Deceitful Game

Chapter 149 Absolutely Sacred Timeline

This is a very important test.

The establishment of this matter resolved one of Mingpo's doubts.

In this world, there exists an "absolutely sacred timeline," which is "the present." This is the "real time" in which the deceptive game operates.

This timeline can be influenced, altered, or even destroyed by people modifying the past. It can also be used to gain limited foresight and predict the future, but it is not that "deceitful people in the past and future can simultaneously change time."

Only a charlatan within this "sacred timeline" has the right to use the power of time to change history!

Therefore, the possibility of "a future deceiver using tokens to travel back to the past" or "telling a past deceiver to continue using tokens to travel back to an even more distant past" no longer exists. If someone were to actually use tokens to travel back to the past, that past deceiver, unless they were also a "future person," would be completely unable to use the tokens of time!

This situation indirectly proves another fact.

Second, future deceivers cannot return to the present!

Even if that happened, the person I was back then is already a thing of the past.

Even if the past is altered, if "the present self" doesn't go back in time and return to the past, they won't even know it.

If you don't use the chips to go back to the past, you'll never encounter an enemy from the "future"!

Therefore, there's no need to worry about "a future adversary traveling through time, returning to the past, and killing their current, weaker self." In other words...

"...The future of this world is not determined."

Mingpo murmured softly.

This result greatly encouraged him.

This means that in this chaotic world, there is still no "fate." The future is completely chaotic and unknown... Those "limited foresights" made using leverage are futures that can be changed, pure deductions.

The spacetime structure of this world is also much simpler than he imagined.

It is not circular... nor does it simultaneously contain the past and the future.

It's more like a river.

A newly born river flows across an infinitely vast plain, and any influence upstream immediately affects downstream. As the river begins its journey from its source, from higher ground…

These charlatans are like people on a ship.

They can scoop up a ladle of water, a basin of soil, or a pile of excrement, and then instantly move upstream using the "time-trading chips," adding them back in. And due to some force, this upstream influence immediately takes effect downstream—this is the essence of how the time-trading chips change history and thus the present. The time-trading chips can allow them to return upstream to add pollution or purify it… or they can allow them to look ahead and see where the river will flow next.

However, they cannot directly add pollution downstream, or put a fish in.

At this point, the river has not yet decided where it will definitely go. There is no water "downstream," and everything is just speculation. As the water quality changes, such as its viscosity, volume, and the number of fish in the water, the river's direction will also change.

When all the charlatans are altering the past, the direction this river travels is influenced by these idle people who can "teleport back and forth."

The collapse of spacetime is very likely caused by its "excessive deviation".

It could no longer flow endlessly forward, but instead became a still lake.

Thus, a question arose in Mingpo's mind.

It is well known that charlatans can force their way out by "altering the past".

...Moreover, killing them prematurely is not an option. They would still die anyway.

However, bringing the dead back to life would allow them to live on and make up for their regrets, thus depriving them of the motivation to join the deceptive game.

That means if the variables that have been modified in the past are large enough... then wouldn't all these ancient charlatans have to be "kicked out of the game"?

Because the past they were familiar with had long been completely altered beyond recognition!

They might disappear without you even noticing. And what if they were altered before they were even born, so that they never existed in this world at all... Would that become a paradox?

For example, an eighty-year-old conman alters history from seventy-five years ago, causing a fire that kills the father or grandfather of a twenty-year-old conman when he was young…

He was never even born!

Is this a paradox?

Can he still exist?

Can he return to a "past" where he never existed?

If not... wouldn't that mean that a charlatan of the Bronze Age level, as long as he is old enough, could easily kill a powerhouse of the Gold Age level?

This is unlikely.

Because if that were the case, then "older charlatans" would become a very powerful resource. But clearly... neither Divine Comedy, Tea Party, nor the Brotherhood of Grimm specifically recruits older charlatans.

But if possible

Combined with the "Undying Severance" of the "Silver Oak Blade," Mingbo made a bold conjecture.

Perhaps, after a certain stage, a charlatan will become a terrifying entity.

Like demons, like nightmares, or perhaps like gods. They are fairies existing within the flow of time, and conventional methods can no longer kill them... They even have no connection to their "past".

So, what is this stage?

Silver of the Moon? Gold of the Year? Or perhaps... that "final test"?

Or is it that... creating your own palace is enough?

Moreover, this also allowed Mingpo to breathe a slight sigh of relief.

Since the past has been altered beyond recognition, there's no need to specifically recall one's memories.

已知他1月1日还活着，2月1日已经死了……于是明珀直接从1月15日开始，使用两分法确认自己的生死。这个过程很快。

Moreover... Mingpo didn't use up a single chip.

January 15rd, cannot be traced back.

January 7rd, cannot be traced back.

January 3rd, cannot be traced back.

January 2nd... cannot be traced back.

Mingpo fell silent.

The situation has become obvious.

He died on January 1st.

The time that Mingpo initially chose at random... happened to be the day he last lived.

That day simply didn't exist in Mingpo's memory, and he himself had absolutely no recollection of it.

...That's fine too.

Since I have absolutely no memory of it, let me experience it all over again.

Mingpo's gaze hardened.

This time, Mingpo took out a piece of Sun Pseudo-Gold.

He wanted to get through the whole day in one go.

明珀再度下令：「【让我回到2026年1月1日，14:20分】。」

This is the arrival time of the high-speed train; he won't have to wait too long.

Time is money; save it whenever you can.

This time, Mingpo's bargaining chip of time was successfully crushed by him.

As the golden flames spread, time and space before Mingpo's eyes rewound once more.