Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 476 A Double Requiem for the Stage and the Cemetery

"Some people dance in a sea of ​​blood, taking their cries as applause;
Some whisper to the bones, taking wails as sweet nothings.

In the Tower of the End, madness is the only order.

—From *The Guild of Mysterious Strangers: Records of Psychopathology*

The wind blew in from the end of the dilapidated street, carrying the pungent, sweet smell of gasoline, raging fire, and burnt paper ash.

The chains of the Fiery Knight lashed the ground with a "tap-tap" sound, like drumbeats urging the performance on.

Her green hair fluttered in the wind as Han Zhenya stepped onto a concrete step in the middle of the street, her skirt turning a deep red in the glow of the raging fire.

She looked down at her palm, and with a flick of her fingertips, a black-edged card bloomed like a cold flower from thin air.

—World System High-Level Mystery: The Stage of Doomsday Elegy.

"Lights, sound, audience."

As if calling out to an unseen stage manager, she lightly brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, her smile subtle yet sharp. "Let's begin—let these lovely audience members give us their first scream."

The card shattered slightly.

In the center of the block, ripples of red light seeped from the cracks, distorting and stretching the broken street signs and collapsed walls in the light, and blood-red lampposts crawled out from the gaps.

Cold, white spotlights lit up one by one like raindrops, and the mottled ruins were pieced together in an instant into a bizarre stage.

A curtain was hung on the side of the stage, and beneath it were blurry figures—not people, but the “audience seats” outlined by the flames and dust.

They had no faces, only distorted applause.

The hellish mail carriers slowed down instantly, their tires leaving long scorch marks along the edge of the stage.

They were not intimidated, but rather pulled into their seats by an invisible "order"—on this stage, they were implicitly considered as the audience.

Zhenya turned around, bowed slightly, and with a flick of her fingertip, attached the second card to her finger bone.

—Life System High-Level Mystic: The Cursed Doll Jennabel.

The curtain swayed behind the curtain, and one by one, porcelain-faced dolls emerged from the shadows, dressed in nostalgic Western dresses, their masks painted with overly sweet smiles.

Their feet tapped, their skirts swayed, and their steps were as neat as a dance formation, but the edges of their skirts occasionally revealed the deadly arc of cold metal—scissors, wire, bone-sewing needles, and severed finger rings.

“My girls,” Zhenya said softly, “I dedicate this song to everyone here.”

She opened her mouth, and the first line of the song fell.

—It is not a timbre that the human voice can produce.

Like the friction of glass edges, like the swelling of dark tides on the distant sea, like the simultaneous stirring of electricity throughout an entire city.

The sound "scraped" the air on the stage into visible ripples, and the lights refracted on the ripples, forming rotating red and white halos, like a blood-red rainbow.

The puppets spun and leaped, the scissors and wires intertwining in the air to form strings of cold light.

Recently, a Fire Knight got his arm caught in a wire. Before he could even swing the chain, he was pulled off balance along the wire.

He was dragged onto the stage by three ghost puppets—the next second, the scissors opened and closed, the black leather jacket was cut into strips, the burning helmet rolled off, and there was no face inside, only fire and tentacles.

The idol gently supported the head like a patient being cared for, and with a slight bend—"snap," like a cassette tape being snapped in two.

"Clap your hands." Zhenya turned her head and whispered.

The audience actually applauded, a hollow but orderly response.

Her gaze pierced through the light, landing in the distant darkness. There, a stage could still be faintly seen—three years ago,

Bright lights, neat formation, she stood in the center, being chosen for the center position of the five-person group for the first time;
The backstage area was a desolate practice room. At three in the morning, she was told to "learn to be sensible".

“Jinya, smile, smile more like a real person.” The manager put his hand on her shoulder, while his other hand was stretched too low.

She didn't cry the first time; she just practiced her smile until it was perfect.

“You see,” she says to herself now, “audiences are always fickle. Let them experience a new kind of 'fresh' madness.”

As the second line of the song faded, a new layer of text lit up on the cracks on the edge of the stage—the language was indiscernible, like misaligned printed subtitles.

The tires of the Fire Knights simultaneously fell into a "rhythm," their sprints were pulled into out-of-sync steps, and the timing of the chains hitting the ground was always off by half a beat.

