's back.
"Why?" Kain's voice was barely a whisper.
Adrian crouched down, his handsome face twisted with something that might have been regret. Or perhaps pity. "Because you were too dangerous, Kain. Too powerful. Too idealistic. The Monarchs offered humanity a chance to survive—not as rulers, but as servants. A bitter pill, yes, but survival nonetheless."
"You... sold us out?"
"I saved the species." Adrian stood, brushing ash from his pristine robes. "In a thousand years, maybe we'll be strong enough to rebel. But if we fought today, we'd all die. You'd have led us to extinction with your foolish pride."
Kain tried to respond, but blood filled his mouth. His vision darkened at the edges.
Behind Adrian, the sky split open.
The Ninth Gate—the Gate of Creation—tore through reality itself. From within stepped a figure cloaked in shadow and starlight, an entity that radiated power so immense that even the dying Kain could feel it crushing down on his soul.
The Architect. The being who had created the System, who had opened the Gates, who had condemned their world to this nightmare.
"Is it done?" The Architect's voice resonated with the sound of collapsing universes.
Adrian bowed. "The last SSS-rank hunter is neutralized. Humanity surrenders."
"Good. The harvest can begin."
Harvest. They weren't even going to let humanity serve. They were going to drain Earth of every drop of mana, every spark of life, and leave behind a dead husk floating in space.
Adrian's eyes widened in horror as he realized the truth. "But you said—you promised—"
"I promised nothing. Your species' mana will fuel the restoration of our world. You should be honored."
Adrian tried to run, tried to fight, tried to scream. A tendril of shadow pierced his chest, and he collapsed beside Kain, their blood mixing in the rubble.
"Fool," Kain rasped. "We could have... won... together..."
Adrian's eyes were already glazing over. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. If I could... do it again..."
Then he was gone.
Kain lay there, his life draining away, staring up at the blood-red sky. Around him, the Architect's forces began their harvest. The screams of millions filled his ears. The world itself seemed to weep.
I failed.
I failed them all.
Elena. Marcus. Yuki. Everyone.
If only... if only I could do it over...
If I had one more chance...
I'd burn the whole world down before I let this happen again.
Darkness claimed him.
And then there was light.
Kain gasped, his eyes snapping open. His hands flew to his chest, searching for the wound that should have killed him, but there was nothing. No blood. No pain. Just smooth, unblemished skin.
He sat up in bed, heart hammering, and looked around wildly.
This wasn't the battlefield. This was...
No.
No, this isn't possible.
Kain's gaze locked onto the calendar hanging on the wall across from him. The cheap paper calendar he'd bought from a street vendor when he first moved into this shoebox apartment.
April 4th, 2025.
Ten years ago.
The day the Gates first appeared.
"What the hell...?"
His hands—he looked at his hands and nearly choked. They were young. Smooth. No scars from a decade of fighting. No calluses from wielding weapons. These were the hands of an eighteen-year-old college dropout who'd never held anything more dangerous than a kitchen knife.
Kain stumbled out of bed and caught sight of himself in the small mirror on his desk.
The face staring back at him was his own, but wrong. Too young. Too soft. Too... alive.
Black hair that hadn't yet been streaked with premature gray from stress. Grey eyes that hadn't yet learned to measure every person as a potential threat or ally. A lean build that came from skipping meals to save money, not from brutal training.
This was him. Kain Voss at eighteen years old.
Before everything.
His legs gave out, and he collapsed into his desk chair, mind reeling. This couldn't be real. It had to be a hallucination, some final mercy from his dying brain. A dream. A trick.
But it felt real. The threadbare carpet under his feet. The smell of instant ramen from last night's dinner. The distant sound of traffic from the street below.
All of it was real.
"I'm back," he whispered. "I actually went back."
The implications hit him like a freight train. If this was real—if he had somehow regressed to this point—then he could change everything. He could save Elena. Save Marcus. Stop Adrian before he ever turned traitor. Prevent the Monarchs from winning.
He could save the world.
But how? In the first timeline, he'd awakened as a B-rank hunter. Good, but not great. It had taken him ten years of grinding, risking his life in countless gates, and pure luck to reach SSS-rank.
He didn't have ten years this time.
As if responding to his thoughts, a translucent blue window materialized in front of him.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Regression detected.
