SOP CH2: Playing with Fire

The year 2026 was an era that held a unique significance for the Time Entropy Group.

After monopolizing time-jump technology, countless rebels, individuals who obstructed corporate profits, and useless people were exiled by the Group into brutal past eras. Some had their heads bitten off by ferocious Cretaceous Carcharodontosaurs; some had their bodies impaled by the lances of medieval cavalry; others were abandoned in city corners ravaged by the Black Death, left to wait for death to claim them. All hope of resistance was snuffed out by the Group’s cleaners traversing across various timelines. The Time Entropy Group had become a dark shadow looming over the world.

Without prior agreement, the statues enshrined in churches and temples everywhere were replaced with Chronos, the primordial god presiding over time in ancient Greek mythology. Many who refused to submit met beneath the three-headed, serpentine-bodied statue, lamenting the time that no longer flowed in a linear state. The spark of resistance was quietly sown. People called this spontaneously assembled rebel army “Clepsydra,” a name derived from an ancient Chinese water clock that kept time through dripping bronze jars.

The rebels stole a portion of the time-jump technology, fled, and converged in the year 2026. This point in time was their final stronghold. The year 2026, a dark period for the Time Entropy Group, was the glorious era for the Clepsydra rebels.

And the fraudster, Diamonds, was a faint yet impossible-to-ignore glimmer roaming through this era.

At this moment, within the dark alley, an intense battle was unfolding.

The white-haired fraudster gripped a retro-style modified Mauser pistol engraved with bubble patterns. He pulled the trigger swiftly, but after the shot rang out, his target had vanished without a trace.

“Diamonds, above you!”

The robust gentleman called out in warning. The fraudster looked up, only to see the black-clad young man leap into the air in a flash, his boots kicking off the walls of the narrow alley, agile as a bat in the dead of night.

Diamonds frowned and swung his barrel around, but he couldn’t lock onto the cleaner’s figure.

“This kid is definitely born under the sign of the rat, a flying rat at that,” Diamonds chuckled, immediately dialing a call. “Clubs Cat, hasn’t the car you’re directing arrived yet? We’re in huge trouble.”

A shrill voice came through the earpiece. “Damn Diamonds, you usually feed me cheap cat food, and now in a pinch you want me to risk my life?”

“What do you want to eat?”

“Sturgeon caviar, botan shrimp…”

“Drive the car over. I’ll buy it all for you.”

“Really?” The shrill voice sounded somewhat delighted.

“Really. I never lie to you.”

The next instant, the call was abruptly cut off. The fraudster sighed. “A little cat’s mind is truly a needle at the bottom of the sea.”

“Believing you don’t lie is worse than believing you’re Qin Shi Huang,” the gentleman laughed.

Diamonds curled the corners of his lips. “Who knows, maybe I really am? Brother Hearts, transfer me a little more money, and I’ll summon the mechanical Terracotta Army to help you get away.”

“I already transferred a year and a week of lifespan to you. Where did you spend it all?”

Right at that moment, a dark shadow suddenly leaped down from mid-air. It was the time cleaner, Quicksand. The file-axe he brandished gleamed with cold light, like a nightmare in the flesh.

Diamonds said, “I spent it all on this pretty boy.”

Dodging the strike, he pressed a hand to his top hat and smiled at Quicksand. “Mr. Cleaner, what grudge or grievance do you have against me that you want to end my life the moment we meet?”

The black-clad young man replied coldly, “You are an enemy of the Time Entropy Group. You stole massive amounts of time from the Group and assumed the identity of a Group client.”

“You managed to take a year and a week of lifespan from a con artist, not bad at all,” Diamonds said. “How about this: you give me back my year and a week, and I’ll return five centuries to the Group.”

The axe blade thrust forward, slashing toward Diamonds’s neck with thunderous speed and pinpoint precision.

“No need,” Quicksand declared ruthlessly. “Transfer the five centuries directly to my account, and I’ll be Qin Shi Huang.”

Yet in the next instant, the tip of the blade halted right before touching skin. The cleaner found his movements slowed to an almost infinite crawl. Looking down, he saw that his arm had made direct contact with a transparent bubble.

This was a bubble created by a micro-singularity reactor built into the firearm, capable of interfering with the fabric of space-time and slowing down any object it contacted, commonly known as a “stasis bubble.”

The source of this stasis bubble was the Mauser held by the fraudster; it turned out what he fired earlier were no ordinary bullets. Quicksand realized with a start that over a dozen stasis bubbles floated in mid-air, glittering like translucent drift ice. This was a trap laid to lure him in. Quicksand struggled, only to see the fraudster flash him a provocative smirk, looking every bit like a sly fox.

At the same time, a self-driving autonomous vehicle pulled up at the alley entrance.

“Farewell, Mr. Qin Shi Huang. Feel free to hang here all night, and don’t catch a cold!” Diamonds bolted.

