I Possess the SSS Skill: Future Sight-Chapter 62: The Bottom of the City
The bottom of the city of "Elysium" had a sound of its own.
It was not merely the gurgling of stagnant water or the hum of forgotten machines; rather, it was a continuous moan, like the death rattle of a giant buried alive beneath millions of tons of concrete and steel.
In the abandoned underground pumping station, where massive pipes intertwined like rusted metallic intestines oozing decay, the shattered "Alpha" squad awaited its fate.
The suffocating humidity clung to their skin like cold glue, and the stench of methane and coagulated blood filled their nasal cavities, turning every breath into a biological punishment.
Kyle Valter returned with silent steps, like an outcast phantom, to a corner of darkness, leaning his back against one of the cold turbines.
He was trembling faintly—not from the cold, but from the dual terror gnawing at his soul:
The hunger of the "Forgotten Blade" coursing like radiant darkness through the veins of his right arm, and the sight of "Valisera" burning her own flesh with blue fire to subdue the cosmic entity dwelling within her skull.
Kyle placed his face between his knees, trying to control the hysterical pounding of his heart, pretending to be nothing more than a soldier broken by fear.
After minutes that felt like heavy centuries, the sound of slow wading through shallow water was heard.
Valisera emerged from the pitch-black darkness of the side corridor.
The sight alone was enough to freeze blood in the veins.
She walked slowly, her steps heavy yet measured with terrifying precision.
Her luxurious white coat was gone, leaving her in a black silk shirt torn at the waist and shoulder.
The wound on her left shoulder was a charred cavity, from which thin strands of disgusting white smoke rose, carrying the smell of roasted human flesh and corrupted ozone.
Her face was pale like a dead candle, but her crimson eyes... burned with a sick, sadistic gleam, focused like the blade of a guillotine.
She had temporarily won her internal war, and returned to lead the pack of wolves.
"My commander..." Damian whispered, rising with difficulty from atop the rotten crates, his eyes widening in shock at the sight of her charred shoulder.
"What... what happened to your shoulder?!"
"That is none of your concern, Damian," Valisera cut him off in a hoarse voice, cold as death’s ice, wiping a dried drop of blood from her chin with the back of her trembling hand.
She stood in the middle of the hall and cast a gaze over them all—a gaze that made even Eva Blackwood lower her rifle.
Sia stepped forward hesitantly, her hands glowing with a faint healing light.
"Please... let me try to restore the burned tissue. You’re draining your life force just to stay standing."
"I said no," Valisera growled, and the air pressure in the room suddenly dropped, causing their breaths to condense in the cold air.
"Save your trivial magic. We are prey now, and Alexander Vance has sent execution hounds to sweep the sewers. They are getting closer."
Aiden, who had been trembling in the corner, raised his head, his face covered in tears of despair.
"Getting closer? How do you know? We’re isolated here! Zack jammed the cameras!"
Zack, who had been fiddling with his keyboard, turned around, his face dripping with cold sweat.
"She’s right, Aiden. They’ve detected the interference. Broadcast signals are being cut one by one in the upper corridors. They’re deploying small thermal drones and elite tracking units. The scent... they’re following the smell of the steel hounds’ blood that stuck to our clothes."
"We’re surrounded," Eva whispered, despair creeping into her sharp tone.
She looked at Valisera, her black eyes overflowing with a desperate question.
"My lady... if they’re approaching in such numbers, and we’re in this miserable state... why don’t you open a spacetime rift? Why not take us all into your ’Void Sanctuary’? We can hide there until they pass, then come out and strike the hospital!"
It was the only logical question. The sanctuary she had previously taken Kyle into was a perfect refuge, undetectable by any radar or hunting hound.
But Valisera’s expression did not soften. It hardened further, and she cast Eva a deadly look of contempt.
"The Void Sanctuary is not a wardrobe for you to hide in whenever you feel afraid," Valisera said in a low, terrifying voice. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎
"To open a stable spacetime rift large enough to contain five people... I need a quantity of pure Eitra and absolute concentration. Do you see the state I’m in, Eva?"
She pointed at her charred shoulder and twisted waist.
"Spacetime fabric is not a silk curtain. It is a wall of cosmic steel. If I open the gate now, with my drained energy and this torn body... the portal will not be stable. The moment you pass through, the spacetime edges will collapse on you. You’ll be sliced into thousands of atomic fragments, your entrails scattered across dimensions beyond human comprehension. Do you want to try that?"
Eva swallowed with great difficulty and stepped back, terror covering her face.
Kyle watched from his dark corner.
He knew the truth. He had seen how she burned herself.
The entity inside her was punishing her, and her energy was being drained more to keep it restrained than to keep herself alive.
She literally did not have the strength to open the gate—but with her demonic pride, she would never admit she was "incapable," instead framing it as a danger to them.
"So... what do we do?" Damian asked, tightening his grip on his heavy machine gun.
"If we run, they’ll pick us off one by one in these corridors."
"We won’t run," Valisera said, a sick, bloody, mad smile forming on her torn lips.
"They’ve hunted us long enough. They’ve made us bleed like animals. Now... it’s our turn."
She looked at Zack, who stiffened in his chair.
"You. Electronic rat. Can you control the valves of this station?"
Zack turned toward his cracked screen, wiping sweat from his forehead.
"I—I can. The station is very old; its systems run on hydraulics and weak mechanical Eitra. I can open and close floodgates, control the lighting in adjacent corridors, and activate the rusted turbines."
"Excellent," Valisera whispered, her eyes gleaming with the ecstasy of slaughter.
"The agents coming after us are not low-ranking. They’re elite FBI units, equipped with thermal armor and heavy weapons. But they rely on their tactical superiority. We’ll strip them of that advantage. We’ll turn this station into a slaughterhouse designed specifically for them. We’ll set an ambush."
"A rat trap..." Kyle muttered softly, feigning fear, while inside, the blood of the "Black Joker" boiled with excitement.
The bloody hive began to move.
The scene was surreal.
The execution squad that once upheld the law was now weaving a web of death for their former comrades.
Eva climbed massive steel pipes until she reached the dark ceiling of the hall, taking a near-impossible sniper position among the slimy moss, her rifle aimed at the main entrance.
Sia took out small vials filled with the acidic blood of the steel hounds and began coating the blades of her twin daggers with the corrosive liquid, her blue eyes overflowing with deadly cold.
Damian positioned himself behind a thick concrete block, feeding his machine gun with the last of his explosive Eitra rounds.
As for Zack, he isolated himself behind a barrier of screens, manipulating copper wires to link the station’s water control system.
And Kyle?
He was ordered to hide in the deepest corner and scream as "auditory bait" if necessary.
A role he played perfectly—while secretly extending his right hand beneath his coat, focusing on activating the [Shadow Rend] skill without drawing the attention of Valisera, who stood like a statue of death in the center of the hall, fully exposed.
