The carriage whip cracked again and again, tearing through the air with violent, sharp snaps.
Inside the residence, a brutal scene was unfolding. The lines across Madame Spades’ brow tightened with fury as she brandished a leather whip, ruthlessly striking Morana multiple times. The maid curled herself into a tight ball against the wall, her pitted face filled with sheer terror.
When Diamonds and Quicksand returned to The Grand Estate, they found Morana collapsed on the floor, her body covered in bloody welts. Diamonds lunged forward, catching Madame Spades by the wrist.
“Madame, calm down! What did she do?”
“She left fingerprints while polishing the silverware, and she left several scorch marks on a mutton-leg sleeve while ironing the garments! She has committed a string of incredibly low-level blunders!” Rage creased the features beneath Madame Spades’ veil.
Diamonds tried to placate her. “These are minor infractions. There is no need to fly into such a violent rage over—”
“Minor infractions?” Madame Spades’ voice spiked sharply. “Do you have any idea that during the purification of morphine, even a microscopic temperature error can leave an excess of papaverine, costing a patient their life? Even a minor infraction is the gateway to a fatal failure. Such carelessness is absolutely forbidden in my estate!”
Diamonds forced a chuckle. “Even so, beating her like this is uncalled for. You could just discipline her with words, Madame. Why let your blood boil over it?”
Quicksand interjected flatly, “Stop beating the maid. If you want to beat someone, beat this black-hearted boss of mine. He’s plenty durable.”
Madame Spades cast a freezing glare at Diamonds, while Diamonds shot a flat look right back at Quicksand.
A heavy, suffocating atmosphere filled the drawing room. After a long impasse, Diamonds finally released his grip on Madame Spades’ wrist.
Madame Spades lowered her carriage whip. “Mr. Diamonds, I have told you before: do not interfere in my domestic affairs. To ensure their offspring can soar through the blue skies, falcons will push their fledglings off the cliffside. My severity toward Morana is to ensure she spreads her wings before she plummets to the bottom of the valley.”
At that moment, Quicksand stepped forward, his eyes entirely devoid of emotional ripples. “From where I stand,” he said smoothly, “you aren’t whipping her to correct her mistakes or guide her onto the right path.”
“Your eyes are screaming a single truth: you hate her.”
Madame Spades froze. After a long silence, she put away the carriage whip, squared her shoulders, and instantly regained her usual poised and elegant demeanor, acting as if the splattered blood on the floor had nothing to do with her.
“Gentlemen, please refrain from baseless speculation,” she said casually. “You only need to fulfill your duties.”
She took a few steps away, then suddenly added, “Tomorrow night at the clock tower of Crown Tower, I will act as the representative of the Corporation to unveil our latest discoveries regarding temporal entities to the lords. I will require you to accompany me as my guards. Until then, please rest here. Mechanical servants will tend to your living arrangements.”
Madame Spades swept a glance across them, her gaze bone-chillingly cold.
“After all… you are merely guests visiting from the future.”
Once Madame Spades had departed, Quicksand helped the fallen maid to her feet. As he lifted her up, he noticed mottled, old scars crisscrossing Morana’s skin beneath her torn dress. This was far from the first time Madame Spades had brutally beaten her.
Quicksand remained silent for a moment before asking, “Did the Madame… always beat you like this before?”
Morana nodded, trembling.
Diamonds averted his eyes. “The Madame Spades I know in the future isn’t a tyrant like this. If she ever wanted to hit someone, she’d only hit me.”
Quicksand glanced sideways at him. “Well, you ask for it anyway.”
The maid buried her face in her arms. “If even the slightest thing goes wrong, the Madame takes it out on me with insults and beatings… I’ve grown used to it. The whips used by the overseers at the Mining Camps hurt far worse than the Madame’s, and my physical constitution is sturdy enough to endure it. But many girls my age in this estate couldn’t take it. Some fled in the dead of night, only to be captured by the mechanical soldiers and vanish without a trace. Others were dragged before the Madame and beaten within an inch of their lives… and later, they stopped breathing too…”
Diamonds and Quicksand exchanged a look, both sensing the dark, raging currents hidden in the other’s eyes. This estate might have once housed many living servants, but as they perished one by one, Morana was the only one left.
“If that is the case, why don’t you run away? Why do you still speak up for the Madame?”
