Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 442 The Clown Breaks the Curtain, The Swan's Dream

"If my songs only sink the world,"
Someone please come—take me away from this dream.

—Excerpt from "Night Score of the Foggy City: A Maiden's Song"

The darkness still loomed overhead, and the wind was as cold as a knife.

Liseria stood in the center of the ghost stage, with black feathers forming a swan behind her, and everyone's heartbeats were still pounding wildly in time with her.

Si Ming took a step forward, and the clown mask flashed in the cold light.

He didn't raise his voice, but simply said clearly:

"The tragedy of the swan will not happen. I will end this farce before then."

The entire arena fell silent. Even the rain of blood seemed to slow down for a moment.

Liseria turned her head to the side and smiled softly: "You want to change your fate?"

"I won't change your fate." The Fate Master shook his head. "I'll only improve the timeline. Act Five, cancel."

Medici sneered: "You think a single sentence—"

Si Ming interrupted her, his tone still indifferent: "My words will surely come true."

Under the darkness, the thread of sorrow in his chest trembled slightly, as if he understood something.

Selene glanced at Siming and licked her canine teeth; Rex adjusted his monocle and lowered the muzzle of his gun by half an inch; Edel moved his hand away from the railing by a finger, then gripped it tightly again.

Liseria lowered her eyelashes: "You want to turn off my lights on my stage?"

“Yes.” Si Ming raised his eyes. “You have written the final act, and I choose to take my bow early.”

She stared at him for two seconds, as if to confirm he was serious. Then, she placed her hand back on her chest, her voice as gentle as ever:

"Then let's try it. Please be quiet."

The wind blew through the royal palace again. Black Feather trembled slightly.

Si Ming turned around, his gaze sweeping over Selian, Rex, Edel, and Allison, a smile appearing beneath his mask:

"Everyone, please follow the rules from now on."

“I told her not to sing in Act 5 until I said ‘It’s over.’”

"Dream weaver of fate, please hear my story." Si Ming raised his hand and tapped his fingertips in the air.

Fine threads emerged from his fingertips, like two quiet white snakes, winding around his and Liseria's chests respectively, before gently closing—the dream cocoon shut.

Those who were close by saw it: the thread was not light, but the thread of life.

The moment their arms tightened, Si Ming's breathing slowed, and his Adam's apple beneath the mask paused for a second. Selene's heart skipped a beat; she wanted to step forward, but he waved her away.

"Don't speak," he whispered. "Hold on."

Just those two words.

There was no explanation, no timeframe, no guarantee. Yet, both of them understood the weight of the message.

Liseria was still standing in the center of the darkness, with black feathers swaying gently behind her.

When Dream Cocoon was pulled to her shoulder, she tilted her head slightly, as if looking at a boring toy.

The silk thread brushed past her lips, and her singing, though lowered by a semitone, continued.

The God of Fate spit out another strand of silk, binding the edges of the two dream cocoons together tightly.

He glanced down at his palm; his fingertips trembled involuntarily, slowing his hand movement even further. A trickle of red blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, which he didn't wipe away. He looked up at Celian:
“Remember,” he said, “don’t let anyone get close to her until I get back.”

As Selene gazed at the blood moon, her eyes suddenly welled up with tears.

She didn't say anything like "come back safely," but simply spread her blood wings to their fullest extent and smiled nonchalantly:
"of course."

Rex tucked the gun into his elbow, changed the ammunition belt, and the sea flashed by in his monocle.

He wasn't joking; he responded in the calmest tone possible.

"Don't worry. Sweet dreams, we'll protect you."

Alison stood on the stern of the Doomsday Rose, raised her hand and pushed the Mirror Sea up an inch, the water surface reflecting down like a mirror, perfectly capturing the two Dream Cocoons in its reflection.

She nodded to Si Ming from afar:

"Go back quickly."

Edel raised the lamp, the signal crisp and clear—dream protection first.

All commands on the deck were replaced with hand gestures, and the firepower groups automatically shifted to the flanks, leaving an empty line for Dream Cocoon.

The gunners' eyes were red, but none of them uttered a sound.

Medusa raised her cane, about to step forward, when she was slammed back by a wall of blood-red waves.

Selene stepped onto the stone steps, revealing half of her canine fang:

"Whoever touches it—leave their hand behind first."

