SOP CH10: Hearts’ Past

The neon signs lit up, and an artificial red sun hung outside the window, casting a blood-red light. In the room at Poker Bar, the robust man lay collapsed within the plush puff quilt, his breathing heavy and ragged.

Quicksand sat before the bed, watching the unconscious man. Hearts’s chest rose and fell beneath the covers like rolling ocean waves.

Just a day ago, the Clepsydra rebels had attacked the Time Entropy Group’s 2030 Branch. However, their leader, Hearts, had his body shattered by the punch Branch Director Monkey Face unleashed by burning thirty years of lifespan, leaving him in a state of semi-consciousness today.

Members of the rebel army discussed the matter in lowered voices outside the door, their speech buzzing like a swarm of mosquitoes, stinging against Quicksand’s eardrums over and over.

“We shouldn’t have attacked the 2030 Branch in the first place… The gap in strength was just too vast. Now Big Brother Hearts is unconscious, and we’ve returned in bitter defeat…”

“But Brother Hearts said, how can you catch tiger cubs without entering the tiger’s den? If we don’t take the initiative to strike, we’ll never discover the enemy’s true strength. Besides, Clubs Cat cracked the 2030 Branch’s dynamic key and secured data on several other branches, including crucial information regarding the 2035 Branch.”

“What is it?”

“Word is… it’s partial dossiers on the time cleaners, including personal information on that chief cleaner of the Group, ‘Quicksand’.”

Suddenly, Quicksand’s body jolted, as if a hand had clutched his heart. Those two syllables, “Quicksand,” acted like an incantation, making him inexplicably panicked.

“Then who on earth is this ‘Quicksand’?”

“It’s still unknown right now, because that file underwent multiple layers of dynamic encryption. Clubs Cat is still in the middle of cracking it.”

Quicksand sat in the room, his heart pounding violently. Who was “Quicksand”? An acquaintance from before his amnesia? Countless questions intertwined within his mind. Outside the room, the rebel members continued:

“What is Boss Hearts’s condition right now?”

“Unconscious, his body almost like it has fallen apart. Doctor Hua from the ‘Super Cheap Clinic’ examined him, saying he still needs some materials to repair his body. Who knows what dirty trick that bastard Monkey Face pulled. With a single punch, Boss’s body was left looking as if it had been gnawed to pieces by wild beasts…”

Their voices gradually faded as the rebel members walked down the wooden stairs. Quicksand sat in the dead-silent room, anxiety scratching at his heart like cat claws. He stood up and switched on the vintage radio beneath the poster of Boxing King Anvil. Static hissed like rustling withered leaves, an old jazz piano melody drifting out, followed immediately by a deep male voice:

“Years may fade, yet glory remains. Welcome to ‘Echoes of Time.’ Today, let us step back into the past and relive the iron-blooded life of Boxing King Anvil…”

This was not a broadcast caught by tuning the channels, but a pre-recorded audio track. Quicksand suddenly felt a spark of interest and sat down holding the radio. The voice flowed like water, murmuring gently through the room.

The radio recounted a story.

An ancient tale about Boxing King Anvil that most people had long forgotten.

A legend was passed down through Spiral City’s Blood Arena.

There once was a man, robust as a bear and ferocious as a lion, who proved invincible upon the ring. His fists were heavy as iron, his defense completely airtight. Stepping over dripping blood across countless tournaments, he fought his way to the very end. The flashbulbs of countless media outlets turned toward him, his moniker echoing across both the upper and lower tiers of Spiral City: “Boxing King Anvil.”

Anvil’s family boasted an ancient pedigree, yet he was a stain on the genealogical tree, an illegitimate son. He had once been welcomed back into the household, only to flee after becoming entangled in a whirlpool of internal strife. In the end, he arrived at the bottom tier of Spiral City, married a woman who worked as a teacher, and planned to spend the remainder of his life in peace.

