I Possess the SSS Skill: Future Sight-Chapter 33: The Cursed Memories

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— Kyle Valter’s POV —

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The smell of Elysium’s old sewer network was a disgusting mix of stagnant water, dead rats, and rust eating away at the massive metal pipes.

But to me, in that moment, that smell was the scent of survival.

I was crawling.

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Literally crawling on my stomach, dragging my shattered body through the foul water that reached chest level in some slopes.

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The thick red blood pouring from my torn left shoulder and my leg wound mixed with the sewage, leaving behind a filthy crimson trail.

Every movement required squeezing out what remained of my willpower.

My broken ribs stabbed into my lungs with every breath, and my breathing came out as the wet rattle of a drowning man swallowing mud.

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"I have to... get away..." I muttered to myself, my voice echoing weakly through the dark circular tunnel.

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I had escaped the alley.

I had left Eva Blackwood bleeding from her insides and fled using the Shadow Eitra cloud.

I thought I had gained a few minutes to catch my breath and tend to my wounds.

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But... in the world of Elysium, hope is merely bait placed by fate in a steel trap.

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Click... click...

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I stopped crawling. The blood in my veins froze.

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Those were not the heavy tactical boots of an FBI raid squad.

They were light, graceful, measured footsteps, approaching with terrifying calm, as if their owner were walking on a silk carpet rather than the bottom of a rotting sewer.

The footsteps were coming from... ahead of me.

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I raised my head with extreme difficulty, my crimson eyes piercing the pitch darkness behind the lenses of my partially broken mask.

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At the end of the tunnel, where it intersected with a wider passage, a silhouette appeared.

A faint light from an overhead ventilation grate cast a pale beam onto that figure.

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It wasn’t a squad.

It was one person.

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A girl.

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Short silver hair gleamed with a metallic shine under the dim light.

A black and silver military uniform, so clean it clashed violently with the filth of the place.

Crimson eyes... crimson like fresh blood, looking at me with cosmic indifference.

And in her hand... she was still holding a small juice carton.

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"What was her name...?" my exhausted mind wondered in panic.

"Valisera? Oh... right. The Overseer Unit leader."

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Damn it. Damn it. A thousand damn it.

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I had barely escaped Eva—an A-rank—with luck and by detonating my mask.

And now... after draining every drop of Eitra in my body, with a torn body... I was facing another girl.

But this girl wasn’t just a strong agent.

She was an intelligence monster, an S- rank!

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If Eva was a predator, then Valisera was a natural disaster walking on two legs.

Running? Impossible. Fighting? A bad joke.

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Valisera stood ten meters away from me, looking at my body lying in the filthy water.

She sucked the last drop from the juice carton with an annoying sound, then tossed it into the sewage where it floated slowly.

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"Joker..." Valisera spoke in a soft voice, yet it carried the echo of absolute authority, as if she were addressing an ant.

"You truly surprised me. You surprised me enough that I left Kerion and Damian fumbling in the alley and came down into this filthy sewer that ruined my favorite shoes."

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She smiled faintly and slipped her hands into her coat pockets.

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"How did you hit her? I mean Eva. There was no bullet in her body, nothing pierced her armor, and yet... her insides were torn apart. It was a very elegant magical trick. I want to know the secret."

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I leaned against the slimy wall, trying to lift my upper body from the water.

The pain made me bite my lip until I tasted blood.

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I looked at her from behind my mask.

I wanted to cough, but I forced out a rough, mocking, broken laugh.

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"Do you think..." I coughed slightly, droplets of black blood scattering from my mouth.

"Do you think I’ll start explaining how my abilities work, girl? We’re not watching some cheap anime where the villain explains all his secret skills before the fight so he can be defeated."

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Valisera’s eyes widened for a moment, then she let out a short, amused laugh that didn’t belong in a place reeking of death.

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"You’re right!" she said, nodding in appreciation.

"Classic drama is very stupid. Well then, it seems I’ll have to restrain you, drag you out by your feet like a trash bag, and interrogate you in the FBI basements. And if you refuse to talk..." she tilted her head, her crimson eyes narrowing with a sinister, sadistic glint.

"Then a bit of enjoyable torture won’t hurt. I’m very skilled at making people scream."

