Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 562 Starstorm
"When God falls into color, the world no longer has lines."

—The Final Page of "The Record of Dimensional Reduction"

The sky was like a torn canvas.

The clouds were swallowed by color, and the night was shattered into fragments by countless streaks of light.

At that moment, the sky above Wangchuan Town was like a giant sheet of Xuan paper, and someone was painting on it.

That pen is called "Brilliant Stars".

He gently raised his finger.

The movements were as casual as flicking a drop of water.

"Then me—"

His tone was like a gentle adult coaxing a child.

"It's time to get serious."

A flick of the fingertip.

The world collapsed. The air turned into paint, flowing with blue, purple, and red light.

All colors converged beneath his feet, transforming into a multicolored spiral hurricane that swirled upwards.

Light and wind intertwined to form a nebula, which then fell—and was re-entered into his body.

His features began to crumble.

He first flickered like pixels, his body being separated layer by layer of color blocks; the next second, he suddenly flattened into a glowing "paper", so thin that it had almost no thickness.

With a flip of the paper, it becomes three-dimensional again, with muscles, bones, and lines all being redrawn.

He flickers back and forth between two-dimensional and three-dimensional, like a frame of a painting disrupted by time.

Each time the scene changes, the air is torn apart by the "scene switching sound"—[tap—snap—whoosh!], and afterimages fill the sky.

Above their heads appeared hundreds of "stars shining brightly".

Some are chibi-style boys, some are armored girls, some are smiling demons, and some are gods in robes. Everyone is smiling.

They laughed in all sorts of ways, but all were equally fake, morbid, and perfect.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" A galaxy of voices rang out from all directions.

Each of his clones was speaking, and each voice had a different tone. Some sounded like a gentle older brother, some like a ruthless announcer, and some like an exaggerated cartoon laugh.

"this--"

His tone rose and fell, as if mimicking the audience's exclamations of surprise.

“That is my dimension.” He opened his arms.

A huge halo of color burst forth from behind him.

That was the form of a flaming star, a storm of stars.

His hair transformed into flowing star trails, and his body was entwined with colorful stardust.

Light flowed within him, like the Milky Way breathing.

When he spoke again, his tone was so soft it was almost a whisper: "Welcome to my painting."

Si Ming's pupils suddenly contracted.

The air no longer felt thick, and the bluestone path beneath our feet was collapsing.

That wasn't a real crack; it was just wiped away.

The world beneath their feet was erased inch by inch by an eraser, leaving only a white draft.

Selene looked up, and the sky had become her canvas.

She could even see the light flowing through the brushstrokes, each line redrawing the world.

The wind is gone.

The sound disappeared.

Her and Si Ming's shadows were pulled into a gap of color, their outlines began to tremble, as if they were being redrawn by pencil lines.

Selene instinctively stepped back, her voice so low it was almost broken.

"...Si Ming...are we...being drawn into it?" Si Ming's fingertips turned cold.

He felt his body thinning, and his heartbeat felt like it was being sliced ​​apart by a panel.

"Serian, retreat—" he shouted as the ground completely collapsed.

The bluestone street snapped shut like a picture book, all the colors converging into a single point.

From that point, the glittering projection of stars emerged.

He seemed to have stepped out of a painting, with a long trail of colorful light trailing behind him.

He smiled, his multicolored eyes reflecting the image of the God of Fate.

“My painting—” He stretched out his hand, his index finger gently hooking in the air.

At the end of the street, everything has been repainted.

Red like blood, blue like a dream, green like poison.

"It's only just begun." Only two colors remained in the air—blood red and iridescent.

The God of Fate throws out playing cards.
A silver light streaked through the air, like a falling meteor.

His figure flashed by, his entire body "erased" from the spot, and then reappeared a hundred meters away.

"A lie turned into truth: a flash of brilliance!"

The next second, the ground was sliced ​​open like paper, a two-dimensional crack brushed past him, its sharp edge almost erasing his shadow.