Life should have passed quietly, yet turbulent waves arose midway. His wife fell victim to a bizarre illness; parts of her body aged abruptly, and she frequently coughed up blood. At first, Anvil assumed it was due to contaminated water sources in the lower tier. Yet even after spending exorbitant amounts of money to secure purified water, his wife’s symptoms showed no improvement.

After examining her, the goateed old man from the “Super Cheap Clinic” told him thoughtfully that his wife’s ailment was not uncommon in the lower tier. It was a condition known as Black Hole Syndrome.

“Why is it called Black Hole Syndrome?”

“It’s a name derived from a hypothesis regarding black holes. You see, our lower tier is a time labyrinth, resembling a black hole in which even light loses its way. If time also possesses a particle state, the temporal particles in the lower tier must be in absolute chaos. Staying here for prolonged periods causes the human body’s internal time to fall into disarray, just like a black hole exploding after its mass diminishes to the limit.” The goateed elder sighed, shaking his head. “Still, this is merely a piece of folkloric gossip. After all, I’ve barely scratched the surface of physics and don’t know the precise principles behind it.”

“Is there a way to cure it?”

“The Time Entropy Group, having mastered temporal technology, should possess a way to treat it. If sent to their hospital, your wife’s life can probably be preserved.”

Without a second word, Anvil paid an exorbitant admission fee at the elevator entrance and admitted his wife into the hospital operated by the 2030 Branch.

The hospital was packed with hulking brutes and emaciated lower-tier figures. Every one of them had a vicious gaze, wrapped in bandages soaked with blood and grime; Anvil knew they were contenders from the Blood Arena. Situated among them, his wife was pale, frail, and utterly out of place. Black Hole Syndrome truly lived up to its name: colossal sums of medical expenses flowed away like water, yet the required balance remained a bottomless pit.

Anvil labored as if his life depended on it, juggling multiple jobs at once. During the day, he worked as a cybernetics repairman. Once dusk fell, he trafficked refurbished chips and served as a human guinea pig for illegal clinics. His wife wasted away by the day, her frame thinning as if squeezed by a giant hand. Returning home after visiting the hospital, his daughter, Duoduo, sprinted out of the darkness, threw her arms around him, and called sweetly:

“Daddy! Where did you go?”

A profound sorrow lingered in his daughter’s voice, though she concealed it remarkably well. Anvil bent down to embrace her, his heart heavy as stone. “I went to see Mommy. She’s in the hospital. Don’t worry, she’ll be back very soon.” He spoke half a lie and half the truth.

Duoduo knit her brows. “I’m not worried, but I hope Daddy and Mommy can both come back soon.” She too spoke half a lie and half the truth.

The deficit in medical expenses grew ever wider, until Anvil was gradually powerless to fill it. Weak upon her sickbed, his wife smiled at him: “If it can’t be cured, then don’t cure it. In a human life of a hundred-odd years, how much truly meaningful time is there? Meeting, knowing each other, understanding each other, keeping each other company. We’ve already completed three out of four things. Even if I step off the stage midway now, there are no regrets left.”

Curled up in the hallway outside the ward, Anvil recalled every bit and piece of their dozen-odd years together: the bitter hardships, the sweet tenderness, and wept silently. His wife had once possessed bright teeth and red lips, radiant and vivid, yet now she was tortured by illness into a pale, gray shadow. She had always been a proud, determined person; when they first married, she had told him earnestly: “No matter the wind, frost, rain, or snow we face ahead, we must walk together to the very end. Neither of us is allowed to give up halfway.” Yet now, both of them were about to break that promise.

After an unknown while, he suddenly saw a pair of gleaming leather shoes halt before him, followed by a slick voice drifting down from above:

“Young man, seeing as you’re strong and robust, do you have any interest in entering the matches at the Blood Arena? The prize money is generous, enough to even purchase the lives of several people.”

Anvil’s gaze shifted slowly upward, meeting a slick, monkey-like smiling face.

