Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 353 Night of Hymns: They Will Sing Hymns in Blood
“If hymns are written from flesh and blood, then they are no longer praising God, but are offered to His stomach.”

—Excerpt from "Fragments of Dark Songs: Secret Manuscripts of the Holy Mother Order," page 9

Early morning, Diocese 12.

The bells atop the Stupa of Our Lady once again dispelled the morning mist, echoing across every cold stone pavement, as if hinting at some sacred and secret judgment.

Rex, dressed in a silver-grey holy robe, stepped into the main hall of the church with a calm and rhythmic gait.

The believers who followed closely behind were pale-faced, with empty and longing eyes—the poor, the sick, the orphans, the crushed artisans, they followed silently like a flock of lambs seeking salvation.

Rex turned around, a gentle smile on his face precise and elegant, like a divine mask perfectly cast under the doctrine of the Virgin Mary.

"Welcome back to the Lord's embrace. The Holy Mother will protect your destiny with her fertile mercy."

He casually placed his hand on the life-giving lamp at the altar and began the morning prayers.

The lights were a deep blue, and hymns began to play, divine chants echoing between the cold marble walls.

Rex led everyone in prayer, each syllable filled with devotion, yet behind this devotion lay a coldness and stillness that even the gods failed to perceive.

No one knows the priest's true identity—an infiltrator on the Lost One, a ruthless sniper who can calmly pull the trigger in the shadows and bring down a high-level cryptid in an instant.

Today marks his third day of infiltrating the 12th parish.

After morning prayers, Rex removed his ceremonial robes, changed into his pulpit robes, and went into the church’s back study.

An elderly man in a red and gold bishop's robe was already seated there. His expression was kind, but his eyes held the unique dignity and unquestionable authority of the Church.

“Father Restwell,” Cardinal Raphael said gently and reservedly, “the prayer rate in this district has been rising steadily, and your sermons are truly a blessing from the Virgin Mary.”

Rex bowed humbly, but his eyes remained unmoved.
"The spirits of believers are the soil of the Virgin Mary; I am merely guiding them back to the true light."

The bishop nodded in satisfaction, a hint of coldness lurking beneath his smile:
"Your term will be extended, especially since the church is currently selecting 'hymn spirits' and you will need to assist with the choir selection process."

Rex's heart skipped a beat, but he remained composed: "I will obey God's will."

The bishop handed over a sheet of silk-like paper, on which were written "Promotion Process for Choir Girls" and "Selected Candidates for Fate Mark Awakening Test," with one girl's name highlighted in bright red:

[Kara Shevy, Four-Star Fate Mark Inclination, Initial Stage Fate System - Hymn Lineage Mystic Awakening Tendency.]

Rex etched that name into his mind.

He knew that this was never just a simple "hymn recitation".

This was a meticulously planned hunting ritual.

As dusk fell, the bells rang once more throughout the Twelfth Diocese, and orange-gold light spilled onto the top of the church tower, as if it were coated with a false holy light.

On a high platform in the side hall of the sanctuary, Rex, draped in a silver-white robe, looked down over the hall.

Thirty young girls stood in neat rows, dressed in pure white dresses and wearing star-shaped wreaths on their heads, like living sacrifices, waiting for the moment when some deity would descend.

Father Devil walked slowly up to the altar and nodded humbly to Rex:
“Father Rex, you’ve come at the right time. Several of these girls have already sensed the blessing of the Virgin Mary, and their life lines are showing clear signs of reaction.”

He raised his staff, and a clear, melodious voice rang out; the chanting began immediately. The song, sacred and pure, echoed throughout the hall.

However, at that moment, a strange light quietly shone in Rex's right eye.

He activated the mysterious [Siren Lens], and countless transparent and eerie life-pattern circuits appeared in his eyes. In an instant, Rex shuddered.

The girls' awakening methods were remarkably consistent, with a star chart resonance rate exceeding 90%.

They are not naturally generated, but sacrificial life patterns forcibly shaped by the church, following the same dark sacrificial pattern.

This is not a blessing from God at all, but a perfectly crafted lie woven from doctrine.

