The icy seawater felt like countless tiny blades, scraping over Levi's skin again and again.
He lay quietly on the damp beach, his body so heavy it was like a piece of trash casually discarded by the waves. The night wind swept over him without mercy, stealing away the last trace of warmth from his body and triggering an uncontrollable shiver. Exhaustion spread like a parasitic curse, seeping out from the deepest parts of his cells—so overwhelming that even lifting a finger felt like a luxury.
But he was still alive.
And that was enough.
Inside his body, a silent repair was underway. The healing factor he had copied from Logan worked like tireless ants, slowly but steadily mending his nearly shattered frame. The super-soldier serum, meanwhile, functioned like a loyal engine, desperately squeezing every last bit of nutrition from the scraps of food still in his system, converting them into a pitiful amount of energy—just enough to maintain a sliver of body heat against the encroaching cold of the sea. As for the newly acquired, star-sea–vast cosmic energy, it remained aloof and godlike, slumbering deep within him, utterly indifferent to its host's brush with death.
Levi lay there without moving.
Time seemed to lose all meaning—perhaps ten minutes passed, perhaps far longer. He greedily savored this brief calm after disaster, letting his body's instincts take over, carrying out the most primitive form of self-repair.
Only when the bone-deep cold began to fade, replaced by a stiff, frozen numbness, did he finally gather a trace of strength. Bracing himself with his elbows, he struggled upright and sat on the soft sand.
He lifted his head and looked around.
This was a typical California beach. In the distance, the city lights carved out a hazy yet dazzling outline against the deep night sky, like a faraway and illusory sea of stars. Closer by, a handful of seaside villas with private docks glimmered faintly, their scattered lights radiating a hard-to-describe loneliness amid the boundless darkness.
Levi lowered his head and examined himself.
A set of tattered white prison clothes clung sticky and damp to his body, soaked through with seawater and unidentifiable filth, giving off a nauseating, sour stench. In this state, forget 1995—even if he were dumped back into the twenty-first century he knew so well, any passerby would pull out a phone and dial the police within three seconds flat.
Something had to be done.
The top priorities were changing clothes and finding food to fill his completely empty stomach.
Man is made of iron, food is steel—miss one meal and you grow weak. This crude but eternal truth held just as firmly in WWII trenches under artillery fire as it did in the neon-soaked California of the 1990s. As for how to survive in this familiar yet alien era, or how to leverage the memories in his mind that were decades ahead of the world to seize his first pot of gold—that could wait until he was no longer starving.
He staggered to his feet, swaying like a homeless drunk after an all-night binge, and trudged away from the cold beach toward the distant glow of city lights. He avoided the wide, open roads, instinctively slipping into the shadows of trees and buildings instead, like a startled wild animal, carefully steering clear of any place where cars or pedestrians might appear.
His condition was terrible. Though the healing factor was still working, severe energy depletion had left him dangerously weak. Any unnecessary attention could spell fatal trouble.
After moving through the darkness for more than half an hour, he finally reached the city's outskirts. This area was more like a chaotic no-man's-land—low, dilapidated buildings packed tightly together, narrow and cluttered streets, walls covered in garish, meaningless graffiti. The air was thick with the sour stench of rotting garbage mixed with the sickly-sweet smell of cheap marijuana smoke, enough to turn anyone's stomach.
Just as he turned into a dimly lit alley, his steps suddenly halted.
His super-soldier–enhanced hearing picked up sounds from around the corner ahead—muffled arguments, coarse curses, and a woman's tearful pleas.
"Hand over all the fucking money! Now, bitch!" a hoarse male voice barked.
"Please… let me go… I really don't have any money…" The woman's voice trembled with despair.
"Cut the crap! Search her!" another voice snarled.
Levi's expression didn't change. He wasn't some justice-obsessed superhero—especially not when he himself was on the verge of starving. His first instinct was to avoid the trouble altogether. In this unfamiliar world, survival came first.
But just as he was about to retreat silently and find another route, a sharp, ringing slap echoed from deep within the alley, followed by the woman's even more desperate cry.
The sound stabbed at his eardrums.
Levi frowned and stopped backing away. Leaning against the cold, rough wall, he closed his eyes. Though the dormant cosmic energy remained beyond his reach, his innate energy perception quietly spread outward.
In an instant, a three-dimensional "map" took shape in his mind. Deep in the alley, three humanoid outlines glowed faintly with weak energy signatures—violent, greedy, chaotic. Trapped among them was another, much dimmer point of light, flickering on the verge of extinction, radiating pure fear and despair.
Three street punks robbing a woman coming home late from work. A painfully cliché scene, replayed countless times in the city's countless dark corners.
Levi slowly opened his eyes. The hesitation was gone, replaced by cold resolve.
He wasn't suddenly struck by a fit of heroism. He simply realized that this so-called trouble was, in fact, the fastest solution to all his current problems.
He needed clothes. He needed money. He needed a hot meal.
And these three men looked like they'd be generous enough to provide all of that.
He didn't hesitate any longer, striding toward the depths of the alley. His steps were impossibly light, silent as a shadow—like a predator stalking through the night.
