Chapter 906: Time, Deceit, Experiment, Answer

Foolish Game of the Gods

Long Jing left.

His grin had been too radiant. Lord Shi Zhen booted him off the platform, and he plummeted back to reality.

Cheng Shi was livid.

Having just kicked the Acrobat away, he was preparing to haggle with his Benefactor about why his own fusion hadn't come with a weapon — when a pair of black-hole eyes opened at the center of the enormous dial, gazing at him with unfathomable depth.

"Cheng. Shi."

Time had appeared. But Cheng Shi showed zero panic — even a hint of disdain.

"Benefactor, please drop the act. Don't think pretending to be Time will make this go away!

I believe I've worked hard enough on the Void path, so why didn't I receive a weapon of Time?

Since You can grant faith on Time's behalf, surely gifting one more weapon isn't... no — an ordinary weapon can only count as a past reward, not as current compensation!

Or we don't even need to go that far."

Cheng Shi whipped out his container, eyes gleaming.

"Just activate this thing for me. The faith itself — I'll scam it out of people using Shi Zhen's identity. Deal?

And the deception process still counts as an offering to You. When you think about it, You're coming out ahead."

Cheng Shi delivered his proposal with visible excitement. But the eyes atop the dial didn't move. Like an unchanging eternity, they simply regarded Cheng Shi with cold detachment, saying nothing.

"Benefactor, please say something! You—"

'?'

Cheng Shi froze. His brow furrowed. Sensing the eerie atmosphere, something lurched in his gut.

'Wait — hold on!'

'This Benefactor — which Benefactor is He?'

'He couldn't possibly be...'

'No way. When would He have the time?'

The wild, terrifying thought had barely surfaced before Cheng Shi shuddered head to toe. Before he could even process whether this was the genuine article, a pair of starlit eyes — brimming with surprise — opened above the enormous dial. Spirals reversed, star-points flickered, and a click of the tongue rang out:

"Well, isn't this rare — you actually have the time to grant your followers an audience?"

'!!??'

'WHAT?!'

The black-hole eyes shifted upward, replying at an unhurried pace: "Deceit."

The single word detonated Cheng Shi's brain.

As if struck by the infinite power of Time, his mind launched into a flashback of his entire life. He frantically reviewed everything he'd said and done on this enormous dial, scrutinizing every blasphemous remark he'd made after assuming this was the Fun God...

Mercifully, his dialogue with Long Jing while playing Shi Zhen had contained relatively little blasphemy. Unfortunately, virtually everything he'd said after Long Jing's departure had been pure, undiluted profanity against a god.

'The sky is falling...'

By the time the mental replays ended, Cheng Shi was numb. He forcibly rejected his own deduction and firmly convinced himself that the eyes before him could not possibly be Time!

'This has to be some new Deceit trick. He split Himself in two just to watch His follower humiliate himself!'

'That's definitely what's happening!'

'Time doesn't have the time to descend!'

Cheng Shi refused to accept reality. He even began hypnotizing himself. But when those black-hole eyes turned back to him, and he felt within them the purest, most infinite essence of Time...

In that moment, it was as if all the time in the universe twisted around Him.

'It's over. It's all over.'

'It really is Him!'

'It really IS Time!'

But if He was Time, then why had He been "duped" into granting Long Jing a second faith?

And why had He allowed a mortal to impersonate His creation's will on His own platform?

Had Time, who had fused with Fate, also absorbed Fate's generosity?

"..."

In this moment, Cheng Shi was terrified beyond measure.

Not only was he anxious about Time's reaction, but he was simultaneously cursing the Fun God in his head.

'This is all the Fun God's fault!'

'If He hadn't played the Universal Clock once before, if He hadn't flung me out of the Chaos Temple only to set this scene up right away — how was I supposed to NOT assume the platform beneath my feet was His creation?!'

'This is all His fault!'

'Deceit has ruined me!'

But silence wasn't going to help here. The Fun God — unreliable as He was — would just sit back and enjoy the show the moment real entertainment appeared. He had to save himself!

Cheng Shi gritted his teeth. His brain kicked into overdrive, desperately searching for an excuse to explain away his behavior.

Just as Cheng Shi was racking his brain in a panic, the starlit eyes above burst into belly-shaking laughter:

"As expected — a clown is hilarious no matter where he goes.

Alright, your performance is over. Get off the stage. But there's no reward this time."

A gust of Void wind blew him straight off the platform. Cheng Shi's taut nerves went slack in an instant. He looked up with a mixture of relief and confusion, feeling that today's Benefactor was somehow unusually unfamiliar.

'He actually wasn't in the mood for entertainment?'

'Praise the Fun God!'

And when the Clown vanished into the starry sky, those starlit eyes did something uncharacteristic — the upturned corners smoothed out, the amusement faded, and His voice took on a rare weight.

"Things seem far more complicated than I imagined."

The black-hole eyes offered no comment. After a pause, the starlit eyes continued:

"Whether this Experiment is a true experiment remains unclear. I originally thought everything was tied to faith. But now it seems... perhaps He was right all along.

The universe will ultimately walk into Void."

Time still said nothing. Only after a long silence did He ask a single question:

"Which timeline's Deceit are you?"

The starlit eyes blinked, genuinely surprised.

"You can't even recognize me?

Time — if you can't even identify an ally under the same starry sky, how am I supposed to trust you?

How is our plan supposed to proceed?"

"Without the full picture, what is there to plan?

Stop fishing. I'm busy. If you won't speak the truth, then we're done here today."

With that, the black-hole eyes truly began to dim. The Universal Clock platform itself started to warp, its time flowing outward in all directions. The starlit eyes panicked, snapping irritably:

"Wait!

You have time to watch a clown's performance but can't spare a moment to strategize with me?

Are we still allies under the same sky or aren't we?"

"Whether we are or aren't — you know the answer yourself.

When I saw Mockery and Jeering's course rerouted to connect to the Existence gaps, I knew the restless you had gone to another world.

As for where you came from...

I'm sorry. Another Time's fall may have left you backed into a corner, feeling the pressure. But if I spend too much time here with you, the version of you belonging to this starry sky will also be backed into a corner.

When this universe's 'time' can no longer synchronize with the whole Experiment, our 'sample' will be flagged as an anomaly. And then we'll have no sky left above us.

You... should understand this better than I do."

"Tch — his luck is something else."

"No. He's as Unfortunate as you. When—"

"Enough!" The starlit eyes broke free of their reverie, voice turning cold and mocking. "Blathering on and on, saying you'll leave but never going. Wasting time. Utterly boring."

With that, the eyes simply dissolved from the platform.

And with His departure, Time also gradually faded from view. He truly had no time to linger. As for the earlier clown performance... that hadn't been a waste of time. It had been a search for answers.

Time never held any answers.

The one who provided answers had always been Fate. Time merely followed Fate's guidance, searching for new ones.

...