Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 215 Crossing the Gates of the Underworld
Death is not the end.
It's the beginning of a return—

Only for those who are willing to accept that they will eventually leave this world.

Hiss—click-click-click-click!

The three-colored mysterious core deep within the Puppet King's chest cavity suddenly shone brightly, its light intertwining like an exploding star cluster, shattering into rings of light within its tattered breastplate.

That core, constructed from the intertwined energies of the world, life, and destiny, resembled a heart being forced to its limit.
Each frantic throbbing pulled out hundreds of black threads, which burst out of its body like vines, whipping the air and emitting a sharp, tearing sound!
"Oh no, it's about to launch a self-destructive, system-wide resonance counterattack!" Siming's expression changed drastically, his eyes sharpening.

[Tri-system Resonance - System Warning: The fusion core is out of balance, the structural critical point is overloaded, and the system has entered a state of out of control.]

Those black energy threads seemed to come alive, twisting and surging wildly, piercing into the remaining foundation patterns of the Paper-Sealed Building.

The next second, the entire battlefield shook violently, as if the gates of hell had been opened!
—The ceiling suddenly cracked open, and fate runes fell from the dome like burning meteors, leaving trails of dazzling fire.
—The ground suddenly expanded, and from the cracks, servants entwined with flesh and metal crawled out of the abyss, roaring and rushing in all directions;

—The air seemed to be ignited by raging flames, and the spatial rifts of the world-level systems exploded like shattered mirrors.

Displaced "realistic projections" tore through space, blurry and terrifying.

This is no longer a single attack, but a comprehensive, mysterious, and out-of-control contamination.

An energy collapse at the level of a secondary core in a dungeon, a world annihilation process from the inside out!

"Everyone back off!!" Zhuang Yege roared, his voice booming like a bell.

He raised the Soul-Guiding Lamp high, and the bluish-white soul fire burst forth, transforming into a barrier of underworld tides that forcefully blocked the spiky fragments and distorted storms rushing towards them.

The shrieks of souls and the pressure of death crashed against the barrier, producing a series of shattering explosions.

Vera forced herself to look up despite the churning pain in her chest, her eyes filled with horror.

“…This is not a normal outburst.” Her voice was hoarse, but her tone was extremely calm.

"It's betting—betting that we won't dare to ignite the last star."

She raised her arm, and the star map of her destiny appeared in the air, its blazing light projected onto her blood-stained cloak.

The seven stars of reason have already been ignited.

The eighth one remains dormant.

She smiled gently, a bitter smile playing on her lips, but instead of retreating, she moved forward.

"Then let me show you that the priests of the Holy Church... aren't just good at singing hymns."

She gritted her teeth and tore it open, unleashing her last shred of rationality, and poured it fiercely into the core of the star map.

"Let's get this fired up!"

She uttered this single word in a low voice, and the destiny star chart on her right arm instantly blossomed with an eighth blazing star!
—The Eight-Star Mystic, the Star of Ultimate Rationality, shines forth!

In an instant, amidst the collapse of heaven and earth, her figure descended like a divine decree. The fierce wind whipped up her blood-stained robes, yet she remained unmoved.

The upside-down holy emblem flew up from her chest, spun and rose into the air, transforming into the phantom of a six-winged angel—the angel hung upside down in the air, its wings spread, with the light of judgment burning between its feathers.

Tears of blood streamed from the angel's eyes, yet she sang aloud:
"To overturn fate and protect mortals."

No. 221 "Hymn of the Upside-Down Angels" - Mysterious Entry Two
[Blessed by fate]

"All allied units will automatically gain the 'Wings of Fortune' effect once every ten minutes, negating one fatal/critical strike/conceptual distortion result."

The angel's song resounded throughout the battlefield, like holy light sweeping across the night.

On the shoulder of each teammate still bound by fate, a golden feather mark appears:
—Si Ming, Zhuang Yege, and Selian are among them.

