"So… are you ready to be sent to another world, my child?"
The grotesque creature in front of Justin muttered but his mind was too dumbfounded to comprehend anything.
"Wait, what?"
The creature before him smiled as a smooth and gentle voice echoed from it. "I am Cian'va and the cultists sacrificed you to me."
—
Justin Herass was an ordinary guy with a very unfortunate name. His parents had met on a prank show where people humiliated themselves for laughs and a few hundred bucks.
On their first anniversary, they had even promised that if they ever had a second child, they would give him a funny name and they actually did without thinking of the consequences such name could bring.
Justin Herass.
The name was perfectly normal but when said together, it ruined him and there was no way a kid with a name like that wouldn't become a bully magnet.
He hated his parents for that.
Still, even in that hellish life of being mocked, beaten, bruised and bleeding, Justin always smiled it off because he had a little sister who idolised him as some great hero.
But the day she died after a coincidental accident involving his bullies, he snapped and the darkness he always kept hidden erupted.
He killed all three of his bullies mercilessly even as they begged and by the time it was over, the ground was red and Justin Herass wasn't the joke anymore, he was a murderer and a monster.
He was sent to Juvenile for three years and each day he regretted what he did. Not because he killed those bastards who deserved something worse than death but because he got caught.
Juvenile prison had been hell but it was also a school in its own way as it taught him how to smile while sharpening his mind.
For a while, life was… quiet. Things were awkward with his parents but it was improving slowly until those fucking cultists decided he would make a perfect offering and killed him before sacrificing him to her.
Now, he found himself staring at Cian'va or at least, that's what she called herself.
At first, Justin had been sure she was some kind of cosmic horror wrapped in wings and tentacles but after talking to her for the last half hour… he realized she wasn't evil but that made her even scarier.
She had even explained what had happened.
The cultists were from a small world adrift in the endless Cosmic Sea. Justin hadn't really understood what that meant, only that, apparently, Earth was one of those "smallworlds."
That fact alone had melted half his brain.
According to her, she came from a prime world called Cosmos, the place where she had ascended to godhood and, by some cruel twist of coincidence, her true name, something only gods were meant to have, was almost identical to the name of a long-dead evil deity who had once existed on Earth.
So when those cultists started their rituals, thinking they were summoning that forgotten monster… they were actually calling her.
For centuries, they had been offering sacrifices in her name but her core was compassion, a divine constant she couldn't betray, even if she wanted to.
So she refused their offerings and killed every cultist who performed a sacrifice in her name… before sending each victim caught in the mess due to her to another world.
That was how she delivered justice through mercy and now, she was offering that same mercy to him.
"So, Justin, have you decided which world you want to be sent to?"
Justin wasn't clueless anymore instead a knowing smirk appeared on his face as he had already decided.
She had even given him many choices. There were even a few worlds vaguely similar to Earth because she couldn't send him back to his previous world itself.
Once a soul leaves the Cycle of Destiny of its world, it can never return. That thread is cut and no god, no matter how strong, can attach it back or at least that's how she had explained to Justin.
Justin had looked through the information of every world she offered. They were all the same, quiet, peaceful and painfully ordinary just like Earth and he didn't want that.
If he was getting a second chance, then it damn well had to mean something because he didn't want calm. He wanted to feel his heart race again, to actually live and enjoy it.
Because only after spending a few years in juvenile did he understand, Anna was just the fuse, the cruelty and the darkness he inflicted on his bullies had always been his.
So he looked at the radiant being and said his request, one he wasn't even sure was possible.
"Can you send me… to your prime world?"
The moment he said it, the silence around them deepened.
Cosmos.
Just hearing the name of that world had stirred something inside him, a strange pull, a spark of awe that refused to die down.
If the name alone felt so grand, then what kind of world could it be?
Maybe it was the hundreds of novels and games he had rotted his brain with but the idea of a place where beings could ascend to godhood…. where even someone like him could rise beyond mortal limits,made his heart race.
For the first time in years, Justin Herass felt alive.
Cian'va looked at him for a moment then, suddenly, she laughed.
"Hahahahahahahaha…"
When the laughter faded, her voice carried a warmth that was both gentle and terrifying.
"Very well, then. It seems the world of Cosmos has already chosen you, for you to even ask about it means your fate was already stirring."
Her seven wings unfolded, flooding the realm with radiance.
"So be it. I shall send you to that world… a world of danger and of endless opportunity. Where even the lowest trash can rise to godhood… or the brightest genius can turn to ash."
The light around her began to twist.
"A world of death, and a world of miracles…"
Her voice softened, yet every word carried the gravity of eternity.
"But beware, oh poor soul, what you think is the abyss may not even touch its true depths."
The radiance surged, swallowing everything.
"But before that… I shall grant you three rewards."
"You have suffered more than most, Justin Herass. These gifts shall decide how far your new beginning takes you."