The Last Witch Hunter Ending Explained: Is The Witch Queen Still Alive?

At the end of ‘The Last Witch Hunter,’ Kaulder must choose between continuing the cycle or letting go of it. Having learned the truth behind his immortality, he prepares for his final battle with the enemy, not knowing the ordeals he will have to face on the way. The fate of the world lies at stake in this great battle between good and evil, with Kaulder’s existence at the center of it all. Chloe proposes a new way out of his dilemma, one that promises to fix the errors of the past and start things anew. However, a mystery continues to brew inside his vault, promising an eternity of. SPOILERS AHEAD.

The Last Witch Hunter Plot Synopsis

The story begins eight hundred years in the past, with humanity at risk of being annihilated by the Black Plague summoned by the Witch Queen. A band of witch-hunting knights, including the protagonist Kaulder, raids her lair and launches an attack. The Queen uses every trick at her disposal, showing the protagonist visions of his deceased family. Upon realizing that they are fabrications, he snaps back and impales the Queen with his fire-coated sword. Before dying, however, she curses him with immortality and an eternity of loneliness. In the present day, Kaulder continues to work as an invulnerable witch hunter for an organization called the Axe and Cross, seeking to bring balance between humans and witches.

After recovering some dangerous weather runes from an unassuming teenager, he meets the 36th Dolan, a priest of the Axe and Cross who aids the witch hunter in his missions. 36 announces his retirement, having already selected his successor, before returning home and dying in his sleep. This arouses Kaulder’s suspicion, who, along with the newly designated 37th Dolan, inspects 36’s house, confirming the usage of arcane witchcraft to keep 36’s body in suspended animation. Their investigation quickly leads them to the culprit, who is then prosecuted and imprisoned in the Witches’ Prison. Kaulder, however, remains convinced that there are greater forces at play. Recognizing the enemy’s curses as magic from before his time as an immortal, he decides to venture into his own past and seek answers.

His search for a memory extraction spell leads him to a witch bar owned by Chloe and Miranda, where he is attacked by the warlock behind the scenes, Belial. After surviving his rampage, Chloe teams up with the protagonists, determined to put a stop to him. With the rare ingredients required for a memory spell now destroyed, they visit the Witch Danique, who instead casts another spell on him, intending to keep him caged in memories. Chloe, however, enters his mind and navigates him through the hallucinations, eventually bringing him back to the real world. It is revealed that she can dream walk without spells, but it comes with mortal risk to the participant. Citing immortality, Kaulder convinces her to dream, walk with him, uncover the truth, and defeat the Witch Queen.

The Last Witch Hunter Ending: Is the Witch Queen Dead or Alive?

After recruiting Chloe for the cause, Kaulder and her begin a quest to hunt down the Witch Queen before she can unleash another plague swarm onto the world. Their efforts lead them to a climactic showdown against Kaulder’s forsworn enemy, who is resurrected by Belial, which Kaulder manages to win with Chloe’s help. With the Queen’s body reduced to ashes by his sword, the heart lies exposed. Though he desires to destroy it along with himself, Chloe stops him from doing so. Chloe’s reason behind this is the same as the first Dolan’s, but this time, instead of making him into a tool for the greater good, she promises him a new future, ensuring that the heart will not be used for evil. With this, the protagonist gives life another chance. However, at the end of ‘The Last Witch Hunter,’ the Witch Queen’s heart can still be heard beating within Kaulder’s weapon vault.

It turns out that the nature of the Queen’s abilities is tied to the mystery of Kaulder’s own bizarre connection with death and resurrection, which he manages to re-experience by dream walking. It is here he learns that his immortality isn’t without conditions. Eight hundred years ago, when he defeated the Queen for the first time, Kaulder lay completely burnt but alive. His allies found him with her beating heart, a magical connection now forged between the two. Damage to the heart reflected on his body, indicating that destroying the Queen’s heart would result in his death. In light of this, the first Dolan decides to hide her heart and let Kaulder live an immortal existence. This act serves as the foundation of the Axe and Cross, which carefully keeps this secret across generations. Belial manages to find out the heart’s location by seemingly torturing 36 before cursing him.

