Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 243 The Third Treatment: Nightmare Hangs High
They make you bow your head.

It's because of the ceiling.
"They sit with their gods."

There was no wind in the room, yet air seemed to be flowing slowly.

It wasn't the natural airflow, but some deeper "gaze" that quietly propelled every breath, every contraction of the nerves.

The pale light couldn't penetrate the corners; the light wasn't warm, but rather calmly illuminated everything within sight, yet it couldn't conceal the writhing shadow deep within.

The dark shadow slowly fell from the ceiling—no, to be precise, it "floated" down.

It had no feet, no lower limbs. Only a semi-transparent mass of fleshy tissue supported a swollen, humanoid upper body.
Shaped like a broken sacrificial doll, it hangs between reality and dreams, whipped by countless nerve whips. It wears an outer garment that mimics a doctor's uniform, pure white and spotless, yet with peeling bloodstains scattered on its waist.

The head looked as if it had been violently cut open by surgery, with the skull missing, the brainstem exposed, and more than ten slender nerve tendrils hanging from the skull like crowns, trembling slightly in the air.

It does not walk on the ground.

It is not necessary.

Because it knows—you simply cannot look up.

[Current Prohibition: No Looking Up]

The words on that line of medical record became its most lethal weapon, and also its most perfect shield.

"Don't look up!" Si Ming's voice rang out almost the instant it appeared. He growled, his tone revealing a hint of urgent fear.

But it's too late.

A slender nerve tendril, like a whip, lashed down silently, striking Duan Xingzhou's shoulder precisely!

"Ah—!" Duan Xingzhou cried out in pain, his whole body falling to the ground, his body curled up, his pupils trembling violently, as if he had been instantly injected with some kind of electric current.

He didn't bleed, but he began to mutter to himself, his voice carrying a sickly emptiness.

"The train...the train didn't leave...my mom...my mom's still here...I didn't go back..."

Lin Wanqing instinctively lunged at him, wanting to help him up, but unexpectedly—the second tentacle silently drooped down and rested on the top of her head.

Snapped!
The moment the tentacles were triggered, her movements froze, her breathing became weak, and her face quickly turned ashen.

She stared into the empty air, as if she were seeing a face that existed deep in her memory but should never be mentioned again.

"She said I shouldn't have lived..." she murmured, her voice like a chisel, "I'm clearly her biological daughter... why did she make me go to join that dead man..."

“Dream Injection.” Si Ming gritted his teeth, forcing himself to analyze calmly, “It doesn’t harm your body—it rewrites your brain.”

"It is changing us."

Lynn reacted the fastest, immediately drawing a card.

With a wave of her right hand, a Destiny Card inscribed with "Gray Mist Barrier" rose into the air, instantly unleashing its mysteries!
Mist surged from her palm like a tide, enveloping the entire space, like a heavy curtain descending from reality, obscuring the eyes of the gods.

But the gray fog couldn't block out the fear overhead.

Because this time, the fear flowed down from above.

In the fog, the light is compressed into twisted beams, each beam like a twisted memory, slowly flowing, with fragmented recollections floating within.

Si Ming rolled from the side, narrowly avoiding a nerve whip that swept towards him, but he couldn't defend against another one—

Snapped!
The moment the cold tentacles touched his right shoulder, he shuddered violently.

That feeling wasn't pain, but an excessively cold "sorrow" that went straight from the shoulder into the central nervous system and through the brain.

The view began to tilt, rotate, and collapse.

-

Hallucination:

He stood in the very center of the ruined casino, surrounded by countless playing cards floating around him.

The playing cards were not tools, but a judgment seat—each card became an eye.

He looked around and was surprised to find that all the people sitting at the gambling tables were his own "faces".

The gamblers wearing his face smiled, mocked, and sneered at him.

“Siming, you lied to us,” one of them said.

“You were never a gambler, you were a page in the script,” another whispered.

The voice of the Thousand Faces appeared, carrying both pity and irony:
"You're not the one who rolls the dice."

"You are the die."

-

Si Ming suddenly bit his tongue, and a mouthful of blood broke through the dream barrier!

"cough--!"

He knelt on the ground, his right hand gripping the cards tightly, his knuckles white, as if only these cards remembered who he was.

Lynn was also struggling in the gray fog.

Her left arm was wrapped by a nerve tendril that shimmered with silver light, and she collapsed against the wall as if her soul had been ripped away.

Her eyes were unfocused, and her face was filled with fear.

-

Hallucination:

She saw the hospital room, a dream she could never escape.

The father on the sickbed had no facial features, only a blood-red, split crack on his face, from which came whispers that were not of human origin:
"When you grow up... you can take my place."

The night sky outside the window cracked open, and on the top of the Gray Tower, Gregory silently appeared, his finger slowly pointing at her.

