Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 156 The Book of the Forgotten: The Lost's Last Bet
"Destiny is not a sword, but a forgotten name."

"We set sail again and again, not for victory, but to remember each other."

The fog rose again.

This is not an ordinary sea fog, but a nightmare fog.

It is silent, yet gentle enough to erode everything.

It was like a hand reaching out from the abyss, cold and silent, yet incredibly determined, pressing memories, emotions, time and space into the seabed, into the depths of dreams.

Calvino stood at the bow of the "Lost", looking through the fog, but could see nothing.

The nautical chart had long been torn, with curled corners, as if gnawed by some dormant power; the astrolabe lay silently beside the rudder, without light, no longer guiding.

His fingers slowly stroked the broken corner of a card, which was a part of the "Sleeping Sea Chart". The pointer no longer moved, leaving only a faint light, like a struggling breath.

Lilia leaned against the mast, her expression dazed, her hair and cloak fluttering weakly in the windless mist.

Her fingertips gently stroked a yellowed and faded card, her nails running along the edges again and again, as if trying to dig something out of it.

But no matter how she looked at it, the name on the card had already become blurred, as if it had been deliberately erased.

"...Are we going to run away again now?" she whispered, her voice so soft that it was almost blown away by the humid sea breeze.

Calvino remained silent. His lips were drawn together in a tight line, like a steel cable held to the utmost tension.

They've experienced too many similar moments.

The dream gate opens and the battle breaks out;
One by one, the crew members fell asleep, fell, became alienated, and left, their routes twisting and turning like snakes;

There is only one ending: they still survive.

But this time it's different.

Somewhere deep in his mind, a vague crack appeared, like a torn page of a sea chart.

There's... an empty space there.

He closed his eyes, and the remaining names echoed in his mind: the captain himself, navigator Lilia, sailor Ian, sniper Rex, sailor Baroque, lieutenant Alison...

And then—nothing.

He was shocked and his chest was suddenly strangled by an invisible hand.

"Who...?" His voice was as dry as old wood. "We have another companion..."

Lilia also raised her head, a hint of confusion and coldness in her eyes: "You said... we have another person?"

That simple question, like the sound of a bell deep in the door of a dream, instantly exploded in Calvino's mind.

He froze, his eyes frantically searching the corners of his memory—

Who was the one who laughed and shouted "pain" after being knocked down by Lilia on the night he first entered the Dream Gate?
Who got Ian drunk and then won his silver coins?

Who is it that always manages to raise a whole shipload of food and stardust through card gambling when resources are scarce?
Who was it that, in front of Old Horn's gambling table, lifted the tablecloth, laughed and cursed, "How stingy!", and then won applause from the whole room?

Who was the first to shout, when the tide of the dead came, "Damn fate, I'm placing the bet, you guys follow me!"

Then, braving the waves and chasing life with them, like a madman who doesn't believe in fate, yet always coming back alive?

Who is it, on the most violent crest of the "Inverted Sea", flipping cards with his fingertips, like a magician commanding the storm?
Fragmented memories are pieced together bit by bit.

Like the waves rolling back, like a sunken ship emerging.

A cynical smile, flipping cards, and the understatement before every life-or-death confrontation:

——"Don't be nervous, bet on me."

That face, that voice, that figure finally broke through the fog and appeared in the center of his mind.

Calvino suddenly opened his eyes, his eyes were bloodshot, his breath was choked, as if he had just struggled to emerge from drowning in the deep sea.

He murmured:
"...Si Ming?"

Lilia's body shook violently, and her eyes widened instantly, as if a cold needle had pierced through the deepest dream in her mind.

She opened her mouth to say something, but her throat seemed to be blocked and only a silent gasp came out.

Then there was silence.

A long, boundless, unresonable silence.

The two stood on the broken sail and rudder, staring at the blurred void of memory.

That person's figure is no longer on this ship, nor in the afterimage of the dream gate, nor in the records of the cards - it is as if he had never existed.

But they knew he existed.

His presence was so vivid and so passionate.

However, just like every cycle——

He was completely forgotten by the nightmare.

Forgotten by the Lost One.

