The End
Chapter 724: Big lie in the sky
The blood-red apple fell slowly.
The flow of time seemed to have been slowed down a hundred, a thousand times. A single breath congealed into eternity; this instant stretched infinitely, as if it would never end.
Above the Live Broadcast Square.
Countless screens of all sizes hung suspended high in the air, frozen on this very same image.
The viewers’ eyes widened uncontrollably, their gazes locking onto the screen as if possessed. All their attention seemed captured by that single streak of blood-red.
Unable to flee, unable to break free.
Thump.
The apple hit the ground.
It made a very soft sound, one that would almost be swallowed up in an instant.
But the moment it struck the ground—
The silence was abruptly torn apart. The slowed time suddenly accelerated. Countless points of light, images, and sounds exploded in their ears, rushing in like a massive, screaming torrent! Swallowing all the onlookers whole!
The hypocritical curtain was instantly ripped away, all futile disguises vanishing entirely.
All that remained was the naked, straightforward, and cruel…
Truth.
“——”
Pupils dilated.
…No.
No.
A massive panic shrieked, engulfing the sanity of those who gazed upon the truth.
The emotions from the viewers struck Nightmare like a tsunami, wave after wave, battering the already tottering entity.
The ground trembled; the sky tilted.
Crack. Crack, crack.
From deep underground came bizarre, chaotic, muffled sounds, like countless screams and wails.
The torrent of “truth” flooded into their terror-filled pupils.
A ship constructed of corpses sailed upon a sea dyed red with blood. All the faces had their eyes tightly shut, wearing contented smiles, indulging deep in a false nightmare. Above, below, all around… there was nothing but bottomless nothingness and a meaningless abyss.
They had been penned up just like this.
Like pigs waiting to be slaughtered.
Capillary-like tubes pierced through their overlapping bodies, continuously extracting blood-red fluid from them, ultimately converting it into “points” that surged throughout the ship.
“——————!!!!”
Countless eyeballs trembled violently within it. They seemed to be squeezed by some unseen force, bulging out from the sky, hanging low like clusters of fruit. Pairs of eyes rolled about madly at lightning speed. The blood-red color grew increasingly thick, looking as if it were about to drip down into the sea.
This time, Nightmare finally felt fear.
It was too hungry, too greedy. It had stuffed far too many people, far too many souls into its massive body. They had become one with it, inseparable; they were its organs, its cells, its neurons. While these souls slumbered, they were at its command, used by it, tirelessly and continuously drained of their remaining value. However, when they awakened… everything was upended.
This crisis was born from within.
The last time, just the widespread panic caused when a portion of the audience awakened was enough to force its system to a halt.
But the rebellion this time wasn’t that simple.
A single cell going on strike was worthless.
But what if it was hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of millions?
Below the sky, within the auction house, the previously lit VIP boxes went dark one by one.
The tall building falls, the guests scatter.
They were entities that didn’t belong to this world to begin with; they were merely consumers waiting to divide the spoils. Seeing that the annexation was hopeless, there was naturally no reason to stay.
On the auction block.
The human youth bathed in the blood-red light. He stood tall and straight, the freezing gale blowing his hair like a torn storm cloud.
He smiled elegantly and slowly bowed toward the sky above, like a curtain call.
The fraudster presented his final, monstrous lie to the whole world.
In exchange for the cruel truth that would upend everything.
At this very moment, within the hull of the ship.
Even situated in the deepest part of the ship, everyone could still feel the intense tremors.
“Look!”
Wen Ya looked down, her gaze falling to her feet, and suddenly cried out in alarm.
Realizing something, the others also looked down.
Beneath their feet, on the wet, soft ground that looked like it was made of flesh and blood, those faces had ceased to be calm at some point. Their tightly shut eyes twitched frequently, expressions of struggle and pain surfacing, like someone trapped in a nightmare fighting desperately to wake up.
Just as the group was about to observe further…
Suddenly, a pair of eyes snapped open.
“…!”
The moment they made eye contact with those eyes beneath their feet, everyone shuddered involuntarily and took a step back.
“This is…”
However, they quickly realized that although the eyes had opened, they weren’t really “seeing” them.
