Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 366 Fate Chart Fission: Hellfire and Royal Blood
"Some people wait their whole lives just to see the moment when the throne becomes empty."

—From *Imperial Political Memoirs: Night Chapter of the Great Palace*

Inside the royal palace, all was silent.

Orion stood alone at the end of the Destiny Chart Corridor, draped in a black and gold cursed robe symbolizing the "first heir," yet he remained frozen in place like a sacrifice that had lost its name.

He clutched the coded message just sent by the spy tightly in his hand; the cold, mysterious symbols etched themselves into his pupils like daggers.

[Latest Battle Report from the Royal Capital]

The youngest princess, Liseria, has activated the high-level life-type secret technique "Lion King's War Soul - Pale War Lion" and completed the recapture of the battle line in the military district;

Commander Edel, piloting the world-type flagship Mystic "Saint Trean Royal Rose," has fully activated its second entry.

These few words, however, were like a judgment of fate, tearing apart the dream he had carefully woven over the past thirty years, inch by inch.

Orion stood in the empty hall, his gaze trembling as he stared at the empty imperial throne before him, like a blunt sword.

At that moment, for the first time, he felt that the throne of power was far beyond his reach.

"Lion King's War Soul...Pale War Lion." He murmured the incantation-like name in a low voice, his tone carrying an almost self-mocking coldness.

That was the core destiny chart that Henrian VII initially controlled, the true symbol of the empire's fate.

It signifies courage, loyalty, and the purest kingly conviction.

Now, it has chosen Liseria—the younger sister who has never stepped into the gates of power.

And what about yourself?

He, Orion, was born with the name of destiny, known as the "born heir to the throne," and was so disciplined and strict that he was almost self-destructive.

However, what did all this effort yield?
There is no Rose Ship.

There is no Lion King's Soul.

There is no thirteenth quiet island.

There wasn't even a shred of affirmation from her father.

A twisted smile curled at the corners of his lips, shattering into shadows like a broken mirror:
“Father… so you really never considered me.”

He slowly stepped into the depths of the hall.

On his sickbed, the old Lion King Henrian VII remained asleep, his pale face radiating the dying glow of his curse.

On his body, the once glorious destiny charts were now broken and incomplete, like an old book that had lost its readers.

Orion stopped in front of him, coldly looking down at the man who had given him life, yet trapped him in eternal shadow.

"For seventeen years, I have guarded the noble council for you."

“I have not been involved in military affairs, nor have I been involved in the church. I have resisted the temptations of the Mirror River. I believe I have never failed your expectations.”

His voice rose gradually in the darkness, filled with suppressed, gritted-teeth anger:
"But you gave the Rose to Edel."

"Give the Lion King's Battle Spirit to that girl you never truly acknowledged."

"And me? I am your eldest son, first in line to the throne!"

"Yet you want me to stand outside the royal palace and watch them be crowned by you?!"

His words nearly shattered into a hysterical roar:

Tell me! Who am I?!

The next moment, he suddenly leaned down and grabbed Old Wang's pale, cold wrist, and the curse runes slowly seeped out from the core of the broken destiny diagram like a stream.

The star chart structure of the Thirteenth Quiet Island faintly appeared in front of his palm.

"If you won't give it to me, then I'll take it myself."

He slowly placed his palm close to the center of the destiny chart, and a faint light trembled in his palm.

Just then, a mysterious fluctuation spread out from the depths of the hall like a shadow, quietly and slowly invading his feet.

Orion instantly sensed a chill creeping up his spine.

He turned around abruptly, only to see an empty shadow.

But that eerie sense of oppression seemed to be locked in by some ancient and evil will.

He released his father's hand, still harboring lingering anger and a vague unease, and quickly turned and stepped out of the hall.

And just as he had not yet fully turned around—

The shadow suddenly split open, revealing a narrow slit from which a slender, curse-like blade shot out at a speed imperceptible to humans.

He directly attacked King Henrian VII, who was lying on his sickbed!
"laugh--!"

