Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 435 Blood Moon Test

"The way the gods test new life is by choosing a toy that won't break immediately."

—The Secret Commentary on the Temple of Our Lady

Medici slowly descended from the throne of the blood fetus. The fleshy petals closed and unfolded with her steps, like docile organs.

She turned her head to the side and asked Liseria in an almost consultative tone, "Shall we warm up first?"

Liseria sat upright on the back of the lion, her gaze calm: "Just don't break it. I still need him to speak."

“Of course.” Medici smiled faintly and turned to Siming. “Toy, have some fun with me.”

With a flick of her finger, a high-level Life-type card flipped and landed on her fingertip—Saint Rose Valkyrie.

Silver armor, red cloak, long spear in hand, helmet feathers like a banner.

The crimson of the blood moon dripped from the dome.

The Valkyrie's armor plates cracked from the patterns, the silver light was swallowed by dark red, barbs sprouted from the spear shaft, spikes grew on the shoulder armor, the cloak turned into living thorns, and a red membrane "blood eye" shone from under the mask.

—Valkyrie of Bloodthorns.

Medici simply raised her wrist: "Come on."

The first blood whip lashed down, and the stone slab seemed to be peeled off; the second and third followed closely, drawing out white streaks of air and sending debris flying everywhere.

Si Ming turned to the side, tapped his toes, and the four squares flew horizontally, severing the nearest bundle of blood vines like a thin blade.
The nine of spades exploded in mid-air, forcing back a circle of barbs.

Instead of retreating, he advanced, using the smoke from the explosion to slip through the gaps in the whip's shadow. With a fold of his sleeve, the card unfolded like a fan at his fingertips.

Another heavy whip strike swept diagonally.

Si Ming bent down, palms on the ground, glided in an arc, shoulders slightly tilted, avoiding the hooked whip tip—his movements were swift, like walking on the eaves of a narrow alley.

Medici looked down, a hint of interest in her eyes: "A bit resilient."

The Thorn Valkyrie bent her arm, tightening the whip in her palm, dragging a deep trench into the ground.

The blood whip suddenly split into three forks, striking simultaneously with interlocking angles, cutting Si Ming's retreat into three narrow windows.

Si Ming did not hesitate.

The plum blossom seven-position, the square five-position swirling into a loop, forcefully tearing a breath from the intersection of the three whips. He landed on the broken steps and quietly activated the secret technique:

"—A stroke of luck."

The sound of the wind was like pressing an invisible button, and all the landing points became just right in the next instant.

The crumbling railing became a stepping stone; the fallen banner hung in the air, and he could easily pass by with a light touch of his toes; a flying pebble blocked the sharpest barb.

He weaved through the raging thorns of blood, each step like stepping on a pre-marked path.

In just a few breaths, he had dodged seven or eight fatal blows, leaving only two shallow cracks on his body from the whip's graze.

Medici's brow furrowed slightly.

With a slight movement, the Thorn Valkyrie's blood whip suddenly thinned, like a tightening steel cable;

The whip lengthened in the next instant, making a crisp sound in the air, as if bones had been straightened.

Si Ming took the final step, stepping just out of the thorny field. His shoulder relaxed slightly, and the red light at the edge of his vision faded.

at this time.

Snapped.

An extremely light slash, coming from the side and behind, its angle half a beat faster than the shadow.

puff.

A chill ran down my chest.

Si Ming looked down and saw the tip of the blood whip piercing through his heart, bringing with it a clump of torn clothing and tiny drops of blood.

He grunted, a moment of disbelief flashing in his eyes—the next card was still stuck between his fingers, not yet ready to fly out.

Medici lowered her eyes, as if admiring the first hole poked in a new toy: "Don't rush to empty it, toy. — This is just the beginning."

Medici looked at Siming, whose chest was pierced by a bloody whip, and her eyes curved into a smile:
"Don't worry, I was careful to avoid hitting your heart. You should learn to be grateful—praise the love of the Virgin Mary Medici."

Si Ming sneered, the blood line on his chest receded, and his whole body dissipated like a thick fog.

The next instant—one, two, three, five… countless Fate Masters slowly emerged from the mist, their steps identical, their expressions identical, even the slight trembling of their fingertips seemed to be from the same mold.

