Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 252 Memory Anchor Point: The Cataclysm Infusion Project
Someone bets on a card.

Some people gamble their entire lives.

And some people,

Betting on a tomorrow that has yet to come.

Space, like an inverted transparent bowl of light, enveloped the entire operating table and plague factory, as if an invisible giant hand had pressed down on the top of the world.

Nicholas—no, that being that could no longer be called "Nicholas"—was slowly hovering above the Star Plague Platform.

His lower body had long since vaporized into a skeleton composed of language, his blood evaporating into gray star-like marks.

The spine transforms into a rotating "star trail coding chain," constantly devouring all remaining naming rights and memory links in space.

The entire plague factory trembled under his divine projection, the walls pulsating like a living pulse, each breath emitting a murky hum.

The sound of breathing didn't just come from the air, but seemed to surge from the deepest structure of language and logic, like the whole world slowly coughing.

Si Ming, Lin En, Lin Wanqing, and Duan Xingzhou—they knelt on the ground, amidst the shattered flesh and blood, like specimens nailed to the boundary between reality and illusion.

Cards are frozen, life lines are sluggish, and thoughts are as if sealed in liquid; actions, speech, and perception all lose their effectiveness.

There was no way to escape.

--there is no time.

There is no hope.

He was on the verge of death, barely clinging to life, yet too weak to throw a punch.

In this despairing silence, an aged yet resolute voice rang out from the body that was on the verge of extinction, like a volcano:

"There's another way."

Everyone looked up suddenly.

That was Gregory's voice.

The old man's voice was hoarse like a wind-eroded stone tablet, yet exceptionally clear, like the last ray of starlight illuminating the ruins in the night sky.

He staggered to his feet, the star chart of his destiny shimmering faintly with golden light behind him, like a candle burning to its last flame confronting death.

He slowly looked around, his gaze falling on everyone's faces: Si Ming's silence, Lin En's pain, Lin Wanqing's blank stare, and Duan Xingzhou's bewilderment.

Finally, he looked at the high-hanging altar, at the monster who "claimed to be a god".

"The Cataclysm... needs a closed loop."

"It is essentially a form of information recursion."

"From personal memory to a 'self-affirmation' of cosmic destiny."

"To avoid being swallowed by the Starscramble, Nicholas stuffed himself into the Mystic Shell, trying to use the cold, hard processor to withstand the heat of the Starscramble."

"But no matter how sturdy the remains are, their capacity is always limited."

Si Ming narrowed his eyes, vaguely guessing the ending.

"what do you mean……"

Gregory looked up, a light in his eyes that seemed to have been prepared for this moment all along.

"If—before he closes the loop, we force in the 'second celestial disaster'."

"Two streams of entropy converge."

He will—'explode'.

—

The air suddenly froze.

Lin Wanqing gasped. Lin En murmured softly, "But... the Star Calamity can't be activated so easily..."

“So.” Gregory gave a calm smile, like an old man about to step onto the altar.

"Use myself."

"I'm here to detonate—my celestial catastrophe."

"Use my calamity to pour into his calamity."

—

Lynn lost her voice, rushed forward, grabbed his sleeve, and her voice was filled with despair:

"Grandpa! No! You'll die! You...you can't take it—"

Gregory gently held her fingers, as if caressing his only legacy across the years.

His palms were still warm, but they began to tremble slightly, a final struggle of an ancient body desperately fighting against fate.

"Child, I should have died long ago."

"That night—the night the Gray Tower collapsed, I should have been buried with them under time."

"To have lived to this day is nothing more than carrying a corpse while reading star charts for others."

His gaze swept over Nicholas, looking at the monster about to ascend to godhood, and at the "Doctor" who had opened the gates of cosmic calamity and wanted to define the fate of everyone.

"If I could use this body that should have died long ago—to drag him along and bury him in history."

"Then I will die a worthy death."

“I died more like a ‘human being’ than I lived.”

Everyone around the fire remained silent.

They understood that this was not a tactic.

This is an old man who used his death to prepare for the next twist of fate.

Even if he burns out, he must write his final words for humanity beneath this gray star:
— Dignity that cannot be swallowed up.

—A sacrifice chosen by oneself.

—Even upon reaching the planetary catastrophe, the question of "Who am I?" remains unbroken.

Si Ming clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking slightly, as if the chains pressing down on fate were also tightening at that moment.