The puppets seized the opportunity to weave in, scissors fell in unison, and wires were pulled back in unison, creating an invisible array of fine lines around the stage. Any knight attempting to break in would be cut into "clean segments".

"Are you watching?" Zhenya's tone was joking as she turned slightly to the side, raised her hand, and the light followed her movement. "I know you're watching."

—Not to the hellish postman, but to the whole street, to every eye that dares to peek from behind the window.

“We should add a touch of cuteness.” She tilted her head back and smiled like she did in her early days of advertising. “Jenna Bell, smile.”

Suddenly, a large arc-shaped crack appeared on the mask of the foremost doll, revealing not teeth, but scissor teeth polished with a cold light.

She caught a postman who had just been struck by an electric arc and staggered, like embracing a late dance partner, and then gently completed a beautiful spin.

A series of orderly gasps erupted from the audience.

As the third line of the song faded, Jin-ah's steps were light and steady, and the entire stage seemed to float beneath her feet.

Her green hair shimmered with neon light under the lamp, like poisonous algae floating to the surface from the seabed.

By day, she is the most dazzling girl on stage.

In the practice room, the lights were always on. Han Zhenya, standing in front of the mirror, twirled, bent over, and smiled again and again.
The sweat stung her eyes, and the pain from her torn hamstrings made it almost impossible for her to stand up.

The manager clapped his hands and shouted coldly, "One more time! The debut stage has no place for weaklings."

At night, however, the scene is quite different.

The lights were changed from neon to dim chandeliers.

She was led into private clubs that only the powerful and wealthy could enter, where red wine was poured and leather shoes made a flirtatious sound on the marble floor.

She smiled beautifully, like a heartthrob idol.

But as the door closed, amidst the laughter and swirling smoke, she looked at herself in the mirror: glamorous, perfect, yet she had long lost her "self."

—Until that night.

The tycoon's son, beaming with pride, pushed her onto the bed.

He fell asleep with a satisfied smile, snoring loudly.

Zhenya huddled in the corner, the crimson light reflecting in her eyes, her breathing becoming increasingly rapid.

Beside me are scissors used on stage. The starry sky whispers: "Raise upwards, close downwards."

Her hands were trembling at first. It was fear, the trembling of countless nights of humiliation.

But the next moment, her hand steadied and her eyes lit up.

She slowly walked over and bent down. She placed the scissors against the man's Adam's apple.

The first time it closed its mouth, the sound was broken, like a pig whose vocal cords had been cut, desperately making a hoarse howl.

The second time it closed, blood splattered on her chest, hot and sweet.

She paused for a moment, stuck out her tongue and licked the corner of her lips, her smile twisting, and her laughter grew louder and louder.

Fear, at that moment, turned into excitement.

Excitement transformed into a morbid joy.

—For the first time, she felt free.

For the first time, she realized that the stage wasn't under the lights, but amidst blood and screams.

From that moment on, Han Zhenya died.

Instead, there are doomsday divas.

“So, it’s the same now,” Zhenya turned around and gave a slight bow to the audience, “Please cheer as much as you like.”

The fourth line—she didn't sing it out loud, she just opened her mouth, but remained silent.

The sound range expanded to its limit at this moment, as if the air was being pushed outward, and the burning of the streets instantly subsided by one degree.

The fuel in the Infernal Knight was forcibly forced back into the engine, the flames spewing from the motorcycle let out a scream, and the fuel line burst open.

The explosion was deafening; the entire formation was torn to shreds by her silent high note, like colored paper being violently ripped apart by a giant hand.

She fell silent, lifted her skirt, took a step, and landed on the edge of the stage, looking down at the entire street that had turned into a blood-red audience.

"--Thanks."

A moment of silence was followed by a wave of hollow applause.

Behind the window, Si Ming couldn't help but chuckle: "Stage hallucination syndrome, the ultimate patient."

Isabel adjusted her glasses and quickly jotted down notes: "The audience's reaction was strong, the vocal range had a suppressive effect on the Fiendfire, and Jennabel's melee efficiency... was extremely high."

Zhenya glanced back and smiled like a cat, "I'm singing, not fighting. Don't steal my spotlight."

She raised her hand, her fingertips twirling the corner of the third card: "Ready for the next chorus—"

The hellish messengers re-oiled the engines, the chains rose in unison, and the low growls of vengeful undead came from afar, as if they wanted to devour the stage.

