SOP CH15: Forging a Sword from Broken Remnants

When the iron portcullis opened, the slaves surged out in a frenzy, like a massive school of sardines swimming with all their might. With the security robots under rebel control, most had shut down and squatted meekly along the corners of the walls. Clepsydra fighters with bronze water-clock tattoos pinned the Time Entropy Group personnel to the floor. The spectators scattered like birds and beasts, leaving the entire arena in a state of roiling pandemonium.

Right at that moment, footage of the 2030 Branch’s total fall was transmitted via live broadcast to every corner of Spiral City. Nearly every upper-tier elite halted whatever they were doing, watching the screen with their hearts thrown into utter turmoil.

Monkey Face’s complexion turned a sickly yellow as he shrieked hysterically. The rebels knocked him unconscious, threw him into an iron cage meant for holding auction merchandise, and hauled him away, scheduling a proper interrogation for another day.

The snow leopard’s jubilant voice crackled through the comms channel: “I secured the 2030 Branch’s files! Once we crack their dynamic cryptographic keys, the branch’s temporal technologies will be ours for the taking!”

Hearts laughed warmly. “Then I will trouble you with that over the coming days.”

Supported by rebel members, Hearts struggled to his feet. The liberated slaves clustered before him, their clouded pupils dull and lifeless. Hearts scanned the crowd, speaking with a clear, resonant voice:

“Fellow comrades.”

The slaves, originally slumped in dejection, slowly raised their rheumy eyes upon hearing his voice. Hearts said: “Whether you wish to linger in the ruins of this arena or depart this place, you are free to stay or go as you please.”

His spine was straight as a ramrod, and every slave stared at him without blinking. Hearts added:

“I only hope that your lives will never again be spent as entertainment for others. From this moment onward, your time belongs to yourselves, and you live for yourselves.”

The slaves lowered their heads in hesitation, yet slowly began shuffling their steps, walking toward the Clepsydra rebels like small drops of water merging into an ocean.

More and more people stood alongside Clepsydra, choosing to take sovereignty over their own lives.

Hearts looked upon the scene with profound solace. Clepsydra had grown and flourished through thick and thin. Even though the path ahead was fraught with hardships, people still chose to entrust themselves to this cause.

The ring’s canvas was shredded, its foam padding split open, and web-like fractures covered the metal framework. Amidst the wreckage, Quicksand supported Diamonds, when he suddenly felt the body beside him go completely limp. Turning his head, he saw Diamonds’s face deathly pale, cold sweat dripping along his jaw and splashing onto his shirt collar.

“Black-hearted boss?” Quicksand called out. Diamonds did not answer, panting raggedly. Holding him steady, Quicksand could feel his bony, frail frame through the jacket. This was a body entirely devoid of mechanical cybernetics. It was hard to imagine that relying on such a fragile vessel, Diamonds had managed to defeat that mountainous monster with peerless martial skill. Fragile, ordinary: he was an unaugmented mortal.

“Take me to the ‘Super Cheap Clinic’…” Diamonds wheezed with great difficulty.

“Alright,” Quicksand asked. “Is it because the doctor there is skilled and familiar with your physical condition?”

Covered in cold sweat, Diamonds offered a teasing smirk. “No, because it’s cheap.”

Steering clear of the celebrating crowds, they left the 2030 Branch. Quicksand drove a battered taxi, threading through winding, labyrinthine alleyways. By the time they reached the front of the Super Cheap Clinic, Diamonds had slipped into unconsciousness, intermittent, indistinct groans slipping from his throat. Quicksand pulled up to a halt and scooped him under his arm like a sack of sand.

The clinic was nestled beneath a covered walkway behind a rusted iron accordion gate, sealing in stagnant, deathly quiet air like a coffin. Quicksand knocked. Before long, the gate clattered, and a goateed old man with a bulging, smooth forehead peered through the bars, asking irritably:

“What, here for treatment?”