Morana pressed her chin close to her collarbone, her expression gradually steadying. She nervously wrung her fingers, saying shyly:
“Be… because Madame keeps an extensive collection of books here. She also has cinchona bark, calomel, musk, and so many other precious chemical agents. You cannot find them anywhere else…”
“You are interested in pharmacology?”
“Just a bit of a passion. At the mining camps, far too many people lost their lives to disease.” The maid’s gaze seemed to trace a fragile, breaking thread in mid-air, light and fleeting. A genuine smile bloomed across her face. “If it is at all possible, I want to complete the work that even the Madame failed to achieve. I want to ensure that poor people like me never have to suffer from disease again.”
Following that minor episode in the drawing room, the relationship between the two travelers and Madame Spades seemingly plummeted to absolute zero.
They watched as Madame Spades flew into explosive tantrums, smashing objects across the estate. At the slightest inconvenience, she would raise her whip to strike the messengers who came to her door. A coachman even whispered that she had once whipped herself so severely that she bled profusely, losing an eye in the process. Even the naturally silver-tongued Diamonds couldn’t fathom how a gentle, generous elder from two hundred years in the future could have been such a vicious, tyrannical monster in her youth.
Quicksand, however, remained entirely unbothered, adopting the posture of a philosopher as he remarked with mock depth, “Because time changes everything.”
The following evening, at Madame Spades’ behest, they boarded a carriage bound for the Crown Tower. Even though Quicksand was thoroughly displeased with the prospect of playing bodyguard to a tyrannical old woman, Diamonds managed to persuade him with a classic, universal truth: “We’re already here.”
The Crown Tower was, in reality, St. Giles’ Cathedral. However, in the year 1805—having been heavily compromised by the Chrono-Entropy Corporation—it had undergone a grotesque modification. Its spire pointed toward the heavens like a massive screwdriver, and its exterior walls were draped in winding, copper steam pipes that hissed like a train pulling into a station.
The moment the two stepped inside, they were left utterly dumbfounded. The interior boasted a translucent dome overhead, and an iron display stage had been erected over the altar. Next to a colossal mixer sat an intricate array of star-dense gauge panels, steam lights, and mechanical clocks. Beneath the brilliant, shimmering firelight strolled numerous aristocratic men and women, every single one of them wearing carnival masks, either raising their glasses in toasts or conversing merrily.
The second Quicksand entered the Crown Tower, his eyes locked firmly onto the banquet tables. They were piled high with aromatic ribeye steaks, buttered lobster pies, and roasted peacocks drizzled with redcurrant sauce—a staggering feast.
Diamonds yanked his sleeve. “Move it, stop staring. We are here to act as security, not to gorge ourselves.”
Quicksand’s eyes practically salivated as he mumbled, “We’re already here.”
He turned his head to look at Diamonds. “Hey, black-hearted boss, who is footing the food bill right now?”
“Since we are in the year 1805, Madame Spades is footing the bill.”
Quicksand nodded. “A full stomach makes for better labor. Sharpening the axe won’t delay the woodcutting. You go handle the guarding first; I’ll join you in a bit.”
Diamonds couldn’t stop him. A hungry Quicksand was practically a Spanish fighting bull; he plunged straight into the banquet layout, grabbing a plate of roasted lobster and shelling them, popping them into his mouth whole, one by one, leaving the onlookers staring in utter speechlessness.
Giving up, Diamonds distanced himself from his companion, weaving through the lords to gather intelligence. He overheard the aristocrats whispering among themselves:
“What kind of invention will Lady Spades unveil tonight?”
“Last time, she claimed she had discovered a temporal fluid. In truth, the world has indeed changed because of her. The Chrono-Entropy Corporation from the future has provided us with far too many conveniences. Look at these mechanical entities—I truly believe an era where humanity no longer needs to labor is just around the corner!”
“Lady Spades’ discoveries are undoubtedly epoch-making, yet she is merely a puppet of the Corporation. What ‘1805 Branch Director’?” A gentleman with a stiffly starched cravat sneered. “The Cleaner, Raven, is the one truly pulling the strings of the entire operation!”
Hearing the name “Raven,” Diamonds’ expression darkened. At the same time, he realized that these lords, for some strange reason, moved with an eerie stiffness, as if they were performing in a puppet show.
Suddenly, the music of the pipe organ and violins ceased. Stained glass lamps cast dazzling hues across the hall as Madame Spades made her grand entrance. Her face was shrouded in black gauze, making her look like a goddess of death.