The ending turns the narrative into a dilemma: humanity will assume immortality to fight against evil, and evil can always return as long as humanity is alive. As long as the Witch Queen’s heart beats, danger always lurks in the shadows, for the Queen can be revived once again by dark forces like Belial. However, it also bestows its trust in Kaulder and his immutable spirit. Having survived numerous setbacks and always finding the will to get up and fight back, he promises to continue on his journey of extinguishing evil and bringing peace to the world.

How Does Kaulder Defeat The Witch Queen?

While Kaulder pieces his past together, Belial captures Max, labeling him a traitor whose only worth comes as a sacrifice to resuscitate the Witch Queen after 800 years. He then begins an elaborate occult ritual, using his abilities to convert Max into a totem. Kaulder reaches just in time, disrupting the process, and immediately engages Belial. The two briefly exchange blows before the immortal protagonist emerges victorious. However, their joy is short-lived, as the Queen accepts Max’s body and begins reviving through it. Grabbing Kaulder, she reveals that his immortality was never just a curse; he was merely the safekeeper of her powers till she returned. Saying this, she strips him of his powers, robbing his attacks of their desired effects. He can merely watch as the all-powerful Queen escapes into the city.

Following a harrowing defeat, Kaulder makes his way back to the 36th Dolan. There, he expresses his hopelessness, realizing that by imprisoning all the fearsome witches and warlocks in one place, he has gifted the Queen a concentrated power source, with which she plans to summon the Black Plague again. The final battle begins in Witches’ Prison, with Kaulder armed with Hexenbane, his Witch-Slayer sword, joined by Chloe and the 37th Dolan. They pass through a number of trials, using their collective abilities to successfully defeat both the prison sentinel beast and the warlock, casting the spell to start the plague. A fierce fight ensues between Kaulder and the Witch Queen in a dream space resembling the apocalyptic remains of the city. Despite sustaining injuries, he eventually gains the upper hand, lighting his sword on fire and almost beating her.

Right at this moment, he is stopped by the 37th Dolan, who holds Chloe at gunpoint. As he shoots at Kaulder, his vendetta is revealed. He is the son of a witch and warlock and bears a strong hatred towards the witch hunter for killing them. Because he failed to inherit his parents’ magic, he seeks to gain that power by working for the Queen. This plan, however, doesn’t come to fruition. After being saved, the Queen deems 37 worthless without magic, promptly killing him. She then completes the spell for the plague, channeling the energy of all witches and warlocks at once, including Chloe. With his life slipping away, Kaulder sees visions of his family, who motivate him to get up and keep fighting. With a reignited spirit, he summons lightning from the weather runes he collected in the beginning and coats his sword with it before plunging it into the Queen, burning her body.

What Is Next For Kaulder And Chloe?

As the witch hunter, the protagonist has lived his immortal life in a series of cycles; each day, he kills evil after evil, never living a life for himself. The revelation of the secret behind his immortality and Axe and Cross’s role in hiding it from him undermines not only his agency but also his trust in peace and order. In a discussion with his confidante, 36th Dolan, he expresses his disillusionment and decision to divorce Axe and Cross in order to regain some form of agency and freedom. He expresses further that he has no knowledge of what the future holds for him, and instead of filling him with fear, it liberates him. 36 merely laughs, calling that experience life itself. Kaulder has been living for centuries without having the opportunity to feel alive.

Living with a forgotten past and at the behest of the Order of Axe and Cross, Kaulder’s only friend, 36th Dolan, has been assigned to him as part of a tradition. With the regaining of his memories comes more pain for the loss of a family he once had. All his experiences of life have been of solitariness and grief. A change comes with Chloe’s entry into his life. Initially, both are skeptical of each other, for Kaulder is the Witch-hunter while Chloe is a witch. However, Chloe’s help and their joint efforts to defeat the evil gradually give way to a relationship that resuscitates feelings of love and trust in him, thus healing him emotionally. Both develop a friendship and, eventually, a flirtatious dynamic.

With the threat of the Witch Queen finally eliminated, Kaulder and Chloe look forward to a future where they can depend on each other and continue their relationship on the promise of trust and companionship. He reminds 36 that he is still needed, and the old man agrees to remain in service, this time, not just as a Dolan but as a friend. All institutions that tie Kaulder to his past are severed, one by one, with his ancient weapons stored deep inside his vault, along with the Queen’s heart. As he steps out as a free man after eight hundred years, the immortal witch hunter, with 36 and Chloe by his side, embarks on a new adventure.