Quicksand nodded. The goateed elder’s gaze landed upon Diamonds, who looked as lifeless as a piece of rotten wood. Used to such sights, the old man unlocked the gate and said, “Come in.”

Quicksand stepped inside, greeted by the damp reek of povidone-iodine. A brass ceiling fan, walls with peeling yellow paint, and an examination bed behind a faded cloth curtain came into view. He dropped Diamonds onto the bed with rough movements, like unloading cargo. Drenched in sweat, Diamonds remained completely oblivious to the poor handling. Quicksand asked:

“Doctor, what illness does he have?”

The goateed old man casually threw on a moon-white coarse cloth tunic and said, “You ask me, but I’d like to ask you. A few days ago I stitched him up, and he came in for a fracture. How did he end up brewing an entirely new set of wounds?” His gaze suddenly turned cold and sharp. “Young man, you two aren’t working together to con me out of medicine so you can scalp it on the black market, are you?”

Quicksand was expressionless: “Actually, I don’t know him. I was simply passing by and saw he was unwell, so I generously brought him here. Doctor, carry out your diagnosis. I shall take my leave first, and he can settle the medical bills himself once he wakes up.”

The goateed old man chuckled. “You two share the exact same virtue: full of hot air.” He pointed outside the iron gate. “There is coptis tea on the table. If you are thirsty, pour yourself a cup. I need to run some checks, so go wait outside; there is a folding stool to sit on.”

Quicksand nodded, adding a final question: “Doctor, he turned out like this after getting into a fight. What is the cause?”

The goateed elder replied, “Who knows? Young folks nowadays are fragile. I reckon it’s a lumbar muscle strain.”

Once Quicksand stepped out, the goateed old man drew the cloth curtain shut, unzipped Diamonds’s jacket, and snipped away his inner shirt. That frail torso was gaunt, bones standing out sharply beneath the pale skin. Mottled scars sprawled across his flesh like hibernating snakes, one of which was exceptionally horrifying, running from his chest down to his lower abdomen, as though a sharp cleaver had once split him in two. Bruises covered him from head to toe, and his abdominal cavity was slightly sunken. It looked more like a corpse than the vessel of a living human.

The old man sighed: “Why must you act so recklessly?”

Diamonds slit open an eye, muttering faintly, “Young folks are naturally fragile, and terribly impulsive.”

The goateed elder stared at Diamonds with a complicated expression, his mind drifting back to the distant past.

Back then, Boxing King Anvil had just changed his name to “Hearts,” partnering with Diamonds to run Poker Bar. Hearts’s fury toward the Time Entropy Group had never cooled, frequently driving him to seek vengeance at the 2030 Branch, only to be repeatedly repelled by the Group’s advanced temporal technology.

The goateed elder still remembered a stormy night years ago, lightning pulsing behind the cloudbanks. Urgent, frantic pounding had rattled against his door. Unlocking the iron gate, he had found a Clepsydra member supporting Hearts, looking beside himself with panic:

“Doctor Hua, I beg you to save our boss!”

Hearts’s face was deathly white, fallen into a deep coma. His four limbs and one side of his abdomen had vanished into thin air, the severed surfaces shimmering with an eerie, kaleidoscopic glow. The Clepsydra fighter stammered, “The 2030 Branch Director, Monkey Face… wields a quantum gauntlet capable of severing a person’s limbs across space-time at the cost of immense lifespan. Boss Hearts went up against him, took a direct blow, and had his limbs scattered across different eras!”

The goateed old man had swiftly checked Hearts’s breathing, lifted his eyelids, and said after a long pause, “He is in a comatose state.”

“Yes. We heard Boss’s daughter met the same cruel fate, and had to rely on nutrient fluid to survive ever since,” the rebel said in utter despair. “Doctor, will Boss have to stay unconscious for the rest of his life too? The rebels are already unstable. If we lose him now, Clepsydra will fall apart…”

Doctor Hua had sighed: “He is missing all four limbs and half his internal organs. If those parts can be pieced together, it might allow him to regain consciousness in this spacetime.”