Forgotten by them.

Calvino slowly took a step back and looked at the door of dreams that had opened again, his eyes as deep as the abyss of the sea.

They are about to set off again.

But this time, what they lost was the name in their memory.

He is the only person who dares to gamble everything and never really loses.

The wind rises from the fog and returns to nothingness.

Siming's laughter seemed to come from far away at the end of the deck:

"Don't worry, you'll remember me."

As long as you... give me a hand.

He heard the call.

From the depths of the Dream Gate, from the abyss torn apart by the storm and abandoned by fate, came a familiar and angry voice:
“Calvino!!!”

The sound was like thunder that split the sea of ​​dreams and struck deep into his soul. He raised his head suddenly, his pupils shrinking suddenly.

The storm surged, the waves roared, and the sea mist struggled and drifted in the air like shattered fragments of memory.

And on the top of the wave, a figure came walking on the waves, like the echo of a nightmare coming true.

——Holt.

The second-in-command who had fought alongside him in the Upside-Down Sea, the man who had first responded to his call and jumped into the abyss without hesitation on the night when the Dream Gate first opened,

That comrade...who had long been written into the "missing" column by fate and forgotten by everyone.

But he's still there.

Holt was wearing a tattered battle robe, the corners of which turned into burning spiritual fire, and his eyes were burning with almost crazy anger.

His body was torn and reshaped by the power of nightmare, half human and half spirit, and his soul seemed to be recast in fire and black ice, leaving only a burning will - anger.

He roared, his voice like a strong wind breaking the sails, shaking the mast of the Lost One: "You want to take Lilia away alone again?!!"

His eyes penetrated the thick fog and stared straight at Calvino. His anger contained too much hurt and hatred.

"You want to abandon us again?!"

Calvino could barely stand. His pupils contracted violently, and his voice was almost hoarse: "Holt... I'm not..."

"You're not?!" Holt interrupted harshly, leaping forward suddenly and stepping on the waves.

He raised his right arm, which had been broken and now had been recast as a sharp hook by nightmares, and pointed it at Calvino with a blazing gaze: “I was the first to jump into the upside-down sea!”

"In the Nightmare Vortex, I was the one who covered your retreat, slashing the three-headed sea monster with my sword and pushing you and Lilia out of the abyss!"

"And you? How did you do it?! You closed that door with your own hands. You... once, twice, ten times, every time... you left us in a dream!"

His voice tore through the storm and also tore through Calvino's last bit of composure.

Calvino took a trembling step back, as if his whole body was hollowed out by the tide of dreams.

He lowered his head, his hands trembling slightly, his fingers gripping the edge of the deck, as if he would fall apart if he didn't hold on to something. He finally remembered.

He thought back to that night—the door to nightmares hadn't completely closed yet. Holt looked back in the storm, covered in wounds, but still grinning, and said to him:
"You take her away—I'll hold the line."

He hesitated for less than two seconds before turning around and pulling Lilia into the exit of the dream gate.

Behind the dream door lies reality, and also giving up.

That time, it wasn't Holt who died in a dream.

It was he, Calvino, who had locked him in with his own hands.

He is not hopeless.

He was - "abandoned".

Lilia stood behind him, her fingers tightly grasping the broken scrap of the sail, tears welling up in her eyes, but she couldn't utter a word.

Holt's figure burned fiercely in the wind, his half-spiritual body wriggling and reorganizing in anger.

He was no longer the humorous and stern second-in-command of the past, but a cursed fire transformed by a betrayer.

"You keep saying you're leading us forward, but you're really just trying to keep the price as low as possible."

"You think survival is victory, but you never dare to look at us—dying!"

"You're a deserter, Calvino! You're not a captain! You—are not worthy of this helm!"

The storm rises again, and the dream gate surges.

And the anger and loyalty that once belonged to the "Lost" are now all condensed in Holt's furious gaze.

Calvino fell to his knees helplessly, his fingertips leaving a bloody mark on the broken deck.

It wasn't the storm that caused it, it was—his own heart, finally broken.

Holt's roar was like thunder rolling down the dream sea, shaking the deck and causing the thick fog to roll like raging waves.

