Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 167: Forgotten Sea Sniper
"You always think you're sniping the enemy until the last bullet hits you."

The sea breeze tore at the broken walls and ruins, and the sleeping sea city looked like an ancient giant beast rising from the abyss of dreams, half of its body buried in the seabed and the other half exposed to the world's oblivion.

Shadows are like tides and mists are like wisps, silently blocking the coordinates of vision and time.

Rex ran in the middle of it, his gun back like a monument and his body like an arrow.

His steps were light but powerful, and each time he landed, he accurately avoided the cracks in the stone slabs.
The water droplets splash and the salt tide evaporates, as if walking on sea bones covered by memories.

The remains of the city walls flew past him on both sides, like an old battle scene played in reverse, being quickly scanned by his consciousness.

His eyes were stern, his breath was steady, and his left hand lightly touched the whispering elf floating in front of his chest - that was the last bond between him and the tactical team.

"...Ian, Alison has completed the kill."

Lilia's voice slowly emerged from the whispers, her tone as gentle as ever, yet containing unquestionable firmness.

Rex smiled lightly, with a hint of self-deprecation at the corner of his mouth.

"...I was still a step too slow after all."

He murmured, his tone a mixture of regret and relief.

He is not greedy for killing, he always only takes the "most critical" blow.

The sniper rifle was raised, and the lens emitted a faint blue halo in the residual fog.

He was looking for a high point - a tactical blind spot where he could look down and lock onto the movements of the Dream Core.

At this moment, a wave that seemed to come from the depths of his consciousness suddenly swept through him, as if someone was gently turning a page of a book behind his ear.

Rex turned alertly and swept his gun across.

But the next second, the world suddenly changed.

The broken walls faded silently, the streets crumbled like the burning edges of cardboard, the sound of the wind stopped abruptly, and the air was so quiet that it was almost frozen.

In its place was an enormous library.

However, this library seems to be a memory structure immersed in the deep sea.

The colorful light slowly sank in the air, and the stone bricks underfoot turned into polished marble, inlaid with ancient spells and marks of fate.

Towering red bookshelves are spread all over the place, stacked like a forest, and the covers are printed with complex and incomprehensible gold patterns, as if knowledge itself is dreaming.

A slight sound of turning pages echoed in the silence, with the sound of damp paper rubbing against each other, as if an old dream was being artificially opened.

"Welcome to The Abyss of the Broken Chapter."

The sound did not come from the eardrum, but sounded in the mind like some deep-bound consciousness.

The tone of voice was neither fast nor slow, soft and steady, but every syllable felt like finger bones tapping on the spine of the soul.

Rex immediately half-knelt on the ground, with the sniper rifle pointed precisely at the source of the sound.

But what he saw was not the enemy——

It's them.

Figures walked out slowly from behind those endless bookshelves, one after another.

Everyone has the same face.

They were dressed in neat and tidy gray-blue butler suits, with gentle expressions and appropriate smiles.

Their movements were as orderly as a guard of honor, each step was gentle and silent, but in their hands they were holding a thick ancient book.

The bookshelves behind them moved silently, automatically making way.

On the cover of the book, there were five words written:
Rex Memoirs

Rex's pupils contracted violently.

He quickly took a half step back, locking the muzzle of his gun between the eyebrows of the first person who approached.

——These humanoids are not monsters.

It's not an ordinary illusion either.

They are more like "actors" of memory - using some absurd but precise logic,

Copy, bind, and archive his life, and then take it out to "reread".

Libraries are not for collecting books.

But to judge memory.

He realized he was no longer a hunter, but the name being read aloud from the book. He took a deep breath, his gaze as cold as steel, his gun unmoved, his voice unmistakably cold:
"who are you?"

One of the figures, who looked like a butler, walked slowly forward with steady steps, a gentle yet sarcastic gleam in his eyes.

He raised his hand slightly and opened the thick and almost solemn "Reminiscences of Rex", and stroked the paper page by page with his fingers, as if he was stroking some living thing.

His voice was like chewing paper, wet, sticky, and uncomfortable:
"What an impolite borrower."

"I'm Tizel, the administrator of your library."

"And you too—the custodian of your memories, past, present, and future."

"I cataloged, categorized, and bound you—every memory, every tear, every betrayal, written in your own hand."

Rex gritted his teeth, adjusted the muzzle of the gun slightly, and his eyes turned cold.

boom!
The sniper's flames burst out, and the blue light flowed like lightning, accurately hitting Tizel's face.

The bullet pierced through the shadow, and the gentle face collapsed and fell apart in an instant, like a disguise made of piled up pages being torn into pieces.

He was like the pages of a book crumbling, with words flying in the air, as if someone was reading aloud the most painful chapter of his life.

But before Rex could exhale, the pages of the book spun and "Tizel" reappeared.

The movements were exactly the same, the smile was exactly the same, and even the "Reminiscences of Rex" was turned to the page where he had just been "hit".

He smiled, his voice like dust swirling in an old bookstore:
"Nice shot."

"So... Rex," he said softly but without question, "have you... forgotten something?"

Rex was shocked.

A sharp pain swept up from the depths of his mind, like an icicle piercing his soul.

He staggered half a step, knelt on one knee, supported himself on the ground with his palm, cold sweat running down his neck.

"What?"

Memories began to tear apart.

There was a very important and gentle voice that was being stripped and erased from his memory by some force, like a piece of letter burned by flames, leaving only cold ashes.

Tizel chuckled, and the sound echoed from the bookshelves in all directions, as if every page of memory was mocking him:
"You think you're killing me?"

"The shot you just fired shattered—the words Mira said to you for the last time."

"You hid that sentence so deeply, thinking you could keep it and recall it in your dreams."

"Too bad, now you've torn it off for yourself."

"You're not sniping me."

"You're shooting at the thing you'd hate to forget the most."

He walked forward, flipped the pages of the book with his fingers, and spoke in a judgmental tone:

"She once said, 'Don't be afraid, I will always be by your side'."

"Now, she won't say it anymore."

"Because you just erased her voice."

Rex raised his head, his eyes bloodshot and as cold as a shattered ice field.

His gun fingers reloaded mechanically, the action almost part of muscle memory.

He got it.

This battle is not about shooting the enemy.

Instead, before being "completely forgotten", he must first kill the "desire to forget" that is wriggling in his heart.

This is a cold-blooded sniper attack——

Aimed at the "will editor" who tried to tamper with, rewrite and delete the chapters of his life.

He murmured softly, as if giving an order for pulling the trigger, and also as if reminding himself:

"You can take away my future."

"But I won't let you tamper with my past."

"What you hit wasn't a monster, but a 'memories' that you once held close to your heart but didn't have time to cherish."

(End of this chapter)