After that, Anvil secured a job in the Blood Arena.

The blizzard of bills vanished, and the knocks of debt collectors that used to terrorize Duoduo at night disappeared as well. His wife moved into a larger, better ward, but Anvil’s visits became fewer. He often appeared at the ward door late at night, staring at his wife’s sleeping face through the glass, his gaze dim and gloomy.

“What’s wrong? Come in,” his wife would occasionally awaken, see him behind the door, and greet him gently. He always shook his head with guilt: “I haven’t disinfected myself. I’m afraid germs might spread to you.”

His wife broke into a smile: “I’m not so frail as that. What kind of germ could be so formidable?”

Anvil said nothing, walking away in silence, hideous wounds concealed beneath his coat. It was a kind of toxic bacterium harmless to the body, yet fatal to the soul. He reached the elevator entrance, the electronic screen behind him packed with crowds, countless streamers floating like phantoms above the Blood Arena, the mechanical host’s shrill voice crying out: “The mysterious newcomer Anvil has claimed seven lives in a row on the ring! Unrivaled ferocity, sweeping all before him!”

Anvil used the money earned in the arena to buy boxing gloves and brass knuckles, thanking his parents for the first time for granting him such a powerful body. People at the bottom had no retreat. To earn exorbitant medical fees, he had long grown accustomed to a life hanging by a thread, quickly adapting to the life-and-death clashes in the arena. Perhaps because he had previously performed black-market human clinical trials multiple times, his muscular density exceeded that of ordinary people, and his wounds healed rapidly, showing a primal, beast-like nature. Unknowingly, more and more people fell before him, and his mindset shifted from initial terror to a stagnant, dead calm.

Gradually, fewer and fewer people could stand against him. A resounding title spread through the crowd, people shouting fanatically toward him: “Boxing King Anvil!” “Boxing King Anvil!”

Media lenses locked onto the rising star in the arena, reporters clustering around the departing fighter like pigeons drawn to scattered corn: “Contenders, may we ask what drives you to shed your sweat so desperately on the ring?”

Someone replied: “For dreams.” Someone said: “To seize the crown of the Boxing King.” When the microphone was thrust to Anvil’s lips, his eyes were bleak, and he said: “For money. I need to earn vast amounts of money.”

The interview was broadcast, rumors flying across Spiral City as if sprouting wings. Supporters praised his honesty, detractors accused him of blinding greed and selling his soul, everyone arguing over the man in their own minds. Amidst the clamor, he walked through the crowd, feeling like a walking corpse, possessing merely an empty shell.

One day, visiting his wife, he found her sitting on the bed with a face cold as frost, a magazine spread open over the blanket before her.

“Darling, I saw your story in here. I heard you’ve become a celebrity now?”

Anvil stayed silent. His wife’s words held an interrogative weight, touched with reproach. Her fingertip rested on a color page in the magazine, where the Boxing King raised his arms in victory, twisted corpses strewn beneath his feet. She sighed: “Treating an illness with blood money will never bring peace to the soul. Just to save me alone, how many dozens, how many hundreds have died in pools of blood?”

Anvil’s breathing grew heavy: “They are strangers I have never known. To save the person I love, sacrificing bystanders is unavoidable.”

His wife said: “Yet I too was once a stranger you did not know. If one day someone took my life for the very same reason, could you stand by and watch? Doing excessive evil will inevitably bring ruin upon oneself. I fear calamity will fall upon you because of this.”

Anvil glared at her coldly, bit his lip, and simply laid everything bare: “If it weren’t to treat your illness, I wouldn’t have resorted to this desperate measure, nor ended up like this.”

His wife looked back at him, suddenly offering a faint, pale smile. “Your nightmare will soon end. The clouds will clear and the sun will shine.”