The next second, a triple shockwave consisting of a rain of fate runes, spatial distortion, and world collapse swept in!

Bang bang bang! !

The three attacks, which were originally destined to cause loss of control, breakage, and soul-burning, were instantly intercepted by the "invisible golden wings" at the very moment they were about to hit.

A ring of holy light burst forth in the air, spreading like ripples and dissipating the despairing energy storm.

"Ugh—!" Vera swayed, staggered back two steps, her knees buckled and she almost knelt on the ground, blood spilling from the corner of her mouth.

The upside-down angel gradually faded into nothingness in the air, its wings burned to ashes, and the pages of the holy book burned one by one, turning into dust and scattering with the wind.

To reverse one's fate is to briefly confront the web of the entire world at the cost of one's own life.

She struggled to sit up, her eyes still burning with an indomitable spirit, her voice low yet resolute:
"I can hold on for another ten minutes."

"After that... life and death are up to fate."

Meanwhile, on the other side—

Selene's eyes were bloodshot, her golden pupils already stained deep red with blood, and blood was gushing from her nose and the corners of her mouth, drawing a horrifying arc on her pale face.

But she grinned coldly, a smile that revealed a madness that defied death:

"Hmph... I'm already at eight stars, how can I fall behind?"

She looked up at Si Ming, her blood-red eyes burning with a predatory light, while Si Ming simply shook his head, a weary yet knowing smile playing on his lips.

He gently stroked the star map with his right palm, and the Star of Reason burned fiercely. That burning will seemed to ignite the ancient pact between him and Selian.

"In the name of the God of Fate—I awaken your true name."

boom!
A highly unstable, high-level mystical energy suddenly erupted from Serian's body.

It was a mutated form, one of the very few in the life system, possessing both destructive and curse-like characteristics. Crimson arcane energy surged forth like a tidal wave.
Blood crystal-like veins appeared on her arms, and beneath her skin seemed to lie a restless, lurking curse net.

Two pairs of bat-like blood-flame wings unfurled behind her, tearing the air apart with scorching marks as they flapped.

His pupils turned completely red and gold, burning brightly like the eyes of a god, as if he were a descendant of an ancient deity.

"Blood feast, wild drinking, slaughter! Never-ending!"

She let out a deafening roar, like a howling war beast, and transformed into a scarlet streak of light as she swooped down!

Target—the puppet king's out-of-control, disintegrating three-element fusion core!

Before the blood claws arrived, the blood flames had already pierced through the entire battlefield, like a crimson spear that pierced through fate.

Meanwhile, in the center of the battlefield—

The God of Fate stood at the eye of the storm, his grey cloak fluttering in the gale.

His face was pale, the bloodstains at the corner of his mouth still wet, but his eyes remained bright, his gaze sharp as a blade. He had to create the most fatal opening for Selene.

At this moment, the eighth star of reason has finally ignited in his destiny chart!

A deep blue starlight spread from his arm to his fingertips, and dazzling starlight gathered on the card in his hand.

[The Mysteries of the Supreme Fate System]

Truth and Lies: The Thousand-Faced Weaver of Destiny

【Secret and Mysterious Entry Two: The True Lie】

"As long as your 'narrative' is logically sound, the world will tend to believe it to be true."

"It doesn't create facts—it induces the world to choose to believe the one you state."

Si Ming exhaled, his mind racing with rapid deductions, as if he had completed countless logical entanglements in an instant.

He knew that the foundation of a puppet king was prediction, calculation, and path; it was a set of "mechanical gods" who believed in structure and logic.

"Since you operate based on logic."

"Then I'll give you the most logical illusion."

He tossed three playing cards—three spades, representing "illusion."

The card streaked through the sky, and instead of landing, it split into more than a dozen afterimages.

Projected into every blind spot, ruin, corner, and spatial rift on the battlefield, it lurks like a ghost.

The puppet king's crimson eyes widened instantly, and his sensory system screamed like an alarm.