Because over those chaotic eyeballs, there seemed to be a thick, gray film, staring unfocusedly into the air, as if gazing at something that wasn’t there.
“He succeeded.”
Hugo said softly.
When the audience began to awaken, Pinocchio’s plan succeeded.
Nightmare was indeed incredibly powerful.
But… if you truly understood it well enough, it was also very fragile.
All its power and malice were built upon those fragile “eyeballs.” The [Live Broadcast] was everything to it, the main body of power it had to rely on.
The audience was its most loyal accomplice, and would also be its fiercest enemy.
By unwillingly choosing to inject its main body into this world rather than giving it up, Nightmare had essentially exposed its most vulnerable part to all of them. And Wen Jianyan’s “lie” was the incredibly sharp knife that plunged viciously into it.
“…”
Suddenly, Su Cheng abruptly raised his head, his expression grave as he looked up into the air.
“What’s wrong?” Noticing the change in his expression, Wen Ya, standing beside him, couldn’t help but ask, “Is something the matter?”
“…It’s resisting,” Su Cheng said.
As the current helmsman of the cruise ship, he could clearly feel Nightmare’s activities at this moment.
He said slowly, “Severing a limb to survive.”
Excising the corrupted parts, taming the good parts.
Dividing and slaughtering the former, persuading and pacifying the latter.
In this way, Nightmare was cutting off and discarding its own “body,” trying to contain this “necrosis” within controllable limits.
“What?” Hearing this, everyone was jolted, almost instantly realizing the implication of his words. Even now, Nightmare still refused to give up the struggle. It was still making its last stand, trying to break the deadlock.
Chen Cheng’s expression twisted, his voice sounding squeezed through gritted teeth:
“…This is damned unbelievable. Just how exactly do we kill it?!”
Even with things having reached this stage, even after losing all its advantages and all its methods, Nightmare remained incredibly tenacious, like cockroaches in a house that could never be completely exterminated.
“…Is there nothing we can do?” Wen Ya closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and asked slowly.
“…Unfortunately.”
Su Cheng shook his head.
“No.”
He was the Captain, yes, but he was still Nightmare’s Captain.
All his powers and privileges were granted by it. Under this level of control, constructing a tiny, undisturbed space deep within the gaps of Nightmare’s attention was already his limit.
“But—” Chen Cheng abruptly raised his voice, but the action seemed to pull at his wounds, causing his face to contort. Pale-faced, he took several slow, deep breaths before managing to say word by word, “But, are we really just going to watch it survive like this?”
But the problem was, what else could they do?
The answer was cold and painful.
At this moment, they were powerless to affect anything happening outside.
Direct physical attacks on the ship’s hull were useless now, and might even expose this small, safe space, putting Su Cheng in danger. …And even if they successfully joined the battle, then what?
They were already half-crippled, pushed to their absolute limits in both body and soul.
Starting a new battle right now was tantamount to suicide.
“…We can only pray for good luck.”
Su Cheng took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“There’s no need.”
Suddenly, a cold, youthful voice sounded from behind.
Hearing this, everyone was startled and looked toward the source of the voice.
Not far away, in a dark corner, the white-haired, black-eyed youth stood quietly. He was always like this; as long as no one spoke to him, he was like a plant quietly growing in an unnoticed place, only drawing everyone’s attention the moment he spoke.
Bai Xue raised his head, fixing his deep, whirlpool-like eyes on the people before him.
Under everyone’s gaze, he slowly repeated:
“There’s no need to pray for good luck.”
Everyone was taken aback, but they quickly realized what he meant.
“No!” Wen Ya took a step forward, her expression extremely grave. “You can’t use your Talent anymore.”
They had learned long ago that Bai Xue’s Talent had been depleted to its limit, barely able to withstand another use. And the side effects brought by using his Talent were the only things that couldn’t be healed or reversed. If he forced himself to use it this time, he would probably be the first among them to die.
“I know.”
Bai Xue nodded.
“I’m not planning to use my Talent.”
He lowered his eyes, touched his pinky finger, then looked up, speaking solemnly and seriously:
“I promised.”