Yet in the very next instant, a violent explosion resounded in mid-air. Shockwaves rolled through the alley, making the fleeing pair stumble. Looking back, they saw the cleaner swinging his long-handled axe. Wherever the blade swept, space itself seemed to tear apart, shattering all the stasis bubbles.

“That’s a cleaner’s weapon. It triggers explosions by amplifying the fluctuations of quantum foam. They’re true experts in the trade of killing!” The gentleman looked back, cold sweat pouring down his forehead.

“By contrast, what does our era have? Cleavers, pitchforks, and little handguns? The technological gap is just too vast.”

Diamonds grumbled as a chain of explosions erupted behind them like a grand fireworks display. His eardrums vibrated violently, the back of his head throbbed with pain, and he could barely keep his eyes open. Right at that moment, a sharp wave of killing intent surged from behind.

Diamonds drew his gun and fired stasis-bubble bullets over his shoulder without looking back. Quicksand dodged like the wind. He realized that contrary to the impression of being purely a cerebral type, the fraudster’s movements were remarkably nimble, like an elusive gust of wind.

The file-axe chopped down viciously, only to be caught between a pair of hands. The blue veins on the gentleman’s silverback gorilla arm bulged. The muscular strength of such a beast was six times that of a human, capable of snapping rebar with ease. Under that immense power, the axe blade could not advance another inch.

“Diamonds, go!” the gentleman roared.

“Thanks, Brother Hearts, but I’ve already slipped away.”

A lazy voice drifted over, giving the deadlocked pair a start. Turning around, they saw that Diamonds had already slipped into the car at the mouth of the alley at some point; greasing his soles and running was his specialty, after all.

The next moment, the fraudster wrenched the steering wheel, driving the vehicle straight toward the dark alley.

This was a rust-speckled, vintage taxi, its body covered in fluorescent graffiti of twisted stairs, vortexes, and explosions. Along the way, it sent trash cans and water pipes flying. Diamonds leaned halfway out of the window and shouted, “Brother Hearts, you’re in great shape, right?”

“What?”

“Your muscles are definitely sturdier than this clunker anyway!” Diamonds grinned. “Pardon me!”

By the time the gentleman realized something was wrong, the taxi had already roared forward, plowing hard into the two grappling figures. Under the massive impact, both bodies flew into the air.

The gentleman’s body shuddered violently, his prosthetics rattling. He crashed onto the roof of the cab, barely managing to open the car door after the taxi shot out of the alley to cram himself into a seat. Fuming with rage, he gave Diamonds a smack to the back of the neck. “Couldn’t you give a heads-up before hitting people with a car?”

Diamonds tilted his head, ducking the blow, and kept a steady grip on the wheel.

“Didn’t I just give you a heads-up?”

“That didn’t count,” the gentleman ground out through clenched teeth.

“Don’t worry, this car is insured.”

“I’m not!”

“If that cleaner catches up to us, we really are dead meat.”

The gentleman sighed. “An impact like that won’t kill him. He’ll keep chasing us.”

“Boss, you know he won’t die, and isn’t that little impact basically a massage for you guys anyway? Rest easy, someone will help clean up after us.”

Diamonds glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled faintly.

“Your people, the Clepsydra rebels, have already surrounded him.”

When Quicksand picked himself up from the ground, the world was spinning. His body was largely unharmed, but his skull, implanted with chips, couldn’t withstand too much shock. In his flickering vision, a crowd had silently appeared around him.

They were a group wearing leather armor and headbands, their expressions hostile. Clepsydra tattoos were inked on their bare arms, and they brandished iron pipes and heavy hammers, closing in on Quicksand like a dark cloud.

These people belonged to the rebel army “Clepsydra,” a force that united those dissatisfied with the Time Entropy Group’s temporal dictatorship. In an instant, Quicksand realized what was happening.

Someone muttered in a low voice, “Is this the time cleaner Boss Hearts told us about?”

“Looking at that weird mask and weapon, it can’t be anyone else. Boss said so too: time cleaners are people from the future, all young punks dressed like edge-lords.”

The crowd approached cautiously. They had heard this was a formidable opponent unlike any they had faced before.

Someone hurled a Molotov cocktail at the masked young man, igniting blazing flames in the dark alley. Yet in the next instant, they watched him tear through the wall of fire, completely unscathed. More Molotov cocktails were thrown, but the black-clad youth whirled his file-axe, whipping up a fierce gust that trapped the bottles within the lingering stasis bubbles Diamonds had fired earlier, before batting them right back into the crowd.

The rebels shrieked amid the flames. They had never seen a time cleaner who was so iron-bodied and agile; their eyes could only catch his afterimages.

The black-clad young man was too fast, like a flash of lightning tearing across the sky. Everywhere he passed, blood blossomed in sprays.