As the song reached its climax, a pale light shone from between the eyebrows of Kara Shevy, the girl in the front row.

A mysterious card slowly emerged, its white light faintly revealing four suggestive words:
The Prelude to Holy Blood

Rex's eyes twitched slightly, and his fingers clenched almost tightly.

Father Devira smiled and turned to look at him, his face full of satisfaction: "Look, she has been chosen by Our Lady. Tomorrow, she will go to the Central Temple to receive the baptism of 'Ascension'."

Rex slowly nodded and smiled, but his heart was frozen.

He knew all too well what "promotion" meant. He had already heard the secret in countless tearful complaints during his dream-filled night classes: "Promotion girls never return."

He knew he could no longer stand idly by.

But at this moment, he could only put on a submissive smile and wait for the most deadly moment in the darkness to arrive.

As night deepened, the sanctuary of the Twelfth Diocese gradually fell silent, leaving only the "Lamp of the Fertility Mother" atop the highest spire, cold and profound like a lone eye, overlooking the capital city shrouded in darkness below.

Rex returned to the prayer room, gently pulled down the curtain of the Virgin Mary, and turned off the lights. In the dim light, he sat down and took out the monocle lens named "The Siren of Destiny."

The lens is shaped like an old alchemical artifact, with ancient patterns of deep-sea chanters, dream fish and twisted conch shells embossed on it, and it gleams with an eerie blue luster.

He put the lens on his left eye and muttered a spell:
"Mira, sing, reveal to me the truth behind fate."

The mysterious mirror activated, and the view gradually transformed into a surging torrent of stars, layered and interwoven like a whirlpool in a dream sea. The name of the girl slowly emerged in the mirror:

Kara Shevy.

The scenes reflected in the lenses flooded my mind like a tidal wave:

Kara, dressed in a pure white ceremonial robe, stood vacantly and meekly in the center of a massive hemispherical ceremonial dome.
Twelve scarlet stone pillars stand encircled like blood sacrifice fangs, their surfaces covered with flowing, vein-like sacrificial patterns.

Her destiny card, "Prelude to Holy Blood," was no longer an illusory shadow, but was forcibly extracted by a powerful force and locked inside a huge crystal core in mid-air.

Rex felt a sudden jolt in his heart.

Inside the lens, the card began to draw blood from the girl's body, initially as a thread, then gushing out like a river.

She struggled to open her mouth, but no sound came out. The radiance of her life runes gradually faded and dissipated, shattering like stars withering away.

Not a single drop of blood fell; it was all swallowed by the crystal. Finally, her body, like ashes after a fire, collapsed in the center of the altar, turning into a withered shell and pale star bones.

With a soft hum, the predicted destiny trajectory vanished. Rex slowly removed the lens, cold beads of sweat beading on his forehead, his fingertips trembling slightly.

He remained silent in the darkness for a while, then took out a piece of paper and, with precise and swift strokes, sketched out the layout of the altar, the steps of the sacrifice, and the details of the card changes that he had just seen.

"This is... the Star Calamity Sacrifice Ritual."

His whispers were filled with extreme repression and anger, like a crack about to erupt from the bottom of the deep sea.

Rex knew better than anyone what this meant.

Kara Shevy will never be the only one. She is merely an insignificant grain of sand on Medici's path to "divinity," small yet indispensable.

Her death was not for the gods, nor for the kingdom, but to pave a bloody staircase for a certain "god" who was about to arrive.

He leaned back in his chair, his right hand slowly tightening its grip on the sniper rifle beside him, muttering to himself:

"She already possesses the embryo of the Twelve Star Chart..."

"Such sacrifices are not the qualifications of someone who desires to sit on the throne."

At midnight, the church of the Twelfth Parish was as silent as a graveyard. However, Rex knew that behind this deathly silence lay a bloody truth.

He stood silently in the shadowy corner of the church's side aisle, his grey robe almost blending into the surrounding darkness.

He had already activated the mysterious refraction spell, making even his breathing subtle and imperceptible.

Just now, he witnessed two nuns in black veils leading Kara Shevy through a side door into the secret chamber of the altar.

