"Do it, Crow Man! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!"
White Jack cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone and shouted at Rain Crow through the sheet of rain.
At that moment, the claws of the Shadow of Saturnus pierced Clock Maker's chest, hoisting him high into the air.
Absolute silence fell over the wasteland.
Clock Maker hung suspended a hundred meters in the air, torrential rain lashing his cheeks. Water soaked his hair and ran down his forehead, mixing with blood at his jawline to form a single red thread.
"Kill me..." After a long moment, he spat a mouthful of blood and looked at Rain Crow from hundreds of meters away, his voice breaking into a hoarse shout. "Do it! Isn't this what you've wanted to do for years, but never dared?!"
Rain Crow remained silent.
A moment later, Clock Maker suddenly smiled. A streak of red oozed from the corner of his mouth.
His voice was raspy, and he coughed up blood with every word:
White Jack planted one hand on his hip, covered his face with the other, and sighed:
"Ah, brother Clock Maker, you can only talk tough now. Given the state of your body, if you can still use your time-stop esper ability, then I'll jump straight into a cesspit and gorge myself on three..."
Before he could finish his sentence, a sharp click, clack echoed across the wasteland once more.
White Jack froze on the spot.
The next moment, a quicksilver hue shrouded the entire world once again.
Time stagnated anew as that faint, silvery wash blanketed the earth.
"...Time stopped?" Clock Maker blanked, muttering hoarsely. "But, why?"
In that split second, a pitch-black spear shot violently from five hundred meters away, piercing the suspended curtain of rain and blasting the claws of the Shadow of Saturnus wide open.
Boom!
Amid the deafening blast, Clock Maker's body slipped free from the claws. He tumbled and fell, whipping up a bloody vortex in midair.
He smashed into the freezing ground. Stunned for a moment, he slowly turned his head to look toward the source of the spear.
On the roof of a residential building, a young boy sat atop a woven mat, drawing a longbow. His calm eyes were fixed on the scene.
—Luo Senzi.
Clock Maker's eyes widened. How could he not recognize his own child? But at that moment, the first emotion to surge through him was anger, an uncontrollable rage.
He had warned the boy never to copy his esper ability... But Luo Senzi hadn't listened. The child had defied his orders.
Yet that flare of anger quickly subsided. Clock Maker clutched his cracked chest, trying to slow the gushing blood.
He felt entirely numb inside—Rain Crow's Shadow of Saturnus had been able to move within his time-stop domain, and White Jack had outright shattered it... After everything he had just endured, his pride was entirely gone.
Staring now at the deformed-looking boy, the only thing left in Clock Maker's heart was a tangled knot of emotions.
"Why didn't you listen..." Clock Maker murmured hoarsely, his head bowed. "By copying my esper ability, your body won't be able to bear the burden..."
Soon, Luo Senzi's time-stop esper ability ended.
He coughed up a mouthful of blood. His already aged and hunched body withered even further in that instant, collapsing completely onto the woven mat.
"Foolish child..."
Lifting his head from the mud, Clock Maker gazed at the deformed boy in the distance, then turned to look at the Shadow of Saturnus sprawling on the ground.
He had one piece of good news now: Rain Crow's Shadow of Saturnus was already nearly crippled, and after being ambushed by the spear Luo Senzi created with his esper ability, it could no longer move.
Thus, the only person left to guard against was White Jack.
Clock Maker knew his current body needed immediate medical treatment. He had no leeway left to continue fighting White Jack. Besides, he had no idea how he could possibly defeat this bone-white doll.
Three time-stops...
Every single one had been completely futile.
This was absolutely no accident. That ghastly white freak had calculated everything.
So in the next second, Clock Maker made his decision. One hand pressing against his nearly split-open chest, the other pulling a pocket watch from his pocket, he scrambled wretchedly toward Luo Senzi.
Soon, time resumed its normal flow. The quicksilver tint in his vision faded away like clouds scattering in the wind.
Standing in the rain, White Jack blanked for a moment. He scratched his head, asking in confusion:
"What happened... Time stopped just now, but it wasn't Clock Maker. Was it that Luo Senzi?"
He slowly turned his head, spotting Clock Maker trudging along a short distance away. Finally snapping back to his senses, he mocked, "Where do you think you're running, Mr. Clock Maker? Scurrying away like a stray dog isn't your style. You might as well come back and die with some dignity."
"Shut up..."
Clock Maker shouted hoarsely, pressing the button on his pocket watch. The quicksilver hue shrouded the entire world once more.
He sprinted across the pale blue wasteland, his mouth smeared with blood. The taste of copper filled his mouth, and his vision grew blurrier by the second.
But he just kept running, hysterical, like a crippled, rabid dog.
With every step, blood spilled from the gash in his chest. Before long, he had left a crimson trail behind him.