The star chart of his destiny pattern trembled quietly, and the star of reason, like a faint light in the dead of night, slowly flickered, igniting a weak but resolute flame.

It is not a roaring fire, but a silent burning, a drop of time's venom flowing toward "inevitability".

He knew very well that Gregory's body was already broken and his reason was like a page licked by flames, fragile and cracked, as if it would shatter at the slightest touch.

Even the strongest will cannot withstand a complete asteroid awakening.

Even if he were to light it now, he would only have a few minutes left.

But he knew even more clearly that Gregory was right.

If Nicholas's closed loop isn't broken—they'll all die.

with no exceptions.

At that time, the name of plague will no longer be a satirical term, but a calamity with "divine projection power," which will redefine humanity in the name of "the healer."

Then, the world will have one more true "planetary calamity god".

Si Ming could not accept this outcome.

Even if this was all part of a preordained ending, he still had to personally disrupt this "script."

—

Gregory slowly looked at Si Ming, and in his cloudy and weary eyes, a glimmer of hope pierced through the darkness.

"I need your help."

The voice was hoarse, low as dust, yet heavy as thunder.

"I... am scared."

"I personally witnessed the 'Eater of Time' step down from the Starscramble ritual platform."

“I know what the Cataclysm is… It’s not fire, it’s not a storm… It’s self-destruction.”

"It's like fate giving you a knife and then forcing you to cut your own name off."

He lowered his eyelids, as if he were back in that night, in the ruins of the fallen gray tower, the whispered bells of the gods echoing in his soul, making even his bones creak.

"The fear of that night still lives in my heart."

“If I were to enter the Cataclysm with fear…” He paused, his voice trembling slightly, “I wouldn’t even have a chance to ignite it.”

He raised his gaze again and looked at Si Ming.

That wasn't a cry for help, but a pleas made after being suppressed to the extreme.

"So, Sir Fate—"

"Use your abilities."

"Tell me a lie."

"Let me forget my fear."

—

Si Ming closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

The playing cards in his hand trembled slightly, as if they understood something.

He sensed the whispers of the Thousand-Faced One, like a whisper in a spell-constructed chamber:

"Hmph... Another good gamble, little Si Ming."

"You're going to lie to an old man?"

"Very good, I'll keep an eye on it."

Si Ming opened his eyes, his gaze as bright as a blade.

"it is good."

“I’ll make one up for you—Gregory who only knows how to keep moving forward.”

—

Star of Reason - Ignite!
The first one, burning fiercely like charcoal, seemed to burn through without end.

The second one, as still as a deep pool, seals away fear.

The third one, shining like a star, illuminates the way ahead.

[The True Lie] - Launched.

The playing card flipped between his fingers, then he tossed it like an arrow, tracing a perfect arc through the air before landing straight down on Gregory's chest.

It's not an attack, but writing.

The card spread out like wings, words emerged, and each ray of light, like a rune, was precisely written into that heart on the verge of extinction.

It's not about rewriting life.

It's about modifying perceptions—rewriting definitions.

The old man in the gray tower straightened up; his body was still hunched, but his eyes were as firm as a rock.

He seemed to have forgotten what a celestial disaster was, and also forgotten what "death" meant.

He only remembered one sentence:

--"forward."

Si Ming stood beside him, watching his back, and felt a jolt in her heart.

At that moment, he realized for the first time—

The old man who emerged from the ruins of the gray tower was not a "remnant soldier".

He was the last "general" among the remnants of the Ming dynasty.

Indeed, it was the blade that sent the Star Calamity's true form to hell—the [Reverse Flow Blade].

The light from the playing cards silently fell into the core of Gregory's life pattern, like a spell slicing through the night sky, causing the entire star chart to resonate with a dull echo.

The old man's pupils suddenly dilated, his divine light rekindled, as if the pages of fate had been turned anew in his eyes.

The next second—

The decades of time that had passed over him were like a tidal wave crashing back, forcibly stripped away, removed, and burned from the depths of his soul.

The wrinkles on his face faded quickly, like ancient inscriptions swept away by the wind and sand;
The spine, which had been bent like a broken branch, gradually straightened; the white hair at the temples turned a deep, dark color at a speed visible to the naked eye.

And those hands, which were once old and trembling, are now as steady as a mountain, as if they were the pen that could hold a page of a star map still in the wind.

