Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 422 Disaster Has Already Begun in Alleston
"The truth is written on the front page, but no one has the strength to read it to the end."

"We thought disaster was fire and blood, raging waves and tearing apart."

"But the real disaster is when you stand next to a corpse, yet still hesitate whether you should run away."

—Morning Times (Unpublished Night Edition)

Four o'clock in the morning, in the Morning Light editorial office.

Before the morning bells rang, Alleston slept in the thick night fog, with only the light on the rooftop of the Morning Times still hanging in vain, like the forgotten eyelids of a god, gently twitching in the long, dreamless night.

Si Ming quietly pushed open the door.

Click.

The metallic groan of the door hinges shattered the silence, like a mournful cry. The room was like a tomb, cold and silent.

The reporters who had worked through the night had long since dispersed, leaving only a thick stack of intelligence, data, and handwritten manuscripts neatly arranged on the long wooden table, like an undissected corpse of fate awaiting the final judgment of this "deconstructor."

Si Ming walked slowly. He hadn't slept for three nights. His eyes were dark and bluish-black, and the color in his lips seemed to have been drained by some invisible force.

The Dawn newspaper badge on his body had faded, and the hem of his clothes was still stained with undried ink and old blood.

Like a ghost in the night, he walked step by step toward his interrogation table.

The moment his fingers touched the first report, whispers began to ring in his ears.

"Burn," He said. "Ignite their hopes together."

The handwriting on the paper was messy, yet every word was sharp and clear. Last night, the third, fifth, and seventh relief granaries in Alleston caught fire one after another and were completely destroyed.

The fire was too late to extinguish, and the stored 10,000 jin of grain and medicinal herbs were reduced to ashes. The incident happened suddenly, the source is unknown, and there has been no official response, yet the people are already in turmoil.

Si Ming's throat tightened, but he remained silent. His gaze shifted to the second page, only to find the ink still wet, as if the disaster were still burning. He slowly closed his eyes.

The whispers drew ever closer.

"The Lord in Yellow is gazing upon you, Fate Master."

"The illusory king wrote the ending of this city; you are merely a footnote in the margin."

"There is no reality, only delusion; there is no tomorrow, only embers."

His breathing quickened for a moment, his knuckles turning white. It wasn't that he hadn't heard these sounds before; they were hidden in the darkness of every time he closed his eyes, hidden at the bottom of the shadow cast by the blood moon—an indescribable, irresistible temptation.

Like the eyes of a whisperer, never truly closed.

He instinctively reached for the inside pocket of his coat.

It was an old ship's emblem, rusted and worn, with a blurred image of the Dream Sea engraved in the center.

He gently stroked the ship's emblem with his fingertips, as if trying to find a trace of warmth that still belonged to "humanity".

The whispers faded into the distance. Reality returned to normal. He opened his eyes, a silent self-mockery playing on his lips.

"I'm not crazy yet," he murmured.

He sat back down in the main seat, picked up his pen, brushed aside the reports, manuscripts, and statistics, and pulled out a blank newsletter.

The moment the ink touched the paper, the lamplight flickered slightly, as if the paper itself sensed a weight destined to change the course of the world.

He wrote the title word by word, his strokes heavy like inscriptions on a monument, his characters sharp as if carved with a knife.

This was followed by a short introduction in which he wrote:

"Tonight, three relief granaries have been burned down in succession. The culprit has not yet been found, and the mourners are everywhere. The epidemic has not ended, and famine is imminent—and there are no stars in the sky and no gods on earth. Only we ourselves can still watch over the truth."

After he finished writing, the tip of his pen paused for a long time at the last period, as if he wanted to add another sentence, but in the end he just gently put down the pen.

This is the dawn.

He turned to look out the window; it was the darkest hour before dawn. The city's outline was shrouded in mist and shadows, like a sleeping giant corpse awaiting a new round of decay and erosion.

The printing machines were already roaring to life. Typesetting workers moved like shadows in the darkness, placing the newly issued first-page ink templates onto the shelves one by one.

The vibrations of the machines were like a whisper of industry about to awaken, accompanied by the rhythm of metal and paper, hammering the warning of fate into the dawn of the future.

Outside the window, a pale light began to appear on the horizon—not the morning light, but more like the white foam at the corner of a patient's mouth.

On the street, the first newsboy put on an old cloak, grabbed a stack of still-warm newspapers, and rushed into the sleeping city.

He held the newspaper high in his hand, his voice piercing the silence of dawn:
"Disaster! Grain warehouse fire! Dawn Times' latest headline—Disaster has struck Alleston!"

