Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 571 The Descent of a New God
God does not come from hope, but from despair.

A person who can devour fear is a new god.

—From *Zi Bu Yu* (The Master Did Not Speak Of), Chapter 1

The surface of the Dead Tide has long since turned dark red.

Zhuang Yege sat cross-legged, the copper bell in his hand swaying silently, its clapper long since broken, leaving only a lingering melody.

All around, the tide of wronged souls meandered in a ring, protecting the shadow of that "gate of life".

Yu Weiwei gripped the wolf-tooth club, her eyes fixed intently on what lay ahead.

The battlefield between Miranda and Taotie was not far away, where the sky was like a shattered mirror, with light and mist tearing at each other silently.

She asked, "Can we hold on?"

Zhuang Yege smiled, her voice hoarse.

"Whether we can hold on or not is no longer important. All we need to do is leave them a way out."

The air suddenly froze as soon as he finished speaking.

The whole world felt like it was being squeezed tightly by an invisible hand.

Then, a warning sounded suddenly.

[Warning: Abnormal fluctuations in Taotie's privileges.]

[Access holder - unknown.]

Yu Weiwei's pupils suddenly contracted.

"what's the situation?"

Zhuang Yege looked up and saw the Taotie's enormous body convulsing in the distance.

The behemoth seemed to be suspended by some force; its light pulses lost their color, and its runes extinguished layer by layer.

"Transfer of authority?..." he whispered.

"The Masters are inside."

Miranda noticed it too.

She hovered in mid-air, her cloak spreading out like mycelium.

Her eyes began to turn white, her irises disappeared, leaving only an empty gray light.

The stream of code emerged from the gray light:

Gray, white, and silver.

Like a reverse rain, it fell from her eyes.

A emotionless voice resounded within her.

[Original Silence: Permission error detected.]

[Execution: Recycle command, Fusion - Gluttony.]

Miranda was slightly startled.

A strangely eerie smile appeared on her lips.

"Original Primordial... have you finally decided to make a move?"

Her body began to disintegrate.

The flesh is tearing apart.

Fungi erupted from beneath her skin, white hyphae diffusing along her blood vessels.
It pierced through her bones, her eye sockets, and between her fingers.

Her body swelled, and her cloak transformed into a tide woven from blood and spores.

Each hyphae resembles a snake, with sucker-like mouthparts.

Her voice took on a dual tone—one layer was her own, the other a cold, primal command:

"Execute the fusion. Execute the absorption."

Her figure suddenly elongated, transforming into a vast sea of ​​mycelium.

They pounced on the Taotie.

The sound of suction exploded in the void.

"hiss!"

Countless hyphae and tentacles are embedded in the outer skin of the Taotie.

The adsorption point immediately swelled, expanded, and became shiny.

Beneath the Taotie's skin, black veins flowed upwards, like arteries whose blood had been drained.

"Your power!"

Miranda's laughter overlapped with the original mechanical sounds.
"It belongs to me."

The Taotie roared in agony, its voice tearing through space.

Blood gushed forth, but it wasn't blood—it was flowing light code.
Strings of numbers shattered and dissipated in the air.

The Dead Tide Realm trembled violently.

Zhuang Yege steadied himself, the cards in his palm trembling.

"The gluttonous beast... is being drained!"

Yu Weiwei gritted her teeth, and the power of the Burning Star ignited, with cyan runes flowing over her shoulders and arms.

"I can't hold on much longer—this blood is corroding the area!"

Zhuang Yege's copper bell shattered.

He stood up solemnly. "Burning Star, Messenger of the Underworld Tide."

A black tide rose from behind him, and countless white bones emerged, converging into a gigantic ghost.

"Summon the Netherworld with Souls, Tide of Death, Lock the Boundary!"

He roared in anger, and blood trickled from the corner of his eye.
The entire Dead Tide Realm was forcibly fixed in place.

Yu Weiwei looked at him hurriedly, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Zhuang! What about your health?"

Zhuang Yege's outline began to become transparent.

Burning Star Overdraft —

He is maintaining the barrier with his life.

"Don't cry." He smiled.

“If the gate of life is cut off, they will have no way back.”

He stretched out his hand, and the air slipped through his fingers.

"Siming...can you hear me? Hurry up..."

no respond.

The mechanical voice echoed again in the void:

[WARNING: Taotie's first-level access has been compromised.]

[Second-level access control - Intrusion detected.]

[Data stability: Collapse.]

The Taotie's painful howls,
The crimson health bar flashed rapidly, each segment disappearing one after another. The red light went out.

The whole world began to collapse.

Miranda's figure grew ever larger, and the mycelium swept across the world like a storm.

Her face was filled with a morbid pleasure.

"Finally... the power belongs to me!"

Her voice intertwined with the original command:

"Permission integration in progress - Integration completion rate: 87%"

"Hahaha! Just a little more!"

Zhuang Yege staggered and knelt down, the runes of the Death Tide Realm peeling off in circles.

Yu Weiwei desperately poured in life-related energy, her eyes blurry with tears.

"I can't hold it anymore!"