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My heart clenched.

Torture? Intelligence basements? No.

I won’t let them put me in their labs.

I won’t be a test subject again.

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I gritted my teeth and gathered every ounce of instinctive energy in my cells.

I braced myself against the wall and slowly—very slowly—pushed my body up until I stood.

My knee trembled, filthy water dripping from my torn coat.

I raised my right hand, trying to focus to summon the "Forgotten Blade." The black sword I took from the cave.

Even if it consumed my life, I would deliver one final strike.

I would fight to my last breath, to the last drop of blood in my heart.

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"Oh? You still intend to resist?" Valisera sighed with feigned boredom.

She pulled her right hand from her pocket.

"It seems I’ll need to cauterize some of your wounds so you understand the difference in power between us. Just a small reminder."

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Valisera raised her hand.

She didn’t chant a spell, nor draw an Eitra circle.

Just a simple snap of her fingers.

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Click... whoosh!

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Flames ignited in her palm.

But they weren’t ordinary red or yellow flames.

They were blue.

Deep blue, blazing, pulsing with pure, searing Eitra, illuminating the dark sewer tunnel with a demonic glow.

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Time stopped.

Air stopped entering my lungs.

All sounds vanished around me.

The trickle of sewage water, the sound of Valisera’s breathing—all disappeared.

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My crimson eyes, behind the cracked mask, widened until they nearly tore apart.

My pupil shrank to the size of a pinhead.

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Fire...

Blue... fire...

Burning... blue... fire...

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Shhh... hissss... craaack!

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I was no longer in the sewer.

The slimy walls melted, and the filthy water evaporated.

Suddenly, I was standing once again in the burning halls of Valter Palace.

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The heat... the suffocating heat that melts skin.

The thick black smoke tearing through the throat.

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"Father! Victor!" my younger voice screamed in my memory.

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I saw that massive jagged spike in the center of the room.

I saw Morfind... my father... impaled on it, his spine shattered.

And I saw the flames.

The cursed, demonic blue flames that devoured his flesh, melted his skin, and cooked his internal organs.

The smell of roasting human flesh, the stench of burning bone marrow... returned to slam into my nostrils with a force that nearly exploded my brain.

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And I saw that strand of blond hair. Victor’s strand. Burned, charred, buried in blue ash.

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"Kyle... run..." the hallucinated voice of Morfind, burning alive, tore through my eardrums.

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"No... no... no... NOOO!"

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My mind collapsed.

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The dam I had built for years, the "Black Joker" mask I hid behind, the armor of indifference and brutality... all shattered in a fraction of a second.

Shattered into dust before that blazing blue color.

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The phantom weapon I had been trying to summon fell from my mind.

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I staggered back a step, my back hitting the sewer wall.

But I didn’t feel the wall—I felt the heat of Valter Palace.

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I began to tremble.

Not a human tremble.

A violent convulsion that struck every nerve in my body.

My hand rose to my head, and I drove my nails—not into the mask, but into my scalp through its cracks, clawing at my skin as if I would rip my hair out.

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"Get it away... get the fire away... please... please don’t burn them!"

I screamed in a choked, broken voice—a terrified child watching his family being burned alive.

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My eyes spun wildly in their sockets.

My knees completely gave out, and my body collapsed into the filthy water.

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I writhed in the sewage like a worm drenched in acid.

My stomach muscles convulsed violently, and a stream of vomit mixed with red blood surged from my throat, splashing into the water around me and reeking of death.

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Psychological terror... post-traumatic stress disorder was not just fear.

It was the manifestation of the worst nightmare of my life.

I felt as if the blue flames were devouring my flesh right now. I could smell myself burning.

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"Morfind... Victor... I’m sorry... I’m sorry!"

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I began smashing my head against the filthy sewer wall.

Bang! Bang! Bang! I wanted to shatter my skull to stop these cursed memories.

White and pink bloodied foam began to pour from my mouth, covering my lips and chin beneath the cracked mask.

My back arched in a horrifying tetanic spasm, and my limbs convulsed violently as if I were being electrocuted with high voltage.

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I was no longer the Black Joker.

I was no longer the intelligence killer.

I was Kyle Valter—the five-year-old child, burned and broken.