He is no longer the old man coughing up blood.

He is Gregory—the last gatekeeper of the Grey Tower, the [Mystic of Fate] who once stood at the center of the Star Chart of Fate and froze the future for five seconds in his own name.

Everyone was stunned.

It wasn't the visual miracle of "rejuvenation" that was awe-inspiring, but rather the oppressive aura emanating from him in that instant.

That's not a display of power.

Rather, it is a "time reset" that is so calm it is almost majestic.

That was the moment when a true high-level master of destiny returned to his position, the moment when the long-broken line of defense between civilization and the cosmic catastrophe was rebuilt by him alone.

—

Si Ming collapsed to the ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, his breathing disordered, and he was on the verge of fainting.

He exhausted all his rationality, altering reality in the name of the Thousand Faces, making lies a part of reality.

But he smiled.

Laugh until it hurts, laugh until you're exhausted, laugh until you feel relieved.

“This…this is the Gray Tower,” he murmured, his voice hoarse, yet like a thunderbolt piercing the night.

Lynn's eyes welled up with tears.

She stared blankly at the figure that was slowly walking into the center of the epidemic.
That wasn't the elderly, silent relative she remembered who lived with a cane.

That is--

The Gray Tower records the legendary man who "stepped into the site of the Star Calamity under the black sun and wrote down annotations for the archived star map."

—

Gregory moved his wrist, and the life rune star chart rotated accordingly, emitting a thunderous resonance.

Three mysterious cards slowly emerged around him, radiating a halo like the edge of an eclipse:
【Fate Pocket Watch - Irreversible Markers】—The frozen point of time is retraced once again!

【Destiny Script: Unwritten Regrets】—Free control of the entire battle situation within fifteen seconds!

【Star Mark Manuscript: Lost Edition of the Gray Tower】—Summon the lost “Celestial Sphere Shattered Light” from the Forgotten Star Chart!
In the blink of an eye, the hands of his pocket watch began to turn, and the script began to write itself.

Beneath the star mark, a fallen gray celestial body tore through the void and plummeted from the zenith!

That wasn't a fireball.

Those are the sealed fragments of the cosmic catastrophe, the echoes of time's roar against the universe!
—

boom--! !

The moment the meteor fell, the earth trembled, and the plague shadows exploded like tattered shreds. A gap was blasted open in the center of the entire plague shadow army, and the blood, sparks, and plague mist receded like a tide!
Nicholas's body trembled slightly, and for the first time, the star map structure behind him flickered violently, and a certain line broke.

—

"This is the true mastermind behind the Gray Tower's destiny."

Si Ming gritted his teeth and laughed in a low voice, his laughter sounding like he was spitting blood, yet also like he was singing a hymn.

—

Lin Wanqing rushed forward to support him, Lynn formed hand seals to provide support, and Si Ming threw out his last playing card to suppress the plague shadow's retreat. But Gregory gently waved his hand, his expression unchanged, yet with a touch more gentleness:
“No,” he said gently, as if promising a child the ending of a story.

"Don't waste your lives."

"I want to walk there myself."

—

He walked step by step into the core of the celestial calamity.

No one can stop him.

The swarm of infected people rushed forward, but shattered simultaneously three meters away from him, as if a barrier marked "untouchable" by fate.

The wind, which was made of plague, was still as a pool at his feet.

The light was made up of pathology, but it was as clear as morning mist in his palm.

He walked slowly, but every step he took was on the back of the epidemic.

—

In the depths of that purgatory.

He wasn't approaching Nicholas.

He is approaching "God".

Even at this moment, he is just an old man.

Even if he only has thirty minutes of "burning life".

He still took the step that all the Star Calamity Mystics had dreamed of.

He is not a miracle.

He is—a miracle of humankind.

He himself is the orbit of destiny.

The life chart suddenly blazed brightly, like an ancient star chart rising from the abyss.
Twelve stars of reason ignited simultaneously behind Gregory, bursting forth with a deafening roar!

In that instant, his spine seemed to transform into a star track axis, with each vertebra calculating destiny and each nerve reading the future.

Starlight emanated from his chest, tracing outward concentric circles of "causal ripples" in the air.

The light is not for illumination—it is a warning.

His mere existence is enough to pose a threat.

The front lines of the epidemic are in turmoil.

