Everything you imagine/dream, think about is a reality somewhere in a parallel/different universe, so the author allows us to continue the story so that multiple universes would be created depending on each ones' imagination...

Its not actually that everyone else return to the past but stuck in a never-ending reality they have of what they want to feel and see in their own world within themselves.

What I'm saying is that their soul is on another realm of their own world while their bodies remain intact with the world never crossed the apocalypse as it continuous on moving normally without any Armageddon event after the Nightmare Tower appeared in the world's cities skies.

The people who choose to enter the tower never actually moved their body but only their soul and the government taken care of the unconscious seemingly comatose bodies of the thousands who choose to enter the mysterious tower floating above the cities sky.

Like I said that those who chooses to go in the past, trapped in a reality set by their own choice. With the hellish tower is nothing more as a Tutorial mode set for the Walkers that binds them to death and challenges. But the protagonist refuse to play any longer as he kill the operator and broke through the hellish game letting the operator failed to his job.

The operator of the Tower is not the only one of himself but there are many of them scattered in the vastness of the Multiverse. They see the potentials in the Walkers in the world they choose that played their game as 'product' and cultivate them into their nasty business in the higher plane.

MC of course is disgusted by that kind of work they're doing as the operator revealed the true purpose to the one and only remaining Walker. What he do? Gouged out the operator, enemy spouting words of disdain and hatred towards MC's consequences of his action to him but hell he won't standby and let them the hell they want so he broke into the ceiling of the Tower which is the entry to where the real hell mode is.

from the time he climbs the tower, then traversing Chaos and Depth, then entering Fall, falling out from his world, and then meeting reality, and back to recreating the world - it is very much in depth.
The progression of the story is not too fast to the point that we missed important plot points, not too slow to the point that you just wanna escape the point. It moves on to the next plot point just when it needs to.

Characters: 3.0/5.0

Jaehwan is obviously the main star of this novel. And a very big star. Very big and lonely star. By the end of it, you can hardly find anyone that can match his presence.

Which is kinda sad tbh. I kinda want to see the growth of people around him fleshed out.

Overall: 4.5/5.0
After all that journey of sweet, savoury, sour, bitter, sour, it ends with a bittersweet ending.

The ending makes me kinda hopeful so... mmhmm

MC does not get to stay in the world he created after the fall, and all the implications that come with it for him and those left behind

I saw another commenter (PedoBear Version 2.0) say this, ""The point is, don't look at the ending part from the perspective of "Awakener Jaehwan who killed big brother ", think of it from the perspective of "Jaehwan, the author of The World after the fall""

it focused on the principle of moving forward with life as it is. That there's no such thing as a re-do as explained in the first 5-10 chapters.

Now with this being said, the ending of book left me with a bitter aftertaste because the tone of the story changed from the principle of persistence to the uncertainty of life. Which was portrayed in different manners within the arcs of the book. But what disturbed me the most was that

[Trigger Warning: SA, su*cide, depression]

At some point, the author alluded to the fact that the MC may have created his world through his defense mechanism and made it seem as if he had schizophrenia, DID, and even was SA by his father, to which then his mother profusely disagreed and to which was revealed that it was never like that in the first place and was made up by one of the characters.

Which made me think that the author slowly lost their point here in trying to be philosophical and also left a bad taste in my mouth because it conflicted with the original idea or what I thought it would be, that the character lived in the now. But was then denied of that reality but suddenly given back and now is left with confusion and also took a very strange stance of people who are neurodivergent and mental health care industry.

This was where it went south for me.