Zhenya's eyes lit up, as if she had spotted an even bigger scene.

"—There are more and more audience members." She smiled gently. "Now it feels more like a concert."

The street suddenly fell silent for a moment.

Han Zhenya raised her hand in a microphone-like gesture, her smile both alluring and mad.

"Ah—it's finally my favorite song's turn."

The next second, she raised her hand and flicked away a black mystery card, her fingertips lightly stroking it as if she were lighting a stage light.

——World System·High-Level Mystery

"The Mad Song of Final Death"

The roar was suddenly abruptly broken, replaced by a wave of sound.

It wasn't the music, but the world itself that was providing the accompaniment for her.

The sound of the wind became the drumbeat, the evil fire transformed into lamplight, and the streets trembled and twisted into a vast sonic stage.

The green-haired songstress spread her arms and twirled, as if she were in the center of a stage for thousands.

In her eyes, the Hell Knights were no longer her malevolent spirits, but rather a spectator's seat.

They wore helmets, leather jackets, and chains, but in her hallucination, they transformed into fans dressed in support outfits, waving glow sticks and screaming excitedly.

"Welcome to my second concert."

The musical notes burst open.

The singing transformed into shockwaves, shattering outwards in concentric circles; street windows broke, and mail trucks were crushed like soda cans.

The locomotive exploded amidst the air vibrations, and the raging fire transformed into fireworks on the stage.

The hellish postmen froze for a moment, then shook their heads wildly and swung their chains as if dancing to the rhythm.

Their raging fire burned even more fiercely, but at this moment, the flames were not weapons, but cheering sticks lit by the audience.

The wreckage of a motorcycle and its rider was reduced to ashes in the flames.

Han Zhenya raised the microphone, tilted her head back, and sang: "Burn! The stage has only just begun!"

That was her promotion ceremony, and also her breakthrough work.

A giant concert venue in a major city was packed with people.

Tens of thousands of spectators screamed her name wildly, and glow sticks filled the sky.

When the first note of "Mad Song Range" was played, the stage lights did not go out, but suddenly turned red.

Visible ripples of sound appeared in the air, striking the eardrums and souls of the audience.

The next second, tens of thousands of people rolled their eyes back and screamed as they lunged at each other to kill.

Glow sticks pierced eyes, seats were torn apart, and blood splattered under the lights, converging into a frenzied ocean.

Outside the stadium, the city's neon lights went out one by one, songs echoed through the streets, and the entire city sank into carnage and flames.

In the center of the stage, she wore a blood-stained dance dress, twirling and singing over the corpses of the audience, laughing like a real princess.

"Thank you everyone—this is my first real concert."

The roar of the Fiery Knight, the rumble of the motorcycle, and the clatter of the chain all became the accompaniment to her stage performance.

She looked up, her green hair dancing in the flames, her eyes filled with a mad and blissful light.

"Now, let's present the second concert for the stage of the apocalypse!"

The singing was explosive.

A building collapsed with a deafening roar within the sound field, and dozens of knights transformed into fiery infernos that bloomed in the night sky.

Han Zhenya's singing voice still trembled in the air, and the evil fire and blood flames turned into smoke in the ruined streets.

Just as she was posing for her final bow, a cold whisper abruptly ended her performance:

"...It's so noisy." Han Zhenya was taken aback, her smile instantly vanished, and she turned her gaze to the other end of the street.

Dark fog spread through the ruined streets, as if the night had been torn open.

With a deep rumble, the earth cracked and broken bricks flew everywhere.

——Boom!
A black necromantic castle rose from the ruins.

The towers stood menacingly, and blue will-o'-the-wisps burned on the battlements, casting shadows like curtains.

Countless cracks appeared in the ground, and the finger bones of the skeletons emerged one by one, crawling, piecing together, and reassembling into a neat legion.

They held up tattered shields, their spears were rusty, and their eyes burned with deathly fire.

Han Zhenya clapped and laughed like the audience: "Ah—this stage setup is even more professional than my stage design team!"

However, in the shadows of the castle, Aristotle's gaze was cold and indifferent.

He slowly raised his hand, and a half-human, half-skeletal face appeared in the will-o'-the-wisp. Through the tear in his robe, charred bones and scorched flesh were exposed.