They growled, struggled, and cried out like mist, their heads tilting back automatically.

His limbs convulsed violently—as if he had foreseen his inevitable death the moment he saw him.

That wasn't a premonition, but rather a kind of [astronomical observation] effect:
To gaze upon him is to be gazed upon by one's own "inescapable future of death."

—

The first wave of plague burst forth with a roar, blades cutting through the wind, poisonous mist churning, and cursed seals coming straight at us like iron chains.

Gregory simply raised his hand slowly.

The script turns its pages, the pen falls silently:
[Missed shot in the next three seconds.]

The air itself wrote the ending in his palm.

Fate changed in response.

The entire line of infected figures froze the moment they reached him, as if time had stopped.
All of them lost their gravity, trajectory, and will to attack in mid-air, falling heavily to the ground like rag dolls with broken strings.

Before the wailing could even begin, it was absorbed by the bloodstains and became the lingering echo of "dying in the future."

—

The second wave of plague shadows rushed in from the flank, three plague-afflicted beings clad in reinforced structures and layers of magical armor.

Gregory flips his hand—

Star-Trace Manuscript: Lost Pages of the Gray Tower Initiated!
With a flick of his finger, the pages of the book tore apart from the void, and a shooting star descended from the gray starry sky.

That was the lingering echo of a celestial catastrophe—a forbidden star that had been forgotten but never extinguished.

boom--! ! !
The star's core crashed into the center of the pandemic.

The earth shook violently, and the shockwave tore through the plague-stricken ground. Dust and viruses turned into explosive streams of gas, and the plague shadows were directly crushed into stardust, leaving not even a trace of life patterns.

A single strike blasted through the air, creating a 30-meter-wide clear zone!
He continued walking, his steps as steady as a pendulum.

With each step, the ashes beneath his feet spontaneously combusted, yet they never burned him.

—

The shadow of the epidemic suddenly appeared on the left!

He turned the page again:
【Fate Pocket Watch - Irreversible Scale】Activated!
Time freezes!

The shadow of the epidemic has frozen in time, as if it were nailed into the cracks of time and space by some kind of "irresistible anchor," even the roar stopped in the throat.

Gregory ignored them, merely tilting his head slightly, his left hand lightly tracing the script:
"In the next five seconds, all those who attempt to approach will fall due to the failure of gravity."

Click!

The shadows of the epidemic fell from the ceiling and plummeted from the walls, like a meteor shower breaking its trajectory, struggling in the air but unable to escape the deathly landing point written by fate.

—

On the high platform, Nicholas slowly opened his second eye.

That was his "divine eye".

The gray-marked disc, which originally recorded the "completion of the 'planetary disaster closed loop'", trembled for the first time at this moment.

"A single remnant star... can actually disrupt the closed loop?"

"wrong."

"That's not a broken star."

“That is—the observer.”

It is not "the echo of the star map", but "the divine counterpart that has not yet been extinguished".

—

Si Ming and the others stood there, stunned, as if they were facing a scene recreated from a time of cultural discontinuity.

It wasn't that I didn't want to step forward, but I understood that there was no way I could intervene at this moment.

Gregory is no longer an old man who needs to be protected.

At this moment, he himself is a "complete high-level star-level force".

One person is the battlefield.

A single thought can change one's destiny.

—

The plague structures surrounding the Star Plague Altar continuously collapsed, reconstructed, and expanded, trembling as if breathing, as if the entire space were whispering:

"he came."

"The observer reappears."

"The sacrifice was impure."

"Closed loop - error."

—

Gregory seemed to hear something.

He looked up at the core of the Cataclysm, at the "divine circuit" that was already prepared to devour them all.

But he didn't say anything.

Just gently turn the page again.

—

He wasn't fighting.

He was reading out Fate's "defense" against the astral disaster.

It's not about "revenge".

Yes--

For those companions who collapsed on the stairs of the Gray Tower, never to finish a book again,
For those who never got to finish speaking before "time allowed," for the dignity of the word "fate" trampled before divinity—

He stepped in, using his last right to "define the future."

Like a dying meteor, not meant to illuminate the world, but to crash into the face of the gods before burning out.

Finally, Gregory stood beneath the Plague Altar, gazing up at the archetype of God suspended above it.