Rex changed his position in the shadows, raising the gun to an angle out of her sight.

Allison's Mirror Sea rises.

Si Ming gave them one last look, as if handing over something very heavy to a friend.

He didn't say "thank you" or "I believe you" again; he simply placed his palms on the dream cocoon and gently clasped them together.

The threads tightened, and the heartbeat receded from his ears. In the darkness, his figure slowly faded.

"Wait for me." These were the last words he uttered before his dream closed.

Two dream cocoons stood side by side in the wind. The distant roar of artillery fire continued, and black feathers still fell.

Selene took half a step forward, and her blood wings descended, covering the Dream Cocoon;
Rex's gun barrel rested on the edge of the dream cocoon, like a quiet eye; Allison's mirrored sea refracted the light into a ring of cold shell.

Neither of them looked back.

No one spoke.

—No one will allow these two dream cocoons to break before Si Ming returns.

"Do you think I would tolerate your daydreaming?" Medici sneered, raising her hand as if to say something.

The Valkyrie in blood-red golden armor answered the call once more, charging fiercely towards the Dream Cocoon of Fate with both hands wielding a spear.

At that moment, the deck of the Doomsday Rose suddenly bulged, like a giant beast turning over inside the ship.

The mast ropes were all taut, and the pirate flag at the masthead was ripped apart by the wind with a sharp whistle.

"Baroque!!" As soon as someone shouted the name, the iron ring in the center of the deck exploded, and seawater gushed out from the gap, as if the entire sea surface had been turned upside down on the ship.

That was a person—and a wave.

Baroque, shirtless, emerged from the water, his muscles bulging out like rocks.

There were ripples running beneath his skin, and a bluish-green light flowed backward along his blood vessels, like the sea rising back inside his body.

He slapped the deck, and the water obediently clung to it, turning into a pair of water armors that climbed up his arm to his shoulder.

Allison stood on the stern, raised the Mirror Sea, and gestured with her chin toward him.

Baroque smiled back, his eyes shining: "Captain, lend me the sea for a while."

“Take it and use it,” Allison replied.

Baroque bent down and pulled up an anchor chain from the edge of the deck. Seawater dripped from the chain links, and he clenched them in his fists as if he were wearing two iron fist gloves.

Then, he lost his footing—and a step made of seawater immediately caught him. The tide lifted him off the deck and carried him to the open space in front of the royal palace.

Just as Medusa's Blood Valkyrie raised her whip, Baroque arrived.

He didn't use any fancy moves, just a punch to the face.

The punch deflected all the red rain in mid-air, like smashing open a well.

The Valkyrie's whip flicked in mid-air, then he forcefully deflected it, causing the spear shaft to fall headfirst back to the ground, cracking the stone bricks into a spiderweb pattern.

“Enough,” Baroque uttered, his voice like waves crashing on a dock.

He wrapped the chain around the back of his fist, and the seawater surged up layer after layer beneath his feet, lifting him higher. "As long as Baroque stands, no one can touch my friend—not even Si Ming, not anyone!"

The Valkyrie roared and lashed out with her second whip, the red spikes flying like a shard of wood.

Baroque blocked with his left arm, and the water armor bloomed into a wave, enveloping all the spikes. He then twisted it back, and the entire blood whip was wrapped in seawater, turning into a wet rope.

“You’re making quite a racket,” Baroque said, grabbing the base of the whip and lowering it. “Come down and speak.”

He slammed it to the ground.

The Valkyrie was pulled into the air, her armor feathers exploding in a circle of red dust. She tried to block with her scepter, but was still dragged out of two ruts, scraping all the way to the Dream Cocoon.

Baroque stomped his feet, and water spread out from his feet in all directions, instantly building a half-person-high sea wall around the Dream Cocoon. White foam surged on the surface of the water, and anyone who got close was pushed back.

The marines on Wang Dian's side were stunned. Through the smoke, one of them shouted with red eyes, "Awesome!"

Baroque didn't turn around; the chains on his shoulders rattled as he swung his fist again.

"Fire screen, press down two more rows!" Edel's signal lights flashed in the air.

The two ghost ships opened fire simultaneously, beams of fire grazing Baroque's shoulder and tearing up the ground behind Valkyrie. Rex seized the opportunity to shift positions, striking Valkyrie's shoulder lock with a single shot. Mira whispered in his ear, "The wind is blowing to the right; her fate is in your hands."