The streetlights in the distance flashed like tired eyes for a moment, then went out.

The bells of destiny have not yet rung, but the prelude has already begun with the roar of the printing press.

Six o'clock in the morning, at Dr. Taran's clinic.

The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and Alleston remained asleep like a patient on the street with a faint pulse.

But in the narrow alleyway of the slums in the south of the city, a dim yellow oil lamp had long since burned out all the grease in the night, emitting a faint light that was almost extinguished.

Dr. Taran was leaning against the innermost corner of the clinic, his forehead pressed against the cold stone wall, his eyes barely open.

He had been working for 36 hours straight and couldn't even remember the last time he ate.

His white robe had long since faded, the seams stained with dried blood and sweat, his eyes were dark-rimmed, and his lips were chapped.

But patients kept coming into the clinic, it never stopped.

Wooden benches, makeshift straw mats, and sacks piled up in the corners—every inch of space was occupied.

The patients' coughs rose and fell, like sobs echoing from the depths of the well in Preacher Square, a mixture of the sour smell of vomit and the pungent odor of disinfectant, sending chills down one's spine.

Just as he was about to sit down and rest for a moment, two young nurses quietly came over, carrying a cup of steaming hot water, a few slices of rye bread wrapped in an old cloth, and a copy of the Morning Times that had just been delivered.

“Dr. Taran, have something to eat,” one of them said softly, her eyes filled with exhaustion and worry. She wore a thick cotton mask, and her voice seemed to come through a veil of mist.

Taran blinked his dry eyes and nodded with difficulty. He took the bread and water, his fingers trembling slightly.

He gently tore off a small, hard, dark piece and tried to chew it, only to find that his saliva was so dry that he could hardly swallow it.

He sat at the table, struggling to unfold the still-warm newspaper. The headline on the front page immediately caught his eye:

Disaster has struck Alleston.

The solidified black ink on the pen, like an epitaph on an obituary stone, was etched into his mind word by word.

“Disaster…” he murmured repeatedly, his voice so low that only he could hear it.

But before he could finish reading the first paragraph, the door was interrupted by a series of rapid knocks.

"Doctor! Doctor—!"

Amidst shouts and the screeching sound of metal wheels rolling over the cobblestones, a figure wrapped in rags suddenly rushed into the clinic.

Outside the door, a dilapidated wooden cart was parked in the mud. Three patients with sallow complexions lay on the cart. One of them had already fainted, and the other two were coughing up blood weakly.

"Please... they've been kneeling outside the church all night, but this morning the gate... is completely shut!" The middle-aged man pushing the cart knelt on the ground, his face covered in mud and tears.

Taran stood up abruptly, several unfinished pieces of bread falling to the ground. He rushed out the door, squinting at the distant horizon in the morning light, where gray clouds seemed to be rolling in like a receding tide.

In the city center, the once magnificent St. Grace Church Hospital is now locked up tight, and the stone statues that once held up the words "Protection of the Virgin Mary" seem to have closed their eyes and no longer listen to the pleas of the world.

“…They really won’t admit any more patients,” Taran murmured. He turned to look at the clinic; the beds were already full, the waiting chairs were crowded with groaning, curled-up figures, and even some people were lying on the floor trembling.

The air was thick with the stench of decay and despair, as if the small house had been drained of all life.

He looked down at the crumpled newspaper in his hand; the large headlines on the front page seemed to mock his powerless struggle.

"Disaster has already struck."

His throat tightened, and he slowly sat back down at the table, spread the newspaper out, and stared at the black characters for a long time, as if trying to find a way out.

Then, he spoke in a low voice:
"No...this is not a disaster."

"This is—purgatory."

The words came out so easily that they seemed to freeze the air.

The nurses remained silent; some hung their heads, some sobbed quietly, while Taran stared intently at the mottled white stone in the corner.

He had imagined the city's collapse countless times, but he never thought it would happen so quickly and so completely.

He slowly rose, supporting himself on the edge of the table, and walked step by step toward the door. He stopped thinking. He only knew that three more patients were waiting for him, and that many more dying people would walk into his small, dilapidated clinic that day.

The only thing he could do was—not fall down.

"Doctor...where are you going?"

He turned back, his eyes still weary, his voice hoarse and low:
"Damn, I hope I can bring a few more lives back."

In the distance, the voice of a newsboy rang out, cutting through the wind like rusty iron:

"Morning Times! Grain warehouse on fire, disease spreading! Official inaction! Disaster has struck—"

The shout echoed through the street, reverberating in the cold air like a bell tolling from the abyss.