The Thorn Valkyrie's whip grew wildly, its blood-red thorns surging like a tide, turning the plaza into a sea of ​​thorns and blood.

When the whip's shadow fell, all the "Masters of Fate" were left empty in place, as if they had been erased from a painting.

The true god of destiny was already walking in mid-air, stepping on invisible stairs.

He raised his hand, spreading out all the playing cards, his fingers trembling slightly.

The King of Hearts was thrown one after another, turning into a rain of fire, each landing point carrying the scorching light of an implosion, precisely covering the Valkyrie's joints and bloodshot eyes.

A sea of ​​fire erupted, armor shattered, thorns burned and curled, and the Valkyrie howled to the heavens, shrinking into a piece of charcoal in the intense heat before crashing to the ground and shattering into countless charred pieces.

The God of Fate landed slowly, the flames still lingering on his fingertips.

Medici raised her hand and clapped twice lightly: "Beautiful. — But you seem to have forgotten a common sense fact."

She raised her eyes and softly uttered a sentence that sounded like a law: "My family shall not die and be released without my permission."

The blood moon pressed down, and the red light poured back onto the Valkyrie's remains like liquid.

The charcoal is drawn back in, the broken armor returns, and the thorns sprout anew from the charred areas, thicker and denser.

The Valkyrie slowly stood up, her blood-red eyes beneath her mask shining even brighter, indicating she had become a full level stronger.

Si Ming frowned, his fingertips revealing his hand once more, preparing for the second round—

"enough."

Liseria softly uttered a mysterious name: "High-level Life System - Pale War Lion".

The silver-white lion king emerged from the cold moonlight, its mane like sharp ice. It raised its head and let out a short roar.

The sound waves swept by—

All the illusory clones of "Si Ming" in mid-air disintegrated instantly, like dust struck by lightning.

The illusionary markings on the ground, hidden in the shadows, seemed to have been wiped clean.

Only Si Ming remained in the square, struggling to stand amidst the aftershocks of the roar, the stone beneath his feet cracking slightly.

Liseria looked at her sister.

Medici nodded.

The Thorn Valkyrie stepped onto the back of the pale war lion, her spear pointing forward. The spearhead emitted a crisp tremor in the silence after the roar, aimed directly at the heart of the Fate Master.

Liseria's voice was soft, yet undeniably firm: "Kneel down, submit, Sir. Becoming a member of the Sorrowful Fate's retinue is your destiny, and your only choice."

A flash of silver light—

First shot.

The pale war lion crouched low and charged forward, the Valkyrie's spear piercing straight through.

Si Ming turned half a step to the side, but was still half an inch too slow. His right shoulder was pierced by the sharp edge. His whole body felt like it was nailed down and then violently pulled. He spun in the air and fell to the ground, rolling several feet away.

Second shot.

The lion's claws shifted diagonally, and its body moved to his left side in an instant.

The blood spear swept from under his ribs. Si Ming raised his shield to block the main attack, but the secondary spear pierced his flesh close to his ribs, opening a gash in his left shoulder, from which blood spurted out in a fan shape.

The third shot.

A straight-line charge. Siming bent low, slid, but was still too slow—

A bloody gash was ripped open in his abdomen, and he was lifted off the ground, crashing back onto the stone slab like a kite with a broken string.

The fourth shot.

Turning back. The lion's body exerted force, the spear flashing like lightning.

Si Ming raised his leg, trying to use the momentum to jump up, but his knee was scraped and his joint went limp. He half-knelt on the ground, and the playing card between his fingers made a crisp sound.

Each time, he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and helped himself up.

His chest felt like it was on fire, and his breath tasted metallic. The fabric of his clothes was stuck to his back with blood, tearing as he walked.

Liseria looked at him, her gaze like fire cooled by cold water: sorrow, pity, and a longing that was being gradually satisfied.

Her fingertips tightened slightly, and the silk threads of her hair trembled gently in the air, as if she were pressing "mute" for him in a crowd.

Medici's expression shifted from interest to impatience: "Still not giving in? Sir, what exactly are you upholding? The will of mortals?"

