The sky had no color left.
It wasn't black.
It wasn't red.
It wasn't even the pale gray of smoke rising from dying cities.
It was empty. A void stretched across the heavens, a canvas stripped bare, leaving only the idea of a sky above a world that no longer deserved one.
Ash drifted endlessly, suspended midair like frozen remnants of time. Not falling. Not rising. Just hovering, mocking the memory of life that had once been.
I stood alone.
Not because I wanted to.
Because there was no one else left.
Behind me, cities had collapsed into skeletal ruins. Steel towers bent inward like kneeling corpses. Streets split open like cracked veins, rivers of molten corruption glowing faintly beneath jagged cracks. Each pulse of the corrupted earth beneath my boots sent shivers up my legs, reminding me that the world what remained of it was alive. Watching. Waiting.
I inhaled. The air was thick with iron, ash, and rot. The metallic tang coated my tongue. The smell of a civilization bleeding to death, and I was the one left to witness it.
A translucent interface appeared before my eyes. Cold. Impersonal. Gold lettering floating like a judge sentencing me to an eternity of observation.
[World Integrity: 0.02%]
Me.
I stared at the numbers as if staring too long could make the world undo itself. One. Alone. The last witness to everything humanity had done to itself and what I had done to it.
I laughed.
The sound tore itself from my throat. Jagged. Broken. Hollow. It echoed across the ruins and returned, fractured, mocking me.
"So this is it," I muttered.
No one answered.
Not the comrades buried beneath collapsed buildings hunters I had once trusted with my life.
Not the thousands of names etched in my memory from after action reports.
Not the civilians who had cried, begged, screamed as I walked past burning shelters because the mission objective mattered more than mercy.
Only the dungeon responded.
The ground trembled.
Slowly. Deliberately. Like some massive, ancient predator finally aware that its prey had nowhere to run.
Pressure thickened the air. My ears rang. Gravity hesitated. Time warped.
Something beneath existence itself had noticed me.
Ancient.
Vast.
Hungry.
The Final Dungeon.
It no longer needed a gate.
The world itself had become the dungeon. No boundaries. No safe zones. No fallback positions. Nothing but the earth beneath me, the ash above, and the presence watching me like a child afraid to blink.
I remembered when it first appeared. Ten years ago.
A single S-rank gate, floating above the ocean. Impossible geometry that made physicists scream. Governments called it a turning point. Guilds celebrated. Hunters trained harder than ever.
We believed.
Idiots.
I tightened my grip on my blade. Once, it had been a perfect S-rank artifact. Reforged twice. Upgraded with rare materials harvested from monsters that no longer existed. A weapon worthy of legends.
Now it was chipped. Cracked. Barely holding together.
Just like me.
Every movement screamed agony. One arm hung useless at my side, shattered bones sharp against the fabric of my armor. My ribs were exposed beneath blood-soaked leather.
Each breath burned.
Yet the system wouldn't let me die. Not yet.
Because the dungeon hadn't finished playing.
A sound rolled across the ruins.
Not a roar. Not a scream.
A laugh.
Low. Amused. Ancient.
Reality itself tore as something stepped through.
The final boss? No. That word was insufficient.
This was a calamity.
Its form refused to settle. Humanoid one moment, monstrous the next. Thousands of eyes blinked across its body, each reflecting a different moment of humanity's extinction.
Above its head floated a single word.
[Rank: SSS]
My knees weakened.
Not from fear. From understanding.
So this was the ceiling. The peak no human was ever meant to touch.
"You're late," it said, layered with hundreds of voices overlapping. "I was beginning to think you'd died."
I spat blood. "Disappointed?"
"Fascinated," it replied.
It stepped forward. The world screamed. Mountains crumbled, air slammed into my body, bones fractured under impossible pressure.
I slammed my blade into the ground, forcing myself upright.
"Get it over with," I growled. "You've already won."
"Won?" it echoed. "No. You misunderstand."
It raised a hand.
Memories tore into the air.
I saw my younger self laughing, arrogant, rejecting weaker hunters from the party. Missions abandoned. Cities evacuated too late. Innocent lives sacrificed for efficiency.
And then her.
Eyes wide, bloodied, reaching for me. "I'll come back," I had promised. I never did.
