I Possess the SSS Skill: Future Sight-Chapter 32: A Stupid Decision

Tatatatatatata! Boom! Craaaash!

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These were not ordinary gunshots. They were bursts of explosive Eitra rounds.

The three helicopters began showering the alley with a barrage of magical bullets.

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The Joker leapt like a black panther, rolling behind a massive metal dumpster at the very moment the spot he had been standing in turned into a scorched crater.

The bullets tore through the asphalt and shattered brick walls as if they were fragile biscuits.

Rock and metal fragments flew everywhere like burning knives.

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"Damn it! Damn those FBI agents!" the Joker shouted as he crouched behind the dumpster, which had begun to groan and tear apart under the barrage of fire.

"Why do they keep chasing me like I killed their parents?! Fine... this time, I came to you!"

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The Joker lunged out from behind the dumpster, exploiting his agility and speed enhanced by Shadow Eitra.

He moved in a zigzag pattern, scaling walls for brief seconds before dropping down, evading the streaks of glowing bullets.

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Fwoooosh!

A sniper bullet nearly tore off his ear, passing beside his mask and leaving a burning scratch on his cheek.

"Ugh!" the Joker groaned, feeling warm blood trickle beneath the mask.

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Bang!

A heavy machine gun round from the first helicopter pierced his left shoulder.

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"AAARGH!"

The Joker dropped hard onto one knee, black blood spraying from his shoulder and splattering the wall.

The pain burned like a live ember lodged in his flesh.

The explosive Eitra was trying to tear his shoulder muscles apart from the inside.

He quickly pumped his Shadow Ghoul Eitra to counter the internal explosion and temporarily patch the wound.

He was bleeding heavily. His breathing became sharp and erratic like a dying animal.

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He looked up. The second helicopter had descended slightly, and suddenly...

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Eva Blackwood jumped.

She landed with terrifying grace from a height of ten meters, using blue Eitra to cushion her fall.

She dropped to one knee in the middle of the alley, thirty meters away from him, and raised her sniper rifle with lightning speed, her black eyes blazing with killing intent, the barrel aimed at his head.

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In that moment where time froze, the opportunity came.

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The Joker’s analytical mind screamed at him: "Run! The torture rounds on Arthur have drained much of your Eitra reserves! Your shoulder is bleeding! If you use the [Shadow Rend] skill now, an S- rank ability, you’ll be left with almost nothing to escape! Not enough for even five minutes of stealth! Run now and use smoke!"

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He knew that. He fully understood that firing this shot was a stupid, reckless decision that could cost him his life.

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But... he looked at Eva. At those black eyes overflowing with arrogance.

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I have to take my revenge.

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Was it a stupid decision? Absolutely. But hatred... the burning hatred in his chest, the darkness that consumed him in Erebus, was stronger than any strategic logic.

He was tired of running like a rat. Tired of taking blows.

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The Joker smiled beneath his mask—a mad, terrifying smile—blood dripping from his jaw.

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He raised his Glock, which contained only one remaining bullet of pure condensed Eitra.

He focused all that remained of his magical energy, every drop of the [Shadow Rend] skill.

But... he did not aim at Eva.

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The muzzle of the gun was pointed toward the ground, about two meters to the right of Eva’s body.

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Eva looked through her sniper scope and saw the position of his hand. She smirked mockingly.

"He’s lost his mind from the pain, or the Joker has become terribly bad at shooting," she thought with contempt, placing her finger on the trigger to end his life.

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Bang!

The Joker fired.

The black bullet shot forward at invisible speed and struck the wet asphalt.

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No... it did not hit the asphalt.

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It hit the "shadow."

Eva Blackwood’s shadow, stretched across the ground by the powerful searchlights of the helicopters.

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The black bullet pierced the dark shadow and vanished into it as if it had fallen into a black hole. The shadow rippled in a nightmarish distortion.

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For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Eva pulled the trigger...

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But—

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"AAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!"

A muffled scream, filled with shock and overwhelming pain, burst from Eva’s throat.

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Her black eyes widened as if they would burst from their sockets.

Her sniper rifle slipped from her hands and clattered to the ground.

