Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 576 The Bullet of Fate

Fate doesn't shoot at anyone.

You pulled the trigger yourself.

—The Tower of the End, The Book of Destiny, Volume II

Dragon's Breath Arena, ninth level of the training grounds. The platinum dome shimmered with energy runes, and virtual stellar crystals suspended in the air projected shimmering timer bars and energy lines.

The entire area was so quiet you could hear the wind, with only gunfire and laughter remaining.

—Snap! —Bang! —Click! Natasha's twin pistols fired alternately like a storm, sparks dancing on her fingertips.

The gun barrel shimmered with interwoven crimson and ice-blue light patterns under the blessing of the Burning Star, which was the Mysterious Ghost No. 3677 "The Mad Double-Gun Girl" - Hermina and Lucia.

The left spear exhales a breath as cold as frost, while the right spear roars like flames.

As she fired, she shouted, "Didn't you say the disaster zone was finished? Si Ming, all you do is run away?!"

The bullets exploded in the air, each carrying frost energy and leaving icy cracks on the ground upon impact.

Si Ming leaped up from the edge of the light array in a disheveled state, his figure twisting in mid-air to narrowly avoid the frozen energy lines.

He landed, sparks flying, but a smile still played on his lips: "I never said I was going to use my body to test my defenses."

"Enough with the nonsense!" Natasha roared as she reloaded, her movements as graceful as a dance. Her twin pistols arced through the air, crossing in front of her chest, and the two new magazines snapped shut. The 30-second frost mode then activated in the light screen.

Si Ming frowned and took three steps back: "I have a bad feeling."

"Congratulations, Mr. Magician, your premonition was right." Natasha took a sudden step forward and whispered, "Lock on - Target!"

She pulled the trigger, and the silver bullet sliced ​​through the air. A burst of light erupted from the ground beside Si Ming, and a bright silver "vulnerable structure target" pattern flashed and appeared on his chest, meaning that his vital point had been completely exposed.

"Hey, this kind of joke isn't funny at all." Si Ming smiled wryly, rolled over, and jumped behind a piece of cover.

However, Natasha crossed her pistols again and whispered, "Lock on and penetrate—!" The bullets trailed arcs of flame as they pierced through the energy shield. As soon as Siming peeked out, a bullet grazed his ear, and sparks exploded in the air.

"You're really going to kill me!" he couldn't help but mutter under his breath.

Selian sat behind a transparent barrier in the audience, leisurely eating strawberry cake while enthusiastically cheering with a fork in hand.
"Go Natasha! Hit him! Let's see how much of his profoundness he can still put on!"

Si Ming rolled away to avoid it, her tone cold and helpless: "Thank you, Celian, I felt the love from my teammates."

Natasha laughed and continued her pursuit, firing her dual pistols in rapid succession, the spent cartridges flying like a rain of fire.

"Stop talking back! If I let you run another ten meters, I'll change my name and change my surname to Natasawa!"

Siming slid to the side, the firelight illuminating half of his face, his gray eyes reflecting the brilliance of Natasha's Burning Star.

"Sigh... alright then." He suddenly stopped, exhaled, raised his right hand, and said in a calm and deep voice, "Then let's take a look—'The Illusory Disaster Domain: The Face of Destiny'."

The next instant, the wind in the arena changed. The air seemed to be torn apart, and a low sob came from beside Si Ming. It was an indefinable sound, like crying, like laughter, like prayer, and like a curse.

A white clown mask slowly covered Si Ming's face, his black hair swaying slightly in the energy flow.

—Click. The space trembled, and masks emerged from the void: there were crying children, smiling old women, angry warriors, grieving mothers, and venomous villains.

Crying, laughing, anger, resentment, madness, compassion, and sorrow—seven emotions swirled around him, forming a storm from the abyss of nightmares.

The storm had no shape, yet it made it hard to breathe, as if all the emotions of everyone had converged at that moment, turning into an invisible pressure that howled around him.