Temporal anomaly confirmed.
Soul integrity: 100%
Memory retention: Complete
Initiating emergency protocol...
Kain's breath caught. This wasn't the normal System notification. He'd seen those thousands of times, but never anything like this.
The window flickered, and new text appeared:
[ANALYSIS COMPLETE]
You have died with regret.
You have wished for a second chance.
You have been deemed worthy.
Special class assignment in progress...
"Worthy?" Kain leaned forward, his exhaustion forgotten. "Worthy of what?"
The window pulsed with dark energy, and the text shifted to a deep purple color that seemed to absorb the light around it.
[CONGRATULATIONS]
You have been selected as the Shadow Sovereign.
Class: Shadow Sovereign (Hidden SSS-Rank)
Authority: Monarch-Class
Unique Abilities Unlocked:
Shadow Extraction
Shadow Storage
Monarch's Authority
Umbral Evolution
Shadow Exchange
Current Level: 1
Current Shadow Army: 0
Warning: This class cannot be changed.
Warning: Your existence will draw the attention of the Monarchs.
Warning: Failure means extinction.
[Will you accept this power and the burden that comes with it?]
[YES] / [NO]
Kain stared at the window, his mind racing.
Shadow Sovereign. A hidden SSS-rank class. In the first timeline, he'd never even heard of such a thing. Hidden classes were rare—maybe one in a million hunters had them—but an SSS-rank hidden class?
That was unheard of.
And it was offering itself to him on the very first day. Before he'd even awakened through the normal process.
There had to be a catch. The warnings were clear enough. Draw attention. Carry burden. Prevent extinction.
But what choice did he have?
He'd already failed once. He'd watched the world burn, watched everyone he loved die, watched humanity fall. If this power—whatever it was—gave him a chance to prevent that nightmare from happening again...
Kain reached out and pressed [YES].
The window exploded with dark energy.
Pain—pure, searing agony—ripped through every cell in his body. Kain fell from his chair, convulsing on the floor as something fundamental in his very being rewrote itself. His mana pathways, his soul, his connection to the System—everything transformed.
Shadows erupted from his body, swirling around him like a vortex of living darkness. The room's temperature plummeted. Frost formed on the windows.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
Kain lay on the floor, gasping for breath, his entire body drenched in cold sweat. Slowly, shakily, he pushed himself up to his knees.
The shadows had settled, but they hadn't disappeared. They clung to him now, a thin layer of darkness that seemed to move with a will of its own. When he looked at his hands, he could see tendrils of shadow dancing between his fingers.
A new window appeared:
[SHADOW SOVEREIGN CLASS SUCCESSFULLY INTEGRATED]
You are now the heir to the throne of shadows.
The mantle passes from the old king to the new.
Rise, Shadow Sovereign.
Your hunt begins.
Before Kain could process what that meant, one final notification materialized:
[QUEST RECEIVED: First Steps]
Description: In exactly one hour, the First Gate will appear in Central Manhattan. It will be a White Gate (F-Rank), and most awakened hunters will ignore it. You will not.
Objective: Clear the First Gate and perform your first Shadow Extraction.
Reward: Shadow Soldier (Common) x1, EXP, ???
Failure: Death
Time Remaining: 59:47
Kain's jaw clenched.
One hour until the Gates appeared. One hour until his second chance truly began.
He climbed to his feet, shadows still swirling around him, and walked to the window. Outside, the morning sun shone over New York City. People hurried to work, completely unaware that their world was about to change forever.
But Kain knew.
He remembered every death, every disaster, every betrayal that would come in the next ten years.
Not this time.
This time, he'd be ready.
This time, he wouldn't trust the wrong people.
This time, he wouldn't let Elena die.
This time, he'd build an army of shadows so vast that even the Monarchs would tremble.
A cold smile crossed Kain's face—an expression that had never appeared on his eighteen-year-old features before. It was the smile of someone who had lost everything and been given one last chance for revenge.
"Let's rewrite fate," he whispered to the shadows dancing at his fingertips.
The countdown continued.
58:23
58:22
58:21
In one hour, the First Gate would open.
In one hour, the apocalypse would begin.
But this time, Kain Voss wouldn't be a victim.
This time, he'd be the monster the monsters feared.