Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 142 Dream Sea Elegy, Prisoner of Fate

The whale's fall turns into dry bones, and the sea song buries the old dreams.

The chess game has an end, but fate has no return.

The Whale Grave slowly disintegrated amidst the mournful howling, and the entire ship seemed to be wailing softly.

The sea breeze blew up the wreckage of the ship, and the broken sails flew like bats with broken wings.

In the sky, a group of seagulls circled around the broken mast, crying miserably, as if making the final comment on this battle in the dream sea.

Xu Long stood on the broken and thick tentacles of Kerkoson, and every click of his boots marked the end of this mysterious rule.

He looked up at the sky illuminated by the setting sun, his eyebrows were sharp, but a wild smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

The joy of defeating the King of the Deep and the fire of revenge intertwined in his cold eyes, like a raging flame burning through the sea fog and also burning through the deepest obsession in his heart.

A gentle figure leaped down from the Red Dragon. Madam Mei, wearing a red-patterned robe, stepped onto the deck of the Whale Tomb, as if stepping into old memories.

She walked gently to Xu Long's side, and stroked his blood-stained shoulder with her slender hand. There was a faint smile between her brows, but her eyes hid an unconcealable sigh of surviving the disaster.

"That's enough, Xu Long." She whispered, her voice as soft as feathers blown by the wind. "Everything should end."

Xu Long was silent for a moment, and then he loosened his fist. He raised his head, and his eyes pierced through Kerkosen's eyes like a cold knife.

The voice was deep but scorching. "Did you hear her, Deep One? Your time... ends here."

Kerkosen knelt in a corner of the deck, his cloak fluttering in the wind like a broken tentacle.

His dark green pupils still flashed with stubbornness, but at this moment, he was ultimately defeated.

He lowered his head, his voice hoarse but no longer ferocious: "You win. This is my rule. I... willingly submit."

His fingertips trembled as he pointed at the wrecked bow of the Whale Grave.

In that darkness, several treasure chests covered with seaweed, rust and the smell of dead fish lay quietly, as if they were a rotten part of the seabed, but they also carried the final gift from the whale tomb.

"Go..." Kerkosen whispered, "There is your prize, and also...your destination."

Calvino glanced at the crowd and waved his hand casually.

Ian and Rex immediately stepped out, moving swiftly but cautiously towards the treasure chests.

Their footsteps echoed on the bloodstained deck, like ghosts counting the relics of the battlefield.

Sima Ming let out a long breath, as if to expel the murderous aura left over from the battle, and turned to leave.

But as soon as he took a step forward, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Baroque was still standing there, staring at Kerkosen with an unusually solemn expression.

Siming narrowed his eyes, turned around and patted his shoulder, speaking in his usual tone:

"Speak your mind, brother. The war is over, and not all endings have to wait for the ship to sink."

Baroque scratched the back of his head awkwardly and whispered like a big kid, "Captain...can I ask him a question?"

Calvino shrugged and gave Siming a meaningful look: "Ask him. I don't have the final say on this ship right now."

Siming waved his hand lazily, but his tone was full of smiles and pressure: "Ask whatever you want. If you want him to make grilled octopus, no one will stop you."

Baroque took a deep breath and walked to Kerkosen with steps as firm as the beating of a drum.

He looked directly into the eyes that once dominated the entire Dream Sea, his tone without a trace of timidity: "Deep Diver... I have only one request."

"My teacher, Gregor."

His voice grew hoarse, but his eyes blazed with light. "His soul contract is in your hands. Now that Whale Tomb has been defeated, I beg you to release him. Let him... rest in peace."

Kerkosen's head, which had been lowered, suddenly tilted slightly and sneered, his smile mocking like a tide:
"Rest in peace? Pirates' fate is to perish at sea, their souls returning to the sleeping Lord. You want a resting place for the dead? That's too much... to hope for."

Siming's eyes turned cold, he took a half step forward, and said in a cold tone:
"Whether it's an extravagant hope or not is irrelevant, but I can tell you this clearly, Kerkoson—if you can't even afford the freedom of a dead person, then don't even think about ever reaching the edge of 'freedom' with all your tentacles."

Kerkosen was silent, with waves surging in his eyes. Finally, he sighed softly:
"...That's all. I can hand over Gregor's soul contract and release his spirit back into the Nightmare, but I can't guarantee that he won't be summoned again by another dormant follower."

"That's enough." Baroque nodded, with a look of relief in his eyes.
His face remained resolute, "At least he can leave this stinking whale grave of yours."

Kerkoson slowly raised his hand, and a rotten and mottled soul contract ignited at his fingertips.

The flames ignited spontaneously without wind, and turned into ashes in an instant, which were blown away by the wind in the remaining flames of the whale tomb.

A moment later, a tall and burly figure slowly emerged from the shadows.

That's Gregor.

