Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 178 The Invitation of the Sleeping Lord

"If the end is certain, can we still choose not to fall asleep?"

Sima Ming's figure still stood in the same place, and the spotlight from the "Lord of Dreams" above the stage had long been extinguished.

And he had long been "stripped off" from the play, like a page of a script that had been roughly torn out, and even the rules of the theater could no longer accommodate his existence.

But the real him, at this moment, is slowly falling into another deeper dream.

It was a silent sinking.

There is no wind, no light, no fear, and no end.

It was as if the entire soul was being pulled out of the river of time and sinking into a black abyss that could not even be defined by concepts.

Every inch of sinking is made up of extremely dense nightmare oppression, like water, and like concrete eternity - heavy, slow, but irresistible.

Memory is no longer a linear playback, but a torn puzzle, scattered, flowing backwards, reorganized, and dislocated in the sea of ​​consciousness.

There was a whisper in my ears. It was not human language, nor any weird language, but a language of dreams.

It does not rely on hearing, but acts directly on the spiritual center. Every word and every sound, like some ancient inscription, is nailed into the depths of his soul.

"The cheater of fate..."

"The Thousand Faces' favorite gambler..."

"The Silent Eyes once reserved a seat for you."

The abyss of dreams slowly unfolds.

An upside-down city appeared at his feet, with rubble, seaweed, wreckage of ships and fragments of memory dancing in the reversal of gravity.

Siming seemed to be standing in an illusory city built of the ruins of thought, and every brick under his feet was changing - it was the path he had walked, the battles he had lost, and the words he had said.

Above my head is a sea of ​​stars condensed from broken dreams, with light flowing backwards.

He tried to speak, but no sound came out.

It was as if his throat had been deprived of the use of "language" itself.

Until—he saw a "door".

It was not a door in the physical sense, but a consciousness structure formed by the entwined black-blue corals and starlight veins, standing quietly at the junction of light and dreams.

The door slowly opened, like the deep sea opening its eyes.

Sima Ming stepped inside.

The next second, the scene suddenly changed - he was standing in an unknown ancient underwater palace.

The water around it solidified, as if frozen in time.

Schools of fish are suspended in the air, like pieces of gold embedded in a canvas; each one is still, yet still breathing.

At the end of the hall, a vague figure slowly emerged.

It is neither human nor monster, it has no face, but it is full of oppression.

It wears a robe woven from dreams and the sea, embellished with sleeping spells and forgotten lines, like a form tailored by whispers at the edge of the world.

It has no face, but a black and white mask replaces all emotions.

It is the Lord of Sleep.

It didn't speak, but the palace trembled slightly. It wasn't the vibration of words, but an infusion of thought—like a deity from the spiritual realm, implanted directly into consciousness:
"Fate has fallen. The worlds will sleep."

"Return, Weaver of Destiny."

"Return to your council."

"The end is coming, and sooner or later you will understand that the end is destiny."

"Reincarnation... is meaningless."

Siming stood quietly, his brows and eyes cold. He looked at the blurry figure and replied with a sneer:

"I never believed in 'meaning'."

"I don't believe in you, the 'Most High'."

The Sleeping Lord did not move, but his figure suddenly enlarged, like the embodiment of divine power. He stretched out an arm with knuckles like tentacles from the throne and slowly pointed at Sima Ming's forehead.

A faint blue light seeped into his consciousness.

In an instant, cold, stripped, and clear—fragments of nightmare pierced my brain like a sharp knife.

A distorted future, fragmented memories, and visions of the end of the world were forced into his mind.

"Since you don't believe it," the Lord of Sleep said, his tone was calm and profound, like the floating sea of ​​stars.

"Then I'll let you see with your own eyes what the end looks like."

At that moment, the nightmare stopped being a dream. It began to tear, burn, twist, peel, and penetrate the bones.

Siming's consciousness felt like it was being stabbed by thousands of blades, as if he was being chewed up by the ocean. Every nerve was screaming, and every memory was bleeding.

Reason peeled away from his eyes bit by bit like cracked glass.

Nightmares are never gentle.

And he is entering the true end of his dream.

He saw—

The Gate of All Things collapsed, and the stars were crushed into stardust by invisible hands.
The stars fell in disorder, the earth was torn like a rag, and the oceans turned into floating whirlpools hanging upside down in the sky.

The once indestructible "cause and effect" and "meaning" have been hollowed out at their cores, like an old clock spinning out of control, the lines of fate are breaking one by one before our eyes, disintegrating into dust drifting in the wind.

He saw himself—

Died again and again in countless different "versions of the end".

He died in a storm on the Lost, was backstabbed by his former companions at the parliamentary round table, and was strangled to death by "himself" in the corridors of illusion.

He witnessed how every world ended, and every time branch was not spared, and every one had an end of "Si Ming".

And every scene, like a nail, pierces the core of his belief, his arrogance, his self-confidence, and even his deepest refusal to obey.

The whispers of the Sleeping Lord came from all directions, like the roar of a whale in the sea, as if echoing between his bones and nerves:

"Are you still struggling?"

"You've lost a thousand times, ten thousand times. Each time you believed 'this time will be different.' But the end—always arrives as promised."

Siming slowly raised the corners of his lips. That was not the twist of pain, nor the destruction of faith.
It was a familiar, fatalistic sneer—that was the unique smile he wore when he repeatedly appeared on the scene, failing in countless gambles and standing up again.

"At least," he began, his voice hoarse but clear, "I still remember...how many times I lost."

"And you?" He looked intently at the invisible will in the depths of the void. "Do you remember how many times you gave up?"

The Sleeping Lord remained silent.

The world spins, and the perspective seems to be peeled off from the nightmare of "The End of Disaster".

Crossing the boundary between illusion and reality, he was thrown into a dark and empty hall.

It was a grayish-white stone round hall.

The huge round table of fate stood quietly in the center, like an ancient celestial mechanical ritual device. Twelve towering stone chairs surrounded the table, like twelve seats of judgment.

Each chair back is engraved with a different mark: the eye of the stars, the scepter of law enforcement, the spider's web, the burning sword, the upside-down bell, the broken wings, the endless stairs, the closed curtain, the black dice, the golden lock, the silent face...

Only the last seat is left blank.

Sima Ming slowly approached the empty seat.

In front of the chair was a pure white mask and a letter without a wax seal.

He bent down, picked up the letter, and unfolded it.

The handwriting is neat and as elegant as a blade, and the strokes seem to contain the sighs of a hundred thousand "I".

"To me who has come here again:
Fate is endless, reincarnation is endless, and we are also endless.

What you see is not the end, but billions of phantom paths leading to the end.

Until the very last moment—don't give up.

Because the moment we give up, that is the end of us.

The silent eye once gazed upon all destinies—and you are the final gazer."

At the end of the signature is the seal of the Thousand Faces Man.

An open eye, a writing quill, a rolling die—the three overlap to form the emblem that strikes fear into the hearts of arcane scholars the world over.

Siming looked at the mask and remained silent for a long time.

He reached out and gently lifted it. It was weightless, yet it had a familiar aura.

It was as if countless afterimages of "myself" were looking back from this mask, mocking, begging, encouraging, and questioning - but none of them could make it here.

He did not sit in the chair immediately.

He closed his eyes and took a long breath, as if he was exhaling a long-forgotten dream for all the losers.

"I accept this cycle." He murmured.

"But I'll also try—to write a different ending."

"You can't decide what fate writes—but you can decide whether to read it out loud."

(End of this chapter)