Someone pushed open a manhole cover and lunged from below with a sharp blade, launching a surprise attack against the black-clad young man. The youth swiftly turned the handle of his axe and swung lightly. Every weapon that made contact with his file-axe rapidly decayed and shattered. From the windows of buildings lining both sides of the alley, a swarm of figures leaped down, dropping onto him like torrential rain. Having exhausted all other means, the rebels decided to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

Yet in the blink of an eye, bodies crashed to the ground, groaning in agony. The blows from the cleaner’s axe aged the bodies of those struck at a terrifying rate. The rebels discovered to their horror that this youth in black was truly the Grim Reaper incarnate, harvesting human lives as effortlessly as turning his hand.

An injured rebel fighter felt his neck gripped tight and hoisted off his feet. Gasping for air, he opened his eyes, only to see his comrades strewn haphazardly across the ground. The cleaner stood before him, eyes as frigid as frost.

“Where is the fraudster? Tell me.”

“I… I don’t know.”

Quicksand reversed the axe handle, his gray eyes fixated on the sweating rebel’s face like a predatory bird.

“Very well. I will beat you until you know the answer.”

The lower tier of Spiral City was dense with dark alleys, spreading like an ant nest in all directions. After exiting the alley, the beaten-up taxi quickly ducked into another narrow street.

The fraudster Diamonds and the gentleman known as Hearts sat in the cab. Seeing no pursuers in the rearview mirror, they finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Diamonds, what do you think this time cleaner came here for?”

“To kill me. What can I say? I’m just too famous. Such are the troubles that fame brings.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask: wasn’t this car being remotely controlled by Clubs Cat? Why are you the one driving now?”

“Boss, your body is too hard. You broke the car when you crashed into it earlier and severed the connection with Clubs Cat, leaving me with no choice but to drive manually.” Diamonds chewed on his bubblegum.

Hearts scratched his head, looking somewhat uneasy. “You aren’t pulling my leg, are you? Perhaps I should dial down my workouts a bit? This car is an important asset of Clepsydra, and Clubs Cat is going to lecture the two of us when we get back.”

Diamonds blew a bubble, then suddenly reached over and hit the seat adjustment button. The backrest reclined back just as a gleaming axe blade plunged through the car roof, barely grazing the tip of his nose.

“Diamonds!” the robust gentleman cried out in shock.

“The roof is totaled. Let’s patch it up with scotch tape later. Our era lacks everything, so scotch tape is all we have for car repairs.”

Diamonds said, nimbly sliding from the driver’s seat to the other side. Clamping the Mauser in his teeth, he reached both hands out the window to grab the edge of the roof.

“Take the wheel, Boss. The Group’s hound just won’t give up. I’m going to chase him off.”

Atop the car roof, a black-clad young man wearing a flame-patterned mask stood poised with his long-handled axe.

Just moments ago, relying on explosive muscular power, he had sprinted through the cramped alleys and actually caught up, leaping onto the car like a ghost and piercing the roof with his blade.

Quicksand was the Time Entropy Group’s finest hound, who, once locked onto a target, never let go. Yet when he thrust down with his axe, he felt no sensation of piercing flesh; instead, the shaft suddenly grew as heavy as a mountain.

What was going on? Before the question could be answered, Quicksand caught a glimpse of a shadow bounding onto the roof like lightning, kicking savagely toward him.

“Mr. Cleaner, I didn’t order room service. There’s no need to chase after me so attentively.”

Quicksand brought his arms up, blocking the kick. Needless to say, the newcomer was Diamonds, who had vaulted onto the roof. The gale roared, whipping the platinum-blonde hair in the wind, while his face still wore that unfathomable, frivolous smirk.

Quicksand said indifferently, “I am here to pack up your life and deliver it to hell. Mission guaranteed.” He then demanded, “What did you do to my axe?”

“Nothing much, just stuck a stasis bubble onto it to extend the time it takes to pull it out.”

Diamonds smiled, nimbly firing a few rounds at Quicksand. Quicksand dodged the incoming stasis bubbles. Right then, two rebel fighters lying in ambush on the rooftops along the alley leaped down, lunging at the black-clad young man with sharp daggers.

Quicksand reached back and seized their ankles, swinging them toward Diamonds like a heavy sledgehammer. Startled, Diamonds quickly ducked out of the way. As the two rebels screamed and tumbled off the roof, Diamonds shot two stasis bubbles to encase them, sparing them a fatal crash onto the asphalt.

Seizing the split second of Diamonds’s distraction, Quicksand exerted power through his arms, finally yanking the long axe free and cleaving through a roadside water pipe. Water burst forth, each droplet accelerating the instant it brushed the axe blade, pelting toward Diamonds like a dense hail of bullets.