Her words too were half the truth and half a lie. The mountain of debt had vanished, yet Anvil plunged from then on into an endless nightmare from which he could never awake. Arriving at the ward the next day, Anvil’s eyes widened in horror. In the quiet night, a torn bedsheet twisted into a snake-like cord, hanging from the foot of the bed. His wife’s neck was bruised and purple from strangulation, yet her expression was remarkably serene and elevated. She knelt upon the tiled floor like a devout praying nun, though her body rested in hell, her soul had departed for heaven forever.

In that instant, Anvil felt as though his marrow had been sucked dry. Kneeling beside his wife’s self-hanged corpse, his body and mind plunged into absolute silence.

Some time later, an unkempt, stubble-faced Anvil arrived at the Time Entropy Group 2030 Branch, finding the man who had recruited him.

“I plan to wash my hands clean and no longer participate in the arena’s matches.”

Anvil honestly voiced his thoughts to his handler. The handler possessed a monkey-like face, his eyes constantly darting about, radiating a petty cunning. He was both the director of the 2030 Branch and a moderately famous boxing star in the ring. Hearing this, Monkey Face expressed deep regret: “Aiya, brother, what kind of talk is that? You’re a once-in-a-century prodigy, who wouldn’t retreat before your fists? Cutting your own future short right now would be far too wasteful.”

Anvil said: “My wife passed away because of me. I’ve rolled in this mud for some years now. From now on, I only want to live out the rest of my days in peace, without engaging in the trade of harming and taking lives.”

Monkey Face sighed, patting his shoulder: “Brother understands you. It’s just that announcing a sudden retirement would be too abrupt. How about this: the Group happens to want to cultivate a rising star. You have one final exhibition match with him, passing down the title of ‘Boxing King.’ Afterward, the Group will grant you a massive lump sum of lifespan, letting you retire in comfort.”

“Aren’t those who lose in the arena executed on the spot?” Anvil asked. He recalled the massive iron maiden placed beneath the arena ring, its doors bearing hundreds of holes into which spectators could hammer long spikes after placing bids. Defeated contenders were often locked inside, their wretched shrieks lasting for two days until their breath failed, an entertainment tailored to the audience’s morbid tastes.

Monkey Face smiled and shook his head. “Brother is already an illustrious superstar. How could I ever humiliate you in such a fashion?”

So Anvil agreed. Having lost his wife, only his daughter Duoduo remained at his side. Duoduo was sensible and well-behaved, not shedding a single tear before him after her mother’s funeral, which pained his heart all the more. With the lifespan earned from the arena, he could give Duoduo a life free from the misery of poverty.

The Blood Arena’s Plum Moon Tournament was about to commence. In the locker room, Anvil was wrapping bandages around his hands when he suddenly felt parched and lightheaded. His ears began buzzing, his hearing sharpening abnormally, an aftereffect left behind by black-market human experiments, his hearing fluctuating unpredictably. He caught hushed whispers from the adjacent room:

“Did it succeed?”

“It’s been pumped in. He’ll pass out in a little while.”

Followed by a flurry of hurried footsteps moving away, alarm bells rang wildly in Anvil’s mind. He stood up in a panic, indeed feeling his head spinning. Glancing to the side, he saw the blood-soaked silhouettes of his wife and daughter Duoduo standing in the corner, eyeballs hanging out, leaving nothing but dark, bleeding cavities on their faces.

Anvil clamped his hands over his nose and mouth. Hallucinations meant someone had likely flooded the room with an odorless, colorless neurotoxin!

He threw himself against the door, collapsing to the floor and gasping for breath, catching a glimpse of fleeing figures rounding the corner from the corner of his eye.

The two escaping wore the gray uniforms of pipe maintenance workers. Although their caps were pulled down low, he recognized them as Time Entropy Group employees seen around the arena.

Why was the Group trying to sabotage him? His mind was in utter chaos. Right then, the arena’s mechanical usher marched over, issuing an unfeeling voice:

“Mr. Anvil, it is time for your entrance.”