He steadied himself, and heard that long, pleasant laugh in his ear:

"Ah—not bad reaction. It's just like the entrance scene of the male protagonist in an anime."

The starlight shimmered as it flipped over, its entire body suddenly flattened into a thin, colorful sheet, sliding along the ground.

It leaped through the air again, regaining its three-dimensional form.

That leap was so perfect it was almost unreal.

He seemed to leap from different frames, each frame seamlessly connected, so fast that even the air itself couldn't make a sound.

Selene's eyes flashed red, and amidst the surging blood light, her blood wings unfurled behind her.

A surge of blood erupted, and she transformed into mist, leaving behind more than a dozen afterimages in the air.

"Blood Form - Mist Clone!" Each afterimage carried real temperature and aura, rushing towards the starry sky from different directions.

"Beautiful move." Starlight smiled, his body suddenly thinning as the attacks passed through him, leaving only a slight rustling sound.

Half of his face was visible outside the frame, while the other half remained in the shadows on the wall. He smiled and murmured softly, "Your movements are becoming more and more—flat."

Selene turned around abruptly, only to see that the source of the sound was a colorful graffiti of her own face.

The figure on the wall was smiling, its eyes vacant, its lips twisted to its ears. A chill ran down my spine.

Si Ming suddenly flung his hand, and five playing cards spun like meteors, swirling into a storm, the air currents carrying fragments of black and white.

The overlapping light of the cards formed a huge vortex that tore apart the "painting" on the wall. But as soon as the vortex touched the glittering figure of the stars, it was immediately stained with strange colors: red, green, blue, and purple, melting into colored ink in the air.

The vortex collapsed into paper scraps, instantly shrinking.

"Ah, what a pity." The stars bowed their heads and extended their fingers.

He gently pointed to Siming's right leg. "Your leg—it's already a painting."

Si Ming was taken aback. He lowered his head.

The right leg no longer has a three-dimensional thickness.

That's not a wound, but rather a complete "thinning".

Skin, bones, and flesh are all on the thickness of a sheet of paper, and even the shadow becomes a line.

He took a step, and his leg made a cracking sound, like turning a page. The rest of his body remained three-dimensional.

This extreme disharmony sent chills down his spine.

The twinkling stars chuckled softly, "It doesn't hurt, it's just... I no longer belong to you."

Selene roared, her blood wings bursting open and unleashing a storm.

A dark red line appeared at her fingertips, a sign that her life was burning. "Go back to your paintings—!" she shouted as she rushed out.

A wave of blood enveloped her figure, drawing a crimson arc in the air.

In an instant, her claws almost touched her opponent. "—So beautiful."

The tone, once filled with dazzling brilliance, became almost one of admiration.

With a flick of his finger, his figure suddenly flattened, like a piece of drawing paper instantly pasted under Celian's shadow.

"Snapped!"

Blood splattered.

Selene groaned as a shallow cut appeared on her shoulder. The blood didn't flow out but instead congealed into "paint," sliding down her shoulder and spreading into a dark red light in the air.

Si Ming threw out playing cards, and the silver light flashed again, transforming into a shimmering wall that separated the two.

"Serian, don't fight head-on!"

She retreated, panting, wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth, and smiled dangerously: "Heh... I didn't risk my life, I just haven't started killing yet."

Siming flicked his finger, and blood splattered onto the card, causing it to burst with silver light.

"—A lie becomes reality, star orbits reverse, fate is defied!"

Light pierced the darkness, briefly tearing apart the realm of color created by the brilliance of the stars.

They took the opportunity to create distance between themselves.

The sky is spinning.

A constellation of stars slowly approaches.

With each step he took, the space beneath his feet collapsed like paper, only to be repainted after he passed.

Si Ming held the last few cards, his voice low and somber.

"He's...changing the rules."

Selene trembled slightly, and the back of her left hand began to flatten.

"Siming, I feel... my blood has no weight."

Si Ming closed his eyes. "Our world—is being erased."

The wind stopped.