Nicholas—no, he can no longer be called a "human" or a "mysterious corpse"—is in the final stage of his Star Calamity ascension.
The entire plague factory trembled slightly under his breath, like a machine that had gone out of control, waiting for the final "ignition".

The light was like stagnant water, the star marks like snakes, and language transformed into pathological emblems that bit, wandered, and trembled in the air.

And Gregory—alone, faced the throat of this divine circuit.

He raised his pocket watch, the old object inlaid with the Grey Tower seal, which now gleamed coldly. It was not an instrument, but a vow of time.

He spoke in a low, slow voice, as if a lament were drifting from a distant, ruined tower:
"A calamity..."

"This time, it's your turn—to cough."

—

Tick.

The second hand of the pocket watch reversed, the script ignited in ashes, the pages of the Star Mark manuscript turned on their own, and a gray star core pierced the void, falling like the gaze of a martyr!
The entire operating table shook violently, and the aura of the cosmic calamity at the core of the Plague Factory exploded like an overturned sky curtain, with coughs like thunder reverberating throughout the entire area.

Si Ming, Lin Wanqing, Lin En, and Duan Xingzhou knelt on the ground.

If the five senses are stripped away, breathing becomes difficult, and consciousness collapses—it's not the body obeying, but rather "meaning" disintegrating.

They witnessed that figure—no longer old, no longer faltering.

Under the light of destiny, Gregory's silver hair flew like flames, and his figure stood straight as a tower.

Like an astronomer emerging from the ruins of a spark, he takes up his pen to confront the gods.

He looked back.

There was no anger or fear in his eyes.

There is only one kind of deep and distant tenderness, that was once beneath the gray tower's dome.
The vision of an elder, illuminating the path for countless young scholars—through the years and the vicissitudes of life, is solely to leave behind a lamp that has not yet been extinguished for future generations.

He held up the copy of Star Mark and read aloud in a low voice:

"Astral calamity, leading me into the depths of destiny."

"Star Mark, record my every struggle."

"Time is no longer a cage, but my writing pen."

The sound was not loud, but it was like the tolling of a long bell, echoing among the star marks and awakening some ancient order that had been sleeping beneath the star map.

—

He turned his head and looked at Lynn.

No longer family members, but inheritors of tradition.

He spoke slowly, each word like a fiery inscription cast into a card:

“Listen up, Lynn.”

"My path is called—[Star Speaker]."

"To stir up the tides of destiny with the language of the stars."

"Using time markers to alter the shell of the world."

"Ultimate means are to observe the future, fold the past, and shatter the present."

"I am about to embark on this path."

"You must remember every detail."

"Even if one day the entire Gray Tower is completely buried, as long as there is still one person who remembers the Way of the Star Speaker—"

"The Grey Tower has never truly become extinct."

Lynn was already in tears and couldn't speak, only nodding vigorously.

He gripped the trembling gray tower notebook tightly in both hands, as if trying to etch these words into his soul forever.

—

Gregory's lips curved slightly.

"it is good."

"Then my trip was not in vain."

He turned around and never looked back.

The pocket watch clicked, locking in the last moment of time.

The script—begins to be written: [Divine Interception].

The manuscript records a "planetary assassination" that never existed in history.

He took a deep breath and announced in a low voice:
"Star Speaker—Step!"

The life chart has been completely burned out!

The twelve stars of reason exploded, as if an entire galaxy was self-destructing within him, all in order to—interrupt the operation of that starry sky!

Gray starlight surged forth from his body, no longer a skill or spell.

Instead, it was a concrete storm of language, a vast star map woven from memory, faith, time, and reason, engulfing the divine closed-loop structure where Nicholas resided!

That wasn't an attack.

That is—renaming.

"I name you the ending of failure."

"I name you the God of Delay."

"I name you the thirteenth syndrome not recorded by the Grey Tower."

Si Ming stared at him, mesmerized.

He saw an old man, no longer the gray figure coughing and walking at the end of the line.

Instead, they are martyrs who use themselves as fuel, the gray tower as a catalyst, and the remaining time as a knife to pierce the throne of calamity.

That was the counterattack of the "observers of fate".

This is the final refutation of the "divine right of the stars."

He was also a teacher.

With my own burnt-out self,

The last page of the lecture notes I wrote.

Even if stars fall
There are also people,
Will use my peripheral vision,
To light the way to the ruins for those who come after.

(End of this chapter)