At the eye of the storm, a mirror-like halo slowly floated behind the God of Fate. The mirror rotated, but the reflection was not reality.
Rather, it is a multi-faceted fate—some die, some laugh, and some kneel before an unnamed god in prayer.

Natasha paused for a moment, her lips twitching: "...Your disaster zone is quite frightening."

Si Ming's voice came through the mask, calm and indifferent: "At least, it's quieter than your two guns."

Natasha smiled, raised her twin pistols, and her eyes flashed with fighting spirit: "Then let's test its hardness."

The light flashed again, gunshots echoed under the dome, and bullets streaked through the air with icy blue trails, cutting through the swirling storm like meteors.

Each strike to the mask caused a violent energy fluctuation. The Seven Emotions Mask spun and shattered upon impact, its fragments scattering like falling stars.

Siming remained standing still, his gray trench coat billowing in the energy, and shattered masks floated around him, swirling around him like fallen stars.

Natasha gritted her teeth, unleashing a rapid-fire barrage of shots from her dual pistols. Her movements were so fast they were almost a phantom, streams of light interwoven with flames and icy air constantly piercing through the storm.
Her tone was amused, but she was suppressing her anger: "Playing tricks! Let's see how long you can keep this up!"

Selene leaned against the transparent partition of the audience seating area, leisurely taking a bite of cake. Cream smeared on the corner of her lips as she mumbled with a smile, "Wow, so handsome."

He then pointed with his fork at the man surrounded by light in the arena, and smirked: "If he doesn't talk back, I'll start to wonder if he's been scared out of his wits."

Si Ming raised his head, his gray eyes piercing through the narrow gaps in the mask, his tone as calm as cold steel: "Scared silly? No."

He smiled slightly, his voice deep and clear, "I'm just waiting for you to run out of ammunition."

Natasha's expression froze for a moment, then she sneered, "Then you just wait and see who runs out first."

The flames burst forth once more, and icy blue bullet tracks swirled and intersected in the air. Bullet fragments and mask dust collided with each other, exploding into dazzling arcs of electricity.

The storm spun rapidly, masks of crying and laughing overlapped in the light, gunfire illuminated the air filled with the aura of destiny, and the entire arena seemed to transform into a dreamlike illusion pieced together from reality.

Natasha's twin pistols thundered like lightning, while Si Ming's calamity domain was like a shadow; they clashed at the boundary between illusion and reality.

At that moment, the breath of destiny echoed in the air, light and shadow intertwined in the storm, and gray and blue mixed into a strange radiance.

The man standing in the eye of the storm slightly raised his head, his eyes as cold as a coin reflecting in the night—he had wagered the future, used lies as a shield, and fate had already placed its bet at this moment.

Natasha slammed her heel down, causing energy patterns to explode on the ground. Two dice spun between her fingertips, leaving five dazzling colored trails in their silvery light.

Her voice, filled with fighting spirit, echoed crisply beneath the arena's dome: "Star Calamity Technique—[Throw of Fate]!"

The die landed, rolled several times, and then came to rest steadily on the "six" face.

Natasha's eyes instantly turned cold, and a confident smile curved her lips: "Within thirty seconds, all bullets will freeze fate."

Her two guns roared simultaneously in the next moment, shaking the air, and the flames from the muzzles converged into wing-like patterns of light.

"Frost Mode - Activated"

With a low shout, the gunfire suddenly erupted into a torrential downpour. Bang! Bang! Bang bang bang!

The rapid-fire rhythm was almost without pause, and the sound of bullets hitting the ground and colliding with the metal floor created a crisp echo.

The silver-blue projectile, gleaming with frosty light, pierced through the air, its trail condensing into a frosty trajectory, like a rain of falling meteors weaving a web of fate in the sky.

As the net tightened, the temperature inside the court dropped rapidly, and the air, like cracked glass, emitted a faint white mist.