If it were the him of the past, this kind of thing wouldn’t matter to him at all. He was born accompanying death; it didn’t matter when he died.
But things were different now.
For the first time since he could remember, he finally had the desire to live.
He wanted to survive.
No, not just that—he wanted everyone to survive… He wanted to leave this place with his friends, wanted to stand in the sunlight and feel its warmth once more.
Because of this, Bai Xue decided to keep his promise.
“Wait, then you mean…”
Bai Xue didn’t answer immediately. His gaze shifted, landing on Su Cheng.
“Do you know why, despite Oracle having so many Prophets, Nightmare specifically chose you to be the Captain?” he asked.
Su Cheng was taken aback.
“You’re not just a Prophet, just like I’m not just a Medium.” The youth’s eyes were pitch-black and unfathomable, like black holes that swallowed all light, allowing nothing to escape. “The core nature of our Talents is the same.”
Bai Xue stared into Su Cheng’s pupils, identical to his own, and said:
“We are both [those who play with fate].”
For the first time, Su Cheng’s emotions fluctuated wildly:
“Wait, do you mean…”
“Yes, exactly.”
Bai Xue nodded, confirming Su Cheng’s guess.
Every Tarot reading he did was a peek into fate. Before being observed, everything was a mystery. However, when he began to “focus” his gaze upon it, he exerted an invisible force on that unknown world, instead forcing it to hurtle in that direction. Did the peeking make the fate predetermined, or did the predetermined fate invite the peek? This was the ultimate proposition of chaos, one no Prophet could answer.
“As the number of times you use your Talent increases, your Tarot readings will become more and more powerful, and your ability to ‘fix’ fate will become stronger and stronger.”
Su Cheng stood rooted to the spot, his pitch-black eyes staring fixedly at Bai Xue, looking as if he had been struck by a heavy blow.
“It’s a blessing, but also a curse, isn’t it?”
Bai Xue said.
Just like the “Threads of Fate” he controlled.
From the moment they obtained it, this curse had quietly descended.
—Those who play with fate are bound to suffer from it.
“However, the situation now is different from before,” Bai Xue turned his head, his gaze looking toward the darkness behind Su Cheng—in that space untouched by light lay the massive, dark culture tank. “You have already paid a price beyond ordinary imagination.”
There were no more side effects left to pay.
“I will teach you.”
“How to change all this.”
“………”
Watching Bai Xue’s pale, almost transparent fingertips floating in mid-air, Su Cheng paused for a few seconds before slowly placing his own incorporeal hand upon them.
“—!”
In just a second, Su Cheng abruptly raised his eyes, his pupils trembling violently.
What had just happened?
No one knew what kind of thoughts those two people, whose Talents were intertwined with fate, had exchanged in that brief half-second, or what kind of communication had taken place. It all seemed as hidden as the very nature of their Talents.
Everyone stared intently at Su Cheng’s figure, involuntarily holding their breath, waiting quietly.
Suddenly, the surroundings became extremely quiet.
Bai Xue didn’t say a word, simply turning and retreating back to the corner where he had been initially, once again playing the part of a mute, breathing plant.
Su Cheng lowered his eyes, and the Star-Moon Tarot materialized in his palm as usual.
He slowly drew a card from it.
However, unlike what everyone imagined, that Tarot card no longer bore any chaotic, maddening lines. Instead, it was a bottomless, pure black—a deep black that seemed capable of sucking in everyone’s gaze, like the silent call of fate, an indecipherable whisper rising from the depths of the abyss.
The Tarot Reader opened his palm, pressed it against the card, and then slowly, little by little, swept over it.
The black mist turned to ash and scattered.
A clear totem leaped before their eyes.
Amidst raging flames, a massive chariot rolled across the world. A victorious king sat high upon it, flanked by ferocious beasts with vicious eyes.
This was the eighth card of the Major Arcana.
Its name:
[The Chariot].
