— SHATTER!
"You piece of shit!"
The loud voice followed right after the glass shattered against the head of a young man. He was by no means handsome—he was ugly. Too ugly.
In fact, even he didn't know why he was so ugly.
His family were natural beauties, top-tier fashionistas, but he was born… wrong. Hideous. And he didn't know why.
His mother never wished to hate him, but because his father despised people like him—those whose looks weren't up to par—she couldn't protest. That was one of the cruel truths of this world: no one liked ugly individuals. Even the poor had decent faces.
"I told you to follow your brothers, not leave them!"
— SLAP!
The sound of the slap echoed through the room. Even the few servants present couldn't help but flinch.
The young man didn't protest. He simply stood still, trying to hide the pain.
"To your room. Now."
His father's tone was sharp, cold, and absolute. The boy could only obey. He had no power nor status to defy the man who stood as one of the most powerful individuals in the galaxy.
His mother remained silent, hesitant to step in. In this world, status was power—and power was status. As her husband's wife, she had influence, yes, but she was still beneath him in authority.
When the boy finally left, the man sighed, frustration lacing his voice.
"That fool... insisting on staying the way he looks."
He clenched his fists, angered that his son would do something so foolish.
Why?
Because in this world, appearance determined survival.
Average? You'd live a normal life—nothing more, nothing less.
Model-like? Fair enough, people would notice you.
Top-class? Extraordinary? You'd have the world wrapped around your finger.
But below average? Or worse… ugly?
That was a death sentence.
The universe's laws were merciless. If you were not within at least twenty percent of the beauty standard of the first five people who saw you—parents and siblings included—by the age of eighteen… you would be publicly executed.
It sounded absurd. Brutal. Unrealistic. But that was how things had been since the discovery of other intelligent species—aliens, demi-humans, even cosmic-class beings whose beauty defied logic. When humanity was forced to compete with the ethereal perfection of other races, a new ideal formed. And anything less than that ideal was considered unworthy of life.
That was why humanity's population, once nearly thirteen billion in the 4th millennia, dropped to two billion by the 5th. In a mere thousand years, ninety percent of humankind vanished—all in the name of aesthetics.
Now, in the 7th millennia, humanity's population has finally risen to three billion once again. A fragile recovery.
Inside his plain, white-walled room, the young man sat in silence. No decorations. No pictures. Just a bed, a table, and a chair—bare essentials, sterile and empty. It felt less like a bedroom and more like a patient's isolation chamber.
He stared blankly at the walls, his dull eyes filled with exhaustion.
Why had he resisted? Why did he keep insisting that it was fine to be ugly? He'd read history texts online, the remnants of a time when not everyone was obsessed with beauty. When people lived by personality, skill, and heart. He wanted to revive that ideal—but he underestimated how deeply the law was rooted across the galaxy. Across the universe.
He scoffed bitterly. He knew there was only one way to escape death before turning eighteen: bio-surgery.
Not plastic surgery—something far beyond that. By the 6th millennia, biotechnology had advanced to the point where one's entire genetic structure could be altered. Face, body, DNA—rebuilt from the ground up.
But there was a condition.
It was only available to those born ugly. Anyone of average or above-average looks was forbidden to use it, no matter how much money they had—unless granted permission by the founder of the technology itself.
No one physically harmed ugly individuals; society had laws preventing that. But verbal and mental abuse? That was tolerated—especially within families. Parents were the only ones allowed to physically discipline their own "defective" offspring.
The boy sighed deeply. He thought about all the things he'd missed—friends, clubs, education, love. His ideals had cost him everything.
Finally, he stood and walked out of his room, determined to find his father.
He found the man working on a sleek device that resembled a holographic laptop.
"F-Father…"
The man glanced up, his sharp eyes instantly locking on him. "What is it?"
The boy trembled under his gaze, but he forced the words out.
"I… I'm willing to take the surgery."
The sound of objects dropping filled the room—the laptop closing, a pen clattering to the floor. The father froze for a second, then rose from his chair. His eyes widened, and for the first time in a long while, a faint spark of relief crossed his face.
He hadn't expected this. But it didn't matter. His son wouldn't die. That was all that mattered.
"We'll leave today," he said firmly.
He closed the laptop, which instantly folded itself into a rectangular prism before floating neatly onto a nearby shelf.
Without another word, the father walked out the door. His son followed quietly behind.
When they arrived at the hospital, the boy was placed on the operating table. The machines whirred to life, scanning and analyzing every cell of his body before beginning the transformation.
Outside the room, his father spoke with the lead doctor.
"I'd like you to alter everything about him," he said. "Body, DNA, genes—everything connected to me."
The doctor blinked, uncertain. "For what reason, sir?"
"…Revolutionaries," the man replied grimly. "They followed us here."
The doctor's eyes widened slightly. "I see… So, you want to cut all traces of connection?"
The man nodded. "Erase his memories too."
It was a cruel request—erasing the proof that the boy had ever been his son—but necessary. Revolutionaries often targeted family members of the elite. If the boy no longer had ties to him, he would be safe.
At least, that's what the father thought.
Hours later, the surgery was complete. The young man now lay asleep on a hospital bed, his appearance utterly transformed. His once hideous features were now breathtaking—almost divine. Cosmic-tier beauty, one could say.
But before his father could even see him open his eyes, chaos erupted.
The lights flickered. The machines died.
Then came the explosion.
The building shook violently, alarms blaring as fire tore through the hospital.
"Fucking hell! It's the pirates!" one of the doctors shouted.
Outside, through the shattered windows, pirate spacecrafts surrounded the facility. Their designs were jagged, old, rusted—battle-worn remnants of an era long past. Plasma fire erupted from every direction.
Within seconds, the hospital collapsed.
The father was nowhere to be found. He had expected revolutionaries, not pirates. His fate remained unknown.
Soon after, military ships descended upon the chaos. Sleek, angular, and deadly—plasma beams filled the skies in a brutal firefight. The entire district turned into a battlefield of light and ruin.
After an hour, the pirates were finally defeated. But the hospital was gone—nothing left but smoldering rubble and the faint scent of death in the air.
Whether there were survivors… no one knew.
What was certain was that many people lost their loved ones that day.
Tragic, isn't it?