Si Ming's steps were constantly forced back. The storm of masks around him spun at high speed, and the white vortex rolled like a raging tide. Hundreds of masks shattered, flashed, and disintegrated one after another, turning into countless light fragments that floated up to the dome.

With each step back, a new mask shattered, the burst of light shimmering in the air like the ebb and flow of breathing.

Yet he never fell; his figure was surrounded by layers of light and shadow, like an unyielding statue.

Natasha's eyes grew increasingly sharp, sparks flew between her fingers, and the pace of the gunshots quickened to an extreme.

The rapid-fire sound was like a countdown, so intense it was like the heartbeat of the world: "Twenty-five seconds—twenty—fifteen—!"

Her movements were incredibly precise, each shot aimed precisely at Si Ming's lifeline.

Selene, sitting in the audience, widened her eyes, forgetting to put the cake on her fork into her mouth. She exclaimed, "That's so fierce! Natasha really wants to kill someone!"

He then looked at the figure enveloped in frost in the arena, paused slightly, and a smile appeared on his lips: "However... his Disaster Domain is too resilient."

Natasha's breathing became rapid, her shoulders were being pounded by the recoil, the impact spreading along her nerves, almost numbing her arms.

She maintained her rhythm, flipping her dual pistols, reloading, and firing again, but in the intervals between each trigger pull,

She suddenly felt a subtle sense of dislocation—a feeling like her fingers had "slipped" through time, causing even her thoughts to pause briefly.

Her memory blurred for a moment, and she frowned, her voice filled with confusion: "Where...where was I going to shoot just now?"

She shook her head and aimed again, but the storm of white masks turned into a blinding light on her retina, causing her eyes to ache.

The storm spun, carrying countless masks: crying children, smiling lovers, warriors gritting their teeth before death. They shattered and reformed, laughing and crying in the wind, only to die again.

Natasha gritted her teeth and hissed, "Don't play tricks on me!" She suddenly raised her twin guns, energy rapidly gathering inside the barrels, flames converging at the muzzles into two balls of burning starlight.

Her pupils contracted, and she shouted in a cold voice, "Lock-on and penetrate—all missiles fired!"

The gun barrel suddenly lit up, and bullets poured out like a torrent, energy beams trailing trails of light as they sliced ​​through the air and shot into the storm of masks.

Boom! Boom! Boom! The sound of explosions echoed continuously in the dome, the air was torn apart one after another, and the shockwaves stirred up dust.

Si Ming's figure was forced back by the impact, his trench coat fluttering wildly, and icy blue cracks flashing on his white mask.

The storm was compressed violently, and the light and dust from the shattered mask scattered, as if it were about to collapse at any moment.

However, at that very moment, Si Ming suddenly raised his head.

His eyes peered through the crack in the mask at Natasha, his voice low yet penetrating the dense gunfire:
"The disaster zone is not a shield, but a probability of fate. When you shatter it, you also shatter a part of yourself."

Natasha was taken aback.

The sound seemed to pause the world, and her heart skipped a beat.

The Star Calamity value on the screen updated. She had thought that the frenzied attack would consume most of Siming's energy, but the data in front of her showed that his Star Calamity Crystal had only dropped by less than one-tenth.

"...What?" She frowned, her gaze sharp, her tone filled with disbelief and anger: "Just how many Star Calamities do you have?!" Si Ming raised his hand, gently brushed away a piece of broken mask from his shoulder, and smiled faintly: "Enough."

Natasha almost laughed in exasperation: "Sufficient my foot! This is completely unbalanced! There's no limit to LV47!"

Si Ming did not respond, but looked up at the swirling storm of masks above, his voice low and clear, as if conversing with the wind:
"The calamities borrowed from the future will one day have to be repaid. But on that day, I might not be smiling."

He appeared to be smiling, but the eyes beneath the cracks in his mask, reflecting the countless swirling dust particles, were as deep and silent as a bottomless void.

