The world was dark.

Didn’t all these stories start that way?

A boy was born into this dark world, his fate bound to slavery from the beginning.

His mother was killed for giving birth to him, as it was rumored his father was a powerful man who cheated on his wife with her, and he was sent across worlds to become the slave of a certain family that had prominence in the universe.

They were cruel people.

Even as a child, he viewed himself as nothing more than a dog. As he grew and learned more about the world and his status, his desires and the slave mentality bred into him fought each other, this fight worsening as he suffered more and more abuse from his masters.

One day, the masters decided to take a trip to a different star. Through the whispers of the servants, he heard it had something to do with a massive business opportunity.

However, karma would always punish those she disliked. The family’s starship experienced a fatal malfunction and was attacked by raiders.

The women were taken away, while the men were left in the starship as it was destroyed.

The starship exploded, killing almost everyone left on board.

The boy, a teenager at this point, miraculously survived.

He remained in a coma for almost 2 years before awakening and realizing his situation.

This dead star was nothing more than a burial ground for most.

But it was there where he found his talent.

He had the ability to set world laws.

He couldn’t interfere with the operations of a World Core, but if he was put on a dead star, he could truly turn it into his own world.

However, there were limits to this power. Each world he set the laws of would be tied to him in mind and fate, and he would feel every change they experienced tenfold.

He first realized just how double-sided the coin of his talent was when one of the dead stars he bound was hit by an extinction-level meteorite.

For 7 days and 7 nights, he experienced the worst pain imaginable to man, as if he was being burned alive and drowned at the same time.

He was hardly sane when he came out the other end, and he immediately broke his connection with every star, accepting the loss of power wholeheartedly.

He retired to a secluded cabin in a relatively small world hidden somewhere deep in the universe, hiding his existence from enemies and allies alike.

He finally gave himself a name, the first one he’d ever had in his life: Hassan.

However, he wasn’t able to live in peace for more than a few years. Somehow, the Nox found out about his talent and send a squad filled with Supremes to kidnap him.

They took him to one of their worlds and tortured him brutally. They left him near death without even the ability to scream or cry in pain. Once again, he nearly lost his sanity.

That was the moment the Nox had been waiting for. They entered his cell and shoved a parasite into his mouth, forcing him to swallow it. The parasite spread its influence through his body and soon enough, he realized that he no longer had control over his actions.

This was the beginning of his life as a slave to the Nox.

His captors dragged him across the universe to bind several worlds, a total of 37, 36 of which were transformed into Infected Source Worlds.

The 37th was Holy Light Star, or rather, Hathur, the world that existed before the Angels claimed its ruins.

Once the task was completed, the Nox ran out of use for him. After seeing how his state deteriorated every time he bound a new world, they sealed him in the middle of a temple on Hathur and switched his human heart for a God-rank artifact, the Glass Lake Heart.

The Glass Lake Heart had a single purpose. It allowed its bearer to keep their mind clear from corruption under any circumstances, regardless of the danger level.

This treasure was originally meant for good, but it was instead used to keep Hassan’s mind from collapsing under perpetual torture and force him to maintain the world laws of the Infected Source Worlds

These world laws were set by the Nox according to their whims. Hassan became an accessory to the creation of true plagues that claimed the lives of billions upon billions of innocents, and at the same time, he had no choice but to maintain the corrupted laws of Holy Light Star that made it impossible for anyone to find his existence.

He was Holy Light Star’s World Core, and as the Nox already controlled him, wasn’t it simple for them to bypass the laws set through him?

Damien sighed as he reached the current day in Hassan’s memories and made his way out of the river that contained them.

His spiritual avatar was dyed in murky black ink, corruption that infected him from the river itself.

Damien allowed the forces of his own body to clear this corruption, sending the Nox mana elsewhere.

And he peered into Hassan’s spiritual world, hoping to see a glimmer of his appearance.

Unlike Damien’s expectation, the man had no ulterior motive for being so cooperative.

He was in limbo in a near-death state due to the destruction of many Infected Source Worlds, and he had been waiting for someone to come and kill him for many years.

Until now, the Nox never interfered with his existence, but now that they’d made a move, a path to him had opened for the first time in over 100,000 years.

It wasn’t a coincidence that Damien and Pandora managed to find their way into the cavern.

‘The Nox sure are cruel. The world laws they set are not only so corrupted, they use their corruption to keep Hassan just barely alive.’

Damien felt true pity for the man, because the memories he so graciously allowed Damien to peruse also served a purpose in solving his own doubts.

Mainly, one curious fact.

There were only 9 Infected Source Worlds in the current era, of which the ones in the Elven Domain, Human Domain, and Calypto had been destroyed.

However, at the start, there were 36 Infected Source Worlds.

Hassan’s era was 100,000 years ago. His imprisonment took place during the Forgotten War.

When these facts were put together…

‘The universe used to be much bigger than it currently is.’

…only one conclusion could be reached.

Damien felt his understanding of the universe and its history deepening, and as he gazed into the unnervingly serene spiritual world around him, he realized he had a decision to make.

He either killed Hassan, or found a way to save the man.

The man had lived a life of sin, but not because he wanted to.

The blood on his hands was painted on by the Nox.

Hassan himself had lived a brutal life, an extremely unfortunate life where he saw no good.

Did this man deserve to die?

Absolutely not.

But if he lived, would he be able to find redemption?

Damien truly didn’t know.

The only way to earn redemption was to desire it and work towards it, but with how broken Hassan’s mind was, he didn’t know if the man would be able to formulate that desire.

The only way to know was to ask.

And frankly, Damien wasn’t excited to hear the answer.