Si Ming spat out a mouthful of blood, a cold smile creeping onto his lips.

He looked up at the blood moon in the sky and murmured clearly:
"What am I holding onto? — I am the God of Fate, the Lord of Destiny, the God of Fate."

Have you ever seen fate enslaved and subservient to you? Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.” As soon as he finished speaking, it was as if a crack had been torn open in the air around him.

One by one, white masks emerged from the gaps, some cold, some smiling, some silent and unadorned; they swirled around him like a slowly unfolding nebula.

Si Ming struggled to lift his badly injured hand.

He removed a plain white mask from the nebula and placed it over his blood-stained face. With a flick of his finger, the mask fit perfectly, and the cracks instantly disappeared.

He chuckled softly, his voice low and menacing:

“I am—the God of Fate.”

Lord of Fate, God of Destiny.

Si Ming spat out a mouthful of blood, his voice low and crisp behind the mask:
"A true lie. It's the dead of winter here."

As soon as he finished speaking, the temperature in the royal palace courtyard seemed to snap.

White frost rapidly rolled out from the cracks in the rocks, forming a ring of ice that sped along the ground.

The pale war lion's claws lost half an inch of grip as soon as they stepped into the ice; the thorny Valkyrie's iron boots slid off course on the frost, and the heavy whip's landing point deviated by a nail length.

"—A stroke of luck."

An unseen marker then came into place: the collapsed railing just happened to extend horizontally, giving him leverage;

A half-collapsed bronze shield fell down, blocking the Valkyrie's secondary spikes; the broken flagpole collided with the second whip in mid-air, creating an opening for her to turn around.

Siming raised his palm, and the third mysterious and cold light flashed:
"—The Yellow-Clad Play."

The air seemed to have been drawn back like a curtain.

A figure in yellow robes stood beside him, the folds of his garments rustling even without wind. He raised a withered finger and gently touched the sea of ​​people.
The Blood Moon's "blood eyes" blinked in unison, almost simultaneously.
Several knights of divine grace unconsciously took a half step back, as if they were "written" to retreat; the little face at the end of the sorrowful silk simultaneously turned its head away, drawing the attention of the audience to the empty stage entrance.

"—Alan." Si Ming flicked his fingertips, and the thread of fate was thrown far away, landing with a soft thud on the boy's wrist.

"Awake."

The line of fate burned into a pale gold beneath his skin, instantly severing the sorrowful threads wrapped around his collarbone.

Alan Herwin looked up abruptly, a crack appearing in his blood-stained mask.

A blazing sun suddenly erupted deep within his chest, unleashing the aura of a vampire known as the "Daywalker."

His figure flashed, and his blood claws slashed horizontally, heading straight for the Thorn Valkyrie. The claws sank down, scraping sparks, and deflected her spear from the center line.

The scene briefly shifted in Si Ming's favor—

As the yellow-clad puppet's fingertips swept across the scene, the Blood Moon Pulse was off-beat, and the resonance of the Sorrowful Silk was abruptly delayed by a beat.

Frost sealed off the war lion's next charge; Alan's blood claws forced the Valkyrie to retreat three steps.

Medici and Lyseria looked at each other, then simultaneously raised their clasped hands, as if closing a page of a book, and softly recited in unison:
"The calamity is with us."

—The sky closed in.

It was neither thunder nor wind.

It is the pressure of stars falling.

Every invisible star, falling from the metaphysical back to the physical, transforms the entire royal palace into a giant bowl.

The two queens strolled in under the starlight.

They were unhurried and unhurried.

Medici simply flicked her fingers to the side: the folds of the yellow-clad puppet's clothes were immediately pierced by blood-red thorns, as if nailed to an invisible cross, the moldy yellow fabric tightening inch by inch by the red trembling.

A sneer appeared on her lips: "A toy-level production, not worthy of recognition."

Liseria slightly opened her mouth, and a wisp of cold white breath transformed into countless banshee shadows, floating in the starlight.

Their wails were not sounds, but words—"worthless," "futile," "final act"—piercing the back of the ears like needles.

Alan Herwin's newly awakened Sunburn seemed to have been doused with cold ashes; as soon as the firelight went out, his knees buckled, and he knelt down with a thud. His hands trembled as he raised them, painfully stretching them out towards Liseria:
Forgive me, my Lord!