It looked as though a river of blood were following him, flowing endlessly.
But the instant time resumed its flow, a completely bizarre sight appeared before him:
—Directly in front of him, a wooden Door had suddenly materialized.
Yes, a Door. This wooden Door stood eerily in the torrential rain. A crash of thunder flashed, illuminating the world in exactly the same blinding white!
Clock Maker paused in shock.
He slowly looked up as the eerie wooden Door opened, and several figures slowly stepped out from behind it.
Clock Maker realized something was wrong, but because he had lost so much blood, his mind was already slipping. Raising a trembling hand, he used his final ounce of strength to conjure a quicksilver pocket watch in his palm.
But in the next instant, before he could even press the button, the man in the black clerical robes opened a pitch-black Bible.
As the pages of the Bible emitted a faint glow, diamond-shaped crystals suddenly fell from the sky, forming a hexagonal cage that trapped Clock Maker inside.
His right hand lost all its strength. The pocket watch slowly dropped to the ground, splashing in a puddle.
Watching this, Clock Maker was stunned for a moment before looking up. He saw Lorenzo stepping forward, with Heimeng and Jiang Qingzi following behind him.
Lorenzo's face was expressionless. He approached the prism cage trapping Clock Maker, slowly raised his right hand, and drew a silver chain from one of the pages in the Bible.
A sharp, slender blade was attached to the end of the chain. Raising the chain-blade, Lorenzo thrust it into Clock Maker's chest, stabbing straight into his heart.
The next instant, the Bible rustled and flipped open without any wind.
A brand-new page gradually appeared within the Bible. Illustrated on the page were two pocket watches—one bronze, and one quicksilver.
Lorenzo closed the Bible. He lifted his grayish-blue eyes slightly, glancing at the dying Clock Maker.
"Never thought you'd see this day, did you... Remember when you killed my two crew members?" he mouthed silently.
Clock Maker clutched his chest, half-kneeling on the ground in silence.
He no longer had the strength to speak, and his vision was blurring. Yet at that exact moment, the sound of a click, clack echoed across the wasteland once again.
"No, Luo Senzi—!" Clock Maker jolted awake and roared.
He realized the child had used his esper ability again... But that was wrong! Luo Senzi's already deteriorating body would be completely drained!
Before the others around him could react, the quicksilver hue enveloped the world once more. Everyone's figures froze in place, looking just like a faded landscape painting.
Sitting atop his hovering woven mat, Luo Senzi swept out forcefully from behind cover. At the same time, he drew his longbow and fired a pitch-black spear that utterly shattered the prism cage.
With a loud smash, fragments of the prism scattered in all directions.
Caught in the massive impact, Clock Maker fainted dead away.
A moment later, when the members of Death Crow snapped back to reality, both Clock Maker and Luo Senzi had disappeared. Only a torn, bloodstained woven mat remained on the ground.
Red Lotus only now stepped out from behind the portal. She paused for a moment before hugging her shoulders and asking warily, "Where is Clock Maker?"
Heimeng stared at the woven mat on the ground and shook her head.
"What just happened... Isn't Clock Maker's ability only usable when he presses the button on his pocket watch?" Jiang Qingzi murmured.
"It was that child from before," Lorenzo deduced, flipping through the extra page in his Bible. "He copied Clock Maker's esper ability."
Heimeng thought for a moment, then turned to look at a corner of the ruins. There was an open manhole cover and a shaft leading down into the sewers.
"Boss, that child must have taken Clock Maker into the sewers," she said softly. "Otherwise, there's no explaining how they vanished so suddenly."
Lorenzo spoke indifferently. "It doesn't matter. I have the ability I wanted... Clock Maker is nothing but a cripple now."
He paused. "Whatever happens next has nothing to do with us."
With that, The Pope put away the black Bible, turned around, and walked impassively into the rain.
Jiang Qingzi hesitated for a moment. He really wanted to check on Blue Pigeon's condition, but he ultimately followed closely behind with Heimeng.
The three of them gradually walked away, leaving only Red Lotus standing there in a daze. She still hadn't figured out what exactly had happened.
A little while later, she heard footsteps coming from afar and turned her head to look.
In the curtain of rain, a young man wearing an orange windbreaker was slowly walking toward her, carrying a woman's corpse in his arms.
Red Lotus stared blankly. After a long moment, she rasped, "Ah... Qing?"
Ke Mingqing paused, tearing his gaze away from Shadow Girl in his arms to look up at Red Lotus.
The two stared at each other in silence. After a long time, Ke Mingqing furrowed his brows suspiciously. "Who are you? How do you know my name?"
Meanwhile, the surrounding air silently grew colder. A girl wearing a pitch-black bodysuit suddenly appeared on the roof of a nearby residential building.