LED moving head lights flickered overhead, casting pools of bright illumination. Anvil swayed onto the ring. No contender in the Blood Arena was permitted to shrink back, as forfeiting meant a fine of up to 100 years of lifespan. Even under foul play, he had no choice but to compete.

Flawless spotlights illuminated the stage like broad daylight, while the spectator stands were an ocean of darkness from which countless frenzied roars echoed, the fighter standing as a solitary reef within it.

Gold stars danced before Anvil’s eyes, breathing increasingly difficult. His opponent stepped onto the ring and stood before him. Anvil looked up, frozen in disbelief.

The opponent leisurely shrugged off the sable coat from his shoulders, revealing taut, well-defined muscle paired with an ape-like grinning face. The newcomer was none other than the director of the Time Entropy Group 2030 Branch, Monkey Face.

“Branch Director, how could you… be here?”

“Brother Anvil, aren’t you unwell? Why force yourself onto the stage?”

“Are you… my opponent?”

Monkey Face nodded with a smile. Anvil recalled that he was also a frequent fighter in the arena, possessing a versatile and nimble style, opponents often collapsing like water before him.

“Yes, I want to have a friendly match with Brother Anvil. As long as you yield the fruit of victory to me and let the title of ‘Boxing King’ change hands, everything will be settled.”

Anvil suddenly heard the clinking of chains from behind. Turning his head, he saw the iron maiden beneath the ring opening its doors. This was a common tactic in the arena, displaying instruments of torture to fighters before the match to stir fear and desperation. From the stained arms of the iron maiden, flesh and blood from previous victims dropped away; beneath it lay a deep pit where, once triggered, pierced and mangled bodies tumbled into the abyss. Sensing something amiss, Anvil tightened his brow and asked Monkey Face:

“Didn’t we agree… not to use that thing?”

Monkey Face made no sound, merely looking at him with a smile, a formulaic smirk. Anvil suddenly perceived the hypocrisy veiled within that smile. The odorless neurotoxin pumped into his locker room, the hurriedly fleeing corporate staff, and the iron maiden rolled forward…

All signs pointed to Monkey Face being the mastermind behind everything. He never wanted a peaceful friendly match; only by thoroughly crushing “Boxing King Anvil” beneath his boots could his own fame truly resound.

“Was the toxin in the locker room pumped in by your men?” Anvil’s gaze turned cold. “This matter could clearly have been resolved peacefully, yet you go back on your word?”

“Mr. Anvil, what the audience craves is not a tepid bout. They are used to your victories, yet they long for a rising star to be born upon your bones,” a twisted grin spread across Monkey Face’s features. “You know as well as I do that having requested a peaceful retirement, you no longer possess commercial value. Only by perishing tragically here can the Blood Arena’s viewership ratings be maximized.”

“Didn’t you say… I only needed… to fight an exhibition match?”

“That’s right, an exhibition match. An exhibition match where the former ‘Boxing King’ falls here, then gets torn apart miserably by the iron maiden. Don’t forget, no matter how high you climbed, you are ultimately a bottom-tier resident, temporal fuel destined to be consumed by the Group!”

The moment the words fell, Monkey Face drove his foot into the mat, swiveled his hips, concentrated all his power into his fist, and sprang like a coiled spring. Anvil hurriedly blocked, yet just as Monkey Face’s fist closed on the bridge of his nose, a puff of white smoke blasted into Anvil’s face.

Suddenly, Anvil’s knees gave out. A tiny aperture had opened on Monkey Face’s glove at some point, discharging a current carrying BZ powder. This was a chemical weapon commonly used by the military to incapacitate hostiles; inhaling it accidentally, Anvil felt his skull splitting with agony.

Monkey Face excelled in underhanded tactics. Anvil recalled previous bouts involving him; opponents had always seemed unable to exert their full strength, likely sabotaged privately beforehand. Thus Anvil showed no further mercy, biting his tongue hard to maintain consciousness through pain, evading a punch, leaping up, rebounding off the ropes with both legs, and crashing down upon Monkey Face with the full weight of his body.