“Limbs are manageable. We can scavenge some cybernetics from the black market that aren’t monitored by the Group. But internal organs are a nightmare. The movement of nearly every biological unit is strictly tracked, and each carries the Group’s implanted nanotrackers. With our limited technology, extracting them is nearly impossible, and it would expose the rebel hideout…” the fighter trembled violently.

“That is for you to worry about. I only treat patients,” the goateed elder had huffed, putting down his stethoscope. “If you cannot gather these organs, your boss will end up like his daughter back then: a specimen soaking in nutrient fluid.”

The rebel fighter shivered relentlessly.

“Furthermore, with such massive amounts of implanted organs and cybernetics, he will likely suffer acute neural disorders and severe rejection, enduring unimaginable pain, sensory hallucinations, and perhaps complete madness. Your boss considered that very risk back then, which is why he refused to subject his daughter to such inhuman procedures. Do you truly want to do this to your boss?”

The rebel lowered his head, stammering after a long silence: “Boss instructed us before that until vengeance is fulfilled, he will not fall. If an accident befell him, we were to use every means necessary to get him back on the battlefield. I beg you to save him, Doctor.”

Hearing that, the goateed elder had silently put on his moon-white tunic and stepped up to the operating bed.

From that day forward, the Super Cheap Clinic shut its doors to outside patients, dedicating itself entirely to treating the backbone of the rebellion.

Every member of Clepsydra ran themselves ragged scouring for unmonitored cybernetics. An antique ocular prosthetic, a silverback gorilla’s arm, and a titanium limb were fitted onto Hearts’s frame, yet the internal organs remained incomplete.

“The brain is intact. With the Group’s technology, as long as organs can sustain somatic functions, an individual can maintain consciousness in this spacetime,” Doctor Hua had explained to the waiting Clepsydra members after finishing an operation, setting down his scalpel and forceps with a heavy sigh.

The rebels looked miserable. Despite frantic efforts, they had failed to obtain functional organs from the black market. Someone asked hesitantly, “Doctor, what if we use our own organs?”

Doctor Hua nodded: “Treat a dead horse as a living one, then. If one of you happens to be a compatible match, that would work.”

Folding his arms against the wall, the elder had added, “We don’t have the Group’s tech to forcibly modify genes and mask incompatible organs as compatible. Hearts has no blood relatives to rely on. Finding a match for both blood type and human leukocyte antigens among unrelated individuals carries roughly a one percent chance. The odds are bleak.”

The rebels gritted their teeth. “Aside from our own people, we are searching the lower tier for suitable donors.”

“And what if you find one? Will that person willingly donate organs to your boss? I strongly advise against violence. If you kidnap an innocent person from the lower tier, I will not perform the surgery.”

The rebels’ faces turned pale, brows tightly furrowed. Someone slammed a fist against the wall, shouting, “Then what about the Group’s people? Let’s raid the 2030 Branch, kidnap their staff, and harvest their organs to sustain Boss Hearts!”

“Fool! Boss Hearts got injured precisely because of clashing with the branch. What capability do we have right now to take them on? It will only lead to greater casualties.” The others hastily restrained the hot-headed fighter.

Night fell, neon tubes lighting up in sequence, drowning the lower tier in deep blue hues. Gloomy and helpless, the rebels shuffled away one by one. Doctor Hua returned to his clinic, when shortly after, a figure nimbly slipped through the gap in the iron accordion gate.

“Doctor Hua, I brought honey whisky. Care for a drink?” Carrying a bottle, the person greeted him with a grin. Several loose strands of hair fell by his temples, gleaming beneath the lamp like frost or pale moonlight. Seeing him, Doctor Hua sighed:

“Brat, get in here.”

It was Diamonds. He casually dropped onto the armchair, leaning back comfortably against the red-plaid cushion. The old man knew that a visit bearing liquor portended nothing good; Diamonds was a habitual liar who frequently wheedled medicine on credit and never paid without bargaining down to the absolute lowest discount.

