I Possess the SSS Skill: Future Sight-Chapter 40: Alpha Squad

Convincing Magical Intelligence that there were traitors within its ranks was no easy task—it was closer to trying to convince a wolf that its fangs were poisoned.

In the cold meeting room, when I threw out the names of the traitors—Inspector General "Thorne," Rank A, Captain "Miller," and Lieutenants "Vargas" and "Reed," Rank B—no one believed me. In their eyes, I was nothing more than Rank G trash, a street rat trying to fabricate accusations against prominent leaders to save his own neck. They didn’t trust my words—not even one percent. Instead, they placed their blind trust—or rather, their submission—in "Valisera."

Valisera, for reasons I didn’t know (I was completely ignorant of what had transpired in that closed security meeting with Supreme Kaiser Dravion, and unaware of any hidden organization they might have been investigating), took my words seriously.

Perhaps she was looking for a scapegoat, or perhaps she already had threads leading her to those laboratories, and the names Thorne and Miller aligned with her suspicions. Whatever the reason, she adopted the plan.

But it didn’t pass peacefully. "Kyrion Drathis," the living legend, refused to intervene.

I remember him standing in the room, his gray aura almost crushing bones with every breath.

Kyrion was a man who had broken into Rank S, and without a doubt, he was physically and aetherially stronger than Valisera, who was Rank S-. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Kyrion refused to participate in this "unofficial trap."

He stated firmly that attacking an Inspector General of Rank A without a documented arrest warrant from High Command was outright insubordination.

He left the room in anger, leaving Valisera to lead her "Alpha" squad alone in this suicidal mission.

And Alpha Squad... was incomplete.

We were missing one member. "Aiden."

Aiden, the Awakened who could completely change his form (the first time I saw him in the Diamond Tears shop, he appeared as a fat, pitiful man), was on another mission.

He was a special agent, working across multiple divisions, and was currently assigned to the eastern wing. His absence meant Alpha Squad would enter the battle with only three members: Eva, Sia, and Damian... along with me—the "bait."

[Warehouse 42 – Industrial Sector G – Midnight]

Rain lashed against the rusted roof of the abandoned warehouse like thousands of metal needles.

The stench of chemical waste, rust, and old blood filled the air.

Sector G was an industrial graveyard—a perfect place to hide screams and conduct the dirty deals that fed human experimentation.

I stood in the middle of the dark interior yard. Rain leaked through holes in the ceiling, soaking my light coat.

I trembled as the cold gnawed at my bones.

Alpha Squad was positioned around me in the darkness, like wolves waiting for their prey.

Eva Blackwood was perched atop a high steel crane, her sniper rifle blending with the shadows.

Sia was hidden behind shipping containers, her twin daggers ready to drink blood.

Damian covered the western flank with his heavy aetherial machine gun. Valisera was somewhere unseen, watching silently, leaving her squad to prove their worth.

A sharp metallic creak tore through the stillness of the night.

The massive iron gate slowly opened, groaning as if it resisted letting death enter.

Two black SUVs drove in.

They stopped in the yard, their headlights shutting off, leaving the place in near-total darkness, illuminated only by flashes of lightning seeping through the ceiling.

The doors opened. Four men in black leather coats stepped out.

Inspector General "Thorne." His body was massive like a gray bear, and his scarred face looked like a map of crimes. Behind him were Captain "Miller," and Lieutenants "Vargas" and "Reed."

Thorne stepped forward heavily, splashing water with each step.

His aetherial aura was suffocating, dense, and carried a strange scent... not of pure aether, but something corrupted and altered.

Thorne looked into the darkness and saw only my thin figure.

"Who is this pup?" Thorne growled, his voice echoing through the warehouse like a cave.

"Where’s the handler? Are they sending us children now to receive the goods?"

I took a step back, pretending genuine fear.

"I... I’m not the handler," I stammered. "I’m a message."

"A message?" Miller narrowed his eyes, placing a hand on the hilt of his short sword.

"A message from the FBI, you traitors!" I shouted, throwing myself to the ground behind a rusted metal barrel.

Bang!

A sniper shot fired from atop the crane. Eva didn’t hesitate.

The bullet, infused with penetrating aether, shot straight toward Thorne’s right shoulder to disable him.

But what happened next... was a nightmare.

Thorne didn’t dodge.

He didn’t raise a barrier.

Instead, he burst into hysterical laughter—mad, shaking laughter that rattled the entire warehouse.

He raised his hand with terrifying speed, and a surge of deep crimson aether—forbidden aether—erupted from his palm.

He caught the magical bullet with his bare hand, crushing it into scattered sparks!

"Traitors?!" Thorne roared, his voice layered as if more than one throat spoke at once.

His eyes widened with terrifying madness, black veins bulging across his neck and face.

"You call me a traitor?! You—Alpha Squad! You are the corrupt rats!"

Damian froze for a moment.

Thorne continued screaming, waving his arms like a lunatic, feigning total insanity to turn the situation against them:

"I am Inspector Thorne! I was close to uncovering your filthy laboratories! I knew High Command was compromised, and that Alpha Squad is the secret death squad protecting human traffickers! And now you lure me here to kill me and silence me! I won’t allow it! I will tear you apart and present your corpses as evidence to Commander Alexander!"

It was brilliant acting. Thorne realized he was in an ambush, so he chose to play the role of the mad victim who had uncovered a "false truth."

This psychological tactic would have shaken any ordinary squad—making them hesitate to fire at an Inspector General screaming that he was the hero.

But... Alpha Squad was not an ordinary squad.

I had underestimated them.

"You filthy liar!" Eva shouted from above, not hesitating for a second.

Bang! Bang! Bang! She rained explosive sniper rounds down on Thorne.

"It doesn’t matter what this lunatic says! Take them down!"

