Prologue,
Chapter 1: Anti Demonic Forces last Survivor
"Fate is a funny thing…
but unfairly so, it is also truly cruel. Because I am more than sure humanity was never meant to survive this…"
A boy, no a man about twenty-three, stared down at his own ruined body.
His torso was barely there, an utterly revolting sight. Blood leaked from deep torn cavities, pooling beneath what remained of him. Most of his limbs were missing, ripped clean from his living torso, and his shoulder had been shredded by bite marks far larger than anything that had existed before the apocalypse.
Around him lay thousands of monster corpses, twisted bodies and gaping maws sprawled in every direction. All of them had been killed by him alone. Somehow.
And what stood above him was a single system screen floating. Flickering, and loading endlessly. It looked tired, like everything else in this destroyed world.
"Hah…"
A thin breath escaped him. He did not force it. It seemed to leave him naturally, it was the kind of sound someone makes only when they finally accept that there is nothing left worth struggling for.
"We should have accepted our fates and betrayed those useless gods. Maybe then we could have survived."
His voice was strangely calm for someone dying like this. There was a worn out clarity in his expression and no tension anywhere in his broken body, only something that looked like a corpse that had not finished dying yet.
He did not regret his choices. What bothered him was much simpler.
If only I had more time. If only I could have experimented more with this world. If only I could have created something new out of it.
His thoughts drifted as his eyes fell to his remaining hand, half-buried in rubble and blood, still clutching the same crystal from years ago. It was strange how beautiful it looked now. Its clandestine glow hid behind a kaleidoscope of colors, distorted further by the mingled blood of countless monsters.
It was the very crystal he and his classmates had once tried to activate when the god at the beginning ordered them to find it. They had spent months tapping it, pouring mana into it, experimenting in every way they could. Nothing ever happened. Eventually, they dismissed it entirely.
Five years later, at the end of Stage 0, with the monster raid closing in and no hope left, he grabbed it again as a last desperate lifeline. And within it, an unexpected number was revealed.
"1/300"… and beneath it, a glitched word: S****.
He pressed it without hesitation and fought with what remained of his life.
Now, staring at the crystal, he let a faint smile tug at his lips. He was honestly curious how this small stone had survived being slammed into so many monsters' skulls.
"Appraise…"
A second system window flickered to life beside the frozen main screen.
──────────
R*****N Crystal
****************************
*********************
10 seconds remaining
[2 / 300]
──────────
"What? When did the number go up to two"
A familiar chime came from above. The same cheerful tone that used to make people excited in the early days, as they enjoyed the gifts that came from that loving system.
Ahh but now it felt hollow.
Another message appeared.
Hilariously, its bright and enthusiastic appearance did not match the scene at all. It felt completely out of place in the corpse-ridden wasteland that Earth had become.
──────────
WELL CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Iskael, you have done an amazing job so far.
Karma calculations complete.
As the last surviving human of the anti-Demonic forces, a large amount of karma will be been awarded.
Your contributions are greatly appreciated...
Please enjoy your spending time in the Akashic Karma Shop.
Additional rewards have been delivered to your inventory.
──────────
"hmm... I guess I won huh"
Another window unfolded, its text stabilizing slowly.
──────────
Stage 2 Completion: Survivors (One)
Preparation time for Stage 2.1:
75 days 12 hours
Campaign: Stage 2.1 – 3
A frozen husk and a beast that sleeps.
Where daylight shivers and night forgets its name.
The world will quiet beneath pale frost.
Warmth will rot.
Breath will turn to crystal.
Seek the heart that does not beat.
Fear the shadow that cannot move.
When the sleeper dreams, the sky will fall again.
Good luck, Players.
May the blessing of the Akashic Record be with you
and the fate of the universe in your hands.
──────────
Iskael returned his gaze to the rock wondering why the number had a mysterious increase in a number.
"Ahh but there's no point in thinking about that, I'm already a dead man hahaha"
"wow.. Such a tasteless death"
The countdown on the crystal reached zero.
Iskael glanced at it one last time, at his own fading body, and let out a quiet breath that felt like utter disappointment to the realm.
And with that Light covered everything.
And his world ended.