Shling!
The wet, final sound of a blade sliding free of a king's chest.
Kuh-uh.
The sound echoed not with grandeur, but with the pathetic finality of a punctured lung. Before Cael stood the king, a figure crowned in gold and drowning in crimson. The man's blonde hair was matted with sweat, his blue eyes wide with a disbelief that transcended pain.
"A mere… count," the king gasped, blood bubbling from his lips and spilling down his royal vestments. "To kill your own… sovereign."
Cael said nothing. There was nothing left to say.
The king's knees buckled. His body fell with a heavy, undignified thud that rolled across the cold marble floor of the throne room, a final, percussive note to end a world's symphony.
Cael stood over him, the bloody sword hanging loosely in his hand. He didn't look at the king. He looked past him, at the silence.
I did it.
The thought was flat, devoid of triumph. His gaze swept the hall. It was a tapestry of the dead. Guards in their polished armor, slumped against pillars. His enemies, their faces frozen in final snarls. His comrades, people he had shared rations and strategies with, now just cooling meat on a stone floor. Beyond them, through the shattered windows, he could see the corpses of demons littering the palace courtyard. And further still, in the wasteland beyond the city walls, lay the crumpled form of the Demon Lord himself.
Everyone. Every single person who had drawn breath in this world was now a corpse.
Everyone but him.
I don't like this.
It was a simple, quiet thought, but it was the most honest thing he'd felt in years. He didn't like the silence. He didn't like being the last one standing. He was tired.
Cael looked over his shoulder. The air behind the throne shimmered, not with heat, but with an impossible light, a window into nothing. It was the System's signal. Mission complete. Extraction imminent.
"I'm done," he said to the empty room, his voice a hoarse whisper. "My last mission."
A translucent blue screen materialized in his vision, the only light in the deepening gloom.
[Mission: Kill the Solem Empire's King]
[Mission failure: Death]
[Mission reward: None]
[Mission status: Completed]
He let out a long, slow breath. No reward. It made sense. There was no one left to give him one. No treasury to plunder, no grateful citizens to offer gold. The concept of a reward was as dead as the world itself.
He knelt and, with a reverence that was more habit than feeling, pried the king's golden crown from his cold, stiffening fingers. It was heavier than it looked. He placed it on his own head; it sat askew, too large for him. He then walked to the throne, his footsteps the only sound in the universe, and sat down.
"So," he murmured, looking out at his kingdom. "This is the view."
The world through the grand arched windows was a portrait of apocalypse. The larger of the two moons had a clean, circular hole punched through its center, as if a giant's finger had poked through parchment. The smaller one was simply gone, replaced by two rocky halves drifting slowly apart. There was no sun. The sky was a permanent, vivid red, like a fresh wound. Not a single star dared to pierce that bloody canopy.
"It's… beautiful," he said, and meant it. It was the most honest beauty he'd ever known. A ruined world for a ruined man.
He leaned his head back against the cold, jewel-encrusted throne. The System's shimmering window waited patiently behind him. He didn't get up. He just closed his eyes. He was so tired. Under a sky with no stars, seen by no one but him, he let himself drift into a deep, dreamless sleep.
As his consciousness faded, a final notification flickered in the air above him, unseen.
[You have gained 2 Achievements:]
[King of a Fallen World]
[Last Man Standing]
---
"Hey! Cael! Cael, you absolute dumbass, WAKE UP!"
The shout was a physical force, dragging him from the void. Before he could even process it, a pair of feet slammed into his stomach.
KUH- The air exploded from his lungs in a spray of saliva. He doubled over, gasping, his eyes flying open.
"What the—?!"
He was on a soft bed. Sunlight—warm, golden, real sunlight—streamed through a window. He could hear birdsong. His stomach throbbed.
Where… where am I? His mind reeled. I was on the throne. The red sky. The silence. Was it… a dream? It must have been a dream. Yes, it felt so real, but it had to be a dream.
"Hey, Cael! Quit spacing out and move your ass!" The girl standing over him, fist on her hip, was familiar. Annoyingly so. She had his same dark hair, the same sharp eyes. His sister. Alive. Alive. "The heroes have made their appearance at the Imperial ball! If we don't get there now, we'll miss everything!"
Heroes.
The word hit him like a slap. Heroes. They were all dead. Every last one of them, their stories ended in a world of red. He stared at his sister's vibrant, living face. At the sunlight. At the sheer, impossible normality of it all.
"Hurry up, Cael!"
He slowly sat up, his hand going to his chest, where no wound was. His mind was a hurricane of confusion and a fragile, terrifying hope.
Did they…? No. Is this the past?
"What," he whispered, his voice raw, "the hell is going on?"