The girl looked blank, as if her consciousness had been swallowed up by a dream.

Rex still wore the [Siren of Destiny Lens] in his left eye; in his vision, beneath the floor...
Those life-line sacrificial circuits, invisible to the naked eye, expanded and extended like a spider web, each step concealing the darkest ritual foundation of the church.

The nun gently pressed the inconspicuous star-patterned rune stone behind the altar.

A deep rumble came from the stone wall, and a hidden door slid open silently, revealing a spiral staircase that spiraled down like an abyss.

Rex stealthily slipped into the shadows, his footsteps barely audible. He completely concealed himself within the dark folds of his ancient robes, slowly approaching the ceremonial hall.

Below the steps, the air grew increasingly cold, and one could almost smell a faint metallic odor.

Finally, he stepped into the vast space beneath the dome, and in an instant, Rex was gripped by the sight before him.

Twelve scarlet stone pillars stand like a silent star array in the center of the ground.

A huge crimson crystal floated in the center, and inside the crystal, a card with a dark luster faintly appeared.

The young girl, Kara Shevy, stood in the center of the crystal, her gaze vacant like that of a lost soul.

Her mysterious card, "Prelude to Holy Blood," floated above her head, slowly dripping blood, like a living sacrifice on an altar.

Rex hid behind a pillar, holding his breath.

He saw Cardinal Raphael slowly enter the altar, kneel on one knee, and softly pray to a slowly rising "veil of illusion."

A female silhouette in a long black and gold robe gradually came into focus in the background. She wore a crown of the Virgin Mary, her expression hidden in the shadows, yet still exuding an undeniable nobility and coldness.

That's Medici.

The cardinal whispered respectfully:

"Your Highness, the ninth girl has completed her awakening, and the Mysterious Card has reached the sacrifice standard."

After another blood sacrifice, the fifth 'Star Calamity Crystal' will be generated. At that point, you will only need three more 'Pure Energy Cores' to complete the Blood Moon Ritual.

Medici's illusory lips curled slightly, her voice as cold as a thin blade of ice, carrying a suffocating chill:
“Very good. My ‘queen dream’ doesn’t need to be played along with them for much longer.”

"The throne to me is nothing more than a temporary chessboard. This kingdom has always been nothing more than a pool of my sacrificial blood."
The fate of my subjects is merely a stepping stone for my ascension to the throne.

As for the church—it's nothing more than a conduit for draining their blood.

She casually raised her hand, and the life pattern star map floating in her palm immediately appeared in the illusory image.

All twelve destiny stars lit up, their radiance like rotating stars, emanating a chilling sense of oppression.

Rex's heart sank, and a chill ran down his spine:

"All twelve stars activated... she's already a fully-star Mystic Master!"

He suppressed the intense shock in his heart, slowly retreated, and quietly placed his finger on the cursed bone trigger of the sniper tool.

However, reason told him that shooting at this moment was pointless. His bullets could not kill a mystic who had reached the pinnacle of power and was almost godlike.

All he could do was leave, record everything, and hand it over to those who still wished to light up the world.

Rex retreated to the deepest part of the shadows, gazing once more at the girl stripped of everything in the center of the crimson crystal, and murmured softly, his tone heavy and resolute:
“I once thought that all you desired was that mortal crown, Medici… but I never imagined that what you wanted was a throne built with the lives of countless people.”

The whispers faded into the shadows, like a final warning before the storm of fate.

Rex turned and left.

Behind her, within the ceremonial dome, Medici's laughter was low and cruel:
“My throne will stand on the spines of all of you.”

The twelve stone pillars stood silently like tombstones, with the blood-red crystal in the center slowly shimmering, as if responding to her arrogance and cruelty.

At that moment, the radiance of the "Lamp of Fertility" sliced ​​through the darkness like a sharp blade—

But Rex knew that this light did not belong to faith, but was the fire of sin that burned countless lives.

"Her star map is no longer drawn on earth, but extends between blood and song."

The crown is merely a disguise; true supremacy lies in the throne erected after devouring the hearts of men.

—Excerpt from "Blood Moon Notes: The Song of Star Calamity Ascension"

(End of this chapter)