Following the opening of the first pair of eyes, the third, fourth, and fifth pairs opened…
Like the fall of the first domino, it triggered an irreversible chain reaction. One after another, all the viewers were forced by the power of the rules, dragged out of their chaotic yet pleasant slumber. They panicked, they trembled, they were at a loss, they tried to flee—but no matter how they screamed, wailed, and begged, they couldn’t stop it from happening. In unparalleled agony, they stared at the [Truth], unable to look away no matter how unbearable it was.
Thus, for the first time, they finally saw their truest forms.
Screams filled with endless pain mixed with whimpers and groans, echoing through the violently shaking depths of the cruise ship, roaming through every collapsing corridor, resounding through the entire world in an instant, spiraling upward to the heavens.
They saw—
Outside the Black Sea, a discarded world.
Every valuable existence priced and packaged for sale.
Land, minerals, civilization, souls.
Everything their ancestors had built with their own hands over generations.
Desolate ruins pressing down on pale limbs, faces frozen in confusion, fear, and despair.
Those who were once their compatriots, their siblings, their blood relatives.
Their former homeland, now reduced to purgatory.
At this moment, something long forgotten seemed to quietly sprout from the depths of their hollow shells.
What is it?
What is it called?
They didn’t know, didn’t remember, didn’t understand.
But even so, it broke through the barriers, pushed aside a corner of the chaos, and began to grow madly upwards.
Those souls, numbed by prolonged captivity, opened their eyes. Deep within their empty bodies, an unknown pain thrashed about, not knowing where to vent.
In mere moments, countless faces in every direction began to wake, opening their eyes one after another. Different faces, different features, the awakened faces emitted meaningless sounds—like screams, like wails, like mournful cries, and like roars.
Yet, at this moment, they all morphed into the same look of fury.
Pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks, brows stood on end, cheeks hollowed, lips twisted, teeth gnashing. A violent emotion seemed ready to roar and burst forth from these faces.
Panic had been burned away by the blazing fire at some point; the only things capable of surviving such an inferno were the most extreme, intense, and sharpest emotions.
Men, women, the elderly, the young, the strong, the weak, the rich, the poor, the despicable, the noble, the cowardly, the brave… No matter how different their past identities, lives, or ideologies were… at this very moment, one identical emotion ruled them like a storm.
Hatred.
Rumble, rumble.
A continuous tremor erupted from beneath their feet.
The numb could no longer sleep.
Those slumbering in the false world could no longer turn a blind eye to what was happening around them.
—Sorrow turned to anger, anger birthed hatred, and hatred bred madness.
The neurons, which should have been docile and obedient, suddenly gained personal will, causing everything within the “body” to riot.
All pacification became futile.
All remedies became fantasies.
In the sky, the largest eyeball began to grow.
It was as if blown up by an invisible force, expanding limitlessly, inflating, and inflating again. The surrounding eyeballs were squeezed out of shape, retreating in all directions. And when that eyeball expanded to a certain limit—
Bang!
Like a round balloon pierced by a sharp needle, it burst open with a bang, revealing a corner of the deep black sky behind it.
Following the explosion of the first eyeball, the second, the third… eyeball after eyeball swelled under the catalysis of an invisible force. They rolled uncontrollably, the terrified eyes filling with cobweb-like bloodshot veins.
This time, Nightmare realized that its existence would be completely erased. Everything it had built, everything it had seized thus far, would vanish like a bubble.
No… no… no, no, no, no, no, no!
Countless rolling, swelling eyeballs trembled violently in the sky, as if undergoing unspeakable torture.
Suddenly, it seemed to realize something.
All the eyeballs descended in unison, their venomous gazes locking onto the figure below.
That insignificant human.
Compared to its mountain-like immensity, he was as small as an ant.
He was the culprit behind all this, the beginning of the collapse of a thousand-mile dam.
The prime evil, the harbinger of disaster, the mastermind.
He was the venomous fire it should have rooted out from the very beginning.
“■■Damn it■■■——”
“■■■You■■■■Mistake.” A bizarre voice, sounding like countless voices overlapping, came from above. It seemed to come from all directions, its true source untraceable. Mixed with chilling static, it frantically and rapidly repeated scalp-tingling words.
“Damn it■■Damn it■■Damn it■■——”
The next second, a parchment scroll slowly floated into the air. Soaked by the falling rain of blood, the text on it had become blurry at some point, but the crooked writing in the bottom right corner remained clearly visible.
