Justin Herass.
An ordinary guy with a very unfortunate name.
His parents had met on a prank show, the kind where people humiliate themselves for laughs and a few hundred bucks.
They had promised as a gag, that if they ever had a kid, they would give him a funny name.
And they actually did.
Justin Herass.
Perfectly normal apart but when said together? Yeah. It ruined him.
The name stuck to him all through school, followed by laughter, slaps and "accidents" that always ended with him bleeding.
He had just smiled it off, timid and quiet, not because he was weak, but because his parents always told him, "Be good, Justin. Don't make us worry."
So he swallowed it until they died in a car accident.
After that, the darkness he had been bottling up finally crawled out.
That day, three of his old bullies cornered him again with the same routine, sneers and demand for cash but something was different.
He didn't hand over the money this time.
He didn't run.
He just… snapped.
They were stronger, sure.
But he had something else, years of pain fermenting into pure rage. By the time it was over, the ground was red and Justin Herass wasn't the joke anymore.
He was a murderer.
They sent him to juvenile prison.
He walked out when he was nineteen.
He regretted what he did every single day.
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. It taught him how to survive. How to smile. How to keep his fists down while sharpening his mind.
One lesson stood above all the others:
Always look good on the outside.
No matter how rotten you were inside.
Thankfully, he never had to kill again.
For a while, life was… quiet.
He lived off the money his parents left behind plus the insurance payout from the accident. It was enough to keep him fed, sheltered and lazy.
Most days, he barely even left the apartment.
Games. Novels. Sleep. Repeat.
A peaceful and meaningless existence.
Until the night everything ended.
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 monster, a cosmic horror wrapped in wings and tentacles but after talking to her for the last half hour… he realized she wasn't evil.
If anything, 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, thousands of lives burned away for nothing and every time they did, she felt it.
But her core was compassion, a divine constant she couldn't betray, even if she wanted to.
So she refused their offerings.
She killed every cultist who performed a sacrifice in her name… and instead, sent each victim to another world.
A new beginning for every wasted life.
That was how she delivered justice, not through wrath or punishment but through mercy.
It was her way of healing the broken threads scattered by mortal cruelty and now, she was offering that same mercy to him.
A new beginning.
A new world.
A clean slate in a place untouched by his sins.
She had even given him a choice, a few worlds, each vaguely similar to Earth because she couldn't send him back there.
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.
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. He didn't want calm. He wanted chaos.
He wanted to feel his heart race again, to actually live and enjoy it.
So he looked at the radiant being and made a simple 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."