In an instant, blood bloomed like a strange and magnificent flower, the curse runes extinguished, and the destiny chart shattered.

The fate of the emperor of the empire ends here.

Henrian VII's life was precisely and decisively severed on the throne in the instant before Orion could even turn around.

After a moment of silence, blood slowly dripped down the cracks in the destiny chart, staining the stone steps that symbolized the imperial power red.

"Father?!"

Orion turned around abruptly, his pupils shrinking to the size of a pinhead.

He rushed back to his father's bedside, gripping his wrist tightly, only to be met with a chilling silence.

Henrian VII, the Lion King of the Empire who unified twelve duchies, quelled the Mirror Tide Rebellion, and suppressed the schism within the Church,

He was assassinated with pinpoint accuracy right in the royal palace, the place he trusted most.

And that dagger, stained with the king's blood, was now firmly gripped in Orion's own palm.

At this moment, the fate of the empire was headed for an unpredictable abyss.

He froze in place.

In the instant of the assassination attempt, he almost instinctively turned to fight back, only to be horrified to find that his hands were empty.

But in the instant he realized what was happening, a strange short blade, as black as a shadow and with incantations like venomous snakes coiling around it, had already silently appeared in his palm.

The dagger was dripping with warm royal blood, its blade trembling slightly, and its tip emanating a rich and eerie aura of "Mirror Tide Reflection"—

"Shadow Binding: Boundary-Breaking Short Blade"

A high-level Fate-type secret assassination tool, endowed with indescribable and bizarre characteristics such as "shadow displacement", "trust replacing perception", and "memory construction transfer".

This means that the slash just now was not delivered by Orion himself.
However, through a mysterious and insidious mechanism, Orion truly and completely "became" an assassin.

hurried footsteps sounded outside the hall. Royal guards and the imperial physicians, alerted by the commotion, rushed in with flustered expressions.

The scene before them was like the darkest scene in a script, reflected unmasked into the depths of their pupils:

The king's body slumped onto the soft couch, blood gushing from his broken chest like a slowly blooming crimson flower.

Standing in the center of the pool of blood, his face as pale as a dead man, was the empire's eldest son, Orion.

In his palm, the mysterious, still-dripping dagger writhed like a snake, faint incantations flickering within it.

"—Your Majesty...Your Majesty is dead!"

"—Prince Orion...killed his father!"

A sharp scream, like a piercing blade, tore apart the last vestige of tranquility within the royal palace.

"No...it wasn't me..." Orion's face turned pale, and he swayed as he took several steps back.

His voice was as weak as a whisper in the wind, but it could no longer conceal the drops of blood on the cursed blade.

At that very moment, beneath Henrian VII's body, the ancient imperial incantation suddenly cracked open with a fatal rift:

One of the three King's Fate Cards, the high-level Mystic Card of the World System, [King's Fate Chart - The Thirteenth Island of Stillness], lost its host in an instant, and the spell's central core quickly went out.

Meanwhile, on the distant Thirteenth Quiet Island, in the central prison tower, within the seventh ring, a figure forgotten by the world slowly opened his eyes.

Sima Ming.

A glimmer of light, belonging to a gambler, appeared deep within his pupils.

He had already sensed the violent tremors in the destiny chart just now, the world-system authority detachment caused by the "death of the script protagonist".

He slowly lowered his head, a meaningful smile curving his lips:
"So, you are not truly immortal after all."

The next moment, in the center of the island, the array of runes in the skylight trembled violently, and the first hideous crack appeared.

This prison island, maintained by royal decree and never out of control, is now burning wildly, as if a fuse has been thrown into the endless fire of fate.

-

The Thirteenth Quiet Island, the "Gate World" built by Wang Tu, is hidden outside the Star Chart and exists in the gap of reality. It is unknown to the world and can only be controlled by the one who controls the "King's Destiny Chart".

Those imprisoned here are not ordinary criminals, but secret beings personally sealed within the "Fate Chart Fragment" by Wang Tu.

Their thoughts and very existence are both maintained by the will of the king.