“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have a few minutes of your time? Today, I shall impart to you my latest breakthrough.” Madame Spades’ voice was gentle and measured. She held a reagent bottle high in her hand, filled with a crystalline, transparent liquid. “Behold, after thousands of failures, I have finally succeeded. The ‘Water of Life’ that the alchemists have hunted for centuries is now held within my palm—”
An uproar rippled through the crowd. This was a legendary substance rumored to possess miraculous properties, capable even of reversing mortality.
Diamonds and Quicksand stood to the side, watching the triumphant Madame Spades upon the altar. Diamonds looked thoughtful. “Theoretically speaking, if one discovers a temporal entity, inventing the ‘Water of Life’ to bring people back from the dead wouldn’t be an impossible feat.”
Quicksand, holding a bowl of turtle soup and sipping it with immense relish, mumbled indistinctly, “Yeah, yeah, sure. I could do that too.”
Diamonds mused, “But there is one thing I don’t quite understand. If Madame Spades truly is the Director of the 1805 Branch and made such monumental breakthroughs with temporal entities and the Water of Life, why had I never heard of her back in the year 2026?”
“Because your brain is dense and you’re forgetful,” Quicksand remarked, launching a ruthless personal attack.
Diamonds thought to himself, Look who’s talking, Mr. Empty Head.
Right at that moment, the lights suddenly plunged into darkness. Diamonds and Quicksand tensed, their bodies moving faster than their thoughts as they lunged forward. Suddenly, the entire hall echoed with a continuous, grinding shriek of turning gears. They witnessed a bizarre spectacle: the lords were frozen dead in their tracks. Machine oil began to seep from their joints as fragments of artificial skin drifted downward like falling snow, making it seem as though a miniature blizzard had taken over the cathedral.
Gradually, the surrounding people shed their disguises to reveal their true forms—they were actually a battalion of mechanical soldiers dressed in high-class attire. In the blink of an eye, they formed an impenetrable wall of brass and iron, advancing toward Madame Spades like an overwhelming tidal wave!
“What… what are you doing?” Madame Spades gasped in horror. In a single instant, her servants and the very audience she was addressing had transformed into the enemy.
“Madame, it seems this isn’t a product launch tailored for you. It’s a trap.” Diamonds positioned himself in front of her, cold sweat breaking out across his skin. Quicksand drew a ash-wood short handle from his waist, pressing a switch that caused his signature trowel-axe to spring violently into place.
“How can this be?!” Madame Spades shrieked. “I am the Director of the 1805 Branch! All my inventions are supplied directly to the Corporation!”
“Who knows? Crossing bridges only to burn them afterward is their specialty.” Diamonds shrugged, then let out a cold laugh. “Though, to be honest, I think the ones they want to kill this time aren’t you—it’s us.”
Suddenly, several mechanical soldiers lunged forward. Diamonds drew his Mauser pistol and fired a shot directly at the vaulted ceiling. The bullet shattered the chain holding a massive chandelier, causing the heavily carved fixture to plummet violently onto the soldiers with a thunderous crash, sending crystal beads flying everywhere.
Right at that moment, an alcove carved with a holy grail was violently smashed open, and a deluge of mechanical soldiers poured into the hall. Quicksand swung his trowel-axe, unleashing a fierce gale that swept up the shattered glass fragments of the rose window, hurtling them like shrapnel into the oncoming machines.
Yet, as he cleaved into the cluster of automatons, they seemed to possess an advanced combat intelligence, using their metallic arms to lock onto his axe blade in a vice grip.
“Hey, black-hearted employee, didn’t you just gorge yourself on food? Why are you acting so weak right now?” Diamonds taunted, releasing several time-Stagnation bubbles to hinder the soldiers’ advance.
“I didn’t gorge myself! I only had the appetizers!” Quicksand protested. In a fraction of a second, he channeled immense power through his legs, executing a sweeping kick that tore through the air like a localized storm! Copper shells and iron shards erupted into the atmosphere as the mechanical soldiers in front of him had their arms cleanly severed, crashing heavily to the ground.
Even though Quicksand managed to dismantle a vast number of mechanical soldiers, the enemy forces continued to flood into the hall without end, rendering the situation critical. Diamonds grabbed Madame Spades by the wrist, shouting, “Madame, it’s dangerous here! Follow me!”
With Quicksand holding the line and bringing up the rear, the two fled from the central nave, sprinting through the side corridors. They scaled the clock tower, its octagonal spires piercing straight into the cloud line. The moonlight bathed the tower’s peak, casting a long, cruciform shadow across Cathedral Square like a massive sword.
