Chapter3

A heavy punch smashed into the left side of my jaw, instantly pulling my vision into a bloody blur.

I crashed heavily against the chain-link fence of the octagon like a worn-out punching bag, the taste of rust rapidly spreading in my mouth.

"No fighting back, Arthur. Remember the rules."

From the VIP box overhead, Victor exhaled a thick cloud of cigar smoke, his voice echoing through the arena via the PA system.

"The moment you dare to strike back, that little cripple's machine gets shut off."

My opponent was a two-hundred-pound brute, his knuckles wrapped in bandages stained with dried blood.

He charged like an out-of-control bison, driving a heavy knee viciously into my stomach.

Gastric acid mixed with blood spewed out. I bit down hard on the tip of my tongue, forcing myself to swallow the groan of pain rising in my throat.

I could only curl my arms up to protect my head, letting a rainstorm of fists fall upon my ribs and back.

Bones let out a teeth-grinding friction sound. A second rib snapped.

"Stand up! Weren't you crawling with so much energy just a moment ago, you dog?" Victor's voice dripped with sickly amusement.

The audience erupted into ear-piercing cheers, the roar of people waving cash drowning me out.

The brute stepped back half a pace, panting heavily, assuming I had already slipped into unconsciousness.

Propping myself up against the blood-stained edge of the ring, I swayed but stood upright once more.

Lily's faint breathing seemed to echo in my ears; that stalled dialysis machine was counting down in the dark.

I could not fall.

"Tag out! Raise the stakes for him!" Victor crushed out his cigar, impatiently tapping on the bulletproof glass.

The cage door swung open, and three black-market fighters wielding metal brass knuckles stepped into the ring simultaneously.

Without any hesitation, the three dark figures completely sealed off all my escape routes.

The sharp brass knuckles tore through my shoulder muscles, and a heavy roundhouse kick swept against my right knee.

I fell heavily on one knee, a shattering agony radiating from my kneecap.

But I jerked my head up, my eyes locking fiercely onto Victor in his box.

There was no surrender in my gaze, only a bottomless black abyss.

I don't know how much time passed, but the besieging fighters eventually exhausted their strength. They stopped in their tracks, gasping for air as they pulled back.

Bathed in blood, I stood rooted in the center of the ring like a rusted iron nail, stubbornly refusing to go down.

"T-Ten rounds, finished." The referee's voice carried a tremor of disbelief.

Victor stared at me through the glass, a heavy flash of disgust crossing his eyes.

A voucher, its edges stamped with the emblem of a medical conglomerate, fluttered down from the box like a piece of trash, landing on the blood-soaked canvas.

I picked up that paper with trembling fingers; the blood seeping from beneath my fingernails stained its corner red.

With this, Lily would survive.

This sheer obsession turned into a shot of adrenaline, injected right into my battered and broken body.

I shoved past the referee blocking my way and, dragging my numb right leg, limped step by step out of the deafening underground arena.

The night wind scraped against my torn wounds like a knife.

Clutching the voucher tightly to my chest, I broke into a frantic run toward the slums.

With every step, my fractured ribs grated against my organs. The agonizing pain made me gasp heavily, but I didn't dare pause for even half a second.

The outline of the street corner gradually became clear; that underground clinic was just ahead.

Suddenly, a pungent chemical odor drifted through the air.

My footsteps came to a dead halt. It was the smell of industrial gasoline.

An orange-red glow tore through the night sky, illuminating the dilapidated alleys of the slums.

A heatwave hit my face like a physical blow. The entire block before my eyes had already been swallowed by towering flames.

A group of street gang members in black leather jackets were holding empty fuel canisters, mounting their motorcycles and roaring away.

Tongues of fire wildly licked the clinic's crumbling signboard, the wooden structure letting out overwhelmed, crackling pops within the inferno.

The voucher in my hand fluttered violently in the intense heat.

Victor never intended to leave Lily a way out from the very beginning.

What he wanted was to burn down my only remaining hope, right in front of my eyes.