His voice was low, yet carried a sorrowful obsession:
"Be quiet. Dead men don't need applause."

He was once a young novice magician.

Simple and clumsy, yet harboring the purest ideals.

He secretly loved the kingdom's princess, only daring to steal a glance at her from behind the magic book.

Her occasional smile or a word of encouragement was enough to sustain him as he practiced magic day and night.

When the dragon abducted the princess and the city-state fell into mourning, he gritted his teeth and set off with the words she had once said, "I believe in you."

He believed it was a call from fate.

But reality is cruel.

The dragon flames, like a storm from hell, incinerated half of his body.

His flesh was a bloody mess, his skin peeled away, and his bones exposed. He lay on the scorched earth, only broken breaths escaping his throat.

At that moment, he realized that with his meager strength, he was utterly powerless to save her.

But her voice still echoed in my ears: "Alistar, you'll come to save me, won't you?"

His hands trembled as he opened the forbidden codex that his mentor had strictly forbade him to touch.

The pages of the book exuded a cold, deathly aura, as if mocking his weakness.

My fingertips touched that mysterious card. A Fate-related mystery: "Undead Contract Dominoes".

The words burned before his eyes, and the voice whispered in his ear:

"Do you want power? Do you want her? Do you want to—abandon your humanity?"

He agreed without hesitation.

In that instant, black flames tore at his flesh and blood, rotting flesh grew from his bones, and half of his head turned into withered bones.

He was in so much pain it felt like the world was being torn apart, yet he gritted his teeth and endured it.

He stood up; he was no longer a young magician, but a necromancer.

Despite his broken body, he called upon the dead, awakened the skeletons beneath the scorched earth, and fought against the demonic dragon.

Each time he fell, he caused the dominoes to flip, drawing more curses from the dead.

Finally, the dragon was torn apart by the tide of the dead, and its corpse turned into scorched hills.

He dragged his swaying body toward the imprisoned princess.

She's still alive. Tears welled in her eyes.

His heart trembled, clinging to the last vestiges of tenderness and hope.

"Your Highness, it's me... I've come to save you."

However, what she received in return was not a hug.

Instead, it was a scream that ripped your heart apart.

"Devil! Monster! You are not him! My lover is long dead!"

She cried out, retreated, her eyes filled with disgust and fear.

He choked up, calling out his own name again and again.

"I am Alistair! It's me! Didn't you say you would trust me?!"

But she shook her head, screamed, and looked on as if she wanted to believe that the "young magician" was dead.

She preferred to believe that the boy she loved had died in the dragon's flames.

The half-skeletal, death-laden demon before them was nothing but a fake monster.

At that moment, his heart shattered completely.

The dragon's dying whispers echoed in my ears:

“Three years ago, I was just as naive as you… until she killed me with her own hands. Now, it’s your turn.”

The knights, arrayed in the distance with their banners fluttering, were charging toward him.

He, however, was laughing loudly amidst the pile of corpses.

The laughter was laced with heart-wrenching pain and madness:

He gave up his humanity and appearance for her.

But she used fear and contempt to crush his most precious obsession into the mud.

In that case——

Since love cannot make him a human being,

Then let hatred take the entire kingdom with it!

In the shadow of the castle, he gazed at the iron cage atop the tower.

Inside the cage, the wailing banshee clung to the iron bars, her screams tearing through the night.

Aristotle gently reached out his hand, as if caressing a lover's cheek:

“My love, don’t be afraid... I’ll sing you a lullaby.”

The banshee's scream turned into a sob, the will-o'-the-wisps flickered in rhythm, and the undead army marched forward in orderly steps.

The streets instantly became a death march.

Arist Wayne, the Fallen Star Necromancer, has finally made his appearance.

In the shadow of the Black Castle, Arist Wayne raised a withered hand.

The iron cage creaked, and the imprisoned banshee let out a piercing howl.

—The sound was like a blade slicing through the soul. Sparks flew from the motorcycles of the Infernal Knights, chains fell to the ground, and painful howls came from under the riders' helmets.

Their souls were torn apart by the cries, leaving them teetering on the brink of collapse.

Alistair whispered, his voice suddenly softening, like a boy still chasing his first love:

“…Princess, can you hear me? I am here. I slew the dragon for you, I shed my blood for you…Don’t cry, come home with me.”