It's an image deception; its retinal map is filled with the figures of "Destiny Masters," each possessing complete life pattern characteristics and aura projections, making it impossible to distinguish the real from the fake!
At this moment, the judgment mechanism of the Secret Corpse itself and the remaining spiritual consciousness of Leo began to intertwine and become disordered under the impact of the Fate Master's "lie".

And at this time——

Si Ming spoke softly, each word like a virus injected into the opponent's nerves:
"What you're fighting against isn't actually me."

"It is my 'copycat shell'."

“I used the Fate Escape Tool a minute ago to take control of the situation from another corner.”

"The person you see before you... is nothing more than a surviving program substitute."

His voice wasn't loud, but it was like a heavy hammer striking the core computing mechanism of the puppet king.

that moment--

The puppet king paused. A red light flashed like a burning alarm, and the internal logic diagram was fiercely conflicted between "self-recognition" and "external verification." It began to hesitate, and it began to revise.

"Now," Si Ming whispered.

He slowly turned over the last card in his hand—it was a gray-white "blank card".

"The Man of a Thousand Faces, help me—to make lies come true."

click!
The card burned in the air, and a thin but extremely stable path of fate emerged from the ashes. The card flew like a serpent to the puppet king's back and precisely pierced its core back-end interface!
Instantly, the red light on the interface on the back of the monarch lit up, and the defense system automatically redirected, activating "locking onto high-threat targets in the rear".

Its defenses have been "convinced"—the world system is leaning towards believing what the God of Fate says!

The energy strands that were originally surrounding the core shifted wildly backward, as if the enemy had suddenly changed position, and the priority of logical judgment was instantly adjusted!

"Target identification error - Logical priority modification in progress..."

Sima Ming smiled.

That smile held no smugness, nor any mockery, but rather a kind of ease tinged with weariness, a sense of impending doom, and a feeling of fate's inevitable end.

He took a light step, his figure blurring amidst the dust and storm, a faint afterimage of the Thousand Faces flashing deep within his pupils.

"You think I ran away?"

He paused slightly, and with a flick of his wrist, a card quietly appeared.

It was a deep red playing card with golden cracks engraved on its back, the edges still glowing with embers, as if it had just returned from some festival.

"But I've always—"

He raised his hand and placed it on the chest of the puppet king, on the core armor that was interwoven with three-colored energy threads and was constantly pulsating.

"I stand right in front of your heart."

Snapped!
[Square - Burning]

The moment the card touched the metal, the runes burst into flames, and scorching marks spread along the core threads, as if fire serpents were writhing within the metal's nerves.
Intense patterns tore through, burning through multiple layers of defensive structure!

Si Ming's eyes narrowed, and he suddenly flipped backward, his figure disappearing instantly into the swirling dust.

"What follows is not my responsibility."

The next moment——

A red shadow suddenly appeared.

Behind Si Ming, a slender yet sharp figure suddenly swept in, breaking through the air.

"Hmph, what a hassle."

Princess Selian.

Her voice carried a mixture of violence and weariness, yet it also contained a burning thirst for battle.

Blood flames twisted and churned behind her, her claws like arcs tearing through the air.

She flipped and leaped up, crossing her arms in front of her chest. The next second, her sharp claws slashed like a cross, tearing through the charred and brittle armor shield that had been corroded by the burning runes!

Bang——! !

The cries of iron and blood rang out simultaneously. The puppet king's chest exploded like a crimson flower, the steel protective shell flew off, and fragments scattered like a gust of wind!
Within the crack, the mysterious core of intertwined three-colored energy was finally exposed to the air, pulsating violently, as if its pulse contained the raging tide of fate for the entire Paper-Sealed Tower.

At the center of the intertwined flames, a translucent, distorted outline of a soul was slowly emerging—

The remnant soul of Li Oscar.

He roared silently, his face contorted in agony, his eyes filled with regret and resentment.

It was as if they were trying to tear themselves apart and break free from fate at this last moment, but it was already too late.

Everything has finally reached its end.