They survived only because the king was still alive; they forgot only because the empire had never lost the core of its destiny.

But now, the core constellation that sustains the entire prison island has gone out.

At the core of the prison island, the runes collapsed, and the spell spontaneously combusted.

In the seventh-level circular cell, the confinement spell wall where Si Ming was located automatically broke. After the [Wang Tu Supervision Life Lock] trembled violently, it disappeared into the void like a dream.

He slowly stood up, and with a gentle swipe of his hand, a mysterious card radiating an eerie light appeared before him.

The card depicts a ragged gambler carrying a burning script on his back, smiling eerily as he throws an unknown die.

The High-Level Fate System: A Lament for the Fated Gambler.

A hidden glint of fire flashed in Si Ming's eyes, his voice low and deep, like a whisper from the past:

"I originally intended to place this bet again when Medici became a goddess."

"But since... the king is dead."

With a gentle flick of his long, slender fingers, the first card of fate was revealed:

—Ace of Hearts.

The crimson symbol trembled slightly in the air, then burst into flames, releasing a powerful and eerie pulse. The next second, the seventh-level cell exploded as if struck by a violent impact, the star chart incantation instantly ripped apart, and all the shackles of fate-based imprisonment were unlocked in an instant!
The prisoners' will has been freed.

The spell alarm blared shrilly across the island, the monitoring system rapidly lost connection, and the King's Control System on the island crumbled into countless fragments.

The entire Thirteenth Quiet Island is completely out of control.

Si Ming smiled as he gazed at the crumbling center of the prison island, his tone laced with barely concealed mockery and coldness:

"The stage of destiny has been fully opened."

"Now, it's my turn to tell a new story."

Above the dark void, countless unspoken incantations echoed in a low, mournful tone.

Slowly solidifying into a heart-wrenching symbol—it is the final echo of an old era, and also the irreversible prelude to a new script.

The other prisoners were awakened by the shock of the explosion, and a frenzied commotion spread throughout the prison tower: some roared, some cursed, and some responded to the sudden chaos with almost maniacal laughter.

Si Ming, however, acted as if he were the director of destiny, calmly flipping over three cards:

Square 7: Hallucination Implantation.

Square 8: Illusionary Return.

9 of Diamonds: Reason Block.

The moment the three cards fell, a multicolored mist suddenly rose, like a veil of nightmare, completely sealing off the entire seventh-level passage.

The prison guards who rushed into the cell block froze, their minds momentarily confused. Their bewildered gazes swept over the prisoner before them, who had previously been held captive, and they asked blankly:
"Who are you?"

"I remember... I just interrogated you... didn't I?"

Si Ming's lips curled slightly, his smile as deep and unfathomable as an abyss, and he whispered:

"I'm sorry, but my scene needs to be moved to a different theater."

The next instant, he stepped out of the prison door that should never have been opened, like a phantom narrator.

The shockwaves from the seventh level of the destiny chart spread rapidly, and the still island resembled a huge, unbalanced, tilted stage that could collapse completely at any moment.

The prisoners all looked up, where a faint, pale light, barely visible only after the damage had been done, shone through the air.

At this moment, everyone realized that an inevitable inferno was about to erupt.

The structure of the Thirteenth Quiet Island resembles a giant spiral well, rising from the bottom "Sealed Knowledge Layer" all the way up to the top "Destiny Chart Observation Layer".

This design is inspired by a maxim left by the architect of the ancient empire who originally built the Seishun Island prison:

"The more dangerous something is, the more it should be buried in the deepest well of fate."

And at this moment, this well of destiny has already begun to burn.

Si Ming ascended the spiral staircase of the prison tower, the cards in his hand fluttering like wings of destiny, constantly falling to the ground.

He was like a magician in the theater of fate, each step upward accompanied by the tossing and release of a card:
Spades card, cutting curse lock, dismantling monitoring barrier;
Hearts card, burning spell array, shattering the prison cell door lock;
Square cards, distorted perception, implanted into a misty illusion;
The Plum Blossom card releases a highly toxic mist, disrupting neural logic.