Under the silver, frost-like moonlight, everything appeared starkly divided into black and white. By the time they successfully reached the top floor, Madame Spades was panting heavily, still completely reeling from the shock.
She wheezed, “I still do not understand… why would the Corporation want to kill me? And you?”
Diamonds found it baffling as well. Madame Spades was the one who had discovered temporal entities; the Chrono-Entropy Corporation had developed their time-jump technology based entirely upon her foundations. Now that she held the position of Director of the 1805 Branch and served as the Corporation’s chief technical advisor, why would they move to eliminate her?
“Allow me to provide the answer to that question for the two of you.”
Suddenly, a voice drifted from the shadows.
The two spun around around, only to see a figure step out from the darkness of the clock tower. The man was dressed in a bizarre attire, wearing a long-beaked mask resembling a plague doctor, with brown glass lenses embedded into the eyeholes, obscuring his facial features entirely. He wore a black wool overcoat paired with corduroy cargo pants, and his hand gripped a short cane embedded with a pocket watch.
His footsteps were leisurely and measured, yet they carried a heavy, suffocating scent of fresh blood—an aura possessed only by those who had slaughtered countless lives.
The moment Madame Spades laid eyes on him, her pupils trembled as a look of utter despair washed over her. She whispered, “The Time Cleaner… Raven. Why are you here?”
The Cleaner, Raven, was the core backbone of the 1805 Branch. He was the very individual who usually handled corporate affairs with her, coordinating the transit of raw materials. He was always polite and formal, maintaining a bizarre hint of detachment, but he was very much an old acquaintance with whom Madame Spades had crossed paths numerous times.
Raven smiled. “Lady Spades is unveiling a monumental invention to the world today. As the Deputy Director of the 1805 Branch, how could I possibly miss it?”
Diamonds sneered. “Sir, you could have skipped it just fine. From what I can gather, the Madame is someone entirely absorbed in her research and doesn’t give a damn about corporate logistics. The one truly running the show at the 1805 Branch is you, isn’t it?”
The Cleaner known as Raven stepped forward. At this hour, the fog had grown dense, and lead-gray clouds swirled heavily across the sky overhead. Raven’s footsteps echoed with terrifying clarity in the silence of the night, pounding against the ears. His piercing gaze cut through his lenses, locking firmly onto Diamonds as he spoke in a deliberately theatrical, exaggerated tone: “Oh my, look who has graced us with their presence.”
A cold glint danced off Raven’s elongated beak mask, his voice tinged with a bizarre, mocking amusement.
“If it isn’t our distinguished guest from two hundred years in the future, the legendary pioneer of us Cleaners—Mr. A-0?”
Suddenly, Madame Spades felt Diamonds’ silhouette shudder slightly. Yet, he uttered not a word, merely shifting his weight to stand firmly in front of her.
“Senior, how do you find this era? This primitive, filthy year of 1805 has been completely revitalized under my modifications. I wonder if it meets your high standards?” Raven asked with a chuckle.
Diamonds smiled, though his eyes remained entirely devoid of warmth. “There are tin men running around everywhere. I thought I had accidentally stepped into the children’s section of an amusement park.”
Raven’s tone carried a dramatic, stage-like exaggeration, yet it was entirely devoid of actual human emotion. “What a terrible pity. I went to such immense lengths to lure the bird into the cage, bringing you all the way to the year 1805, Senior. I never imagined you would be so dissatisfied with my hospitality.”
“The person who kills Madame Spades in the year 1805… is you?”
“Precisely. In truth, her life or death is entirely inconsequential. Because to the Corporation, you are the ultimate prize.” Raven bowed with exquisite politeness. “Every single branch of the Corporation has listed you as their number-one high-profile target. Even the Chief Cleaner has been mobilized, hunting you down without a single moment of rest. That whole ‘con man’ persona of yours is nothing but a smoke screen. What everyone truly wants to find is the original prototype of the Cleaners—the infamous defector from the Corporation, A-0.”
Raven took a few steps forward, continuing to gesticulate with a flamboyant, theatrical flair—at times pressing his hand to his chest, at others tilting his neck to project his voice.
“We of the 1805 Branch have been exiled to such a remote timeline. We are an insignificant, negligible branch. But as long as I eliminate you, I will secure the favor of the higher-ups and earn the right to return to the ‘future,’ where resources and water are never scarce. It is my absolute honor to finish you off in this era.”
