Time Paradox

Before the explosion.

Li Qing, the Li Qing of the past, happened to be driving with the wounded he had picked up on the road to this port warehouse where Meat Mountain was rampaging.

The pink-haired boy who called himself Tonio was seriously injured and in bad shape. If he had a choice, he would never want to get even half a step closer to that Molten Giant Beast.

But Li Qing was very confident and calm.

He knew that as long as he carefully maintained a distance of more than 100 meters, the Meat Mountain would not attack him.

So, ignoring Tonio's terrified cries, Li Qing drove into the Port Warehouse Area, getting closer and closer to the Molten Giant Beast.

Just then, he heard a series of crisp and rapid gunshots suddenly ring out from a large warehouse ahead.

With the cracking sound of shattering cargo window glass, a series of supersonic bullets shot out from the cargo hold.

And these bullets just happened to fly towards that Meat Mountain.

The Meat Mountain reacted instantly.

"What?"

Li Qing was slightly taken aback and couldn't help but be somewhat surprised:

"Someone in the warehouse over there is firing at the Meat Mountain."

"Could it be those meddlesome Americans again? This... this is suicidal!"

Firearms cannot cause any damage to the Meat Mountain.

Those supersonic bullets could serve as bait to distract the Meat Chunk, but the side effect of this method is that it will inevitably bring the Meat Chunk closer and closer to the person who fired the shot.

"Use this water gun to fight monsters."

"Have they watched too many movies?"

Li Qing sighed helplessly to himself.

And the people in that warehouse are still courting death:

The gunfire paused briefly, perhaps due to a magazine change, before resuming with a series of bangs.

Bullets were being thrown out like they were free.

The Meat Mountain continued to move forward along the trajectory of the bullet, getting closer and closer to the warehouse.

Li Qing also drove closely behind, slowly moving forward with the Meat Mountain.

Tonio strongly opposes Li Qing's reckless "Meat Mountain- moving" behavior.

But Li Qing remained completely unmoved:

"Rest assured."

"With me here keeping watch, that thing absolutely cannot get within 100 meters of us."

"Besides, even if something happens, it'll be that idiot who just fired the gun in the warehouse who gets hurt first!"

"What are you afraid of if there are idiots 'actively' attracting hatred?"

He pointed to the warehouse not far ahead and growled a couple of times in annoyance.

As he spoke, Li Qing deliberately shifted his focus from the Meat Mountain to listen to the sounds coming from inside the warehouse, wanting to "see" the fool who had fired the gun earlier and tried to get himself killed.

However, what he heard was...

Boom!!

It's like bending down to pick something up in class and accidentally smelling the fart coming from the student in front of you.

A deafening explosion, loud enough to shatter clouds and split rocks, suddenly erupted from the warehouse, nearly knocking Li Qing unconscious as he was intently listening.

A burst of flames erupted, and a blast of air shot into the sky.

The warehouse walls collapsed instantly in the violent explosion, and bricks and rubble were blasted into the air by the powerful shockwave.

The Meat Mountain immediately got incredibly excited.

It chased after the flying pebbles in the air, but unfortunately...

The fastest flying shard of pebbles was heading straight for Li Qing.

Li Qing's ears were already ringing from the explosion.

And this damned flying rock that had drawn the attention of the Meat Mountain now captured all of his attention.

So he didn't notice at all.

After the explosion and the collapse of the wall

The boy named Tonio was staring in shock at the scene inside the warehouse:

"That... that guy in the warehouse."

"It was me?!"

What Tonio sees, Diavolo can also see.

In Diavolo's field of vision

Inside that warehouse, amidst the flames of the explosion.

There stood a pink-haired man who looked exactly like him!

Although the opponent's body was slightly ethereal and transparent, Diavolo could still recognize him at a glance:

That man is him, it's Diavolo!

"How so."

"How come there's a guy in the warehouse who looks exactly like me?!"

Diavolo's mind was filled with thunderous shock.

He simply couldn't comprehend what he was seeing.

But this problem didn't bother him for long.

Because the very next moment Diavolo saw the pink-haired man.

An indescribable and imperceptible force emerges from the river of time.

That force is erasing everything:

Including Diavolo's memory of that eye contact, and...

What he saw at that moment was the pink-haired man himself.

"."

Silence, blank stare, bewilderment.

He sat there blankly until Li Qing's voice suddenly rang out behind him:

"Tonio? Don't move!"

Li Qing was reminding him of how to deal with the Meat Mountain attack:

"Stay awake, absolutely do not move!"

"Uh-huh?"

Tonio responded as if waking from a dream.

Only then did Tonio, and Diavolo, the true master of this body, finally begin to recover from the nauseating dizziness:

"Ugh, my head hurts so much."