In an instant, the body of the Quiet Island Tower seemed to be scorched by countless indescribable cursed fires, the life charts and cursed patterns collapsed with a bang, and each layer shattered like a nightmare.

The prison guards scattered in panic, while the prisoners, as if given a new lease on life, ran wildly and chaotically in all directions.

At the corner of the tower passage on the ninth floor, the deputy chief of prison guards led an elite squad in an attempt to intercept them, issuing a stern warning:

"Criminal Deity! You have violated the laws binding your destiny chart. Surrender immediately, and you may still be able to preserve your complete destiny star—"

Upon hearing this, Si Ming's lips curled slightly. He flipped over a Queen of Clubs card, flicked it with his finger, and black mist rose up.

"You're talking way too much nonsense."

Before the deputy chief of staff could finish speaking, his pupils turned a strange crimson, and his speech became distorted and incoherent:

"Surrender... and I'll protect you... the traitor's star chart... your destiny star will be complete..."

He struggled to his knees, his eyes filled with terror, then spat out a mouthful of thick, black blood curse, his consciousness collapsed, and he slumped to the ground.

The remaining prison guards scattered in horror.

Si Ming walked past him without stopping, coldly saying:

"Next time you try to persuade someone to surrender, remember to figure out who the real protagonist is first."

The prison guards at the higher levels finally gave up on direct confrontation and set up destiny diagrams to block the path from the tenth to the thirteenth floors, attempting to prevent Si Ming from continuing to ascend.

However, they still underestimated the control this "card narrator" possessed.

Sima's fingers flew, and four more spade cards were simultaneously thrown, each inserted into a structural pillar of the prison tower:
6 of Spades: Reconstructing the breaking pivot;
10 of Spades: Structural collapse and explosion;
Jack of Spades: Gravity Flip - Spatial Dislocation;
King of Spades: The building walls have been completely cut off.

"Let's call this round the 'Judgment Card'."

As Si Ming whispered, all four cards were activated simultaneously and detonated instantly.

A deafening roar erupted from the top floor of the prison tower, and the thirteenth floor of the entire tower instantly broke and collapsed, sinking a full two meters!
For the first time in history, the central life chart structure of Jingdao Island suffered severe damage, the tower body became completely unbalanced, and all the spell seals collapsed instantly!
In the Dream Channel, Lilia's anxious and tense voice rang out urgently:

"Si Ming! We've broken through to the fourteenth level. Next up is the Skylight Observation Platform. The entire Jingdao Central Hub is on the verge of complete collapse!"

Si Ming stood in the center of the fourteenth level of the tower, gazing up at the beam of starlight shining through the broken structure at the top of the tower. A final smile appeared on his lips, and his voice was low and resonant:
"It's time to take the curtain down on this play."

However, before the smoke from the fourteenth floor had cleared, Si Ming suddenly stopped.

He looked up at the scattered prison guards and the prisoners rushing towards the exit, then calmly turned his gaze to the darkness deep below the tower—the underground level, the solitary confinement cell that no one had ever reached.

He suddenly turned around and sped towards the deepest part of the tower.

Lilia anxiously prompted:
"Si Ming, are you running out of rationality stars?"

But the God of Fate did not answer. He knew perfectly well that at the very bottom of this prison tower...

The woman who had planned all of this alongside him from the very beginning and silently endured the long loneliness was still waiting for him.

Allison.

She was imprisoned in the "Silent Whisper Heavy Lock Prison," the lowest level of the Silent Island, the place where the Empire's cursed runes were heaviest.

The five layers of destiny diagrams seal and surround it, like a cage containing the origin of the world.

There is only one way to break free from this cage—

He staked his last remaining star of reason on the complete burning of his own destiny's embers.

When Si Ming arrived at the first basement level, his breath was being torn apart as if by a fiercely burning destiny chart.

Beneath his skin, the life lines were faintly visible, like the embers of a star about to be extinguished.

The edges of the [Destined Gambler Card] in his hand were scorched, and cracks spread slowly like a spider web, as if it would be completely destroyed at any moment.