The dilapidated clinic was like a floating island piled high with patients, adrift on a sea of ​​death.

What followed was a period of silence in the streets and alleys.

A silent corpse.

And the anger that was about to ignite.

A morning in Alleston is a morning in a sick city.

The sunlight shone through the fog and soot, casting a sickly orange-red hue over the city, like a blade of flame gliding across the surface of rotting flesh.

The eaves of the houses on both sides of the street drooped like eyelids, dying and silent. The bloodstains and vomit on the paved road had long since dried and hardened between the cracks.

The cold wind on the street blew past the abandoned bulletin board, stirring up pieces of newspaper that swirled among the low rooftops like moths struggling in the wind.

Outside the stables at the corner of Place Clementi, several ragged coachmen squatted against the wall, motionless.

They no longer discussed business, no longer talked about the epidemic, and didn't even bother to curse. Only the oldest coachman remained, panting alone, clutching a crumpled newspaper in his hands.

His beard was already white, his teeth were missing, and he wore an old sheepskin vest with the buttons long gone. Around his neck was a greasy scarf that hadn't been washed for who knows how many years.

His eyes were glazed over as he stared at the Morning Times in his hands, seemingly trying to make sure it wasn't just a hallucination. He mumbled something in a dry, hoarse voice, as if trying to confirm whether it was a hallucination.

"Last night...the emergency grain depot, three fires...completely destroyed...all...everything..."

He muttered to himself, then suddenly stopped.

For a full ten seconds, no one in the square uttered a sound. Only the distant church bells tolled, punctuating the early morning.

The newspaper fluttered from his hand, its sluggish descent brushing against his shoes before landing on the ground. He slowly lowered his head, staring at the striking headline:

"Disaster has struck Alleston."

His Adam's apple bobbed several times as he swallowed the sob that had been rising in his throat. Then, like a puppet out of control, he stood up.

"It's burned...it's all burned..."

He muttered to himself, staggering away from the street corner and walking toward the empty center of the street.

He seemed unaware that his feet had stepped into the middle of the road, nor that a carriage was screeching to a halt in the distance.

He walked slowly, step by step, like a dead man, alone in the dawn light as the city gradually awoke.

His eyes were wide open, bloodshot. His lips moved silently, as if in prayer or questioning.

Suddenly, he stopped and looked ahead.

—He saw it. Perhaps it was an illusion, or perhaps it was some kind of madness of lucidity.

He saw the city slowly tilting, like a giant rock rolling down from the sky and pressing onto the ground;
He saw those familiar streets, squares, porticoes, and spires, collapsing one by one like broken bones;
He saw the earth like a cracked mirror, tearing the city into countless pieces of hellish scenery, from which flowed plague-ridden black water and pools of putrid blood.

He saw the sky collapse into a huge wound, and blood-red light shone down, no longer sunlight, but the heat of decaying celestial bodies.

He seemed to hear laughter coming from the abyss, a laughter without vocal cords, yet deep, long, and lingering with the murmurs of the ancient gods:
"They forget you, and so you take them into oblivion."

"The fires of the city are not lit by God, but consumed by man."

"It was all just a dream within a dream, and when we woke up, the city would be burning."

His legs began to weaken, and sweat dripped from his chin, mingling with dirt and despair, soaking the stone slabs beneath his feet.

He took a deep breath, but all he inhaled was a thick, inky chill.

“…Oh my God…” he murmured with difficulty.

"We...we really won't make it through winter..."

At that moment, his hallucinations slowly receded, and the city before him was still there, but it had become more unfamiliar and more desolate.

Behind him, his silent companions—a man weeping with his head down, holding a feverish child; a burly man who angrily raised his fist but ultimately collapsed in despair; and a gaunt old woman with only one eye—all stared blankly at him.

They didn't say anything.

Because I can't say it.

At this moment, language fails, faith collapses, and even tears lose their meaning.

They were standing, sitting, lying down, yet it seemed as if they were all falling.

All of Arleston, like a shipwrecked vessel, tilted and sank in an ocean of despair. The streets were the planks, the rooftops the masts, and the crowds the sandbags.

The flames, however, are water—beyond their sight, they have already breached the first line of defense.

And so, Alleston spent a long day in hunger and fear.

By evening, despair was gradually turning into anger.

The last rays of the setting sun fell like rust on the edge of the Alleston slum, an old, abandoned warehouse with a collapsed roof that howled in the wind, like the decaying breath of the city.

