[Congratulations. You have returned to Earth.]
Zephyr didn't open his eyes.
He just lay there.
The ground beneath him was solid. Cool. Real. He could feel blades of grass pressing against his cheek. Air filled his lungs, rich and alive, carrying the scent of soil and leaves and something faintly sweet.
Wind brushed through nearby trees.
Birds chirped.
Insects buzzed lazily in the background.
For a long moment, he simply breathed.
Slowly, cautiously, he opened his eyes.
Branches stretched overhead, tangled in a ceiling of green. Beyond them, the sky shone a clear, endless blue. Sunlight streamed through the leaves in soft golden beams, warming his skin.
He blinked.
"So… I'm in a forest," he murmured. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. Lighter. Younger. "Is this Earth?"
The warmth of the sun, the natural sounds, the sheer ordinary beauty of it all. No ash in the sky. No distant roars of abominations. No oppressive aura pressing against his senses.
His chest tightened.
"I'm on Earth."
Something else felt different.
The bone-deep exhaustion that had followed him for a century was gone. His body felt… light. Almost fragile.
He pushed himself upright and looked down.
He froze.
He was wearing familiar clothes. Jeans. A slightly faded black hoodie. Scuffed sneakers.
"Wait," he muttered, tugging at the sleeve. "These are Earth clothes."
His fingers tightened in the fabric as recognition hit.
"Oh. I see. These are the clothes I was wearing before I got dragged into that cursed world."
His breathing slowed.
He lifted his hands in front of him. They were whole. Human. No scars carved by divine battles. No glowing veins of power beneath the skin.
He touched his face, brushing over his jaw, his hair.
"My old appearance…"
No strange eyes. No triple-ringed irises. Just the face he'd had before everything went wrong.
For a brief, almost dangerous second, he felt normal.
Then the familiar orange glow flickered in front of him.
[Loading…]
His expression darkened instantly.
"You again," he sighed. "I thought I told you to let me die."
The interface remained stubbornly unchanged.
[System initializing…]
He stared at it flatly.
"You are unbelievably persistent."
No response.
He exhaled sharply and rubbed his temples.
"Whatever. I did want to come back eventually." He squinted at the floating text. "Show me my stats."
[Please wait. The system is currently loading…]
He tilted his head back toward the sky in exaggerated disbelief.
"Of course it is."
And then...The world shifted.
In a blink, he was no longer standing on the forest floor.
He was standing in midair.
Wind rushed past him as he hovered high above the treetops, the vast forest stretching endlessly in every direction. Waves of green rolled beneath him like an ocean.
He stared down.
"…What?"
He raised a hand instinctively.
"Detection."
The word left his lips quietly.
The effect was not quiet.
A pulse radiated outward from him, invisible but absolute. In an instant, information flooded his senses. Movement. Heat. Sound. Life.
For one terrifying second, it felt like the entire planet had unfolded beneath his awareness. Oceans. Cities. Mountains. Millions of heartbeats.
His breath hitched.
"Damn it," he muttered quickly, flicking his fingers. "Not the whole planet."
The pulse contracted, narrowing sharply.
Now his perception settled on the forest alone.
And it was enormous.
He could sense every animal weaving between the trees. Every insect vibrating its wings. The subtle shift of wind currents. Even the faint tremors of distant footsteps.
"…This forest is huge," he murmured. "Multiple hunting groups scattered across it."
He tilted his head slightly, focusing.
"Earth hasn't changed much."
People were still out here. Still hunting. Still surviving.
As he scanned calmly, something sharp cut through his awareness.
A disturbance.
Steel clashing. Rapid movement. Labored breathing.
His attention locked onto a clearing several kilometers away.
"…Hmm."
A young woman stood there, surrounded.
More than thirty creatures circled her. Twisted, unnatural beasts. Not quite animals, not quite something else. Their bodies hunched and warped, claws scraping against dirt.
She was fighting.
Desperately.
Her movements were skilled but slowing. A shallow cut bled along her arm. Another creature lunged. She barely deflected it.
"She's outnumbered," Zephyr murmured quietly. "And she's about to lose."
He didn't hesitate.
The air distorted around him.
To any observer, it would have looked like he simply vanished.
One moment he stood above the forest, the next...
He was there.
In the clearing.
The ground crunched softly beneath his shoes as he appeared behind the swarm of monsters, hands in his hoodie pockets like he'd just taken a casual stroll.
The young woman didn't notice him yet.
The creatures did.
Several turned, snarling.
Zephyr glanced at them, unimpressed.
"…I just got back," he muttered under his breath. "And it's already like this."
The young woman finally noticed him.
She didn't know when he had appeared. One second she had been fending off claws and snapping jaws, the next there was a guy in a hoodie standing behind the monsters like he'd wandered into the wrong picnic.
Her eyes widened.
"Watch out! It's dangerous here!" she shouted. "Run!"
Zephyr let out a soft laugh and took a step forward.
The monsters reacted first.
They backed away.
Slowly.
"Me?" he said, tilting his head. "Run?"
The woman winced, clutching her bleeding arm. Up close, she could see he looked young. Too young. Calm to the point of stupidity.
Great, she thought. A rookie.
Even worse. An arrogant one.
"Even if they're just low-tier demons, there are too many!" she yelled. "You won't stand a chance against that number!"
He blinked.
"Ah. Right," he said thoughtfully. "Demons. I just remembered."
"…What?"
For a split second, something flickered in his eyes. Memory.
Before he had been summoned to that other world, before he had even been born, Earth had already been invaded. Demons had descended without warning, tearing nations apart. Humanity had nearly collapsed.
Some survivors had awakened abilities.
Hunters.
Defenders.
The desperate lucky few.
A hundred years in another world had blurred that detail in his mind. But now it came rushing back.
The ruined headlines. The emergency broadcasts. The fear.
Zephyr inhaled slowly.
"…I guess I won't be bored on Earth after all."
The young woman stared at him as if he had finally snapped.
"What are you even talking about? And why aren't they attacking?" she whispered, glancing around.
She was right.
Over thirty demons surrounded them.
None moved.
Their claws trembled. Their distorted faces twisted in something close to panic.
Before she could process it, Zephyr suddenly grabbed her wrist.
The world flipped.
Wind roared in her ears.
In the blink of an eye, they were suspended high above the clearing.
She gasped, staring down.
The number had grown.
"…You see?" Zephyr said casually. "Now there are more than fifty."
Demons were pouring in from between the trees, drawn by something.
By her?
"Where are they coming from?" she whispered, heart pounding. "Why are they targeting me?"
Zephyr shrugged lightly.
"No idea. And I don't really need to know."
He extended his free hand toward the forest below.
His voice was almost bored.
"Black Hole."
The air warped.
Then reality folded inward.
A sphere of darkness the size of a football stadium bloomed beneath them. Not just shadow. Absence. Trees, earth, and every single demon were dragged screaming into its center. The ground ripped apart like paper.
The pull lasted only seconds.
Then it vanished.
Silence.
Below them lay an enormous empty crater carved into the forest, a barren scar where life had been erased.
The woman's breathing turned shallow.
"How… is that possible?" she whispered.
But when she looked beside her—
He was gone.
She found herself standing alone at the center of the massive clearing, wind sweeping across the hollowed land.
Her heart pounded.
"Who… is he?"