He stood before the heavy doors of the Silent Prison, his eyes deep as he pulled out his last two cards—the King of Hearts and the King of Spades, a "double king" intertwined with destruction and judgment.

He smiled slightly, his voice so soft it was as if he were talking to himself, or perhaps saying goodbye:

"A gambler's final act should always be a spectacular, explosive one."

Cards rained down on the prison door, and the next moment, terrifying cursed fire and countless shattered runes burst forth.

The entire heavy-locked gate shattered like a broken mirror, the tremors so violent that even the foundation deep within the island shook!

Si Ming took two steps back, his body swaying, his face as pale as paper.

He had almost exhausted all his strength, his knees buckled slightly, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.

Just as he was about to fall, a slender hand emerged from the collapsing flames and smoke—

The ancient mystery of "Doomsday Rose" is engraved on his wrist, and his fingertips are adorned with mirrored silver finger guards, making him seem like a guide stepping out from the boundary between reality and illusion.

Allison emerged slowly from the thick smoke, her expression calm and resolute. She supported Si Ming's body, her gaze fixed intently on him.
"You always do this—put all your chips on one big gamble."

"But now, I owe you my life, thank you."

She placed Si Ming's hand on her shoulder, her voice soft yet carrying an irresistible resolve:
"I will take control of the script from now on."

With her other hand slowly raised, a high-level World-type card inlaid with fragments of a silver mirror appeared out of thin air:

[High-Tier World-Type Mystic Card: Mirror of All Things]

Card code: No. 467
Nameless: The Intersection of Reality and Illusion - Mashura
Domain Name: The Mirror of the Void

Allison whispered:
"The Mirror Sea has descended."

The next moment, the entire underground space was instantly swallowed up by endless mirror light.

All the real-world structures within the courtyard flowed and folded like liquid, forming a wondrous mirrored barrier.

In the blink of an eye, countless mirror images identical to Alison appeared in the air—a total of twenty-four, all possessing her almost complete combat awareness and command logic!

They dispersed swiftly like a silent storm, rushing into each cell, awakening the long-dormant prisoners with their most exquisite words and forceful actions:
"Run! This is your only chance to break this deadlock in your lives!"

"The empire has collapsed, and Jing Island is now ownerless! There is another path to survival outside the script!"

Meanwhile, Alison herself was firmly controlling the domain rules of the main mirror group at the core of the Mirror Sea:
Rule 1 [Symmetry Law]: Force prison guards to unconsciously repeat instructions, creating blind spots in their actions;
Rule Two [Mirror Breaks, Soul Breaks]: Induce the enemy to mistakenly attack the mirror image, thereby triggering mental disorder;
Rule 3 [Mirror Behavior Feedback]: Quickly and accurately grasp the true intentions of each prisoner and plan the most effective escape route.

In an instant, the entire Thirteenth Quiet Island became a theater in the hands of the Mirror Sea manipulator, and Allison was the sole director of this drama that intertwined reality and illusion.

Si Ming leaned weakly on her shoulder and softly uttered:
"Your card... is always such a hassle."

Allison smiled slightly and responded calmly:

“Mine is just an illusion, while you, Si Ming, are the protagonist of this play.”

Tonight, we take our final bow together.

Inside the courtyard, the mirror image continued to destroy the cells and release prisoners, while Lilia's anxious whispers echoed from the distant spell tunnel:

"Seventeen minutes left."

"In seventeen minutes, Wang Tu will re-elect the sovereign, and the Thirteenth Quiet Island will be closed again!"

Upon hearing this, Allison's lips curled into a faint smile of confidence. Her fingers gripped the card tightly as she gazed at the shattered ceiling and said softly:
"Seventeen minutes is enough."

"Enough to completely overturn this script written by Wang Shudu."

The fate of the empire was torn open from the royal palace.

But the real upheaval wasn't on the throne, but in that forgotten page of the script.

—The Thirteenth Note on Jingdao Island, Preface Page: The Day Without a Master.

(End of this chapter)