Selene sighed from the audience, poked her fork back into the cake, and muttered, "He's smiling like a con artist."

Natasha glared at her immediately: "Selene! Whose side are you on anyway?"

“Of course it’s you, Natasha.” Seljane blinked innocently, smiling naively.

"I'm just telling the truth, he really does look like a liar when he smiles."

Si Ming glanced at her sideways, his tone tinged with helplessness: "So I am the 'lie weaver,' aren't I?"

Natasha snorted softly, her cheeks slightly flushed, and said coldly, "Don't be so smug, it's just a disaster zone!"

She took a deep breath, flicked her finger, and the energy gun core roared. "Although I haven't mastered it yet, I will—overpowered strike!"

Si Ming raised an eyebrow, his smile still carrying an air of composure that made one want to punch him. "Beyond the limits, huh?"

His tone was casual, yet it created a sense of tension in the air. The next second, he said softly, "What a coincidence, I can do that too."

He raised his hand and took off his mask, a smile appearing on his lips.

That smile was quiet yet dangerous, as if the next word was a pronouncement of fate.

“However, there’s a problem. I need you to perform a super-limit attack on me first.” He sighed softly, his gaze so profound it seemed to see through time and space.

"Fine." Natasha sneered, her shoulders twitching slightly as the muzzle of her gun slowly rose.

"Then don't dodge—this shot will hurt."

She simultaneously sheathed both pistols and switched to the silver-white long sniper rifle, its barrel engraved with dragon-language patterns, the energy gathered at the muzzle like the sun breathing.

She looked up, took a deep breath, and felt the power of the Burning Star surge within her, causing the air to vibrate.

The dice of fate spun again between her fingers, each turn leaving a trail of cold light.

She whispered, her smile cold: "Five on the dice." Energy gathered around her, and silver light spread along her body.

"Six thousand star calamities are enough to finish the job with a single hit."

Selene sat in the audience, chin in hand, her eyes sparkling as if watching a spectacular fireworks display. "It's coming."

Natasha's breathing gradually slowed, her heartbeat synchronized with the energy fluctuations, and the whole world fell silent the moment she aimed.

The gunshots were deep and thunderous.

Flames bloomed like flowers at the muzzle, and the bullet trailed a long streak of light as it left the barrel.

The air was torn apart, collapsed, and burned. A sharp sonic boom pierced the entire arena, and a surge of energy stirred up dust. Even the lights on the dome were swallowed by that silver light.

At that moment, the world seemed to stand still, leaving only it—a "bullet of fate".

It permeates the air, and it permeates all possible trajectories of fate.

hit.

Bullets collided with the storm of masks, causing the white masks to shatter one after another, like pages of fate being torn apart.

The storm swirled in reverse, the Ring of Illusion trembled violently, thousands of faces shattered into dust of light, and a roar echoed across the dome.

Si Ming was forced back two steps by the shockwave. The ground beneath his feet cracked into a spiderweb pattern. He braced himself with one hand, breathing rapidly. A thin crack appeared on his white mask, and the halo on his chest flickered erratically.

Natasha lowered her sniper rifle, a victorious smile spreading across her lips, the sweat on her forehead glistening in the light.

"Now it's your turn to explain, isn't it?" She took a few steps closer, the muzzle of her gun slightly lowered, her tone relaxed with a hint of teasing: "Extra-limit strikes aren't just something you can talk about."

Smoke swirled behind Natasha, and the afterglow of the flames illuminated her resolute figure.

Just as the gray mist dissipated, Si Ming slowly raised his head.

Cracks spread across the white mask like a spiderweb, and tiny sparks flickered in the gray eyes between the cracks.

He stretched out a hand, and the energy in his palm condensed as it spun, gradually transforming into a silver-white longsword exactly like the one in Natasha's hand.

Natasha's smile froze for a moment, her pupils contracted, and she whispered, "You..."

Si Ming's tone was low and somber, like wind brushing across water: "Truth and lies, reflected in the mirror."