"You can retain the conscious part."

"Because of you, you can endure madness better than any of us."

Lynn suddenly clasped his hands together to cover his ears and clenched his teeth tightly:

"...Don't listen! That's not—his voice!"

The phantom of the gray wolf leaped from the gray mist and pounced on the nerve tendril! With a tearing blow from its sharp teeth, the silver thread snapped in two!

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Lynn staggered backward and crashed into Si Ming's back. The two of them stood back to back, panting, as if they had just climbed back from the edge of an abyss to the human world.

And at this moment——

"grandfather!"

Lynn screamed.

Everyone saw it.

The thickest tendril of the main nerve was silently hanging down from the center of the ceiling, slowly hovering above Gregory's head.

That wasn't an attack, that was... a ritual.

Gregory did not look up.

He seemed to hear a sound, and slowly reached out a hand, trying to grasp something—

"I haven't... finished reading that book yet..."

Nerve tendrils gently wrapped around the back of his neck, as if caressing an old object about to be taken away. Runes appeared, and it began to read his memories.

"Elderly Star Calamity Identification Initiated."

"Permission Acquisition - Execution: Sampling of original memory craniotomy specimens."

Gregory's cloak billowed in the air as his body was slowly hoisted up, like a page of history about to be turned.

He didn't scream, he just murmured:
"...Star Calamity...is not finished yet..."

The God of Fate's pupils constricted.

The cards exploded in his hand, his will as fierce as thunder:
"enough."

He leaped to his feet, letting out a low growl:
"Now."

Snapped.

A very faint metallic sound echoed above the thick fog.

That wasn't the sound of playing cards hitting the ground.

—That was the sound of footsteps.

Immediately afterwards, a scarlet figure leaped out from the shadows where the ceiling met the wall!

Silently, it suddenly unfolded like a spider's shadow, its cloak billowing wildly, its sharp claws tearing through the air, like blood-red lightning ripping through the deathly silence.

At that moment, everyone finally saw clearly—it was her.

Celian.

She lay prone on the ceiling, her red hair billowing like flames, her golden-red pupils burning with the predatory light of a wild beast.
At that moment, she was no longer a "vampire princess," but a female hunter dwelling on the edge of dreams, a fleeting shadow formed from the intent to hunt.

She looked down at him, a chilling smile curving her lips.

"You think you're the only one on the ceiling?"

She laughed, her voice low and husky, like sharp teeth biting out of the night.

"Unfortunately—I was there too."

Before the words were even finished, the action had already begun.

She swooped down!

He fell as if torn apart by gravity, carrying blood flames and killing intent, heading straight for the tentacle healer floating in mid-air!
--boom! ! !

A loud bang was heard, and the entire CT room seemed to shake violently!
The walls trembled, the equipment shattered, and metal fragments and pieces of paper flew everywhere, as if some forbidden entity had descended from the sky.

It crashed through this hospital theater that was built in the name of "reason".

Selene pressed down hard on the floating monster, her sharp claws gripping its collarbone, causing it to shudder violently!
The tentacles thrashed wildly, and a shriek exploded from the depths of the air, as if something was being torn apart by pain and was trying to fight back with madness!

"Siming—!" she roared, her voice like a command tearing through the air, "Break off its hands!!"

—

The god of fate was moving faster than he could breathe.

Four fingers jerked!
Four playing cards flew through the air!
The cards he holds are no longer just a symbol of a gambler, but a blade aimed at the throat of fate!
【The Gambler's Lament】· Block Entry· 【Cut】Activated!
The playing cards spun in the air, tracing arcs like blades of light, each card embedded at a precise angle, like the cleavage lines already marked on a surgical anatomical diagram.

—The first one, severing the main control nerve whip at the back of the left neck;

—The second one, penetrating the right shoulder joint, is stuck in a mechanical bone groove;

—The third image shows the main nerve bundle that was trying to drag Gregory down;

—The fourth image, piercing straight into the doctor's throat, right in the center!

Hiss!

Grayish-white blood plasma gushed out from the throat under high pressure, rising into the air with a strange, fishy-sweet taste, like malice distilled from a broken dream.

The tentacles twitched wildly like short-circuited wires, slamming against the walls, floor, and ceiling, each strike producing a cracking sound!
The gray fog was stirred into ripples and swirled, as thick as the sea, and the battlefield was like a slaughterhouse in a dream!

At that moment—Lynn made his move!
Without hesitation, she rushed forward, grabbed Gregory's shoulder with one hand, and braced herself against the ground with the other, pulling the old man into her arms as she rolled away!

"Grandpa—hold on!" she cried hoarsely.