【Wen Jianyan】.
“Did you think■■■you could retreat■■■unscathed?”
Suddenly, all the static and garbled noise vanished in an instant.
It was as if the world had been unplugged.
For a moment, between heaven and earth, only a terrifying silence remained.
—”You will perish with me.”
Deep within the cruise ship lay a bottomless corridor lined with a row of cabins. Above each cabin door was a specific number, along with a percentage.
On the door marked No. 8, the occupancy progress read 96%.
At least…
It should have been 96%.
Almost at the exact same moment the cruise ship began to rock and the corridors began to collapse…
The number above started to tick up without any reason.
—97%
Wen Jianyan was slightly startled.
Seeming to realize something, he couldn’t help but lower his eyes, his gaze falling on his open palm.
Since when had his fingertips become transparent?
“…”
He had known for a long time that here, every choice came with a price.
This was the underlying rule of this world.
Even applicable to gods.
Wu Zhu could heal everything, restore everything, but against the depletion caused by Talents, he remained powerless.
Because of the nature of Wen Jianyan’s Talent, its side effects would also be unimaginable. Therefore, before today, he had almost never used his Talent lightly.
Before deciding to do this today, Wen Jianyan had made meticulous, error-free calculations. Even factoring in the worst possible growth rate, using all his accumulated and reserved Talent uses would not lead to his ultimate alienation.
At least… that’s how it should have been.
The cabin door tilted and crashed to the ground with a clang, revealing the dissolving wall behind it.
A corner of the heavy metal door smashed deeply into the wet, soft red ground, sinking little by little. Even so, the number above it, forcefully driven by some power, continued to tick upward unstoppably.
—98%
Everything around him was dissipating, dissolving.
On the faces that formed the ship’s hull, the thundering anger began to dissipate. They started to whimper, then cry, endless streams of bloody tears flowing from their eyes, dripping onto the ground.
—99%
Wen Jianyan raised his hand, spreading his fingers, thoughtfully watching the red light pierce through his palm. The rain of blood fell from the sky, passing straight through his body and dripping down. It didn’t hurt, it just felt a little…
Itchy.
I see.
So this was the price of his Talent.
How interesting.
It was as if his existence was being denied by the rules.
Everything belonging to him would become…
A lie.
The whistling wind filled his ears, turning into a chaotic, distant noise.
Everything around him was dissipating, moving further and further away.
Above, the blood-red eyeballs had almost all burst, leaving the deep blue night sky behind clear and clean.
Beneath the rain of blood, the young man closed his eyes slightly, spreading his translucent arms, enjoying the freezing sea breeze as if he belonged in it.
Free, clean.
Unbound.
What a pity…
He couldn’t pay back those kisses he owed.
The whistling wind filled his ears, turning into a chaotic, distant noise.
Everything around him was dissipating, moving further and further away.
His consciousness faded.
Su Cheng looked up, surveying their surroundings, and said softly:
“Nightmare is disappearing.”
When humans are no longer willing to slumber in falsehood.
This never-ending live broadcast also lost its meaning.
The ship of corpses wouldn’t disappear; it would continue to drift upon the cold, pitch-black Dead Sea. But the twisted, grotesque monster that rode it, clung to it, and parasitized it, would, starting from today, completely perish.
Hearing this answer was like an invisible boulder crashing to the ground.
Everyone looked up, their gazes fixed on the sky, a sudden surge of tears of joy rushing to their hearts.
“That’s great,” Chen Mo grit his teeth, speaking incoherently. “That’s great…”
“All thanks to—”
His voice suddenly caught in his throat.
Thanks to who?
A blurry figure flashed through his mind, only to be swallowed by darkness in the blink of an eye.
Wen Ya shook her head. For some reason, a strange sense of emptiness suddenly arose in her heart, as if an invisible hand had reached into her mind and gently wiped away something very important.
“Strange…”
She looked a bit dazed, involuntarily looking around as if searching for something.
“I keep feeling like I’ve forgotten something…”
But what was it?
She couldn’t remember.