"Move!" Sia called in her icy voice, darting from behind the containers like a black phantom, her daggers glowing blue.

The battle that erupted in Warehouse 42 wasn’t a skirmish—it was a massacre.

"Kill them! Leave no one from Alpha Squad alive!" Thorne roared, launching himself toward Damian like a human missile.

The concrete floor cracked beneath his feet with every step.

Damian, regaining his focus, didn’t retreat.

He raised his heavy machine gun, channeling all his Rank A aether into it.

"Suppression Shield!" Damian shouted. A wall of solid aether formed before him as he unleashed a barrage into Thorne’s chest.

But Thorne, enhanced with corrupted red aether, crashed through it.

KRAAASH! Damian’s shield shattered like thin glass.

Thorne’s massive punch struck Damian’s weapon, destroying it and sending the blond flying into a shipping container, coughing blood instantly.

"Damian!" Sia shouted.

Sia was fighting both Miller and Reed at once. And here—I saw the true strength of this squad.

Sia wasn’t just a cold medic; she was a storm of blades.

She moved with impossible agility, dodging Miller’s short sword by millimeters, stabbing Reed’s thigh, then using Reed’s body as a platform to kick Miller in the face.

She was fighting two Rank B operatives—genetically enhanced—and still pushing them back with unbreakable resolve.

Blood covered her face, a deep wound opened in her shoulder from Miller’s poisoned blade, yet she didn’t stop smiling with savage intensity.

And me?

The plan was for me to stay hidden and let them fight.

But in a battlefield this chaotic, there was no safe place.

"Look! The pup is still here!" Vargas shouted—the second lieutenant whose hands had turned into nightmarish claws dripping with acid.

Vargas turned toward me, a sadistic grin splitting his face. He rushed at me faster than my eyes could follow.

"Damn it!" I cursed, throwing myself aside.

Vargas’s claws tore through the metal barrel I had hidden behind as if it were paper.

Fragments of hot iron scattered, embedding into my back and arm.

"AAARGH!" I screamed in real pain.

My blood splattered across the wet floor.

This was no longer acting. Vargas, with his enhanced Rank B power, was a true monster.

He turned toward me again, lunging with claws aimed at my neck.

Survival instinct—the instinct of the Black Joker—ignited in my cells.

I rolled backward into the mud.

His claws missed my neck—but sliced across my chest.

Slaaash! My shirt tore, and I felt three lines of fire carving into my flesh.

The acid on his claws began burning my tissues, forcing a muffled scream from me.

"You’re slow, little spy!" Vargas laughed, raising his foot to crush my skull.

I had no choice.

If I didn’t act, I would die here—and Valisera wouldn’t intervene until she saw my corpse.

I focused aether into my eyes.

I looked at Vargas’s "shadow" stretching across the ground under the flashes of gunfire.

With my left hand, hidden beneath my body in the mud, I formed a small, invisible blade of shadow.

I didn’t aim for his heart or head—that would expose me. I targeted the Achilles tendon in the shadow of his supporting leg.

Stab!

"AAAAAAAH!"

Vargas screamed suddenly, his eyes bulging in shock.

The Achilles tendon in his right leg tore from within—without any visible external wound!

His massive body collapsed to one knee, completely losing balance.

In that insane moment, Eva didn’t waste the opportunity.

From atop the crane—despite Thorne hurling chunks of concrete at her—she noticed Vargas fall.

Her rifle snapped toward him.

Bang!

An armor-piercing round struck the top of Vargas’s helmet, blowing his head apart into a fountain of blood and aetherial ash above my body on the ground.

My breathing was ragged. Blood—mine and Vargas’s—covered me completely.

The burning pain in my chest from the acid nearly made me lose consciousness.

I was fighting to stay alive in this massacre—like an insect beneath the feet of raging elephants.

The battle intensified, growing more savage.

Thorne was stunned.

He stood in the middle of the warehouse, panting, his body riddled with Eva’s bullets that hadn’t fully pierced his enhanced muscles but left deep burns.

"You... you’re just a bunch of teenagers!" Thorne growled, disbelief coating his madness-filled voice.

"I’m a Rank A Inspector! My body carries the blessing of new blood! How can you withstand all this?! Why won’t you die?!"

Alpha Squad was in terrible condition.

Damian leaned against a container, his left arm broken and hanging limp, yet he still fired with his right, his eyes blazing with a will I had never seen in that anxious young man.

Sia was bleeding from her nose, her left dagger shattered, yet she still danced the dance of death with Miller, stabbing him repeatedly and forcing him to scream.

And Eva... Eva moved across the steel cranes like a ghost, ignoring the phantom pain in her abdomen, sniping with lethal surgical precision, preventing Thorne from taking a single step forward without paying in flesh.

"We are Alpha Squad, you filthy monster!" Sia spat blood from her mouth, smiling a terrifying, blood-soaked smile.

"We don’t die without taking your souls with us!"

Their resolve... was unbreakable.

I had seen them as arrogant and weak when I faced them as the "Joker," but now I realized they had been restrained by fear of the unknown.

Now, in a direct battle—against real monsters?

They fought like wolves cornered in a cage, refusing to surrender even as their bodies were torn apart.

Thorne realized this wouldn’t end easily.

His feigned madness turned into real, blind rage.

"I will crush you! I will burn this entire city!"

Thorne gathered all the red aether within his body.

The air in the warehouse began to boil. The metal walls started melting.

He was preparing a massive aetherial explosion that could destroy the warehouse—and everyone inside, including me.

"Damn it! He’s going to blow the place!" Damian shouted.

I lay in the mud, bleeding, my crimson eye watching the mass of destruction forming in Thorne’s hand.

I couldn’t stop him with my skill—the shadows were fading under the intense light.

Was this where my life would end?