“I know,” Zhuang Yege’s voice was low, “but I’m not dead yet, so I’ll stay until they come back.”

He looked up.
Countless streams of data light fell from the sky, transforming into "warnings" that appeared in the air.

[Permissions transfer in progress... 98%] [99%]

He gave a wry smile: "Si Ming... even at this point, why haven't you shown up yet?"

At that very moment, the warning red light suddenly turned gold.

[Permissions transfer successful.]

[New Bound Person: Selie Ann.]

The light curtain erupted.

The collapse of the Dead Tide has stopped.

The outline of that "gate of life" rekindled.

Zhuang Yege looked up.
In that dazzling light,

Si Ming and Selian slowly walked out.

Si Ming remained calm, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"I kept you waiting."

He looked up at Miranda in the distance.
The light and shadow shone on his face, as if he were fearless.

"We should go."

"Should we leave?!"

Miranda's laughter was hoarse and manic; her face was completely covered by mycelium.

His eyes shimmered with a primordial, silent gray light.

She took a step forward, her voice ripped out as she roared:

"Serian?! She's just a vampire! How dare you—you have everything I've ever wanted!?"

Selene's pupils shimmered with a golden-red light.

Her tone was calm, even tinged with pity:

"Because Taotie does not belong to greed, but to 'desire'."

"You think you're in control, Miranda?"

She raised her hand and pointed to the empty space beneath her feet.

"You don't even know where you are."

The air emitted a low rumble.

Centered on Serian, the space peels away layer by layer, revealing the flowing golden veins beneath.

That is the nerve of the gluttonous beast, and also the root of the copy.

Selene's voice was like a whisper, or a divine pronouncement:

"What you've defeated is merely its shell. The real gluttonous beast—is here."

She opened her arms.

Explosion of light.

A halo and an image of overlapping light rose behind her.

The shadow of the newly born glutton.

The upper body is that of a humanoid girl, whose skin glows with a moon-white fluorescence;
The lower body transforms into a tiger's body and a snake's tail, with intertwined backward teeth at the end of the tail.

Its wings spread out, covered with veins of gold and red, like a flowing star map.

She raised her hand, and golden runes emerged like a tide.
The entire space was transformed into a dome of light.

Miranda roared, and the fungal tentacles shot out wildly.

But when those tentacles approached Selene,

It was directly shattered by the light membrane of space and turned into dust.

“Whether human or god,” Celian whispered.

"The moment you are so greedy that you want to devour the universe, you will be devoured by the universe."

She reached out, and the wings of the illusory Taotie slowly unfurled.

He lifted up Si Ming, Zhuang Yege, and Yu Weiwei.

"let's go."

Waves of light carried them away from this crumbling space.

The Fate Master turned back one last time and saw Miranda still struggling.

Miranda knelt down.
The mycelium covering her body had stopped growing.

Instead, it crumbled like withered vines.

"That is...my divinity...no...it belongs to me!"

She lunged at the remains of the Taotie.
The battle form that was destroyed in her battle with the Taotie.

Gray mist swirled around her figure, and the original mechanical voice sounded once more:

[Target permissions could not be obtained.]

[Execute secondary protocol: Collect wreckage.]

Her body transformed into streams of light.

Like a storm of recycled data,
It swept past the shell of the Taotie.

In the final moment before she vanished, a strange light flickered in her eyes.

That was the original mark.
A data symbol embedded in her soul,
It started quietly.

[Sampling successful.]

[The "Transformation Project: New God 2.0" will be launched.]

Outside Wangchuan Town, the world has completely collapsed.

The mountains twisted and turned, the rivers rolled backward, and the sky looked like crumpled paper.

Layers of gray mist intertwined with blood-red light.
It resulted in a beautiful yet tragic collapse.

The guild survivors floated in the void barrier.
It is maintained by Zhuang Yege's companion, "Night Wanderer".

"The domain is about to collapse!" the black-robed man gritted his teeth.

Natasha looked up, her silver hair whipped by the wind, her gaze piercing through the crumbling sky.

"Them? They're back."

The distant gray fog was torn apart.

A radiant shadow broke through the clouds.

That's Selene.

She rides the "Light Gluttony".
Its wingspan is like a burning galaxy.
Si Ming, Zhuang Yege, and Yu Weiwei stood on her back.
Enveloped in soft light.

The Taotie's golden eyes gazed down into the void.
Its roar was as heavy as a heartbeat.

Let the whole world be reborn with a breath.

Si Ming stood on the back of Taotie, looking down into the void.

The lower instance collapsed like a tidal wave.
Everything was swallowed by the light, turning into data fragments.

He spoke slowly, his voice low and firm.

"The tower won't let us leave."

He turned to look at Celian.

"But at least, we won this round."

Selene smiled slightly.

"Then let's keep winning, Si Ming."

Taotie flaps its wings,

The light wave tore through the last vestiges of mist.

They flew towards the sky, which had not yet collapsed.

Even after God died, people still dream.

And dreams will eventually create new gods.

—From *Zi Bu Yu* (Master Zi Did Not Say), Chapter 1, "The End of the World"

(End of this chapter)