The stars slowly rose, and the comical cartoon face softened, a softening that sent chills down one's spine.

"Oh dear." He tilted his head, his smile like a beautiful mask.

"Stop moving."

The air froze the moment the sound fell.

Siming and Selian's bodies stiffened simultaneously.

Everything around fell silent; even the dust seemed to freeze in mid-air.

Their shadows, flattened by an invisible force, pressed closer and closer to the ground.

The stone bricks underfoot gleamed, as if someone were outlining their contours.

The stars bent down, and the cartoonish face magnified before them. He blinked and spoke in a friendly tone, as if praising a child's drawing.

"So beautiful. Just a few more strokes and you'll be complete."

Si Ming could feel his heartbeat slowing down.

The rise and fall of his chest felt as if it were being pressed down by paper.

His right leg had long since lost all its thickness, and now, even his waist was beginning to become transparent.

That feeling wasn't pain, but the emptiness of being "erased".

Selene struggled to breathe, and the remaining half of the color on her blood wings was slowly fading.

The bright red turned to pale pink, then to white, and finally became the gray of watercolor on the paper.

Her voice was hoarse, yet remained noble and calm: "...Is this your art? What terrible taste."

The stars chuckled softly, "Oh no? No, no, no. Look?"

He stretched out his hand and lightly traced a line in the air with his fingertips.

That stroke was like a paintbrush sweeping across the paper, causing Si Ming and Selian's bodies to tremble.

A faint light mark appeared on the arm of the God of Fate, his skin looked as if it had been outlined with ink lines, and his blood flowed in a dark color like paint.

Red lines appeared on Celian's neck; the blood had stopped flowing and instead spread across her skin like a blurred oil painting.

"Now,"

The starry sky's tone was almost a gentle sigh, "Your forms are almost 'flat' now. The next stroke will allow them to remain in my work forever."

Si Ming's Adam's apple bobbed.

He could feel his heart thinning, and the vibration was no longer a "bang" but a "snap," like a piece of paper being gently tapped.

He was still smiling, but the smile was so faint it was almost invisible.

"...So that's it."

He murmured, “Your art relies on stealing other people’s forms.”

The stars, far from being angry, laughed even more heartily.

"Form? No, the protagonist of destiny. This is sublimation. You should be grateful to me; to be collected by me is a cosmic honor."

He spread his arms.

The sky exploded.

The colors erupted like a nebula, with red, green, and blue intertwined, engulfing the entire town of Wangchuan.

All buildings simultaneously "discolored," streets collapsed, air became flowing light, the wind lost its direction, and even time seemed to be playing in slow motion.

Si Ming and Selian floated in that weightless world, their colors gradually being stripped away, their blood, hair, and clothes being stretched into long threads that converged towards the direction of the glittering stars.

The stars, shining brightly, looked up, their nebula-like halos swirling behind them.

He was like a god, and like a madman. "The final step of art—" he murmured.

"It's a signature."

He stretched out his hand, and his finger, like a paintbrush dipped in paint, pressed towards Si Ming and Selian's chest.

Selene struggled to lift her head, her pupils turning into blood-red glass.

"I... have no intention of being anyone's paint."

She laughed, a laugh like a princess trapped in a blood-red painting.

The radiant stars smiled even more brightly: "Oh? Miss True Ancestor, then let's give it a try."

The light in his palm shone like hundreds of meteors exploding at the same time.

Wangchuan Town has lost its horizon. Everything is collapsing into a vortex of color.

Si Ming closed his eyes.

He could hear the sound of the playing cards breaking.

The sound pulsed in his palm.

The last card gleamed with an eerie silver light.

He exhaled softly. "Then I should... play a card."

With a flick of his finger, he reached the center of this insane realm of color.

Red, black, and the colors of the stars exploded at the same moment, forming a triple halo.

The entire world seems to be rewritten by this blow.

When the final thickness disappears

The world will be reduced to a single painting.

—From *Star Notes: The Storm's Final Chapter*

(End of this chapter)