"Leo, it's time to go. Your soul returns to the underworld, and your broken body returns to the earth."

Zhuang Yege's voice came from the wind, deep and solemn, as if summoned from the depths of the underworld, echoing through layers of cause and effect and lingering sounds, reverberating in this battlefield of fate that was about to collapse.

He approached slowly, his black robes billowing in the turbulent wind, the soul-guiding lamp swaying slightly in his palm, its eerie blue light like a guiding star for the dead.

His life chart unfolded in his palm, like the River Styx surging under the night sky, with starlight gradually converging into a beam of light leading straight to the other side.

The eighth star of reason has been ignited.

World-type High-level Domain Mystery - No. 8129 "Ferryman to the Underworld: Realm of Death Tide"

【Secret Rule Three: Guiding the Underworld - Ferrying the Dead】

"When obsession persists, the soul finds no place to return."
"I will open a door for you."

Zhuang Yege raised the Soul-Guiding Lamp high; the eerie blue flames rolled, gradually turning pale, and then completely black.

Finally, it transformed into an indescribable, dark flame, forming a slowly unfolding portal on the puppet king's chest.

The Gates of the Underworld open.

The airflow between heaven and earth was suddenly drawn away, and the air of the entire battlefield seemed to be swallowed up by this door. The flames of war, dust, debris, and even the echoes of time all converged towards the center of that door.

"You are trapped by mystery, neither alive nor dead."

"Today, I send you back to your rightful place."

He approached step by step, his feet treading on the shattered chessboard and the collapsed bones of the world, as if walking towards the end by treading on the wreckage of fate.

The puppet king let out a final roar, the threads tangling and coiling around his body, attempting to reconstruct it, but they stopped and froze under the eerie light of Zhuang Yege's soul-guiding lamp.

“Li Oscar”.

"Come back."

As he uttered those words in a low voice, the flames of the Nether Lamp suddenly froze and then plummeted down!

A dull thud—

The puppet king's chest burst open, and a figure was ripped out from the crack!
It was a soul whose entire body was wrapped in silk threads, its face distorted and twisted like a ghost, corroded by torn memories and obsessions. The remnant soul of Li Oscar—finally revealed.

He tried to shout, but no sound came out.

He tried to break free, but there was no way out.

The gates of the underworld opened, like the tide of night, slowly engulfing him.

Zhuang Yege closed his eyes, his voice low and heavy, as if bidding farewell:
"No matter who you were, or what trouble you have caused."

"At this moment, you will complete your path of destiny."

The last wisp of smoke from the soul slowly drifted into the gates of the underworld.

click -

The gates of the underworld slowly closed.

The puppet king's body began to disintegrate from the midline, erupting in flames and light, and the three elements of mysterious power instantly went out of control.
The components exploded, energy collapsed, and everything turned into dust-like specks of light at the end of the collapse, scattered by the wind.

The building sealed with paper—silence.

-

The wind stopped.

The smell of blood and metal still lingered in the air, but the oppressive and furious atmosphere had been lost.

The ground beneath my feet, as if a long-lost peace had settled into silent ruins.

Selene knelt on the ground, her blood-red bat wings slowly disintegrating. She gasped for breath, her face blank and relieved after being extinguished by madness.

Vera, supporting her dazed body, gritted her teeth to keep from collapsing. The golden feather mark on her shoulder flashed faintly for a moment before finally fading away.

Si Ming sat on the edge of the broken pillar base, chuckled softly, wiped the blood from his hands, and finally inserted the still-warm playing card into the card box.

Zhuang Yege stood quietly where the Gate of the Underworld had once stood, his gaze as calm as the night, his black robe billowing without wind.

He bowed his head, clasped his hands together, and gave a gentle salute to the vanished gate of souls.

"Go well."

"The real end,"

It's not about flesh and blood returning to dust.
It is that the will has finally been allowed.

Free from domination

Crossing the threshold of death from obsession.

(End of this chapter)