"Do you remember their names?!"

His voice pierced the storm and went straight to the depths of the soul:

"Ivy Larsen, the ship's doctor, sleeps in the Mirror Sea deep within the Dream. His last words are for us to take good care of you."

"Sica Ellen, the sailor, died laughing and saying she was only afraid she couldn't help you weather the storm."

"Julius, the helmsman, held on for two whole days and nights after the rudder broke, until his palms were bloody and mangled."

Every time he called out a name, Calvino's body trembled violently, his knuckles tightened, and his teeth seemed to be clenched.

He remembers.

He really did—remember it all.

But he had tried his best to forget.

Because the dream is too "merciful". It not only destroys, it also erases for you - making you forget failure, forget wounds, forget sacrifices,
All that is left is an empty courage to "try again".

Lilia's voice was almost inaudible, but it pierced his heart like a nail: "Brother... did we really... escape every time?"

Calvino slowly closed his eyes, tears quietly sliding down and dripping onto the card with broken edges between his fingers.

"It's me." He admitted in a low voice, as if throwing himself into the abyss.

"It was me who decided to escape every time."

"I'm afraid Lilia will die. I'm afraid I won't be able to bring everyone back. I'm afraid..."

He choked, his throat seemed to be filled with sea water, and he couldn't utter a word for a long time.

"I'm afraid of seeing their bodies. I'm afraid of closing another door with my own hands."

"So I... betrayed you."

"You're right." He raised his head, facing the whispering darkness of dreams, his voice like a shattering blade.

“Every time, I give up.”

"Every time, I escaped with Lilia—the two of us survived, while the others died in their dreams."

"I call myself the captain, but I've never actually made a bet...that was worth it to everyone."

He slowly raised the yellowed "When the Turning Point" card, and a teardrop gently slid down from his fingertips and landed on the card, staining it with a light golden glow.

"But this time, I met someone who doesn't believe in fate." His voice grew firmer. "He said that fate is meant to be broken."

Lilia looked up, her voice no longer trembling: "Brother...this time, I don't want to run away again."

Calvino looked at her, and at that moment he smiled, a long-lost smile, like the young pirate who once cursed the sky in the wind and scolded the gods in the storm.

"Yes, pirates, never afraid of life or death."

"What we fear has only one outcome—"

"Forgotten to the point of being worthless."

He suddenly threw the three guidance cards towards the dream gate.

The card light exploded in the air, like falling stars, shining with the silver-blue and deep purple dream shadow brilliance.

The door swung open, and the storm swept in again, roaring like a nightmare beast about to wake up.

Huan Meng whispered one last time, his tone no longer bewitching, but cold and indifferent:

"You will die. You will all die."

Calvino roared back, his voice echoing across the deck:
"Then this time—let's bet together!"

Lilia nodded with tears in her eyes, but there was an unyielding light in her eyes.

Her brother, the boy who shouted "We are pirates" when she was a child, is really back now.

Calvino held up the cards, his voice thundering like a war drum:

"I am the captain of the 'Lost One'!"

"I will personally enter each Nightmare Shard - and personally retrieve my forgotten crew members one by one!"

"I will no longer let dreams decide who of us stays and who disappears."

"They entrusted their lives to me—now, I will bring them back one by one!"

He took a deep breath, as if the whole world was waiting for this sentence:
“I owe them this.”

"That's what I, as the captain, should do."

The door of dreams opened again, and the all-devouring black tide was calling, but this time, Calvino did not retreat.

He stood at the bow, holding three cards, and his voice was as cold as an oath:
"Lost One, prepare to cross!"

Lilia stood beside him, no longer the sister he once protected, but a navigator, a guide, and a companion on the Dream Gate.

The dream sea roars, illusions surge, and the sails flutter.

Deep in the dream gate, blurry figures gradually emerged——

They are waiting, sleeping, whispering:
"captain……"

"We're still waiting for you."

This time, he would go in, one by one, and bring them back.

Don't escape.

Don't forget.

Do not abandon.

——Because the captain shouldn't be the one running away.

——But, he was the last one to leave.

(End of this chapter)