"Mommy!!! Mommy, please don't leave me alone."
"It's too dark in here, please."
"I promise, I will behave."
A five-year-old child cried out in a dark room without a single window in sight, save for a door that was slightly ajar. In its narrow opening stood a cold, blonde-haired woman staring at the child who shared similar features to her with cold blue eyes.
The child was a sobbing mess, begging his mother not to leave him alone in the room and yet her gaze remained distant and unfeeling as though she were looking at a tool rather than her own child.
She kicked her own son mercilessly, sending the child crashing into the far wall as he coughed up blood.
Still, the boy forced himself up with his small feet, trying to run toward the door, toward his own mother but before he could reach, the door slammed shut, accompanied by a single cold warning from the woman.
"Stay quiet."
There was no trace of warmth in her voice whatsoever.
The child cried as if his soft and innocent sobs could somehow bring his mother back but it was no use and he learned that the hard way.
After crying for hours, his head grew light and blood stained his nose before he finally collapsed onto the floor without any energy left to cry anymore.
….
When the door finally opened after a few days, the boy was a dry husk.
Still, he was alive, preserved only by the cruelty of the one who had brought him into this world. She had made sure the child would not die from hunger or thirst by surrounding the room with a mana dome that sustained his body directly.
The child slowly opened his eyes, which were rapidly darkening, hoping to see warmth on his mother's face at least now but there was no trace of it even then.
"The only reason a filth like you is alive is for the mission. Do you understand?" She muttered coldly.
Raze, the young child, nodded weakly. "Yes, Ma'am."
The last thing he saw were cold blue eyes before he fell unconscious once again.
***
"Tsk, that memory again."
Within the lavish bedroom of a massive spaceship, a boy opened his eyes, scanning his surroundings as though light itself were a luxury he had barely been allowed since childhood.
He was Raze Ruinard, the child of the Duchess of the Starfall Dynasty. Yet his connection to that cold woman meant nothing as he was merely a tool, one that was about to be sent to the mission he had been trained for since childhood.
He rose from his bed and the maids moved immediately, bringing footwear to his feet before they could even touch the ground.
He quickly took care of his morning routine, getting fresh and ready. Right on cue, a man with sleek white hair and a sharp butler's outfit entered the room.
"Young Master, it's time. The Duchess has called you to the cockpit." He bowed respectfully but all Raze could see was the pity in his eyes and a worried face.
"It's alright, Sebastian."
Raze tapped the butler's shoulder, the man who had witnessed his suffering firsthand since childhood.
Sebastian clenched his teeth but there was simply nothing he could do to save his young master from the fate that awaited him anymore. Silently, he guided him toward the cockpit of the spaceship they were currently on.
Once they stood before the room, Sebastian looked at his young master one last time, his gaze heavy.
"Young Master, please reconsider."
His fists were clenched so tightly that blood dripped from them.
"You know it's not my decision to make, Sebastian and you shouldn't try to speak about it either." Raze simply smiled faintly towards the only person who still cared for him.
Without further talk, they both entered the cockpit room.
A blonde woman stood there, gazing toward a particular massive planet visible through the transparent glass of the spacecraft. The planet seemed unassuming as it circled a sun far more massive than itself, along with seven other planets.
The spacecraft hovered just outside that solar system as if it could not move any further, blocked by an invisible wall.
"Young Master Raze has arrived, Your Grace." Sebastian announced, bowing his head so low it was nearly buried in the ground.
The woman was none other than Duchess Seles Ruinard, one of the Transcendent rank of the Skyfall Dynasty and also the birth mother of Raze.
She was the same woman who had made his life a living hell since the moment he was born and even now, as she was about to send her own son to a far-off planet, her gaze did not shift in the slightest.
"Are you ready?" Her voice was cold.
"Yes, Ma'am." Raze nodded, speaking formally, just as he had been taught since childhood.
"You know what your mission will be, correct?" She asked.
"Yes, Ma'am." Raze replied in the same monotonous voice as before.
"Good." She nodded.
Before she could say anything else, Sebastian interrupted, unable to hold himself back any longer.
"Mistress, please reconsider. Young Master is only seventeen, he hasn't even awak—"
Before he could finish his sentence, his head burst like an overripe watermelon under the overwhelming pressure Seles had concentrated on him. Blood sprayed onto Raze, who stood right beside him, staining his white clothes a deep crimson.
Still, Raze showed no emotion, even as his heart shattered within. He had been trained that way since childhood.
He clenched his fist, trying to calm the storm of emotions inside him.
The woman, the Duchess, Raze's mother, did not even react as if she had not just killed one of her subordinates so casually but to her, Sebastian was merely one pawn among many, easily replaceable.
"Prepare yourself. You only have one chance."
"Your mission is simple. You only have to get closer to a girl named Ravelle de Obsidia."
"She is destined to become a catastrophic villainess, a threat that would endanger the whole universe in the next six years after her world is destroyed. You have to get close to her and bring her back to the empire before that time."
Raze had been hearing the same thing since childhood. He was tasked with neutralizing a prophesied villainess and bringing her back to the Emperor of the Skyfall Dynasty because she would possess something he needed.
The only reason he was chosen among many others was because he had a once-in-a-millennium special physique that made entering other worlds easy… And that same physique was also the reason behind his suffering.
Still, Raze listened without any reaction, just as he always did.
"From our information, that girl will appear in the Ascendant Academy in a few months and you will have to enroll there as well."
"We can't provide you with any magical artifacts or other help because of the restrictions of the world's will. You will have to adapt to their power system on your own, but your training should help."
She continued in the same cold voice.
"We will pick you back up when THAT BEING prepares for its descent and the world enters the second stage as only then will the world allow outside interference."
"So, do not disappoint me and don't bring shame to the Ruinard family, Raze."
Raze nodded.
"Yes, Ma'am."
Just then, a bald man seated near the glass, gazing at the stars as if searching for patterns, spoke.
"Mistress, it's time." He said excitedly. "The world of Fabloth has entered the Zenith constellation. It will only stay here for a few minutes, so we need to hurry."
Raze didn't even wait for instructions. He walked toward the magic circle at the center of the room. He couldn't miss the timing because even with his special physique, he could only enter this particular world when it was in this state, which appeared only once every hundred years.
Right on cue, a glowing light covered his entire body as his eyes fell upon the headless body of Sebastian as he whispered,
"I am sorry, Sebastian."
With that, he was teleported away into a new world, far from his cold mother… but barely any farther from her shadow.