Monkey Face was no novice either, pivoting swiftly to dodge the assault, his punches generating sonic booms propelled by thrusters in his gauntlets. Anvil, caught mid-air without leverage to dodge, suddenly plummeted like a bird with clipped wings. Planted both hands on the canvas, he delivered a devastating upward kick straight into Monkey Face’s jaw!

Monkey Face let out a shriek as his jawbone shattered, yet retaliated with lightning punches, spikes protruding from his gauntlets to plunge deep into Anvil’s calf. Stung by searing pain, Anvil was about to collapse when a wave of frenzied chanting erupted from the audience stands:

“Anvil! Boxing King Anvil!”

Whether those were heartfelt cries or mere herd mentality from collective fervor, Anvil did not know. He only thought of his daughter Duoduo, guarding their home alone late at night, staring at his struggling silhouette on the screen in the dark. If he fell, he would fail the image of the father in her heart.

In that split second, veins bulged across Anvil’s entire body as he roared as if tearing his chest open! He hurled a punch, descending like Mount Tai collapsing, ripping through the air, howling past people’s ears. Monkey Face’s body absorbed the impact, then flew up like a scrap of paper before crashing heavily down.

The cheers were deafening.

For Boxing King Anvil, it was a victory just like any other. The spectators in the stands would perhaps never understand how many dark undercurrents surged behind this triumph.

Monkey Face lay on his back, a gaping hole torn through his chest, yet no blood flowed, revealing wires resembling blood vessels. He was already a new-era human whose flesh-and-blood body had been converted into machinery. A sound like crumpled wax paper wheezed from his throat.

“An… vil,” a faint smile squeezed onto Monkey Face’s face. “You beat me here, but you are by no means a winner in life.”

Anvil looked at his heaving chest, an ominous premonition digging and spreading in his heart, growing ever larger. Monkey Face said: “Take your prize money and go home to see. This lifespan is too little for two people to spend, but far too much for one. Congratulations, you get to swallow this lifespan all for yourself.”

The silhouette of his daughter Duoduo flashed across his mind, taut strings snapping in his chest. Anvil vaulted over the ropes and tore out of the arena.

Their home was on Slate Street, where long lines of sheet-metal food carts crowded the road at night, greasy smoke stinging the nose, neon signs lighting up one beside another like ivy suction cups. The residential building at the very end was Anvil’s home.

Anvil burst through the front door. The door was dented, the keyhole crisscrossed with blade scratches. Furniture lay scattered as if a drunkard had rampaged through, vomiting everywhere. Duoduo’s cherished Ace Clown plush doll lay with head and body severed, cotton stuffing hanging out pitifully like intestines. Someone had raided his home while he was at the arena, taking his daughter away.

His phone buzzed. Pulling it out, Anvil saw a video text message sent over.

“Mr. Anvil, you breached the contract. This is the price of defying the Group. According to procedure, we have seized your dependent as collateral, and she will soon enter the auction phase.”

“What bullshit collateral!”

“According to the contract signed by every Blood Arena contender before entering the ring, once a fighter commits a breach of contract, the Group reserves the right to collect the lifespan of the contender and their dependents.”

An image was transmitted over: a contract signed between the Group and arena contenders, bearing Anvil’s signature, yet one Anvil had never laid eyes on.

Needless to say, this was the Group’s doing; forging contracts was child’s play to them. Standing before an abyss, Anvil suddenly realized that bottom-tier residents were mere playthings to the Group, discarded ruthlessly once their value was drained or rebellion surfaced.

Tapping open the video, he saw crimson drapes hanging low, slowly parting like the opening of a theater production. Inside a large wire cage, a young girl wearing a pale pink Rococo dress sat on velvet cushions, clearly displayed as auction merchandise, her expression terrified like a trapped deer. Outside the cage sat bidders wearing Venetian carnival masks.