“No problem, Mira.” Rex smiled without raising his voice.

Enraged, the Valkyrie thrust her spear straight at Baroque's heart. Baroque pressed his palm against the spear blade, instantly freezing his water armor and halting the spear's momentum by half an inch.

He glanced down at the gun barrel, then looked up, the whites of his eyes tinged with the color of the sea:
"I'm here. Where are you going to stab me?"

He pushed the blade back, and his chain punch slammed into her visor along the handle.

The sound was like iron striking iron, and at the same time a wave rose from the ground, sending people flying and knocking over three pillars.

Selene snapped her fingers in mid-air and grinned at him, showing her teeth: "Well done."

Rex said lazily, "Our sailor captain loves to use his fists the most."

The Valkyrie tried to bypass the Dream Cocoon and attack from the side, but Baroque stood directly in front of the Dream Cocoon, his Chain Fist slamming down, raising the Sea Wall even higher.

He didn't glance back at the white cocoon behind him, but instead grinned at everyone in front of him—including Medici—and spoke at full volume:

"You want to get past me? You'll have to beat me down first!"

“I, Baroque, stand here, and my friends live.”

The wind lifted his words, drowning out the sound of cannons and the lament.

Inside the dream cocoon, the silk threads tightened gently; outside the dream cocoon, the tide became even stronger.

Medici's gaze swept across the room as if looking at a group of shadows blocking her path. She raised her scepter, her voice as cold as ice:
"I am the Lord of the Blood Moon, the Mother of All Beings. Above the Cataclysm, what I desire must be fulfilled."

She began to chant an ancient incantation that no one could understand.

The sound of the words is like iron spinning in water, chilling to the bone.

The blood-red patterns on the ground suddenly lit up, and the entire area around the royal palace responded simultaneously—

thump.

The Blood Moon's retinue emerged from the shadows: Divine Knights draped in blood-red feathers, priests chanting incantations, and Blood Priests in crimson robes, their blades and blood gleaming in a continuous line as they surged toward the plaza.

“Kill everyone present.” Medici uttered the last word, pointing her scepter forward, “Break through those two dream cocoons.”

—The sound of iron hooves had barely stopped when it started again from the other side of the corridor.

Alfred and his commando team held out in the doorway, using a battering ram to block the passage.

Opposite them is Lucien Blackhill.

He was wearing heavy black armor, with dark red light seeping from the seams. He pressed down with his spear and swept it across, leaving a groove in the wall.

He didn't speak; even his breathing was like iron clashing against iron. Alfred couldn't get close at all and could only be forced back by him.

"Give me—" Alfred gritted his teeth, "Stop him!"

The next instant, Lucien yanked the reins hard.

The red eyes behind the mask glanced at the square.

Medusa's incantation traveled through the wind.

Without hesitation, he turned his horse around, lance pointed at the ground, and charged out of the corridor with a thunderous roar, heading straight for the square. The sound of his hooves tore a rift in the air, and the naval soldiers were nearly knocked down by him.

"Go back!" Alfred said in a deep voice. "Protect the bed!" He suppressed his anger and led his men to block the corner again. "Stop the road!"

In the square, the blood-red procession grew longer and longer:

The knights of divine grace raised their shields and stood in formation, stepping heavily onto the stone steps;
The blood-moon monks chanted incantations while circling, layers of blood-red light pressing forward.
The red-robed blood priest raised a golden goblet at the end of the procession and poured thick blood onto the ground, the blood crawling into symbols.

Allison stood on the stern of the Doomsday Rose, squinting at the sea of ​​blood. Her voice wasn't loud, but everyone could hear it:
"Fight! Fight to the death! This is our destiny. In this battle, if we do not win—we will die!"

She raised her hand, and a blood-red flag rose from the mast. On the flag was a smiling face with an iron crown, its crimson color like freshly washed blood.

“Blood George, Death Banner,” Allison said. “We’re not retreating today.”

The pirates and sailors on the deck looked at the blood-red flag and, without being told, tightened their ammunition belts and braced their guns.

Edel raised the lamp, changing the signal to a single word: "Guard."

Baroque stood before the two dream cocoons, with a hard wall of seawater rising at his feet.

