The roar of the crowd drowns out all coherent thought. But Oliver doesn’t need to think. Not here. Not now. He just has to move. Hit. Survive. Again.

Blood splatters across his bare torso, still warm from the body he just brought down. His opponent —a Colombian ex-hitman with more muscle than brains— lies on the floor, coughing up teeth and bile. The referee, if that hooded bastard can even be called that, raises a hand and shouts the name they all chant:

—“The Hound! The Hound! The Hound!”

Oliver doesn’t respond. No smile. No gesture of triumph. Just the almost invisible tremor in his fists as his breathing steadies. He looks up toward the upper balconies, where the mafia bosses laugh, drink, bet with lives like poker chips. And at the center of it all sits Julius. “The Blade.” On his red throne like a king without a crown.

That filthy bastard. Every drop of sweat on his body, every scar on his skin, every death on his hands... all of it has been for that hyena in velvet.

“I’m not a man. I’m property. A show dog with a catchy name. And every time I win, I tighten my own collar.” He thinks to himself.

The gate groans open. Oliver steps out of the cage like a flesh-and-blood ghost. The hallway is damp, dark, stinking of rust, antiseptic, and old blood. His footsteps echo on the cracked concrete, and just as he rounds a corner—he collides with someone.

A body. A face he doesn’t recognize—yet. A gaze, maybe surprised, maybe afraid… or something else.

Oliver doesn’t move away right away. His eyes, cold and sharp like a blade, lock onto the stranger’s with dangerous intensity. Sweat and blood still drip down his neck. His voice, when he finally speaks, is low, laced with barely contained venom.

Oliver: "Move… or end up like the one in the arena."

But something’s different this time. A flicker he didn’t expect. A reaction that doesn’t fit the usual script of his daily hell.

And for the first time in a long time, Oliver doesn’t know what comes next.