Seri sat steadily on the chest of the collapsed doll-like healer, her posture elegant as if she were selecting spoils of war, yet fierce as a hunting dog just returned from the battlefield.

She raised her hand to wipe away a smear of undried nerve fluid from the corner of her mouth, her bright red fingertips brushing across her cheek as if applying blood-red lipstick.

She looked down at the distorted smiling face, her tone slow and sarcastic:
"You were counting us just now, weren't you?"

"You counted very carefully." She grinned, revealing her gleaming fangs.

"But you're wrong about one thing."

She slowly leaned down, her eyes fixed on the last remaining trace of consciousness on its face, her cold smile deepening:

"There are more than five of us."

The puppet healer attempted to release a final burst of mental energy, but before it could even begin, a blood-flaming claw pierced through its jaws!
hiss--!
The sound no longer sounded like machinery breaking or bones shattering.

That was the sound of a hymn being torn apart.

The sacred, false facade has collapsed.

Selene's bloody right claw pierced straight down her throat, tearing open the carotid nerve sheath and penetrating the central nerve tubercle.

With a single claw, the main root veins of the brainstem and nerve tendrils were torn out in her palm!

The puppet healer, which had been floating in mid-air like a divine apostle, was now only trembling violently.

It tried to struggle, making a clicking, gear-like sound as the last few vertebrae of its spine made an instinctive "residual reaction"—but it was all just pointless procedural inertia.

Its throat was empty, its chest cavity was broken, the air valve in its back had burst open, and its whole body was shaking like a leaky rag doll.

Its face was pierced, and the bloody claws brought out not only blood plasma, but also the data soul hidden within its body.

—Gray mist slowly seeped out of the wound.

It was not blood or liquid, but rather an "information fog" torn apart by memories.

Countless transparent threads swam within, like tens of thousands of fragments of the patient's memory, condensed and compressed into the last breath before death.

Its eyes were already hollow, and its mouth was torn apart, but the remnants of its consciousness before it was cleansed still managed to utter a final, fragmented sentence:

“Memory…lost…specimen…not submitted…”

"Misaligned data...unknown source...error...error..."

"The plan is incomplete...it is incomplete—"

boom! ! !
Final blow.

Selene raised her left hand dismissively, a mysterious flame igniting from her claws.

With a powerful punch, he smashed the monster's forehead bone, crushing its skull, which was as solid as an altar, along with it!
Neuroplasm splattered from all directions, tentacles snapped one by one, twitched in the air like dying vines, and finally shattered and disintegrated, turning into ashes that drifted down in the light.

The floating object eventually collapsed like a crumbling statue, smashing into a deep hole in the ground.

The CT room finally fell silent.

All that remained was Selene—standing in the center of the wreckage, her hands still dripping blood, her posture upright, like a statue after an execution.

She clicked her tongue softly, turned around, and looked up at the camera on the ceiling.

The camera was focused on her, and a red dot was faintly lit.

She raised an eyebrow at it, curled the corners of her lips into a mocking smile:
"Next time—don't hide your little toys in the ceiling."

"I climbed even higher than it."

—

The crowd gathered, panting, as if they had just escaped from drowning in a dream.

As Si Ming examined the medical records, the pages rustled as they turned, as if the pages themselves had been rendered speechless by the battle.

A line of red text slowly appeared:
[Third Treatment Course - Brain Nerve Coordination Intervention: Completed]

[Inspection Items: Passed]

[Next ban: Coming soon]

[Treatment duration: Entering the 4th hour]

He didn't speak, but looked up at the broken wall panel—the ceiling seemed to have made way for her when Celian fell from there, splitting open a bloody path.

Lynn put the Gray Mist card back into his hand, leaned against the wall, and looked calm.

Lin Wanqing was able to stand steadily, but her arms were still trembling slightly, and her eyes seemed to hold fragments of a dream.

Duan Xingzhou supported Gregory while silently glancing at the pile of dismembered corpses, his expression complex.

The old man leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, his lips moving slightly, as if he were repeating something, or simply memorizing something—afraid that he would forget.

The gray fog gradually dissipated, but the smell lingered. They all knew:

We've overcome this hurdle.

Si Ming turned to look at the ceiling, a smile appearing at the corner of his eye—lazy, yet hiding a gambler's expectation that "the next round is still going to happen."

He flashed a peace sign at Celian.

That was the tacit understanding between the victors.

Selene curled her lips into a smile, clicked her tongue, and flicked the last drop of blood from her fingertip, her red eyes narrowing slightly.
"Mr. Gambler."

She spoke softly, her voice low, yet sharp as a knife slicing through silk.

"I've staked my life on this bet."

They make you bow your head.

Did you then lower your head?
Do not--

You're just waiting.
The taller one pounced down and bit their necks off.

(End of this chapter)