Selene's blood wings covered half the sky. Rex raised his gun and turned to look at the wind, his glasses reflecting only the target's image.

Medici raised her staff, and the blood surged forward.

Allison's blood-red flag fluttered in the wind.

Two white dream cocoons stood side by side in the wind, like two small lamps about to be extinguished by the waves.

Everyone knows: we can't let them go extinct.

In the dream, Si Ming floated down and walked through the air, with a misty mirror lake beneath his feet.

The first step landed, and the water surface resembled an eye, opening and closing repeatedly.

There was no wind in the dream, only white mist flowing along my ankles.

The fog was clean, yet carried a faint stench of blood; beneath my feet lay a slowly moving expanse of black water, not deep, but bottomless.

With each step Si Ming took, a small white feather would rise from the edge of her shoe, swirling halfway along the water's edge, like a memory of struggle, before sinking back down.

The singing came from a very, very far place.

It's not a song by one person, but the clear voices of many girls layered together: the words are swallowed by the mist, leaving only some very light syllables—"No," "I was wrong," "Please turn off the lights."

They sang very softly, as if afraid of waking something, or as if they already knew that no one would come.

Ahead, the tower emerged halfway from behind the fog. Its body was a dull black, its surface resembling stone or a dried feather.

The tower has no windows, only some shallow dents, which look like fingernail scratches from a distance.
Upon closer inspection, it became clear that they were individual notes pressed down, all pressed into the same spot, sinking, sinking, sinking.

The starlight remained suspended at an unnatural angle at the top of the tower, neither flashing nor moving.

It's as if an invisible star is pressing the entire tower down.

Fine wisps of mist drifted by.

It wasn't hair, it wasn't a spider web, it was white lines thinner than a hair, emerging from the black water and then diving back in, like thoughts being dragged into the abyss.

Siming reached out, and the moment her knuckles touched one of the strands, the white line recoiled as if afraid of light; a soft sob came from the bottom of the water, as if someone's mouth had been gagged.

There is a ring of broken stone steps in front of the tower, with a few pages of soaked sheet music lying on them.

The ink on the score spread out in one direction, as if it were written while crying.

Si Ming bent down, his fingertips touching the edge of the paper; the paper wasn't torn, but it was so cold it gave him goosebumps.

There was a line of small writing on the corner of the paper, with only one name written – “Li”. The strokes after that were crossed out, then written again, crossed out, and written again, until finally it was simply blacked out.

The tower gate was closed.

A sliver of cold light peeked out from the crack in the door; the door knocker was shaped like a swan's neck, silvery-white with a few black spots, like a bird whose feathers had started to mold after being rained on for a long time.

Si Ming raised his hand and touched the door knocker. The metal was cold. The coolness crept up his palm and up to his chest.

He paused for a moment and listened intently.

Hmm—I can feel a heartbeat.

It's not his, it's not from outside, it's from inside the tower.

My heartbeat was very light, as if someone had hidden their heart under their pillow, afraid to let it make a sound.

Between heartbeats, something else slipped in.

It wasn't like a human, but like a star, forcing itself to breathe ten times in a second.

“The Star of Sorrow pinned her underwater,” Si Ming thought to himself, “and she sang to herself on the surface of the water.”

The white mist suddenly retreated an inch. A black feather slid down the top edge of the tower gate and gently clung to the door knocker, like a letter that didn't want to be sent.

A small white hem of a skirt floated to the surface of the black water, only to be quickly pulled back.

The girls' chorus grew closer, but the words were still indistinct. All that could be heard was that someone was trying to sing "Please save me," but every time they sang the word "me," the fog would suppress their voices.

Si Ming placed his palm firmly on the door knocker without applying any force.

He tapped it lightly, like tapping a lamp covered with a cloth.

He smiled, a faint smile, yet it caused the fog to part to either side by a finger's width:
“A lament for my fate, Liseria—let me take you away from this dream.”

It sounded like someone inside the tower took a soft breath. A cold light flickered through the crack in the door.

One of the choral parts in the distance paused for the first time.

The door wasn't open yet. But the fog drew closer, like a soft curtain, waiting for someone to part it.

If your songs only make you feel down, then you're not truly happy.

I wish I were a lamp to guide you through the dark door.

—Excerpt from "The Lost Collection of Elegies of the Foggy City"

(End of this chapter)