Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 481 Postal Code, 00000
"A lie is also a letter."

Delivery will always arrive.

If you send your illusions to the universe

The universe will then return the illusion.
-
The Law of Calamity

The night sky is folding.

The whole town is like a piece of paper, creased by an invisible hand.

The rooftops, streets, and church spires all bent and creaked like pieces of paper.

The God of Fate looked up and saw the sky folded into a giant envelope.

The positions of the stars became like stamps, neatly pasted on the corners of the night sky.

The wind blew by, carrying the smell of scraps of paper and musty ink.

The streets also began to change.

The crevices of the stone slabs revealed perforations, like magnified stamp borders.

The streetlights snapped on with a "snap," their cold light turning each one into a "postmark eye."

Their bronze eyelids snapped open, staring at the crowd.

thump—

A dull sound came from underground. It wasn't footsteps, nor the tolling of a bell, but the heavy sound of an official seal being stamped.

"boom--"

The air, like paper, was compressed into concentric wrinkles. The whole town trembled slightly.

"boom--"

The second stamp fell. Regular, cold, mechanical.

White noise filled the air, like a broken printer spitting out paper. The sound mingled with the clicking of the printer, creating a chilling rhythm.

In the distance, the postmaster appeared.

That's not a human silhouette.

It was a huge chunk of meat made up of countless drawers, slowly wriggling.

Each drawer was opening and closing, its surface marked with different postmarks, numbers, and complaint stamps.

Fleshy tentacles seeped from the gaps in the drawers, stickily tugging at the cabinet and pushing it higher and higher.

Each drawer is like an eye.

Hundreds of drawer eyes opened at once, their pupils reflecting the imprint of postmarks.

"Received..."

A sound rang out. It wasn't a sound from the mouth, but a chorus of thousands of postmarks falling.

"Deliver..."

"Sign for delivery..."

"complaint……"

"Accepted."

Its tone was devoid of any emotion, consisting only of procedure.

Si Ming held his breath.

He clearly sensed that this enormous being was not looking at them at all.

It's just executing.

"Where the process descends, the gods need not utter a word."

Si Ming thought to himself.

The next moment, the sky was completely torn apart.

The creases on the envelopes filled the night sky, as if an unseen hand was about to fold and seal the entire town.

The indifferent broadcast echoed in the air:

"Complaint accepted. Delivery initiated."

The letter began to fall.

The sky was like a torn filing cabinet, with thousands of complaint letters falling from the dark creases.

Each letter's paper bore the blood-red texture of skin, like thin slices peeled from skin.

The ink was wriggling, and the writing shimmered like veins.

They were like snowflakes, but heavier than snowflakes. Each letter made a "thud" when it landed, like wet paper hitting a stone slab.

Four of them, carrying an irresistible direction, fell steadily into the hands of four people.

Complaints will be handled.

Han Zhenya received a golden invitation.

The letter unfolded by itself, and the stage lights instantly turned on, shining on her.

The lettering appears in gold foil:

"Dear Doomsday Diva, your audience has filed a complaint against you."

She paused for a moment, then suddenly laughed.

The laughter was sharp and piercing, like a knife cutting through a microphone.

"Complaints? Hmph... Finally, there are audience members who still care about me! You scum... Either clap or scream, no silence allowed! I'll sing until your bones are shattered into the background music!"

She suddenly opened her arms wide, as if she were a stage queen welcoming the curtain call.

The next second, a halo rose from beneath her feet, cutting her entirely into the void of the stage.

Even as the stage lights went out, her laughter still echoed in the air.

The audience's grave.

Wayne looked down and saw a thick directory lying at his feet. The cover opened by itself, and names appeared line by line.

"Necromancer, the dead have a complaint against you."

Countless whispers poured out at once.

Wayne's eyes went blank for a moment, as if he had become three different personalities.

His voice, still trembling, spoke in a childish tone: "But... I just wanted to save her... I just... didn't want anyone else to die..."

The next second, his voice turned frantic, filled with a morbid love:

"No, don't leave me! I can keep you all, turn you into my songs, turn you into my lovers, hahahaha—!"

Finally, his eyes turned completely black, and his voice was as cold as a graveyard: "The accusations of the dead are my throne. If I am guilty... then let the dead bear witness."

The pages turned, and three voices shouted out at the same time.

His figure was absorbed into the list, transforming into a bookmark tucked inside the book.

*Snap.* The book closed and vanished without a trace.

What Reinhardt received was a blood-red military order.

The military order was slapped against his forehead, and the blood-red characters instantly appeared:

"Calamity Lord, the Legion is lodging a complaint against you."

Rhein paused for a second, then burst into laughter.

"Complaints? Hahahaha! My legion is the complaint itself! Their deaths on the battlefield are the highest praise for me! Complaints my ass! Come on—let me fight another battle!"