At the end of the alley, three young men in baggy T-shirts and sagging pants, thick metal chains hanging from their necks, had a woman in a restaurant server's uniform pinned against the wall. One yellow-haired punk was roughly tearing at her shoulder bag. A burly Black man grinned lewdly, reaching out with filthy hands toward her face. A tall, skinny guy leaned lazily against the opposite wall, cigarette in his mouth, enjoying the spectacle.
Lost in their cruelty, none of them noticed the ghostly figure that had already appeared behind them.
The skinny smoker was the first to sense something wrong. It felt as though a shadow had materialized behind him out of thin air, a bone-chilling cold racing up his spine.
He spun around.
All he saw was a blank face—and a fist rapidly filling his vision.
Thud.
A dull, horrifying impact, like a sledgehammer smashing a watermelon.
The skinny man didn't even have time to groan before his body collapsed into a limp heap. His nose caved in at a grotesque angle, blood mixed with white matter slowly oozing from his nostrils and ears.
Levi didn't spare him a second glance. The instant his punch landed, his body coiled and released like a drawn bow, whipping toward the burly Black man.
The man heard the noise behind him and had only just begun to turn when an irresistible, terrifying force slammed into the outside of his knee.
Crack.
The sharp sound of breaking bone echoed through the alley.
"Aaagh—!"
A scream barely human tore from his throat as he clutched his leg, now bent at a sickening ninety-degree angle, and crashed to the ground. The pain instantly robbed him of all resistance.
That left only the yellow-haired punk.
The sudden bloodshed scared him out of his wits. The bag slipped from his hands and hit the ground with a dull thud. He stared at Levi as if staring at a demon, lips trembling, utterly unable to speak.
Levi walked toward him, step by step, unhurried. Each footfall felt like it was stomping directly on the punk's heart.
"D-don't come any closer! Do you know who I am?!" the yellow-haired man shrieked, trying to sound tough as he fumbled a switchblade out of his pocket and waved it wildly in front of him.
A flash of naked impatience crossed Levi's eyes. He didn't even bother dodging. Just as the blade was about to stab into his chest, he struck like lightning, gripping the man's wrist with perfect precision.
It felt to the punk like his wrist had been clamped by red-hot iron. Searing pain exploded through his body, forcing a scream from his throat.
Levi's expression remained blank. He applied the slightest pressure.
Crack.
A soft, brittle sound. The man's wrist was crushed as easily as snapping a twig. The switchblade fell to the concrete with a clear clang.
"Aaaah! My hand!" The punk writhed on the ground, howling in agony.
Levi ignored him.
He bent down and efficiently stripped the relatively clean black jacket and jeans off the unconscious skinny man. Then, from the pocket of the screaming burly man, he pulled out a crumpled roll of sweat-soaked cash.
He counted it quickly.
One hundred and twenty-seven dollars.
Not much—but enough.
Throughout the entire process, the waitress who had been robbed remained curled up against the wall, staring at Levi in sheer terror, as though looking at a monster.
Levi pulled on the jacket and jeans. They didn't fit perfectly, but they were a thousand times better than the eye-catching prison uniform. He stuffed the money into his pocket, then walked over to the trembling woman.
She flinched violently, squeezing her eyes shut in despair, convinced her fate was sealed.
But the expected assault never came.
Levi simply bent down, picked up her fallen shoulder bag, and gently placed it in front of her.
Then, without a word, he turned and disappeared into the deeper darkness of the alley.
From start to finish, he never said a single word.
When he emerged back onto the brightly lit street, Levi finally felt alive again. Proper clothes on his back, money in his pocket—however little it was—that solid sense of reality loosened the tension that had gripped him for so long.
He found a twenty-four-hour convenience store.
"One hot dog, a Coke, and today's newspaper," he said to the drowsy clerk behind the counter, his English a bit rusty.
Soon, he was sitting on the cold steps outside the store, wolfing down his first hot meal in this era. The hot dog tasted cheap, the bun wasn't soft enough—but to someone who'd been hungry in body and mind for nearly fifty years, it was an unparalleled delicacy. The icy Coke slid down his throat, the fizzy sweetness shooting straight to his brain, making him let out a long, satisfied breath.
After eating, he unfolded the newspaper, the smell of fresh ink rising from the pages.
The front page was a deep dive into Middle Eastern geopolitics—of no interest to him. He flipped straight to the center and found today's date.
May 8th, 1995.
Almost exactly when he'd expected.
His eyes skimmed the paper, landing on names both familiar and distant. Microsoft. Apple. Netscape… Names that would soon shape an era and shake the world sat quietly in front of him. Then he noticed a small, easily overlooked article tucked into a corner, reporting that a small internet company called "Yahoo" had just secured a new round of funding and was preparing for an IPO the following year.
The corners of Levi's mouth slowly curled into a knowing smile.
He knew where his first pot of gold would come from.
The night wind was still bitterly cold, but a blazing fire had ignited in his chest. The immediate crisis of survival was over. Next, it would be time for this relic awakened from half a century of sleep to claim a little something from this brand-new, opportunity-filled world—something he was long overdue.
He drained the last half-bottle of Coke, folded the priceless newspaper carefully, slipped it into his pocket, then stood up and straightened his spine, disappearing into the deepest darkness before dawn.
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