The dilapidated brick walls were covered with moss and scribbled words in blood that read "Save us." All around were collapsed shelves, rusted utensils, and abandoned, broken furniture.

Around the campfire, dozens of figures huddled together in the shadows; they were not having a gathering, but rather mourning.

Mourning all that they have lost.

“...My wife...just last night, she was coughing up blood and couldn’t stop. Those bastards at the church hospital said they wouldn’t admit civilians...she held on until this morning and then passed away.”

A hunched, middle-aged craftsman spoke in a hoarse voice, his words like knives cutting through his parched throat. He knelt by the campfire, clutching a blackened boot in his hand—the one his wife had worn before she died.

Another man leaned against the wall, his face covered in filth and his eyes vacant: "You still have a wife. My son came back from the front two months ago, and he starved to death today. He only drank dirty water for three whole days and didn't even get a radish to eat. He wasn't even sixteen yet."

"The dogs of noble families are fed fresh milk, while we can't even afford to cremate corpses."

An old woman was muttering curses under her breath, her lips already cracked and bleeding.

Every accusation is like a red-hot nail, driven into everyone's heart.

The atmosphere quickly fermented and heated up in the confined space, with anger as the fuel and despair as the spark.

People began to clench their fists, grit their teeth, and fiercely scan each other and the distance. They could not see the enemy; all that remained was their pent-up anger.

Just as this oppressive atmosphere was about to explode, a tall, battered figure slowly rose to his feet.

His name was Yanoherd, a one-armed veteran.

Now, all that remains of him are the medals on his tattered military uniform and the stubbornness in his eyes.

"enough."

he whispered.

The voice wasn't loud, but it carried an air of authority that seemed to have come from the midst of gunfire.

Everyone looked at him.

Arno walked slowly forward, wearing his tattered yet still crisp old military overcoat, his footsteps landing like hammer blows on the dust.

He stood in the center of the campfire, his voice deep and resolute:
"We shouldn't wait any longer."

His voice cut through the air like bullets tearing through armor.

"We shouldn't just wait to die, nor should we be trampled on like lowly ants."

"We have lost our children, our families, and our dignity..."

He paused, raised his only remaining left arm, and his voice suddenly rose, carrying a ferocious intensity that seemed to tear everything apart:

"But we still have—it!!!"

He suddenly opened his palm.

It was a card, a mysterious card gleaming with a ghostly blue light, which, under the interplay of the setting sun and the campfire, seemed to burn away the resentment lingering in the human world.

On the card, a roaring sea dragon leaps across a shattered star map, its silver life runes resembling solidified lightning, and mysterious inscriptions faintly appearing behind it:

"Fearless of the abyss, only roaring."

The air seemed to freeze for a moment.

The flames flickered gently in the unknown wind, illuminating Arno's狰狞 (zhengning - ferocious/hideous) half of his face—his eyes burned with the rage he had brought back from his military service, and the veins on his forehead bulged as if he were roaring.

"This is the mystery that war bestowed upon me, the power I gained from death and slaughter!"

He shouted, his voice shaking the windowpanes around him, “But this power should not be used only for the orders of nobles, nor should it be used only for the bloodshed of the throne! Now, I will use it on our own enemies—those dogs sitting at the golden table!”

The crowd fell silent for a moment.

Then, the first voice of agreement rang out.

"Yes! Resist!!"

"Use mystery to protect our children!!"

"We are the flesh and blood of Alleston! What are they?!"

People stood up, clenched their fists, and raised their arms—young people held up old iron bars, old women held up babies still coughing up blood, refugees wept in the wind, and sorcerers drew out cards that had long been covered in dust.

Arno is like a flag, roaring in the wind.

"They burned the food! They shut down the hospitals! They want us to die in their own city!"

"But we won't die so quietly!"

The light from the card in his hand grew stronger, and a low roar, like a war drum or a horn, seemed to echo in the air.

He roared in final anger:

"From this day forward, we will no longer pray or make offerings—we will forge our own path with mystery and blood!"

At that moment, the crowd rose up and raised their arms, their anger, fear, wails, and cries transforming into earth-shattering shouts.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, a reporter from the Morning Light Times was silently observing the sparks of this uprising through binoculars, quickly pulling out a notepad and jotting down this sentence:

“They are burning. Not a mob—the living people driven to the brink.”

Night slowly fell, but the firelight burned ever brighter.

Amid the roar of the crowd, the camera quietly zoomed out, turning to the heart of Areston and the still-lit Dawn Times Tower.