He stood at the edge of the deck, smiling brightly, his eyes no longer filled with the gloom of sleep, only the unbridled and proud pirate he once was.

He looked at Baroque and nodded gently, his voice filled with warmth and reluctance:
"Thank you, Baroque...Okay, see you next time."

As soon as he finished speaking, his figure vanished in the wind, like smoke in the mist, merging into the darkness of a nightmare. Baroque stood there, motionless for a long time. His fingers trembled slightly, and the corners of his eyes tinged with red, but he refused to let the tears fall.

He just slowly raised his hand, wiped the moisture from his eyes, and raised the corners of his mouth:

"See you next time, teacher."

Xu Long was silent for a long time, standing on the remaining deck of the Broken Whale Tomb, covered in blood. The sea breeze blew his red cloak like flames.

He looked at Kerkosen who was still half-kneeling at the edge of the abyss, and a hint of complexity flashed across his brows.

That was not pity, but regret mixed with anger that had not yet burned out.

"It's time to end it, Deep One." He whispered, his tone as low as the evening tide lapping on the shore.
"I wanted to beat you up myself to vent the anger I've been holding in for years... Unfortunately, your fate is not in my hands."

Kerkosen looked up at him, his eyes that once held arrogance now empty.

His hoarse laughter echoed on the broken deck, like knuckles rapping on a coffin lid, dull and chilling.

"Useless, Red Dragon King," he said, his voice a hissing whisper from rotting whale bones.
"I no longer belong to myself. I am the dog of the Lord of Sleep, the gatekeeper chain at the bottom of this sea of ​​dreams."

He slowly raised his cracked arm and looked towards the red mist in the sky that had already dissipated.

His voice rose and fell, as if he had lost his way, or as if he was recalling the whispers of an unreachable god.

"You have won, the Whale Tomb has collapsed... You have earned the right to enter the Sea of ​​Dreams. Go. There, He awaits you."

He slowly lowered his head, like an abdicated god, handing over power to the Dream Sea Abyss.

After he finished speaking, he slowly shifted his gaze towards Siming.

That gaze, filled with unconcealable fear and confusion, seemed to be staring at some indescribable existence itself.

"And you..." he said slowly, his voice becoming distant.

"Weaver of fate, man of a thousand faces... your secrets terrify me."

He swallowed a mouthful of blood, his eyes gradually becoming darker.

"You vainly attempt to control your own fate, yet you are destined to be trapped in an endless cycle of illusions. Do you think that holding the key to your destiny will allow you to escape the end? No... The Lord of Sleep sees through everything, and yet you remain trapped in your own dreams."

Sima Ming stood at the edge of the gradually disintegrating dragon mist, his expression neither sad nor happy, as if he had already been accustomed to the curse of fate.

He did not speak, but just looked deeply at Kerkosen's figure slowly disappearing, like some kind of paragraph destined to be overwritten, fading from the book of fate, without even a trace of ink left.

The wind stopped.

The Whale Grave let out its final wail, and the entire hull shattered bit by bit from the skeleton to the stern, and the whale bones and corpse fins turned into foam.

It was a funeral song without melody, sinking to the bottom of the sea of ​​dreams.

The broken whale sail fell into the sea like a dark star, and the sticky black mist and rotten wood chips were swept away by the waves. The deck collapsed, cracked, and swallowed up in the shock.

The huge heart-like main engine inside the hull wailed and then collapsed into fragments in the abyss.

Everyone returned to their respective ships.

Sima Ming boarded the deck of the Lost, looked back at the huge ship that was about to sink completely, without saying a word.

The wind blew from the distant dreamy sea, damp and cold, but mixed with an inaudible whisper, like a dream.

The last thing to rise from the sea was the shadow of Kerkosen. He was no longer the terrifying manipulator of rules.
But a believer in death - a believer in failure.

He looked up at the starry sky and murmured softly, "Fate, oh fate...it's ultimately a game of self-deception.

We are but souls trapped in the deep well of nightmares. We struggle, trying to wake up, yet we don’t know that the waking world is more like a nightmare.”

Those words, like a curse and a farewell, swirled in the sea breeze, quietly falling into the hearts of all the listeners, and lingered for a long time.

Calvino stood at the bow, his cloak fluttering, his eyes fixed on the last remnant of the whale's grave.

He was silent for a long time before slowly raising his hand and making a short and firm gesture.

"set sail."

The fleet slowly turned and sailed away from the ruins of the whale tomb. The waves at the stern surged like time, opening up a channel to the dreamy sea.

The entire fleet was like a surging school of sharks, stepping into the unknown.

Siming stood in the wind, his cape fluttering. He looked up at the cracks in the star chart that gradually emerged on the horizon. It was the true sea map that had not yet awakened from the depths of the dream sea.

He smiled gently, as if speaking to the entire destiny, or as if talking to himself:
"bring it on."

"So-called fate—it's just another grander deception."

(End of this chapter)