“What are you here for? I don’t believe you are generous enough to simply share a drink with me. Besides, I cannot stomach your liquor; I only drink this.”

Casting a sidelong glance, Doctor Hua retrieved a flat-bottomed earthenware jug from the display shelf against the wall, an aged broomcorn millet wine he had treasured for years.

Diamonds took it with a smile: “Fine, we’ll drink according to Doctor’s taste.” Swiftly peeling off the seal, he picked up a black ceramic cup from the shelf with practiced familiarity and began pouring for himself. Doctor Hua picked up Diamonds’s honey whisky bottle, only to realize the opaque packaging had disguised the fact that it was completely empty.

Doctor Hua scolded, “Trying to pull a fast one again? Do you actually have real business, or should I see you out?”

“Of course I have business,” Diamonds took a leisurely sip, suddenly leaning forward with a solemn expression. “It concerns Boss Hearts’ organs.”

Doctor Hua’s expression turned serious as he sat across from him. “What, you have connections in the black market?”

“I have connections, but I still couldn’t find organs matching Boss Hearts,” Diamonds spread his hands. “However, I thought of an alternative solution.”

Losing his smile entirely, he said: “Transplant my organs to Boss Hearts.”

The wind rattled the weathered wooden door outside, sounding like loose teeth. A bolt of lightning seemed to strike Doctor Hua’s mind. After an extended silence, he blurted out:

“Boy, what kind of mad nonsense are you spewing!”

Diamonds shook his head: “I speak from the heart. Once the Time Entropy Group’s rule is overthrown and the looped timeline returns to normal, Boss Hearts can recover his body. When that happens, he can return the organs to me.”

“Are you an idiot? Do you treat organ transplants like borrowing and returning books from a library, with no regard for biological matching?”

Facing Doctor Hua’s gaze as if looking at a lunatic, Diamonds smiled, unbuttoned his frog closures, and bared his pale skin. The old man was stunned to see a Penrose stairs emblem branded near his collarbone.

“The Penrose stairs…” Doctor Hua murmured.

It was the famous geometric paradox proposed by British mathematician Roger Penrose, depicting a continuous staircase looped in an infinite cycle, possessing neither a highest nor a lowest step. It was the insignia of the Time Entropy Group.

This emblem had distinct ranks: the core, administrative, and executive tiers were marked in gold, silver, and purple respectively. The brand near Diamonds’s collarbone was pitch-black like congealed ink, with a tiny serial code stamped beneath: A-0. That was the mark of the slave-labor caste.

Doctor Hua’s expression shifted in shock: “You belong to the Time Entropy Group…”

In the flickering shadows of the lamp, Diamonds’s smile seemed to waver as well. He spoke with subtle weight:

“A slave. An experimental test subject. Call me whatever you please.”

Only then did Doctor Hua recall his enigmatic identity: neither an official rebel member, nor someone who seemed to truly belong to the lower tier. Yet the revelation was so unexpected that the doctor was left temporarily speechless.

Diamonds laced his fingers together, wearing a helpless smile:

“In short, the Group maintained a batch of slaves meant to serve as an ‘organ repository.’ I am one of them.”

“I was genetically edited so that my donor organs are universally compatible with anyone. Stimulated by stem cells, my tissues regenerate far better than an ordinary person’s, and the nanobots in my bloodstream help maintain organ function. Even if you harvest my organs, I won’t die.”

Doctor Hua was completely struck dumb. The ceiling fan turned slowly, its shadow crawling across peeling walls and wooden medicine cabinets, draping the room in dim hues.

“Proceed, Doctor. Boss Hearts is the hope of the rebellion; his life is far more valuable than mine.”

The platinum-haired youth wore a faint smile, pressing a hand to his chest without sorrow or joy, as though recounting someone else’s story.

“After all, I am merely a consumable asset born for this purpose.”