"You optimized," the calamity said. "You survived. Humanity? Collapsed. Billions dead. Entire continents erased."
"Was it worth it?"
I screamed. "Then why show me this now?!"
"Because you are the last witness."
Its hand pierced my chest. Cold. Endless darkness.
I didn't die screaming.
I died regretting.
If I had chosen differently…
Light exploded behind my eyes.
I gasped. Clean air. Young hands. Iron gates.
HUNTER ACADEMY – ENTRANCE EXAM VENUE
Black text appeared.
[System Initialization Complete]
[Designation: Last Witness]
[Status: Regressed]
Then a line that made my blood freeze.
[WARNING: ANOMALY DETECTED]
[SSS ENTITY SYNCHRONIZED WITH TIMELINE]
My heart stopped.
The gates began to open.
Hundreds of candidates waited stretching, laughing, hiding fear behind bravado.
I recognized some faces. Future allies. Future enemies.
"This is… before," I whispered. The sky above was cruelly blue.
A cold sensation crawled into my consciousness.
The gates groaned.
A shadow moved behind them.
Not human. Not yet.
Watching me. Waiting.
Far beyond this academy…
The calamity smiled.
And beneath it, a whisper echoed in my mind:
This time, every choice will be recorded. And every choice will matter.
The gates groaned open, a sound that seemed too heavy for mere metal. I stepped forward, my boots scraping against the polished stone floor of the academy's entrance hall. Clean. Pristine. A stark contrast to the ruins and ash that had dominated my past life.
The crowd of candidates parted instinctively, as though they felt the air around me shift. I could see the confusion in their eyes. Whispers rippled like wind through leaves:
"Who… is that?"
"Is he one of the returning veterans?"
"No… he looks… different."
Different.
Not an accurate word. Not strong enough.
I was older than them. Smarter. Deadlier. And yet… younger. Regressed. Unscarred. Untouched. A body and mind returned to the starting line, with the memory of all I had lost, all I had destroyed, clawing at my conscience.
[Designation: Last Witness]
[Status: Regressed]
[Authority Level: Locked]
The system still hadn't granted me full authority. Locked. My hands itched to manipulate it, to bend it as I had before. But no. I was a candidate again. And yet, something in the system's subtle tremor told me: this time, it was different.
A notification flickered in front of my eyes:
[SSS Entity Influence Detected: Minimal Level]
[Recommendation: Avoid unnecessary confrontation until threshold assessment complete]
Minimal influence.
Threshold assessment.
The words did nothing to comfort me.
Somewhere deep, far beyond these academy walls, it was watching. Learning. Waiting. And when it would strike… there would be no mercy.
I inhaled and looked around. Hundreds of candidates lined the hall, some stretching, some fidgeting, some whispering to each other nervously. I recognized the familiar patterns fear hiding behind forced confidence, arrogance thinly veiled as competence.
And then I saw him.
A boy, not more than fifteen or sixteen, standing perfectly upright. Hair white as ash, eyes pale silver. Everyone else seemed alive, but he… he seemed already carved from shadows. He glanced at me for a brief moment, expression unreadable, then turned away.
A warning, perhaps. Or a challenge.
The air shimmered. Subtle distortions of reality I hadn't noticed before. A faint pulse from beneath the floor, like the heartbeat of something buried deep. A dungeon's influence creeping even into the academy. The system hadn't mentioned this. But I felt it, every nerve ending on edge.
A soft chime echoed, and the academy's voice rang out, both mechanical and ceremonial:
"Welcome, candidates, to the Hunter Academy Entrance Examination. All candidates are to report to their designated evaluation zones. Ensure compliance. Failure to do so will result in immediate disqualification."
Immediate disqualification.
I smirked. In my last life, I had pushed boundaries far beyond any rule. Here… I was just another student. But unlike them, I knew what the cost of failure truly meant.
[System Notification: Candidate Status – Last Witness]
[Special Condition: Timeline Regression Active]
[Objective: Survive, Observe, Optimize]
Survive.
Observe.
Optimize.
Words that had guided me through the apocalypse. Words that now echoed in the pristine halls of this academy like a ghost.