Night fell as dark as ink, enveloping Alleston. The Morning Times editorial office was the last building in the area still lit up, its orange glow burning lonely beneath the high windows, as if protesting to the heavens or like a star about to be extinguished.

Si Ming sat at his desk, his back slightly hunched, the veins at his temples throbbing like drums. His eyes were dark and deep, like a well that had never seen the light in a long time, staring at the open table, as if gazing into some deeper and more distant darkness.

The table was covered with intelligence reports that reporters had rushed back from earlier that day. The sheets of paper exuded a mixture of the scent of ink and sweat, like scales peeled off the rotting skin of the city.

He read through the pages one by one, as if reading a doomsday judgment about to be issued.

"...The Chengnan Church Hospital issued an official notice: due to divine instructions, depletion of resources, and the spread of heresy, the hospital is to be closed immediately, and all patients will be transferred to their families for care."

Si Ming's gaze lingered on this line of text for a long time, his knuckles unconsciously tightening, causing the corner of the paper to curl slightly.

He knew the true meaning of those words—thousands of patients waiting for treatment were now being sent back to hell, their groans no longer to be recorded or allowed to exist.

"...Black market grain prices have risen to more than fifty times yesterday's levels, with a bag of ordinary flour fetching six hundred sous."

Bread, oil, and clean water were all cut off. Rumors circulated in the aristocratic district that white flour had been converted into "aristocratic rations."

Si Ming gave a bitter smile. The city's stomach had long been rotten, but no one was willing to admit it.

"...Veterans have gathered in the West Port area, and numerous mysterious fluctuations have been recorded. It is suspected that Arnoherd has led the formation of the 'Watchers Militia', claiming that he will 'punish those who betray the civilians with mysterious power'."

"...There were two lootings in the Old Square today, three grain shops were ransacked, and four people were punished as 'rioters' in the street. The Knights of the Church have begun to set up patrols in the city, and there are signs of 'purges of heretics'."

Si Ming pinched his brow, his mind buzzing. It wasn't that he hadn't anticipated all of this; he had simply thought the collapse would be a week later, perhaps three days later. But now, disaster was like a card being flipped over prematurely, rapidly approaching.

The rulers' indifference is like the final irony.

"...Tonight, the Silver Rose Manor is holding its annual Autumn Masquerade Ball, attended by approximately seven hundred nobles. The lavish banquet, with its wine and various delicacies, could purchase over 1,300 tons of grain..."

His fingertips gently traced the words, the ink still wet. Were some people at the ball tonight discussing the burning of the granaries and the outbreak of disease? Or were they also betting—whether Alleston could cling to life for just three more days?

He slowly raised his head and looked across at him. Celian sat in the corner, silently keeping him company. She didn't disturb him, only offering him a cup of tea when he occasionally trembled, or softly asking when he rubbed his forehead, "Are you alright?"

At this moment, she asked it again.

Si Ming didn't answer immediately. He simply looked down at the badge on the table—the "Editor's Seal" cast at the very beginning of the Morning Light Times, its surface polished smooth by years of handling. Six characters were engraved on the badge:
"Dawn will eventually break."

But at that moment, he only felt a chill creeping from his palms all the way to his heart. That sentence seemed like a joke, a cruel poem from some deity mocking humanity.

He slowly closed his eyes and whispered:
"This city is truly beyond saving."

His tone was extremely soft, yet it sounded like rust scraping in the silence.

Upon hearing this, Selene's eyes trembled slightly, her lips moved, but she ultimately did not reply.

She took a step closer, reaching out to grasp Si Ming's hand, as if afraid he would completely break down at that moment.

On the table, the intelligence document he had reviewed repeatedly trembled gently in the night breeze, like the breath of a dying person.

Before dawn, a thin mist was gathering outside the window, vaguely resembling shadows whispering to them, yet also like nothing at all.

Si Ming slowly released his grip, stood up, and began to re-file the documents, stacking them one by one.

The movements were extremely slow, as if a funeral was being held for something that was about to pass away.

He didn't speak again, but walked to the window, looked at the sleeping Areston in the distance, and said softly and calmly:

"Then let it be buried before dawn."

He signed off on the editor's conclusion—tomorrow's headline has been decided.

"He looked at the whole city as if it were a rotting corpse."

"And the corpse was still groaning, still praying for divine favor."

"But God had already burned the last report."

—From the internal notes of Si Ming, editor-in-chief of the Morning Light Times

(End of this chapter)