Behind him, the phantom of the Thousand Faces slowly emerged.

A hundred masks opened their eyes in the void, each with a different expression, yet they converged at the same moment, merging into a white mirror that rose silently.

The mirror was as calm as a lake, then ripples appeared, reflecting the complete trajectory of Natasha's shot—the flames from the muzzle, the spin of the bullet, the murderous intent that solidified in that instant, and the arc of fate, all were reproduced in the mirror.

Si Ming looked up, his voice steady and clear: "Natasha—get out of the way."

"What—?" She was about to react when she heard him pull the trigger.

Gunshots rang out at the same instant. That bullet was almost identical to the previous one—its energy trajectory, bullet angle, and the color of the flame were all exactly the same.

The silver light ripped through the air once more, and a thunderous roar rolled through the arena. The bullet, like a reflection of time, swept across space along the opposite path, while the winds of fate swirled behind it, as if rewritten by fate itself.

Natasha felt a tightness in her chest, not from pain, but from the illusion of being watched by fate. For a moment, her breath caught in her throat.

She instinctively turned around—

boom.

The virtual crystal behind him was pierced by a bullet, and a dazzling burst of light exploded from its center, scattering energy fragments like rain, illuminating the entire arena.

The roar of the explosion shook the dome, and the shockwave whipped up a fierce wind, even knocking the cake out of Selene's hand.

Natasha stood frozen in place, her eyes filled with disbelief and bewilderment. "How...how is this possible?"

She murmured to herself, watching helplessly as the crystal behind her crumbled into countless fragments and fell to the ground.

Si Ming removed his white mask, a smile that always made people grit their teeth in hatred playing on his lips. His tone was calm to the point of being gentle: "My Limit Break attack—is a copy of yours."

Selene clapped her hands enthusiastically, laughing like a spectator at a play: "Amazing! Pay up!"

"..." Si Ming rubbed his forehead and took a deep breath. Before he could speak, the arena's alarm suddenly sounded, and red warning lights flashed on the dome.

Several Dragon Man staff members rushed in, their faces filled with fear and confusion.

"What happened?! The Star Calamity Simulation Crystal is severely damaged!"

"The shockwave from the explosion has exceeded the safety threshold!"

"Please explain the situation immediately, three distinguished guests!"

Natasha reacted swiftly, pointing at Siming and stating decisively, "He did it!"

Selene immediately raised her hand to add insult to injury, smiling broadly: "I can testify!"

Siming's expression froze instantly, her tone almost collapsing: "You two were just cheering happily a moment ago!"

Natasha blinked, her eyes innocently almost touching, her voice as soft as sugar: "Even if it's my bullet, I don't have any points. Can you bear to see me go to work to pay off my debts?"

Celian leaned on her shoulder and said in a sweet, drawn-out tone, "Siming? You're a magician, I don't want to work to pay off my debts."

Si Ming remained silent for a moment, then sighed and gently swept his hand across the slot on his waist.

[Deduction: Repair Fee - 28000 points]

The dragon-man waiter's smile immediately turned professional: "Thank you for your generosity, Mr. Magician. May you continue to enjoy your dine in your dreams."

“…Thank you.” Si Ming replied expressionlessly.

Selene picked up the cake that had fallen to the ground and continued eating as if nothing had happened, mumbling, "Remember to practice again tomorrow."

Natasha took her arm, smiling easily: "By the way, I won't hold back next time."

Si Ming chuckled helplessly, his tone tinged with bitterness: "Then I'll—borrow a little more of the future."

The wind blew down from the dome, stirring up scattered fragments of light that seemed to flow around his feet like pieces of fate.

The light gradually seeped into his shadow, as if reminding him that every smile was a loan to the future.

"They're laughing, he's losing money."

There are never few winners in the tower.

But nobody asked who paid the price.

—From "The Tower of the End: Arena Chronicles"

(End of this chapter)