I walked forward. Every step measured. Every breath deliberate. I could feel the system interface watching, analyzing, recording. My very presence was an anomaly. Every minor fluctuation in the dungeon's influence would be cataloged. Everything mattered now. Every choice would be recorded.
The first evaluation zone was massive. Stone walls stretched high, etched with glowing runes pulsing faintly with arcane energy. Candidates were paired and separated at random, the system deciding their fates.
I could hear the whispers behind me.
"They say he's… someone who returned from the last great collapse."
"Impossible… he should be dead."
"I heard the system flagged him as… anomalous."
Good. Let them talk. Let them be scared. Fear sharpened focus, after all.
I approached the central platform where the initial assessment would begin. A holographic map projected itself, showing hundreds of potential dungeon zones. Every region color-coded by rank and difficulty. S-rank zones glowed faintly crimson. SS zones pulsed violently. And then… a single sector blinked gold, brighter than any other.
[Gold Sector: Restricted - High Dungeon Influence]
My pulse quickened. That sector… it wasn't meant for regular candidates. I knew it. I had fought in dungeons of that level before. SSS-level, maybe beyond. The system's restrictions prevented access but the signal was clear. It was alive. Watching. Waiting.
A subtle vibration beneath my feet caught my attention. Not from the floor, but from me. A whisper in my mind, almost imperceptible:
Do you remember me?
I froze. The silver-haired boy turned slightly, and I felt the same pulse of recognition. He didn't speak, but I understood he was tied to it. He had been touched by the calamity in some way I had not yet seen.
The first assessment began. Candidates were instructed to descend into the lower evaluation dungeons small, controlled simulations designed to measure combat aptitude, tactical thinking, and dungeon compatibility.
I descended as well, silently. The air cooled, the scent of stone and ozone filling my nostrils. Every corner, every shadow seemed… wrong. The dungeon remembered me. Even here, where it was meant to be tamed, it remembered my presence.
[System Alert: Minor Dungeon Anomaly Detected]
[Candidate Influence Detected: Last Witness]
[Recommendation: Extreme caution]
Extreme caution. I laughed silently. If only they knew. Extreme caution had been my life's mantra. Yet, caution had also led to billions dead.
I entered the first chamber. The simulation was supposed to be simple: monsters of low rank, easily dispatched by standard hunter abilities. But nothing here was simple. Shadows moved independently of light. Whispers echoed, faint, calling my name.
And then it appeared.
Not large. Not immediately threatening. A small, humanoid figure, faceless, glimmering faintly with corrupt energy.
[Monster Type: Unknown – Evaluation Lock Active]
The system froze. Locking. Something in its presence… it wasn't supposed to exist. I raised my blade instinctively.
It moved unnaturally fast. Before I could strike, it vanished, reappearing behind me, then to the side.
It knows me.
My mind raced. This was no ordinary evaluation simulation. This was the dungeon probing me, testing me, even here.
The silver-eyed boy's image flickered in my mind again. Connected. A thread I didn't yet understand.
I had survived worse. I had fought monsters that shattered cities. But this… this was personal. The dungeon was alive. Aware. And I was its target.
The first swing of my blade sliced through empty air. The shadow reappeared above me. Then, the system pinged:
[Warning: Dungeon Influence Escalating]
[Evaluation Compromised – Candidate Safety Not Guaranteed]
Safety. That word was a joke.
I leaped backward, feeling the chamber shift beneath me. Walls extended, twisted. Shadows coiled like snakes, whispering my failures, my sins, my regrets.
I could almost hear it laughing. The SSS entity, far away yet close, orchestrating every flicker of this evaluation. Every moment, a test. Every test, a reminder.
And somewhere beyond, I knew it waited. Watching. Smiling.
I braced myself. The academy, the candidates, the silver-eyed boy all of it was a chessboard. And I… the pawn who remembered the game before it even began.
The chamber darkened. The whispers grew louder. Shadows merged into forms I recognized: comrades I had failed, civilians I had abandoned, the billions I had sacrificed in my past life. All staring at me, accusing me, mocking me.
This is only the beginning.
I gritted my teeth. Every sense screamed danger. Every fiber of my being demanded flight or fight.
Yet I could not run. Not now.
Because this time, the system was watching.
Because this time, every choice would be recorded.
And because, somewhere far beyond, the calamity remembered me too.