“What’s so bad about staying in ‘the past’? I happen to be a bit of a traditionalist.” Diamonds’ gaze was like a frozen pool of dark water. “Though, speaking of which… is the 1805 Branch really just you entirely by yourself?”
The clock tower was thoroughly drenched in the moonlight, appearing bleached and pale. The iron door hung half-open, creaking uneasily against the wind.
Raven spoke unhurriedly. “Once upon a time, there were many of us. But in this wild wasteland, completely severed from the future and plagued by endless inconveniences, my companions left me one by one due to disease and war. Right now, I am indeed entirely alone.”
“But what does that matter?” He threw his arms wide open, gesturing proudly down toward the cathedral grounds for Diamonds to see. “Look down below! There are still so many people lined up to welcome you!”
The two glanced downward, only to find Cathedral Square teeming with life. A massive horde of mechanical soldiers had converged, their eyes flashing with a murderous, blood-red light, resembling an overwhelming torrent composed entirely of iron coffins.
Diamonds let out a heavy sigh. “Alright, I had no idea I was so popular two hundred years ago. Before we throw down, let’s chat a bit more. Since Madame Spades has already become your Branch Director and brought immense utility to the Corporation, wouldn’t keeping her alive be far more beneficial to you?”
“Since you were willing to travel two hundred years from the future just to save her, Senior, it is safe to assume she defects from the Corporation in the future, correct? You used to be a Cleaner yourself; you know the Corporation’s style has always been to rip out the grass by its roots. They will never allow the slightest seed of rebellion to sprout.”
Raven spoke with absolute poise, every word seeming as though it had been meticulously weighed on his tongue before being uttered.
“Furthermore, as you can clearly see, she is merely a puppet. History has already been written. Someone is destined to discover the temporal entity in the year 1805, launching a new era of time-jump technology. But whether that discoverer is Lady Spades or someone else entirely does not matter in the slightest. Because what the Chrono-Entropy Corporation does is swoop in ahead of everyone else to seize the fruits of that invention for themselves.”
“In other words, you simply wait for the invention to manifest, eliminate the creator, and claim the achievements as your own, is that it?”
“Haha, there is no need for you to put it so crudely, Senior. In truth, Lady Spades was highly cooperative with the Corporation’s directives. If it were at all possible, we would have preferred a long-term collaboration with her.”
Diamonds rolled his eyes hard. He knew the true nature of the Chrono-Entropy Corporation—entirely profit-driven, viewing human lives as utterly disposable. Everything coming out of Raven’s mouth was pure nonsense.
Raven smiled faintly. “In fact, to lure you to this precise coordinate in time, I went to extraordinary lengths. A descendant of mine actually met with you two hundred years in the future. Do you recall?”
Suddenly, Raven pulled an object from his pocket. Diamonds’ eyes widened in sheer astonishment—it was an item that had absolutely no business existing in this era. Raven pulled a plastic bag over his head and smiled.
“Does this… jog your memory?”
In that exact fraction of a second, a flash of memory ripped through his mind. Diamonds recalled the golden secret meeting hall back in the year 2026. He had first learned of the 1805 Branch’s movements from the mouth of a man who wore a plastic bag over his head. That man was a business partner he had dealt with numerous times; he had never imagined the man was actually a corporate spy planted right by his side.
The corners of Diamonds’ lips twitched slightly as he let out a cold laugh. “Haha. All my life, I’ve been the one conning others. I never expected that this time, I would be the one getting played.”
He turned his head, adopting a light, breezy tone as he addressed Madame Spades:
“Madame, my deepest apologies. It seems my presence as a time-traveler has gotten you fired by the Corporation. The one they want to kill is me; you’re just collateral damage. Though honestly, it’s for the best that you quit this dump early. Care to partner up with us two hundred years in the future? We’re getting ready to open an establishment called the Poker Bar, and we are desperately looking for an investor.”
Right at that moment, the sharp, clear ring of a drawing sword echoed through the wind. A brilliant flash of silver cut across the darkness as Raven drew a concealed blade from within his short cane, lunging straight for Madame Spades! Diamonds snapped his arm up, sliding a steak knife out from his sleeve—which he had covertly pocketed earlier—and successfully intercepted Raven’s lethal strike.
The eyes behind Raven’s lenses gleamed with a psychopathic, manic light as he laughed. “As expected of a Senior. Your defensive stance is absolutely flawless.”
