Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 190 Three Black Moons

Chapter 190 Thirteen Black Moons

"How many people are you to have died in a dream? The thirteenth? Wrong, it's the thirty-three-four thousand two hundred and fifty-seventh."

Siming slowly woke up in the darkness, his consciousness like a stone sinking into the deep sea.

Falling into chaos and addiction, and then being pulled back to clarity little by little by the cold and instinct.

He subconsciously raised his hand to press his temple, frowned deeply, and muttered in a low voice:
"...Damn, every time I walk through a certain door, it feels like I've been hit on the head."

My fingers touched a dull pain in the corner of my forehead, which was hot, swollen and slightly painful.

He squinted his eyes and slowly sat up, but all he saw was thick darkness, as if the whole world was engulfed in ink.

He couldn't even tell whether he was in a small room or some huge void.

However, there was one thing he felt very clearly—

Breathe.

Not just your own.

Those subtle, rhythmic breathing sounds, like shadows lurking in the dark water, appeared and disappeared around him.

He held his breath, slowly squatted down, suppressed all sounds, and carefully reached out to feel on the ground.

The cold, rough concrete floor.

The next moment——

His fingertips touched a foot.

It was cold, yet still trembling slightly.

"It's not a corpse." He judged subconsciously, and his brows suddenly became solemn.

Just as he was about to get closer to check, a sudden "click" sounded in the center of the darkness, and the crisp sound hit his nerves like an electric shock.

Siming turned around suddenly and saw a card slowly descending from the invisible, hovering in the air, flashing a faint light.

The next second—

A strong light suddenly burst out from the dome, piercing the darkness like a sharp blade, illuminating the entire space without warning.

Siming was forced to close his eyes subconsciously by the sudden light, and there was a loud bang in his mind, as if someone had exploded a thunder next to his ear.

When he adjusted to the light and opened his eyes, the world around him was already visible.

——A square, enclosed room with grayish-white walls like the fence of a tomb, and a cold ceiling casting a heavy white light.

The card was still hanging in the air, spinning, like a nightmare with open eyes, staring at everyone.

On the ground, besides Sima Ming, there were eleven other people.

They were scattered in different corners, some woke up with their heads in their hands, some stood up with the help of the wall, some looked terrified, and some were still sleeping on the edge of the unknown.

"Where...is this place?" A mature woman with exquisite clothes and capable manners slowly stood up.

She adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose, her eyes full of vigilance and thought.

"Damn it! Why am I in this kind of place?" A blond man cursed as he stood up shakily.

His muscles bulged and the veins in his neck throbbed with anger, like a wild beast suddenly trapped.

"A... death game?" A deep and steady voice cut through the restlessness of the crowd.

The speaker was a stern-faced middle-aged man in dark work clothes that smelled of machine oil. He stood straight, as if examining an unknown disaster.

"Perhaps we are involved in a game with strange rules?" His eyes fell on everyone's face like a hammer.

Siming didn't say anything, but just glanced at the group of strangers calmly.

He knew that what was hidden among these people was probably not only fear, but also something else.

Some were trembling, some were observing, and some had already begun calculating the possibility of escape.

And more than that, there was a blankness on his face that didn't belong to waking up——

They haven't realized yet that they have been drawn into a "gambling game" from which there is no turning back.

A real gamble with sobriety, trust, reason and life as the stakes.

Sima Ming's gaze swept across the room as quickly as a knife.

In the corner, a young man in black sat alone, with a calm posture and a restrained aura.

He has an oriental face, a stern expression, thin-framed glasses pressing down on his nose, short black hair hanging down in front of his forehead, and eyes as indifferent as an ice pond.

The sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and a faint golden star pattern on the wrist was faintly visible. The starlight was like a faint glow in the quiet night, faintly radiating under the cold light.

In the corner on the other side, a woman with short golden brown hair was leaning against the wall. She was wearing a dark red jacket, her arms folded across her chest, and a playful smile of ease hung on the corner of her lips.

Her eyes were sharp, with the scrutiny of a hunter.

When she noticed Siming's gaze, her smile deepened and she slowly raised her wrist—

A light blue star track flashed, and she showed her destiny star map without any concealment.

"It seems..." Siming narrowed his eyes, "I'm not the only secret master."

His heart sank slightly, but he just nodded politely.

The woman just nodded slightly in response to him, still as lazy as a lazy cat.

But beneath that nonchalant attitude, there is a silent edge.

And as this pattern seemed to be gradually emerging, Siming's gaze stopped at the shadow at the very edge of the room.

A man, wearing an ordinary gray-blue sweatshirt, his hair was messy as if he hadn't washed it for days, his back was slightly hunched, his head was lowered so deeply that his face could not be seen clearly.

He just sat there, motionless and silent.

Even - no sense of existence at all.

If Sima Ming hadn't glanced at him by chance, he would probably have missed him.

At that moment, he almost thought that the man was just a forgotten phantom.

Sima Ming stared at him for a few more seconds, trying to catch any reaction.

……No.

The other person seemed to be completely isolated from the surroundings, as if he was sleeping, or as if he had already died.

Surprising.

At this moment, the card that had been floating in the air in the center of the room suddenly made a low sound.

"Hum hum……"

A hoarse and sick laugh echoed in everyone's mind.

The sound was like an iron hook scraping across glass, with a damp, sticky and crazy excitement, a timbre that did not belong to any human being.

"The Thirteenth Madman greets all players," the voice boomed like a bell, yet was so low it sounded like a whisper in a dream.

"I also express my sincerest gratitude to the mystics who have been invited."

