I Possess the SSS Skill: Future Sight

When the head separates from the body, illusions die with it.

In the torn Cathedral of Flesh, the flow of sacred light that had been radiating from Saint Ilarion was cut off.

And with the saint’s death and the fading of his false supreme energy, its physical effects also disappeared.

The golden spears of light, which had been piercing the limbs of Alpha Squad and pinning them to the pulsating floor, began to flicker weakly, then turned into glowing dust and scattered into the air before vanishing completely.

But the disappearance of the spears did not remove the wounds they caused.

Eva fell onto her side, gasping, blood pouring heavily from the burned gaps in her thigh and shoulder.

Sia struggled to prop herself up on her elbow, blood seeping from her abdomen.

And Valisera remained sprawled, lacking even the energy to fully lift her head, her crimson eyes still fixed on the severed face of the saint before her.

Meanwhile, Kyle... his body was nothing but a ragged scrap. His four limbs had been completely crushed and shattered under the feet of light.

He lay in a pool of his own blood, gasping with difficulty as if breathing his last.

But death was not written for him today.

Not like this, and not here.

The old man, "The Sleeper," the blind Foldir in the tattered robe, slowly turned toward the collapsed Kyle.

The dragging of his wooden sandals (shhh... shhh...) was the only sound audible amid the roar of rain that had begun to intensify, falling from the open ceiling toward the winter sky of Elysium.

The old man stopped above Kyle.

He did not say a word.

From the torn inner pocket of his coat, he pulled out a very small bottle, barely the size of a pinky finger, transparent, containing a few drops of dark crimson liquid, thick like liquid mercury.

He removed the stopper with his teeth and sprinkled the remaining three drops directly over Kyle’s face and shattered body.

What happened next was not medical healing; it was a violation of biology.

The crimson drops did not touch his skin— they "seeped" into it as if they were living creatures.

"Gghhhh!"

Kyle convulsed violently.

The crushed bones in his arms and legs began to gather, pulled toward each other by an invisible magnetic force, fusing together with rapid, disgusting cracking sounds.

The torn flesh sealed itself without scars.

The bleeding stopped.

And the black veins of the Ghoul Core began to pulse with greater force than before!

Within mere seconds, Kyle was completely healed, as if Saint Ilarion had never crushed him at all!

Kyle slowly rose to his feet, and the old man stepped back, returning to his senile state and silent muttering, as if what he had just done meant nothing to him.

From among the rubble of concrete and dead flesh, Valisera lifted her tear-filled eyes.

The terror freezing her blood was not from the blind Foldir, but from the scene unfolding before her.

"Kyle... what does this mean?"

Valisera whispered, her hoarse voice trembling, not from pain, but from psychological shock that shattered the mind.

"Why is the Foldir... healing you...?"

Kyle did not answer immediately.

He stood straight, brushing dust and blood from his black coat.

He raised his right hand, and without a single trace of hesitation or the trembling that marked him as a "weak recruit," he closed his eyes and summoned the Forgotten Blade.

Black veins climbed up his neck, and icy pain tore through his arm immediately, consuming his lifespan, but he ignored it completely.

He drew the invisible black blade, and did not aim it at the old man, nor at Valisera.

He stepped forward coldly toward the severed corpse of Saint Ilarion.

Swoooooosh!

With a single motion, Kyle cut off Saint Ilarion’s right arm from the shoulder.

He picked up the severed arm, still warm, and calmly placed it inside the pocket of his wide coat.

"Answer me... what does this mean!"

Valisera screamed, a cry carrying all the breaking and betrayal a soul could endure.

She tried to lift her body, but the paralysis from the spears of light and cosmic exhaustion kept her pinned.

"Why did you cut him? And why is he healing you?!"

Kyle stopped, then slowly turned toward her.

He looked at her with his cold crimson eyes.

There was no fear.

There was no tension.

There was no "Recruit Kyle."

There was only pure darkness.

"Valisera... your voice... don’t raise it."

Kyle spoke in a calm, deep, rough voice that scratched at the edges of hearing, filled with the arrogance of a killer who had won his game.

"Hah?"

Valisera’s eyes widened. She couldn’t comprehend the tone.

She couldn’t comprehend the way a miserable recruit was speaking to his commander.

"What the hell are you saying?!"

This time, it was Sia who shouted.

The sadistic doctor, trembling from pain, crawled to brace her back against the flesh wall.

"You trash... were you the one who brought them? Did you sell us out?!"

But the fastest and sharpest response did not come from Sia or Valisera.

It came from Eva.

Eva Blackwood, the elite sniper who had lost her rifle, her teammates, and nearly her soul.

Her military instincts screamed that the young man standing before her was the greatest enemy.

Despite the pain tearing through her thigh and dislocated shoulder, Eva raised her last tactical pistol with her trembling left hand.

"You’ll die with me, you jok—"

She didn’t finish her sentence.

She didn’t pull the trigger.

Because she no longer had a hand to pull it with.

The old man, "The Sleeper," Foldir Kiroshi, did not even open his eyes.

While muttering, "The butterfly is blue... very blue..." he drew a single inch of his katana.

Chiiiiiiing.

There was no flash.

But in a fraction of a fraction of a second...

The tactical pistol in Eva’s hand, her left hand holding it... and her entire torso from right shoulder to left waist...

Split perfectly.

The cut was horrifyingly precise, geometrically impossible for the mind to comprehend.

There was no tearing sound, and the blood did not spray immediately.

Eva’s upper half slowly slid off her lower half and fell onto the fleshy floor.

"Evaa!!"

Sia screamed, her throat tearing as tears poured heavily.

She watched her teammate — the arrogant sniper who once leaned her back against Damian — split in two like a sheet of paper before her eyes, without the old man even turning toward her.

"Thank you... old man," Kyle said coldly, returning the phantom of the Forgotten Blade to the void and silencing the sword’s hunger in his veins temporarily, unconcerned with the half-corpse bleeding beside him.

"Kyle!"

Valisera shouted again, crying — yes, the Silver Demon was crying tears of endless terror, rage, and betrayal.

"Why?!"

Kyle stopped in front of Valisera.

He slipped his left hand into his inner pocket and pulled something out.

A mask.

A black plastic mask, covered with a wide, terrifying white smile, marked with dark blue lines.

It was not broken. It was new, intact, free of any scratch.

It had repaired itself inside the gap of his spacetime consciousness.

Kyle raised the mask. Winter rain, pouring heavily from the open ceiling toward the gray sky, began washing the mask in his hand, washing the blood from his pale face, as if the sky itself wept with Alpha Squad.

"Valisera..." Kyle began, running his fingers across the cold curves of the mask.

"You should never have trusted the Joker."