She bent forward, collapsing onto her knees, her hands trembling as she clutched her abdomen.

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"Hah...?"

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Eva looked down, her mind completely unable to process reality.

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"What... is this...?" she whispered, her voice choking on blood.

There had been no bullet in the air.

Nothing physical had approached her.

And yet... a grotesque, bloody hole the size of a fist had just opened in her abdomen.

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Hot blood poured out heavily, running over her trembling fingers and staining her military uniform.

Her internal tissues were torn, as if an invisible bullet had pierced her from the inside out.

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"Damn it..." Eva coughed, collapsing onto her side in the mud, writhing in pain beyond imagination.

She could not understand how she had been struck.

The magic the Joker used was something beyond conventional intelligence comprehension.

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In the third helicopter, the young man, Damian, shouted in hysterical panic:

"Eva! Damn it, Eva’s hit! Evac team, move! Rappel down immediately!"

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As for the silver-haired girl, Valisera... she stopped drinking her juice.

She slowly lowered the carton, her crimson eyes narrowing with terrifying focus as she looked at the Joker, then at Eva’s shadow.

For the first time, genuine interest appeared on her face, as if she had encountered a puzzle worth solving.

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Below, the Joker had no time to celebrate his revenge.

The real battle—the bloody massacre—had just begun.

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Ropes were thrown from the helicopters, and eight elite agents, wearing heavy armor and tactical masks, began descending rapidly into the alley to seal all exits and completely surround him.

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"Playtime is over," the Joker said to himself, pressing his right hand against his bleeding shoulder while his left hand pulled out a serrated tactical knife.

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The first agent landed directly in front of him.

Before the agent could raise his rifle, the Joker lunged like a cornered predator.

He ducked under the barrel and, in a savage motion, drove the tactical knife into the unarmored gap beneath the agent’s armpit.

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"Ghh—!" the agent groaned, but the Joker did not stop.

He wrapped his good arm around the agent’s neck from behind, using his armored body as a human shield.

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Tatata!

Bullets from the other agents tore through their comrade’s body as the Joker used him as cover.

Hot blood sprayed, covering the Joker’s mask and filling the air with the scent of death.

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The Joker kicked the shredded corpse toward two other agents, knocking them off balance.

With a desperate acrobatic leap, he pounced on one of them.

He drove his metal-gloved fingers into the agent’s helmet, channeling all remaining Shadow Eitra.

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Craaack!

The helmet and skull shattered together in a sickening sound.

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But numbers overwhelm courage, and the agents were not amateurs.

A heavy blow from a fourth agent’s rifle butt slammed into the Joker’s back, breaking one of his ribs.

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The Joker fell face-first, coughing up a mass of black blood.

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"Grab him! Break his limbs but keep him alive!" one of the commanders shouted, aiming his weapon at the Joker’s head as he lay on the asphalt.

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The Joker looked up, blood blinding one of his eyes behind the cracked mask.

His body screamed for rest. His vision began to blur, darkness creeping into the edges of his sight.

He was completely surrounded. Five agents encircled him, while the helicopters’ lights burned down like a scorching sun.

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He pulled a magical smoke grenade from his belt, yanked the pin out with his blood-stained teeth, and gave a faint smile beneath the partially broken mask.

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The Black Joker did not die in Dawn Hope Orphanage, did not die in the palace fire, did not die in the mountains of Erebus—and he would not die today from the bullets of these fools.

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He hurled the grenade hard beneath his feet.

Boom!

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The alley exploded into a dense, thick, unnaturally dark black cloud.

This was no ordinary smoke; it was saturated with dense Shadow Eitra that disrupted thermal and magical vision and choked the breath.

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"Damn it! I can’t see anything! Fire! Fire everywhere!"

The agents shouted in panic, unleashing a chaotic barrage into the black cloud.

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And in the heart of that total blindness, where bullets tore through empty space and the agents’ screams filled the air, the darkness swallowed the Joker.

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He dragged his broken body, his bleeding leg, and his fractured rib, slipping through a narrow gap in the alley wall that led him into Elysium’s old sewer network.