He suddenly drew his military knife from his waist, the blade slicing through the air with a sharp, gunpowder-smelling wind.

"Legion—assemble! We've been reported! Open fire in response!"

Before he could finish shouting, he was pulled into the battlefield by military orders. The roar of artillery fire then ceased.

Isabel then took a lab logbook.

With a touch of her finger, the pages opened automatically. Inside were one failed creation after another, broken bodies, empty eyes, and soft choruses emanating from their mouths:
"The experimental subject is complaining about you."

Isabel paused for a moment, then smiled.

That was an extremely cold smile.

"Complaints? Very well. I admit it. Every failed experiment is a record of a complaint. Every complaint is new data."

She raised her hand, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.

"Interesting... I wonder what kind of new test subjects you'll introduce me to this time?"

Her body and the experimental log burned brightly, transforming into symbols of an alchemical array, and were pulled into the endless laboratory by the rules.

In just a few seconds, the four people disappeared.

The stage lights went out, the military orders dissipated, the roster closed, and the experimental log shut down.

Their voices were still echoing in the air, but were drowned out by white noise and the sound of postmarks.

Complaints will be handled.

Only Si Ming remained in the entire town.

He looked down at his hands.

He was holding a letter in his hand.

The paper was cold, without a title, without content, only an empty number:

0000.

The letter lay quietly in the hands of the God of Fate.

Number 0000.

There was no sender, no recipient; it was so blank it seemed it should never have existed.

He was breathing rapidly, his heart pounding in his chest.

Then, the envelope tore open by itself.

It's not paper, it's air.

Images, one after another, flew out from the crack, like shattered glass, swirling around him.

Si Ming recognized those images at a glance.

"Isn't this...my memory?"

Countless familiar scenes are reflected in the lens.

These are the words he once said on the virtual star train.

The vow he whispered before the Man of a Thousand Faces.

The boasts he made to his teammates, the promises he made about the future.

Each piece looks incredibly realistic.

For example, in a lens, he is standing on a stage, with a sea of ​​fire burning behind him, a confident smile on his lips, saying to his enemy: "I am the Man of a Thousand Faces."

“This…” Si Ming reached out to touch it.

The image distorts the moment your fingertip touches the lens.

The smile blurred, the stage distorted, the flames behind it became messy graffiti, and finally shattered with a "crack," dissipating into the air.

"It's fake," Si Ming muttered through gritted teeth.

Another lens floated before his eyes. It contained the words he had uttered in the chessboard illusion: "The game is under my control."

In the picture, the chess pieces float in the air and land perfectly in the positions he set.

He reached out and touched it—the chess pieces immediately flew everywhere, the chessboard collapsed, and all the pieces collided together, forming a chaotic vortex. The screen instantly shattered.

Si Ming's breathing became more and more rapid.

"They're all...fake."

As the number of lenses increased, countless scenes appeared all at once.

He declared that the King in Yellow had arrived.

He patted his chest and said he had a way to resolve the crisis.

His countless confident expressions as he used lies to gain a chance at survival.

They exploded before his eyes like a kaleidoscope.

But he knew that every word he said was a lie.

He wanted to grasp a piece of real memory, even if only one sentence was true.

But no matter which area he reaches out to, the image will distort, blur, and collapse at his fingertips.

“This is impossible…” Si Ming murmured.

Just then, the sound of postmarks came from all directions.

"boom--"

"boom--"

Accompanied by the sound of a stamp being put on, a deep and cold voice rang out.

It wasn't an emotionless, mechanical broadcast, but rather a mocking and sarcastic one.

"A liar."

"Have you ever spoken a single truth in your life?"

Countless drawers opened their eyes simultaneously, all staring at him.

Si Ming felt a chill run down his spine.

The postmaster's voice continued:

"Every word you utter is recorded by the universe. You think they've come true, but they're just evidence of your complaints."

"False flames, false chessboard, false promises. False you."

"Number 000".

Complaint content: You are a liar.

Suddenly, the lenses in the air shattered all at once, turning into countless black paper scraps that surrounded Si Ming layer by layer.

The scraps of paper were wrapped around him, as if trying to turn him into a letter and send him to some unknown address.

Si Ming gritted his teeth, wanting to explain, but as soon as he opened his mouth, his voice was drowned out by the voices of countless "himself".

Those fragmented echoes of lies cried out in unison:
"I am the One with a Thousand Faces."

"The game is under my control."

"The King in Yellow has arrived."

The noise, the overlapping, the distortion—it's so intense that it's impossible to tell which sentence is real.

He was almost suffocated by the noise.

The postmaster's cold tone sounded like a final verdict:

"The complaint has been accepted."

