Shiro's eyes snapped open.
The first thing he noticed was the silence—the kind that didn't belong in a battlefield. No screams. No growls of monsters. No distant echoes of battle.
Just… emptiness.
He was still inside the Gate, but something was different. The oppressive, suffocating aura that once made it unbearable for an E-rank was gone.
Shiro slowly pushed himself up. His wounds—the ones that should have killed him—were gone.
His body felt different. Lighter. Stronger.
Then, a faint glow caught his eye.
A mirror-like reflection of himself flickered in the darkness. But what he saw wasn't just his usual reflection.
His eyes glowed deep amethyst, unnatural yet powerful. Shadows curled around his fingertips, reacting to his every movement like extensions of himself.
And then, a whisper echoed in his mind.
"You have inherited my throne, mortal. Prove that you are worthy of it."
The Demon King's voice—no longer commanding, no longer a threat. It was merely… watching.
Shiro clenched his fists. The abyss was no longer consuming him.
He had tamed it.
And now, it was time to leave this place.
Then—a presence.
Shiro turned sharply. In the darkness of the Gate, something stirred.
It wasn't a monster.
It was something else.
A humanoid figure stood at the edge of the collapsed cavern, shrouded in black armor, its form flickering between solid and shadow.
A Void Sentinel.
Shiro shouldn't be alive—this thing should have torn him apart the moment he revived.
But instead… it knelt.
A chilling realization settled in.
The Gate had not rejected him.
It had recognized him.
Shiro took a step forward, the darkness responding to his presence like an old friend. He looked up at the Gate's exit—the sealed pathway his squad had abandoned him behind.
For the first time since awakening, he smirked.
Time to return to the world that left him for dead