Diamonds could feel the immense physical strength behind the man’s grip; the momentum was staggering. Right at that precise second, his chronic ailment flared up, sending a burning, agonizing wave of pain tearing through his body. Forcing a cryptic, unbothered smile, cold sweat beaded on his forehead as he remarked, “Well, old wine gains flavor with age.”
In the next instant, Raven suddenly stumbled slightly, using the momentum to spin on his heel. His blade exploded into a flurry of silver arcs, raining down like a torrential downpour toward Diamonds’ vital points. Diamonds held his Mauser pistol in one hand, releasing time-Stagnation bubbles to disrupt the attacks, while his other hand wielded the steak knife, weaving a chaotic web of light and shadow that successfully parried every single incoming blow! As the two remained locked in a stalemate, Raven let out a low chuckle.
“If you were in your peak condition two hundred years in the future, I truly wouldn’t have the confidence to best you. But after traversing that temporal labyrinth of the Stairs of Paradox to reach this era, you are destined to be violently rejected by this timeline. Senior, your body must be screaming in absolute agony right now, isn’t it?”
Diamonds replied smoothly, “It just feels a bit like motion sickness, to be honest. Though on the bright side, my companion seems completely unaffected. He’s probably still stuffing his face down there; the guy was starving.”
Raven let out a dry laugh. He realized that although Diamonds wore flamboyant attire and acted with a frivolous, flippant demeanor, his combat execution was terrifyingly clean and efficient, possessing an intimate, masterful understanding of the human body’s weakest points and how to extinguish life in a single strike. Raven violently swung his sword, driving a thrust directly at Madame Spades. Diamonds used his own body to violently shove Madame Spades out of harm’s way, moving with blinding speed to intercept the blade.
Diamonds raised an eyebrow, the diamond stud beneath his eye glinting sharply in the light. He added, “In short, Madame Spades is under my protection. You can forget about getting the upper hand on me.”
“Is that so?” Raven let out a soft chuckle. “But have you forgotten, Senior? This era is my home turf. Extinguishing a life here is as simple as breathing.”
Suddenly, the hands of the pocket watch embedded in the short cane began to spin erratically. The sound of shifting gears grew incredibly dense, resembling a swarm of silkworms devouring mulberry leaves. A freakish gale swept across the heavens and the earth, and the massive clock pendulum froze dead in mid-air. In that exact fraction of a second, time across the entire world ground to a screeching halt.
Time began to violently coil backward. Within a mere fraction of a second, Diamonds snapped back to reality, instantly sensing the grotesque distortion in the world around him. He heard the distinct sound of blood dripping onto stone. Turning his head in absolute horror, his eyes locked onto a devastating sight: Raven’s blade had pierced completely through Madame Spades’ heart.
“Madame!”
A look of profound shock washed over Madame Spades’ face. A torrent of crimson blood erupted from her lips as her body collapsed limply to the floor.
Diamonds shuddered violently, cold sweat drenching his skin. He understood this technique all too well. Most of the Time Cleaners possessed weapons capable of manipulating the temporal flow—such as Quicksand’s trowel-axe that could detonate temporal particles, his own Mauser pistol that could manifest time-Stagnation bubbles, and even Monkey Face’s specialized weaponized gauntlets that could sever a human body across different dimensions. Raven’s short cane undoubtedly possessed a time-related capability as well.
And that capability was none other than time reversal. Raven had rewound time by exactly one second to pierce Madame Spades’ heart before she could even react.
The cold moon hung like a heavy silver disc, shedding its oppressive white light across the earth. Dressed entirely in black, Raven looked like an omen of death, radiating a sinister aura. Diamonds ground his teeth in pure fury, his voice shaking.
“Raven… you bastard!”
“There is no need to be so impatient, Senior. I have merely fulfilled the destiny of her death that is already recorded two hundred years in the future. After all, that is the exact reason you traveled here, isn’t it?” Raven laughed, his gaze absolute ice. “However, the final hour for that rebel army, Clepsydra, which you defected to, is fast approaching.”
“Senior, I will remain entrenched here in the past. I will hunt down and slaughter your ancestors one by one, ensuring your entire kind is wiped clean from the face of this earth. Not a single soul will remain.”
He let out a dangerous, maniacal smile, leveling his sword directly at Diamonds. The pocket watch began to vibrate violently, its hands spinning out of control.
“You possess no past, and you are destined to have no future.”