Tonio clutched his hair in agony, his bloodied body trembling slightly with pain.

Why does my head hurt so much?

Did you just see something strange?

No, it seems not.

I can't remember at all.

"The paradox is Time Paradox!"

Inside the warehouse, Diavolo's face was as pale as paper.

He finally knew what would kill him:

"My past self sees my present self."

"A paradox has arisen!"

The cycle of time is absolutely stable, and the past can never be changed.

Time can never tolerate the existence of "paradoxes"—

If paradoxes are allowed to exist and hold true, then the cycle of time will fundamentally collapse.

Therefore, there is only one possible outcome for a "paradox":

They were completely erased from this world by the indescribable power of time.

This is the self-repairing mechanism of time rules, much like antivirus software in a computer system.

Now, Diavolo's existence is the "paradox" that must be erased under the rules of time.

"Am I going to die?"

Diavolo hasn't yet noticed anything wrong with his body:

His body continued to become ethereal and transparent, just like when he used "Ouroboros" normally before.

If everything goes smoothly, he will enter the river of time and return to the past, and then return safely here an hour later.

But at this moment, Diavolo suddenly felt a strange premonition:

This time, he probably won't be coming back.

His body was constantly eroded and turned into nothingness under the influence of the power of time.

To put it in a more terrifying way, this process is actually...

Diavolo's very existence is being completely erased from this world.

"Aaaaaaah!!"

He let out a desperate roar in that endless fear.

But he has become the paradox itself; he is being erased by time, and this ending cannot be changed.

Diavolo is doomed.

Even now, he himself cannot fully know how he will die.

"Li Qing!"

At this final moment, Diavolo ultimately turned his hatred towards Li Qing.

He was clearly an invincible Dark Emperor, the ruler of the underworld.

His fate was so smooth; he was once a favorite of fate.

However, starting from "today," the day Li Qing appeared.

His life trajectory was completely changed.

Diavolo was like someone who suddenly stepped on a banana peel on the steep mountaintop of life, and then, caught off guard, stumbled and tumbled down into the abyss of eternal darkness.

It was smashed to pieces, a truly horrific sight.

"Li Qing!!"

"I did lose, but what can you do about it?"

Hahahahaha

For some unknown reason, Diavolo suddenly burst into manic laughter:

"I'm right outside the warehouse now."

"But Li Qing, you were there in the past too!"

"Since my past self can see me, then your past self must have seen you too—"

"Not only is my existence a 'paradox, 'Li Qing, you are now in the same 'paradox' as me!"

Diavolo laughed wildly and unrestrainedly.

Seeing his arch-rival die was perhaps the most pleasurable experience he could have had before his death.

"You will be erased by time along with me, and disappear from this world completely with me!"

"You didn't win. Nobody can win this battle!"

"."

Li Qing fell silent for a moment.

But his expressions were exceptionally rich.

Seeing that Diavolo was about to be completely gone, he sighed helplessly and with amusement:

"Diavolo, did your brain just disappear first?"

"You still don't understand the principle of time loops."

"You know, that call hasn't even gone through yet!"

"If we both die here, who will contact Rohan Kishibe later?"

With just a few words from Li Qing, Diavolo's excited heart suddenly stopped.

He roared in disbelief and extreme resentment:

"Why."

Why are you alright?

"You were sitting in that car back then!"

"Ha ha."

Li Qing smiled knowingly.

In that almost frozen moment, he raised his voice and said:

"My super hearing is actually an active skill."

"Otherwise, the constant noise from hundreds of meters around my brain would drive me crazy."

"And I remember, at that time..."

"The explosion happened just as I was about to activate my hearing to investigate the situation inside the warehouse."

"The explosion almost deafened me, severely damaging my hearing and impairing my perception in a short period of time."

"And under these circumstances, even the Meat Mountain was attracted—"

"I can only temporarily narrow my perception range and concentrate on listening to the movements of that Meat Mountain. I have no time to listen to the noises coming from this warehouse."

Li Qing paused slightly, then pointed to the raging flames:

"Not to mention that this is the site of an explosion and a fire."

"These raging flames and howling hot winds are the best noise interference in themselves."

"Heartbeats, breathing, conversations, and shouts can all be almost perfectly masked by these chaotic noises."

"So, to find out if there's a future Li Qing in the warehouse..."

"He, that is, my past self, I'm afraid I'll have to see him with my own eyes."

"This"

Diavolo's brain seemed to have truly been fried by despair.

He just wanted to see Li Qing die, his eyes red, and he couldn't understand why Li Qing hadn't triggered the paradox like him.

"Well"

Li Qing sighed softly and pointed to his eyes, which were filled with shadows:

"Are you stupid?"

"I'm fucking blind."

How can a blind person see their future self?