Chapter 1075: Time Has Its Own Path! |
[Deceit] had indeed been probing Origin.
Originally, His plan wasn't all that different from what [War] had just done — He had merely pushed the timeline back, because there was still much He needed to do. Rushing to tear away the final curtain could just as easily bring the actors onstage and audience below not a pleasant surprise, but a terrible shock.
Whether the world could withstand that shock was debatable, but now it was clear — it absolutely could not.
Origin was too powerful. No — perhaps "powerful" wasn't even the right word to describe 'Him.'
When one being of the same species surpasses another, you could call it "powerful." But Origin and the gods...
They weren't even the same category of existence.
Even though the gods had always known Origin had created everything and bestowed upon them their divine nature, as deities who had reigned supreme for eons, they lacked any clear understanding of a "Creator" who had never once appeared.
Today, that understanding was completed.
Before 'Him,' they were mortals — perhaps even less than mortals!
A measured dose of fear was the courage to claw a path to survival from a dead end. But an overdose of fear was simply the last straw that broke the camel's back, transforming the so-called Fear Faction into a Despair Faction.
Like right now — with the gods standing paralyzed in shock.
When that bloody sneer detonated across the real universe, countless worlds were collapsing and perishing. But the gods saw clearly: those worlds that vanished from view were instantly erased and replaced by an imperceptible force with pristine substitutes.
Though these new worlds were wrapped within Existence Rifts and indistinct, the faint vitality seeping through told the gods plainly — a brand-new era seemed to have begun again.
So they were nothing more than mass-produced petri dishes. As for what the Creator was cultivating within them, no one knew.
But that wasn't even the most terrifying part.
What was more terrifying: now that [War] had vanished into nothing and the bloody sneer had faded from the cosmos, what would become of those universes still collapsing but not yet fully destroyed?
These universes had lost their window for salvation because the gods froze in shock. They could no longer support the crumbling cosmos. As their worlds crept toward annihilation, the only fate awaiting them was the exact same ending as the samples that had already been replaced...
Perhaps even worse!
Because the worlds that perished were already gone. And in the worlds that still stood, gods and mortals alike could only sit and wait for death.
That alone was devastating enough — but the reality [Deceit] noticed was even more hopeless than despair.
He observed that even though the [Wars] of countless worlds had ridden [Truth]'s experiment to pierce the sky and confront Origin directly, there were still countless other worlds cocooned within Existence Rifts that had never witnessed this madness at all.
The same was true of the bloody sneer — countless Clowns had sneered at Origin, but countless others remained trapped in their tiny corners. Their worlds hadn't caught up to this "grand show"; some didn't even know — due to differences in "progress" — that a grand show was unfolding beyond the universe.
This meant the infinite slice universes were not progressing in lockstep. Each world had its own pace.
Parallel timelines worked the same way, of course. This wasn't hard to understand or even to guess. [Deceit] had already grasped this when He smuggled Himself into other worlds through the Mockery and Jeering.
So why did this realization still frighten Him?
Because when the perspective zoomed out, jumped dimensions, and shifted from inside a slice universe to the real universe — it became obvious that "time" was flowing here, too. And from that came a ghost story:
How many times had [War]'s charge happened already?
Or rather — how many encores had this "grand show" already seen?
The more you thought about it, the more terrifying it became!
There was no escape!
In that moment, even [Fate] was forced to redefine the Fixed Destiny!
If everything within the real universe was repeating itself, then wasn't that, too, a form of predetermined fate?
Just as this net of fear was about to ensnare every last god, just as the tidal wave of despair was on the verge of swallowing the world entirely, [Deceit]'s gaze sharpened. He realized He had to start saving the world.
More importantly, His only "subordinate" in the Fear Faction — that devout little Clown follower — was about to die. Drifting toward the "predetermined" was not a good omen. So He acted decisively to prevent that outcome.
Of course, the timing was His to decide — but the god who actually moved was not Him.
[Deceit] was the facade of [Void] — a phantasmal bubble, an unchanging falsehood. He could deceive, He could bluff, but the one thing He could not do was save.
So the true savior was not [Deceit], but rather...
[Time]!
The reason [Time] never had time was precisely because He had been continuously aligning the "time" of the universe with the "time" of the real universe. He was synchronizing the progress across every temporal dimension of the Creator's experiment, ensuring that the world behind Him displayed no anomalies and attracted no attention from the Experiment Master.
So from the very beginning, He had been the "savior" — a savior who silently stood guard before the world.
But strangely, when [Truth]'s experiment had revealed the truth to the gods, when [War]'s impulse had torn away the world's disguise — when the slice universe beneath their feet lay exposed under Origin's observation as an anomaly — where had [Time] gone?
He hadn't shown His face since the Convention assembly. Before, His time had been consumed by "synchronization." But now the shattered universe no longer needed synchronizing — so why had He still not appeared?
Because He was hiding!
Not hiding His talents — hiding Himself. He was avoiding a gaze — the Creator's gaze!
He carried within Him the power to save the world from fire and flood — and that power came from the Creator Himself. So He dared not show His face, lest He draw the Creator's attention.
Whether a god's concealment could truly escape the Creator's notice, no one knew. But thus far, the Creator had not personally intervened to accelerate this world's destruction.
Which meant there was still a chance.
As for how to save the world — it was simple.
"Time Has Its Own Path!"
Since the world had gone astray because of [Truth], then simply wind the deviation back to the right course. Restore the shattered world to its former state — turn it back into a normal sample. That way, this world would be indistinguishable from all the other slice universes that had never witnessed "the blood drying and flame dying" or the "bloody sneer" — just another "obedient" experimental sample.
Once "obedient," it could "resynchronize." And resynchronization meant going unnoticed by the Creator.
This was a mad gamble — with the entire world as the stake!
The bet was that the Creator's power could restore the world, and that the restored world would not be noticed and replaced!
But...
Did you catch what was wrong?
This kind of gambler's spirit had previously only been seen in [Fate]. Yet today, for the sake of the world, [Time] was gambling too.
He unleashed every last ounce of the Creator's power within Him and performed a regression on the world beneath — a regression that transcended the space-time barrier.
Time reversed. The deviation was corrected!
This time, not only did the shattering world stop breaking and begin to "re-adhere," but even the multiple reconstructions [Truth] had performed were rewound.
And so Cheng Shi went from falling to rising. Big Cat went from sprinting forward to retreating backward. Tao Yi resumed her flickering. Players returned to their trials. Everything ebbed like a receding tide — as if none of it had ever happened!
Before long, when Cheng Shi opened his eyes and found himself back amid the ruins of Tusnat, the heart that had been lodged in his throat finally sank three notches toward calm.
[Time]!
It was Him after all!
He realized [Time] had acted — this Benefactor had taken the entire world back to the beginning of [Truth]'s experiment, depositing him back inside [Truth]'s trial.
But had it worked?
Had the dust settled?
He didn't know how [Time] had done it. He only knew that the memories of blood drying and flame dying, of the blood-red sneer of despair, remained seared into his mind!
Cheng Shi had not forgotten!
Because of...
The Prisoner's Awakening.
...