On the other side, Siming wasn't doing much better.

His mask shattered like glass, turning into fine powder; the surrounding white mask nebula collapsed all at once, as if crushed by an unseen hand.

Blood vines sprouted from the ground, and spider silk hung from the air. The former wrapped around his ankles and knees, while the latter tightened around his wrists and shoulders; more silk, like ropes used in a stunt, lifted him off the ground.

"—Don't move."

Medici looked up, the crimson of the blood moon slowly spreading in her pupils. "Don't let them feel pain."

"Get closer."

Liseria clenched her fingers, and the four small faces at the end of Ais closed their eyes at the same time. "You're too noisy."

Si Ming was suspended in mid-air, her limbs slowly spreading out under the force of the spider silk and blood vines, like a specimen that needed to be straightened.

His old wound on his chest had not yet healed, and new blood was flowing down his ribs, dripping onto the stone slab, drop by drop.

The blood moon was in the center, and breathing felt very distant.

His life was stripped away layer by layer from the outside in by two different paths of law.

—It is in imminent danger.

Medici approached, and the suspended Fate was only one step away from her.

She looked down at him, her tone as gentle as if she were advising a stubborn child:
"The difference between mortals and celestial disasters is like that between ants and stars. It's rather endearing that you overestimate yourself to this extent."

With a gentle pull of the silk thread, the God of Fate spread his limbs an inch wider.

Blood trickled down his ribs, as if trying to pull his heart out of his chest.

Liseria didn't approach, but stood by the moonlight, turning her face to the side and whispering her voice in his ear—not close enough to touch it, but letting the voice travel to him on its own:

"Let it go. Hope is too noisy. Come closer to me, and you'll stop arguing with the world."

She raised one hand, her fingertips forking out spider silk, slender and cold white, like threads drawn from the cracks of bones.

The silk first wrapped around Siming's shoulders, then around his collarbone, and finally along his sternum, gathering towards his heart. With each circle, his pulse slowed, and the light before his eyes dimmed further.

"You were almost there,"

Liseria whispered, as if announcing a belated acceptance letter.
"One step. Unfortunately, you were one step too slow. A threshold is not a door."

Medici laughed and continued her sentence:
"Now, this step makes all the difference. You even need my permission to look up."

The spider silk clung to the center of the sternum, with only the last inch remaining.

The blood vines slowly tightened between the ribs, like a gentle yet irresistible embrace.

Si Ming lowered his head, the bloodstains from the shattered mask smeared on the side of his face, as if he had resigned himself to his fate.

Medusa turned and returned to the Bloodborn Throne; Lyseria sat back on the Azure Lion, her veil draped to her knees.

The palace was quiet as the wind subsided, and a bell rang softly in the distance.

Then, a voice rang out—not on the ground, not in mid-air, but in the starry sky.

It was also in every corner of the city, in the darkness behind every window, in the back of everyone's neck, and even in the minds of Medusa and Liseria themselves.

"When did you begin to have the illusion that 'I have already been defeated'?"

The spider's web faltered.

The blood vine trembled slightly.

The Fate God, suspended in mid-air, slowly raised one hand.

No one saw how the hand was raised; all they saw was that something appeared in the palm of the hand:
A set of dice.

Two white stones spun in his palm before landing back between his fingers.

Medici's gaze sharpened instantly, like the edge of a knife slicing through silk:
"A gambler of fate? A master of destiny? You want to advance directly here? Do you want to die?"

Si Ming laughed. Not a laugh that came from his throat, but a laugh that seemed to emanate from all directions—

Falling from the dome, peeking out from the cracks in the rocks, and circling around behind every face forced to be an audience member.

He said softly:

"First, I have never been a gambler on fate."

The dice stopped at his fingertips, like a period.

"second--"

He looked up, and in the moonlight, his pupils appeared as if they had been drawn with a single stroke of black.

"My celestial calamity is already complete."

"When the audience thought the play was over, the screenwriter had just finished writing the first line of dialogue."

—The Book of Lies, Chapter 1, Section 5

(End of this chapter)