The card's rotation accelerated, and a blurry figure gradually took shape in the overflowing black mist.

He sat on a high chair, wearing a long-beaked bird mask and a tattered and complicated robe, like the last singer in a collapsed royal city.

Behind him lay a crumbling, distorted cityscape, countless reflections howling and wailing in the flames, as if it were a hell into which the past, present, and future had all fallen. "Welcome to the game of 'Thirteen Black Moons'."

The air suddenly froze.

Some people began to tremble, some stepped back subconsciously, and some cursed under their teeth.

"Twelve Nights - Hunt down the twelve secret corpses and uncover the truth."

"If after thirteen rounds, no one finds me—"

"I will use the 'Forbidden Card' to sacrifice the survivors of this entire city."

"Fuck you!" A roar suddenly rang out.

The blond burly man was furious and rushed towards the card, smashing the spinning card surface with his iron fist!

The air seemed to vibrate with his power.

--boom!

The fist went straight through the card without any feeling, as if it hit a ball of intangible air.

His body tilted, he staggered and almost fell.

The card was unharmed, but it let out a strange laugh, a sharp sound like metal colliding with nerves, echoing off the walls of the room.

"Hehehe... How interesting and passionate—I just love your unwillingness."

The laughter was rising one wave after another, like the beginning of a tsunami.

Siming stood in the crowd, squinting his eyes, looking at the strange and distorted figure in the card, his fingertips quietly sliding across the edge of the poker cards in his sleeve.

This "game"...is obviously tailor-made for people like them.

And the "Madman of the Thirteenth" has been waiting for them to join the game since the very beginning.

"Of course, before the game starts, let's eliminate some idiots."

"Let's—play a game."

The card suddenly lit up, emitting a strong light. In the blink of an eye, the man with the bird-beak mask sitting on the high chair disappeared.

Instead, there was a cartoon face with a distorted grid, flat and strange, with a programmed smile on its face, and its voice was so cold that it seemed to crawl out of the cochlea:
"Welcome to the system identification phase."

"This is a game about choice and trust."

"The three chosen ones must stand in their destined place."

"If you wait alone, death will be your companion."

"The countdown begins. May you find your true belonging."

The words fell, as dull as a bell.

The next second, the ground shook violently, and a pale golden pattern lit up on the surface of the gray floor tiles. Three circular light circles slowly emerged.

Like the center of a circle under the spotlight on a theater stage, it cuts out the boundary of fate without any warning.

Following closely behind, three balls of light emitting a faint blue glow quietly rose into the air and slowly moved among the twelve people. Like an extension of some kind of divine will, they silently inspected, evaluated, and screened.

"What the hell?" A young man took a step back in fear, his voice trembling, "Is this...is this a lottery?"

"Don't move." Rudolph shouted in a low voice, his tone as calm as steel. "First, see how they behave."

The other woman broke down emotionally, suddenly screaming and rushing towards the wall, as if trying to escape this confined space, but—

"boom!"

She suddenly hit an invisible barrier, her body bounced out, fell heavily to the ground, groaned, and stopped moving.

No one helped her.

Because everyone knows that now, the most terrifying thing is not the pain, but the price of being seen as "out of the system track."

Siming didn't say anything. He just tilted his head slightly and stared at the three balls of light with a steady gaze.

He knew they were "picking".

A ball of light stopped in front of him.

He didn't retreat, but quietly raised his hand. The ball of light seemed to have a spirit, and with a slight flicker, it touched his palm.

It was cold, sliding across my fingerprint like a burning brand.

"...I was chosen?" he muttered to himself.

At the same time, the other two balls of light stopped in front of the mysterious woman who was leaning against the wall. She put her hands in her pockets, and raised the corners of her lips, as if she had known the ending would be like this.
And - the young man who was so active at first, like a social butterfly.

The young man slowly raised his head, his eyebrows and eyes were dull and his expression was calm.

He didn't say anything else, but stood up naturally and walked straight into the light circle, as if he was just completing a pre-determined process.

Sima Ming looked at him, his brows slightly furrowed.

It's not suspicion, but an instinctive uneasiness.

That person... was so cooperative, like a character "tailor-made" for this game.

The moment the three of them took their positions, numbers appeared in the air—

19:59
The countdown starts.

At the same time, the system's voice sounded again, the words clear as a blade:
"The rest of the players, please choose the 'Team' you wish to follow."

"After the countdown ends, the number of people in the team will determine the difficulty of the challenge."

"The more people there are, the lower the challenge. If only one person remains in a team, it will be considered a 'collective abandonment' and that person will be automatically eliminated."

The room suddenly became dead silent.

"Are you forcing us to take sides?" Hernan's face turned pale and he gritted his teeth.

"Either choose someone or wait to die?" a middle-aged man next to him asked in a low voice, with cold sweat on his forehead.

Rudolph frowned and calmly analyzed, "This is a 'trade-off game.' We're not choosing the strongest person, but the one who is most likely to be chosen by the majority."

"Otherwise, you will become the unfortunate one who is abandoned."

Siming looked down at the circle of light and shadow under his feet, his eyes swept over the mysterious woman on his left, and then turned to the nameless young man who had remained silent.

He suddenly realized that at this moment, he was not gambling on victory or defeat.

It's a game of "trust".

——Who is the only person who cannot be trusted?
Or, who is the victim destined to walk the road to death alone?
The countdown continues to approach the finish line in silence.

The first round of Black Moon Decisions officially begins.

"You think you are choosing your fate,"

"But you don't know that fate is also choosing you."

"This is a feast of belonging and sacrifice,"

"And all you can rely on is trust."

(End of this chapter)

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