However, in the next instant, his voice suddenly became shrill, bursting forth with resentment and venom:

"But you betrayed me! You all betrayed me! Knights, the kingdom, this world—die!"

The undead army responded to the call, with hundreds and thousands of skeletons raising their rusty weapons and surging towards the Infernal Knight like a tidal wave.

The streets trembled under the trampling of corpses, and will-o'-the-wisps formed a river of death in the night.

Then, his tone shifted again, becoming low, intimate, and filled with a frenzied, delusional love:
"Don't cry... This is the music of our wedding. Our crying is our duet."

Look, the knights have come to present their gifts, and the kingdom has come to host our wedding banquet.

Three voices intertwined in the night sky: a boy's voice, a voice of resentment, and a voice of delusional love, as if three personalities were simultaneously vying for control of one body.

The infernal knights were forced back, their chains lashing wildly, but they could not stop the surging torrent of undead.

Back then, he led an army of the dead to conquer the kingdom.

The knights fell in a sea of ​​blood, and every fallen soldier was reawakened by him, transformed into a dark knight.

As the capital burned, he dragged his mangled body and personally pushed open the palace gates.

He found the princess. She screamed, cried, and begged for salvation.

But to him, the crying was just another kind of lullaby.

So he locked her in the mysterious "Cage of the Howling Banshee," so that her cries would forever accompany him.

"You rejected me, so stay with me forever."

From then on, he was crowned in the kingdom of the dead, becoming the Fallen Star Necromancer.

Alistair looked up at the night sky.

A shooting star streaked across the sky, trailing a white flame.

He reached out and whispered, "Come, my legion... fall with me."

As the meteor fell, new spirits emerged from the earth.

Rotten armor, tattered banners—armies long buried in the kingdom's wars reappear, marching in orderly steps.

The neighborhood has been completely turned into a meat grinder for undead and infernal knights.

Alistair's laughter mingled with his sobs as he gazed at the banshee with boyish tenderness while roaring venomously that he would slaughter all his enemies.

In this divisive madness, the shadow of the Fallen Star Necromancer loomed over the entire street, so oppressive that even the air seemed to freeze.

The neighborhood is on fire.

The chains of the Infernal Knights lashed the earth, splashing iron fire into infernal flames; the skeleton legion arrayed themselves in the shadows of the Undead Castle, the will-o'-the-wisps in their eye sockets flickering in the wind.

The stage for the real beauty unfolds simultaneously.

The slideshow illuminated the ruins, like the opening act of a lavish concert.

The skeletons seemed to have truly become spectators, their blank eyes flickering under the spotlight, their bony fingers gently tapping their armor to the rhythm.

She spun around, her skirt billowing blood.

The singing suddenly soared, like a sharp blade slicing through the night sky.

"—This is your final encore!"

The wailing of the banshee then joined in. The sound, like shattered glass, was blended with her frenzied song, forming an eerie harmony.

The songs of death and the wailing of cries intertwine to form a "symphony of death".

The fiery knights roared, but the music threw them into disarray.

Their motorcycles sparked as they collided with each other, chains wrapping around their companions' necks.

Many more spirits seemed to be dancing on a stage, not to kill, but to offer their final farewell.

—The stage and the cemetery overlap.

The streets became a black audience seating area, and the collapsed buildings became a gray backdrop.

Zhenya stood in the center of the stage, while Wayne looked down from the castle tower. The two seemed to be accompaniment, singing and harmonizing, dragging the entire neighborhood into a destructive frenzy.

Si Ming leaned against the window frame and chuckled softly:
"A stage, a cemetery... a chorus of madmen. The Tower really knows how to pick actors."

Reinhardt, with a cigar between his fingers, exhaled a thick cloud of smoke and sneered:

"War, song and dance, the dead... what a grand spectacle."

Just then, the night sky was suddenly torn apart by a roar.

The voice of the vengeful necromancer boomed like thunder from the depths of the fiery runway:

"—I died from betrayal! You will too!"

The roar of the infernal flames rang out once more, and the black flame road stretched out in the distance.

The next, even more devastating calamity is looming.

"The stage curtain fell, and the bells of the cemetery echoed."

The living sing, the dead weep.

On the tower's musical score, every note is a chord of blood and fire.

—The Tower of the End: Necromancer's Symphony

(End of this chapter)