Diamonds noticed immediately: the cleaner’s weapon could accelerate an object’s time and motion, the exact opposite of his stasis bubbles. He quickly fired several rounds, the stasis bubbles merging into a transparent shield that blocked the high-velocity droplets.

Simultaneously, Diamonds fired a shot upward, snapping the overhead cables. A long string of hanging cloth fell, obscuring Quicksand’s vision. Quicksand cleaved through the cloth with his axe, only to find Diamonds had already closed the distance in front of him.

“Since you’re already here, Mr. Cleaner, care to taste my special blend? Complimentary for today,” the fraudster chuckled. With a flick of his left hand, a canister of capsaicin pepper spray appeared in his grip.

A plume of mist sprayed out. Quicksand felt a searing pain in his eyes as his vision blurred. But instead of retreating, he raised his long-handled axe and slashed wildly in front of him. He felt a kick slam into his chest and abdomen, and then crashed heavily onto the street.

The fraudster had kicked him off the speeding taxi.

Diamonds stood on the roof watching for a moment, and once he confirmed the cleaner had been shaken off, he slipped back inside the cab.

“Finished?” Hearts asked him.

“Piece of cake.”

“Just pepper spray. He’ll probably catch up again in a minute.”

“Of course it’s not that simple. I still have another trick up my sleeve.”

Diamonds snapped his fingers. At that moment, Quicksand, having fallen to the ground, suddenly heard bubbles popping all around him. During their earlier brawl, Diamonds had secretly enveloped them both in a giant stasis bubble; their entire fight had occurred in a decelerated state. Once Diamonds took advantage of Quicksand’s momentary blind spot to kick him off the car and make his escape, Quicksand was left stranded inside the bubble.

Once the stasis bubble collapsed, everything outside it resumed moving at normal speed. Through Quicksand’s stinging, reddened vision, he saw dozens of lead bullets, fired beforehand by the fraudster, hurtling straight at him.

Quicksand hadn’t expected such an underhanded trick. Gritting his teeth, he hoisted his long-handled axe and spun it frantically. The blurred light of the blade wove into a vortex, intercepting every single lead bullet. Yet right then, he heard an abnormal clatter above his head.

Looking up, he saw hundreds of neon signs suspended overhead. When Diamonds fired into the air earlier, he hadn’t just cut the cables; he had also severed the iron frames supporting the signboards. Now that the stasis bubble had dissolved, the signs fell like a shimmering multicolored torrent, crashing down upon him.

“Bang!”

Inside the taxi not far off, Diamonds aimed a finger gun at the rearview mirror with a grin.

Right at that moment, a massive crash erupted behind them, kicking up a huge plume of dust.

Hearts watched the churning dust in the rearview mirror. Having heard Diamonds’s brief explanation, he knew what had happened, and sighed:

“That’s quite an impressive spectacle.”

“No choice. He’s the Time Entropy Group’s chief time cleaner; where he walks, not a blade of grass remains. What I just did was merely child’s play to him.”

“What about those fallen neon signs?”

“Have the Clepsydra guys tape them back up later with scotch tape.”

“Why is it always scotch tape?”

“This is the year 2026, an era heavily plundered of resources. Even superglue is hard to come by.”

Hearts sighed. “Now that you’ve been targeted by a hound like that, you won’t have a single peaceful day ahead.”

Sitting in the passenger seat and gazing out the window, Diamonds said softly, “People at the bottom like us, stripped of everything, were never destined for peace anyway.”

Hearts glanced at him from the corner of his eye. The white-haired fraudster’s youthful profile reflected the shifting neon lights, ethereal and touched with a faint sorrow. Hearts suddenly felt that this fraudster was just like a bubble, brilliantly radiant on the outside, yet delicate enough to pop at the slightest touch.

“That cleaner’s martial prowess is truly exceptional. Ordinary eyes can scarcely track his movements, and he can leave someone covered in wounds in the blink of an eye…” Hearts marveled.

“Damn it.”

Diamonds suddenly spoke up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Boss, I forgot what you just mentioned.” Diamonds’s earlier nonchalance was punctured like a balloon, his face pale as a ghost. “That edge-lord kid really is fast.”

“And? What about it?”

“Inside a stasis bubble, time for all people and objects is slowed down. But once the bubble pops, the wounds carved out by his axe appear. I really did bring this upon myself.”

Diamonds’s speech grew slower and slower, like a jammed cassette tape. Hearts turned to look, only to see him deathly pale, his white suit shredded with over a dozen hideous gashes, blood soaking the seat red.

“Hey, Diamonds!”

“Boss, I’ll trouble you to drive from here. I’m going to sleep for a bit, wake me when we arrive. Also, I have to admit…”

Cold sweat dripped down the fraudster’s delicate face, yet he still forced a grin. Though mired in peril, an exhilarated light danced in his eyes.

“I’ve met the single most troublesome enemy of my life.”