Xia Lingxue looked down from above, staring blankly at Ke Mingqing. Then she glanced at the riddled corpse in his arms and stood utterly frozen.
"Shadow Girl?" she muttered, making out the face of the woman in the boy's arms.
The rain gradually stopped. Absolute silence returned to the ruins.
.......
......
At that very moment, deep in a sewer beneath St. Honghu Commercial Street.
Struggling to carry Clock Maker's body, Luo Senzi tumbled into a tunnel, landing right next to a river of murky, filthy water.
A foul stench assailed his nostrils. Luo Senzi's right hand was still clutching a broken pocket watch.
This was the first time in his life that Luo Senzi had attempted to copy Clock Maker's ability... and he had succeeded. Ever since he was young, he had remembered Clock Maker's teachings. This man, always dressed in a sharp suit and wearing a gentle smile, had placed a hand on his head time and time again. Looking down at him from above, he had tirelessly drilled into him:
"You can use your ability on anyone else... but never on me. You're a good boy, aren't you, Luo Senzi? Your talents were born to be used for me."
Looking into those eyes hidden in the shadow of the man's hat brim, Luo Senzi would nod every time, squeezing out a smile for him:
"I know... Dad."
In the pitch-black sewers, Luo Senzi supported Clock Maker, trudging steadily forward.
He had lost his woven mat, so he could only drag those shriveled, almost deformed legs of his, taking it one step at a time. His movements looked more like crawling, or perhaps the wriggling of some insect.
"I'm sorry..." he murmured hoarsely. "I'm sorry, Dad."
Beads of sweat the size of peas oozed from Luo Senzi's forehead. The sweat slid down his hollowed cheeks, gathering at his jaw into a stream that dripped onto the ground.
For Luo Senzi, using his esper ability actually came at a price—every time he unleashed it, he had to overdraw his own lifespan. The stronger the esper ability he stole from his target, the heavier the toll on his lifeforce when he used it.
Because of this, even though he was only thirteen years old, he looked incredibly ancient.
By now, his bodily functions had deteriorated to the point where they were no different from a sixty-year-old man's. He didn't know how many years he had left to live.
But he understood and remembered one thing clearly: this man in the sharp suit had picked him up from that dark, hopeless slum and given him a name.
Drip, drop...
Drip, drop. Drip, drop...
The faint sound of flowing water echoed through the sewer tunnel. On bare, ruined feet, Luo Senzi quietly dragged Clock Maker forward.
Every time he covered some distance, he would use his esper ability to conjure a broken quicksilver pocket watch and press the raised button.
The world shifted between blue and black... With every alternation of color, Luo Senzi's body grew even more emaciated, as if all his blood were being drained. Black veins bulged and throbbed on his stick-thin arms and neck.
But he never stopped walking, and he never abandoned the man resting on his shoulders.
Luo Senzi hadn't walked for long, but his soles were already rubbed bloody. His aged body felt as though it would fall apart at any moment. His vision slowly blurred, and his eyelids felt so heavy they were threatening to droop shut.
A moment later, Luo Senzi suddenly dropped to his knees and spat a mouthful of foul blood.
He struggled to climb back up, only to hear a burst of laughter echo through the underground tunnel.
It was a girl's laughter, innocent and as melodious as a brass bell, yet it made Luo Senzi's hair stand on end. Every pore on his body sprang open in an instant.
The next moment, a girl with messy pencil lines drawn across her face and wearing a pitch-black gothic dress stepped out from around the corner.
As the girl came into view, the air in the sewer suddenly turned thick and viscous.
Luo Senzi's pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks. Acting almost purely on instinct, he unleashed his esper ability on her.
But he failed.
Because the other party was not an esper.
"A witch..."
Luo Senzi stared in shock. He pulled Clock Maker tightly into his arms to protect him, his pupils dilating like a startled cat's.
The witch tilted her head, her neck letting out a sharp crack as if it had been broken. Then, her entire head slumped sharply to the right.
That was something a normal human body simply couldn't do. She looked like a centipede.
The girl's head hung at a sheer ninety-degree angle, making the smile on her face slant along with it. It was in this bizarre posture that she opened her mouth:
"Let's, play, a game, together—"
Seeing that Luo Senzi was ignoring her, she dropped the smile from her face and pressed a finger against her slanted cheek.
Luo Senzi's back was soaked in cold sweat. He used his last ounce of strength to conjure a pocket watch, but it was suddenly blasted away by a magic bullet from nowhere, falling into the filthy river.
He was utterly petrified. Trembling all over, he hugged Clock Maker tightly and didn't dare move another muscle.
And for a long time after that, the empty, silent tunnel continued to echo faintly with that single, unbroken sentence:
"Let's, play, a game, together—"