The girl was indeed his daughter Duoduo. Rage erupted into blazing fury as Anvil let out a roar, storming out the door like a madman.

He held some recollection of where this auction hall was situated. It was a favorite haunt of upper-tier elites; once a celebrated superstar, he had been granted access, though he had never deigned to visit. Rushing into the 2030 Branch, his wild punches smashed through mechanical ushers attempting to bar his way. Entering the elevator, he jammed the button, forcing the cab to halt at the temporal point of “February 2030,” tore open the elevator’s steel plating, and a wooden partition door appeared before him. Behind the weathered door lay a resplendent passageway carpeted in terracotta Ziegler-Mahal rugs, the air fragrant with the sweet scent of green grape gummies.

Anvil bolted inside, numerous four-wheeled security robots in fluorescent yellow shells swarming forward, gunports protruding from their chassis to intercept him. Bullets ricocheted beneath his boots as Anvil roared, ramming the machines aside.

The people inside turned to look at him, dressed in bizarre garments: some wearing otter-fur tunics with disc headdresses, others in quantum-coated trench coats, appearing as though from disparate eras. Echoes reverberated beneath the auction hall’s soaring dome, a round of bidding having just concluded. Anvil looked toward the stage; the girl’s silhouette remained inside the wire cage, yet he knew he had arrived too late.

In that instant, red spiderwebs laced Anvil’s vision. Resting upon the velvet cushion was a head, his daughter Duoduo’s head. The little legs that used to run to him like returning birds, the tender, plump little hands, and the slender frame that always wore lace dresses had all vanished without a trace.

“What happened?” Anvil ground out through clenched teeth, his face taut, skin threatening to split across his cheekbones. “What did you do to her?”

No one answered. Anvil’s gaze fell upon the electronic screen beside the display platform. Scrolling across it were the bids of anonymous buyers; the previous lot displayed was Duoduo’s arm. Like a bolt from the blue, realization struck him: Duoduo had been dismembered like merchandise, her limbs, organs, and body auctioned off across different eras.

The eyes of the severed head remained closed, nostrils faintly fluttering, as if still breathing. She had lost consciousness, because the rest of her existed across disparate spacetimes; in the current moment, she was no longer a complete human being. Suddenly, Anvil let out a gut-wrenching roar, lunging forward.

Rage seared his eyes red-hot, and after that, the world plunged into crimson.

Amidst the bloody haze, he saw lush green grass, Duoduo running before him in a geometric daisy-patterned dress, playing Frisbee together. He threw the disk to Duoduo; she missed, the Frisbee tumbling down as she giggled: “Daddy, I can’t catch it.” Looking up, he saw Duoduo’s arm wiped away into nothingness.

He sprinted forward desperately, his daughter’s body disappearing piece by piece, as if severed by shears. In the end, only a head remained in his embrace. Duoduo closed her eyes, uttering her final words:

“Goodbye, Daddy.”

The red fog grew denser, finally burning itself into the back of his retina. Anvil felt his soul wandering, before plunging back into his aching, battered limbs. After an unknown time, he saw his surroundings clearly: the auction hall was an ocean of blood, debris of guests and machines scattered together across the floor, the few survivors gravely wounded, looking at him as though looking upon a monster.

Anvil slowly lowered his gaze, seeing Duoduo’s closed-eyed head resting in his arms, her expression peaceful, as if merely taking her routine afternoon nap. Even though he had slaughtered the auction hall, everything was irreversible; her body had been dismembered and scattered across other spacetimes.

Thus, the few conscious survivors watched a silhouette slowly rise, cradling a young girl’s head, walking alone toward the exit amidst the ruins of the auction house.

He had arrived alone, and in the end, departed alone.

The legend of “Boxing King Anvil” fell that day. Several days later, a new legend was born in Spiral City:

There was a man, robust as a bear and ferocious as a lion, carrying bitter hatred toward the Time Entropy Group, who sowed the sparks of rebellion in the lower tier.