Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 169: One Bullet Seal

"If the memory consumes you, will you still remember why you pulled the trigger?"

In the dark library, book pages fluttered like snow, the wind stopped, and the silence was so heavy that it seemed as if the air had frozen.

Rex knelt among a pile of scattered scrolls, his eyes empty and his chest rising and falling slightly, as if he was only relying on the remaining muscle memory to maintain his life.

He was like a soulless shell, barely maintaining his human form with the word "fight".

The sniper rifle in his hand was covered in dust and as cold as a piece of rusty iron.

His fingertips trembled slightly, like an elderly veteran stroking a broken medal.

The world around me began to dissolve, stripped of color and sound, leaving only a silent paleness.

The sound of slowly turning pages of a book pierced through the silence and rang out again.

"Want to continue, Rex?"

That familiar voice was like a slow knife cutting flesh, scraping out his will bit by bit from the depths of his memory.

Tizel's figure walked out from among the dusty torn pages, his posture steady, like a priest walking out of a dream.

He stepped on the scattered pages, and every step seemed to fall on his heart, with the calmness and majesty of a god issuing a judgment.

He had very few pseudo-bodies left, now only three, but his expression became more and more calm, like a historian who would eventually write the end of the story.

"You nearly killed yourself."

His voice was low, but it resonated like the sound of a bell in this space constructed of memories.

"Your friends... your colleagues... your instructors, your loved ones." He counted slowly on his fingers. "What were you doing when they fell one by one?"

Every time a name was said, it felt like a nail was being pulled out of Rex's heart, and his entire chest began to collapse.

"Do you remember their names? Do you remember their faces, their voices?"

Mirrors flashed on both sides of the bookshelf.

Familiar faces appeared on the pages of the book - the crew of the Lost, his comrades who had fought alongside him in the Empire, and Mira.

But there was no anger, no sadness, or even any emotion on their faces.

She just stared at him blankly, as if waiting for him to raise his gun again.

"You tear them out of your mind page by page with your own hands." Tizel approached step by step.

"You bound them into a volume and called it 'Reminiscences of Rex.' Do you know who wrote it?"

"It's you."

Rex gritted his teeth and gripped the gun handle with his hands turning white.

But the familiar cold touch could no longer provide him with any comfort. He couldn't lift it anymore, or rather, he didn't know if he should lift it again.

"You've forgotten your rhythm." Tizel continued to push forward. "Heartbeat, aiming, wind resistance, you can't even do the most basic three inhales and one exhale."

"You want to fight back?" He chuckled. "But you've forgotten even why you're angry. You're not even worthy of saying the name 'Mira' anymore."

boom--!
Rex roared and pulled the trigger. A bullet tore through the air and completely pierced the page in front of him with the silhouette of "Mira" appearing on it.

That wasn't Tizel, it was the memory he hated most.

The bullet not only ripped through the pages of the book, but also through his last bit of weakness that had never been touched.

Tizel stood in the distance, watching him slowly kneel down, a smile almost of pity on his face.

"Is it empty?"

"The bullets are empty, the memories are empty, your beliefs, your name, yourself—all empty."

"Now, do you still know who you are?"

Rex's knees finally gave way and he fell to his knees in the middle of the sea of ​​books.

The scraps of paper fell like snow, and silence froze on his shoulders.

His pupils were dilated, as if the whole world was slowly draining away from him.

He wasn't shedding tears, but feeling weightless. His existence was being flipped over from this "Memoir," closed off, and forgotten.

The sea of ​​books is as silent as a tomb, and he is just a folded bookmark.

Sandwiched between countless chapters, no one will ever turn that page again.

Deep in the library, a faint blue light shone from the depths of Rex's right eye lens.

Like a ripple from a siren's tear gland, it quietly fell into the stagnant waters of fate, stirring up one final ripple. "—Destiny Star, mysteriously activated."

Mira's whisper echoed, like a whale song crossing the seabed, cutting through the sea of ​​his consciousness that was on the verge of sinking.

That sound was the only thing he remembered.

Not a name, not a face—just a voice.

And this time, it was as clear as a hand reaching out from the past.

A trajectory of fate appeared on the lens. In the blurry gray light, three "Tizel" pseudo-bodies were moving synchronously without any flaws.

The track was intricate and there was no blind spot. Reason told him that it was impossible to hit the target - but his hand slowly raised the gun.

This time, he didn't use a sniper rifle.

He pulled out a blood-stained, almost cracked fate card from his bosom and stuck it on the weapon.

——[Destiny Series·High-level Secret]: Clown's Fool's Gun
The card suddenly unfolded, and the silver-white gun body deformed like a laughing mask, with a twisted muzzle and a strange mechanism, as if mocking the absurdity of fate and destiny itself.

Card activation chant:

[Clown's Trick]: "When there are only three targets left on the battlefield, the primary target will trigger 'Random Trajectory Deviation', and the actual bullet trajectory will fall on one of the other two."

"Resource Consumption: Ignite the Star of Reason x4"

Rex raised his left wrist, and the silver-gray life pattern star map slowly lit up, and the four stars ignited at the same time, like a sacrificial fire burning the lifeline!
The burning heat rushed into his brain nerves, and he almost fainted from the pain. His knees softened and he almost fell to his knees, and blood slowly seeped out of his ears.

Tizel was stunned for a moment, then sneered:

"Are you crazy? You can't even tell where I am, and you dare to gamble your life? You even forgot her name - how can you fight against fate?"

Rex did not respond, but just stared at the constantly jumping target in the optical track.

The wind flowed through the lens, and Mira's voice sounded again.

——"Right now."

He pulled the trigger!
Gunshots rang out, and the bullets, like twisted laughter, quietly deviated from the edge of their trajectory!
Tizel's pupils shrank suddenly, and she roared wildly, activating [Substitute Switch] and extracting her original will from her Harajuku body.

However, the next moment, as soon as he entered the new body, the bullet suddenly fell!
The curve of fate is waiting for him in advance.

"How did you..." he said in horror, "How did you know I would jump here?!"

Rex's eyes were as cold as steel:
"I do not know."

"But she knows."

"This gun is not for victory."

"It's for—memory."

boom--!
The bullet pierced Tizel's forehead, and a shock wave suddenly rose.

The entire library collapsed!
Bookshelves collapsed, illusions crumbled, and countless volumes of "Rex's Memoirs" turned to ash pages.
Spinning, burning, falling into the abyss, as if all the scars from the past were relieved by this shot.

Tizel turned into dust, and finally whispered:
"Why... does fate... favor you..."

Rex didn't answer.

He stood up slowly, the last glimmer of blue light flashing in the lens of his right eye.

A card fell quietly, the warmth of metal emanating from the dust.

[No.703] [Category: World System·Advanced] [Real Name: "Fragmented Abyss"] [Fictitious Name: "Forgotten Manager·Tizel"]

He put the card away and gently stroked the edge with his fingertips. He seemed to remember something, but he couldn't remember it clearly.

"Do you still remember me?" Mira's voice came from the depths of the lens, like drizzle hitting the distant sails.

He answered in a low voice:
"...Of course, Mira."

"I always remember why I fired that shot."

After saying that, he put the sniper rifle on his back and the lens of his right eye dimmed to zero.

He turned around, stepped outside the ruins of the library, and slowly walked towards the foggy depths of the next dark sea.

This time, he didn't need to look back.

——Because of him, I remember the direction to move forward.

"I can no longer recall her voice... but I still remember why I fired that shot."

(End of this chapter)