Si Ming took a deep breath and recited, "The chessboard moves, truth and falsehood are intertwined."

The black scraps of paper continued to spin, the echoes of lies relentlessly bombarded the eardrums, and a giant black and white chessboard quietly appeared where Si Ming had settled.

"...A complaint from fate? Then how will you deal with my illusory power of the script?"

He stretched out his hand, and a twisted mark appeared on the back of his hand, like a tattered crown.

Joy and sorrow are all illusory; the King in Yellow.

The chessboard unfolds in the air.

The black and white checkerboard, like creased pages of paper, stretched from his feet all the way to the sky, turning the entire town into a chessboard.

Each square is labeled with a word: Receive, Deliver, Sign for, Complaint, Accept.

“The process can be modified.” Si Ming gritted his teeth and pushed down a chess piece.

As the chess piece is placed, the words on the square are instantly replaced:

[Complaint → Case Closed]

The chessboard flashed for a moment, as if he had truly reversed the rules.

But in the next second, a drawer suddenly opened, and a long postmark arm stretched out from the sky, slamming onto the chessboard with a "bang".

The handwriting in the grid instantly changed back to "Complaint," and a cold note was added:

"The alteration is invalid; the cause and effect have been determined."

Si Ming's eyes narrowed.

"Impossible...do it again!"

He pushed aside another piece and changed "complaint" to "rejection".

The checkerboard flashed. But the next second, there was another "bang," and the seal fell.

[Complaint] Still. The note coldly appears:

"The appeal is invalid; fate has already been decided."

Si Ming broke out in a cold sweat.

He kept pushing the paper. He kept altering it.

— "Complaint → Withdrawal"

— "Complaint → Invalid".

— "Complaint → Return of item".

Every time a change is made, the chessboard flashes, but it is always ruthlessly stamped back to its original state by the postmark.

Finally, the words on the chessboard even correct themselves automatically. No matter how many pieces he moves, all paths will lead to the same square:
[Complaint → Acceptance]

The chess pieces seem to be manipulated by an invisible hand, rolling back to their fixed squares on their own.

Si Ming stared blankly at the chessboard.

He suddenly realized that this was not due to the rigidity of the rules, but rather... that fate had already written its hand.

The end of cause and effect has already been written; everything he did was merely a futile attempt to erase it.

He was just scribbling on a letter, and the verdict on that complaint would always appear on its own in the next second.

The postmaster's cold laugh echoed in the air.

"Joy and sorrow are but illusions, the King in Yellow..."

You can rewrite the course of a play, but you can't rewrite its ending.

"Because the results were already printed in the complaint book."

“You liar, every struggle you make is new evidence.”

The God of Fate gradually lowered his hand.

The chessboard trembled beneath his feet, the black and white squares folding themselves up like paper, gathering together and scattering into fragments.

His voice was hoarse: "So... no matter how I change it, the result will be the same."

The postmaster's voice sounded like that of a final judge:

"Mortals can weave processes."

But fate never pauses for you.

Countless drawer openings came open at once, and hundreds of postmarks fell in unison, like raindrops hitting the paper.

"The complaint has been accepted."

"The complaint has been accepted."

"The complaint has been accepted."

Again and again, it overwhelmed the God of Fate.

He felt as if he were in an endless archive, surrounded by the sound of stamps announcing "complaints accepted".

The chessboard shattered and the light vanished; he staggered and knelt in a sea of ​​paper scraps.

The number 0000 in front of us has started to burn.

The letter numbered 0000 was burning in the palm of the God of Fate.

The flames weren't red, but black. The paper looked as if it had been soaked in ink, and the firelight was cold and blinding.

His body was gradually enveloped by this force, and layers of paper scraps stuck on him, wrapping him into the shape of an envelope.

"The complaint has been accepted."

The postmaster's voice rang out simultaneously from countless drawer openings.

The drawer's tentacles slowly extended, like a postman's fingers, lifting the sage who was wrapped in an envelope.

click -

A huge drawer slowly opened. Inside was not storage space, but a dark abyss from which countless wails echoed.

Si Ming struggled amidst the scraps of paper, his eyes wide open.

"The game... isn't over yet..."

His voice was hoarse, but it was immediately muffled by the thick sheet of paper.

The drawer closed without hesitation.

"Complaint submitted."

The voice was cold and mechanical, like a checkmark on a flowchart.

The entire town fell silent at the same time. The creases disappeared, the stamp grid was erased, as if it were all an illusion.

The only lingering sound was the rustling of paper.

Si Ming's figure disappeared completely.

Their fate is unknown.

But the game is not over yet.

"Delivery is the end of the process."

It is also the beginning.

Blank number,
Still awaiting signature.

You may be dead.
You may still be on your way.

—The Nameless Creed

(End of this chapter)