I Possess the SSS Skill: Future Sight-Chapter 6: The Illusion of Victory

- Eva Blackwood’s POV -

Did I really think I had won?

Did I — in my arrogance and blind faith as the "Shadow Princess" — truly believe that a single stroke of my dark Eitra blade could finish an S-minus nightmare?

How foolish. How disgustingly naive that I now want to puke my guts.

At the moment the upper half of the flesh-automaton crashed to the floor and black oil mixed with corrupted blood sprayed everywhere, I allowed myself to breathe.

I let my muscles loosen.

I glanced at Aiden, who was smiling weakly, and Sia weeping with relief as she tended to Damian.

We thought the hell was over. We forgot the hunters’ golden rule: monsters above A-rank don’t obey biology or physics. They are walking catastrophes.

As I leaned on Aiden’s shoulder, a sound cut through the fog of adrenaline — a sound that froze the blood in my veins.

Shsssh... blop... kraaak!

It was not a dying sound.

It was the sound of flesh knitting together and metal pulling to itself with a terrifying magnetic force.

I turned slowly; my eyes widened until they nearly popped from their sockets.

The lower half of the automaton — up to then a dead stump — began pulsing with a bestial, crimson glow. From the clean slit my blade had made, thousands of fleshy tendrils, throbbing veins and barbed wires erupted like hungry giant worms.

Those tendrils seized the upper half on the floor and, with violent pulls, drew the two halves together.

Flesh fused with flesh. Steel welded to steel.

In less than three seconds... the beast stood again.

Worse: it wasn’t mere regeneration.

The crimson Eitra coating it doubled in density until the air in the chamber felt heavy, viscous, suffocating — as if we stood at the bottom of a mercury ocean.

Its red camera-lenses flared with a demonic light; the circular saws whirred to insane speeds, screeching to shred eardrums.

It had evolved. It was no longer just an S-minus. It had absorbed some of my darkness and integrated it into its system.

"Threat level... increased. Initiating maximum extermination protocol."

"Fall back!" I screamed, trying to summon the shadows again.

The machine did not even give us time to blink.

Its speed no longer matched its bulk.

It vanished from where it stood and reappeared directly in front of Aiden.

"Aiden!"

He tried to raise his rifle, but one of the monster’s clawed limbs struck with a lightning motion.

It wasn’t a cut — it was a crushing blow. The claw struck Aiden’s chest.

I heard the sickening snap of his ribcage collapsing.

His body flew like a rag-doll across the room and smashed into the concrete wall with enough force to carve a hollow. Aiden collapsed, blood pouring from his mouth, his eyes rolled back. He did not move.

"Nooo!" Sia screamed, throwing herself forward and pounding her staff into the floor.

"Absolute Shield of Light!"

Three interlaced golden domes flared around us.

The beast didn’t care.

It raised its Eitra cannon — now haloed with black and crimson — and fired a single beam.

The beam didn’t smash the shields; it melted them like ice under a welding torch.

The rebound hit Sia in the face. She screamed; blood flew from her eyes and ears and she collapsed beside the unconscious Damian, her body convulsing.

I was the only one left standing. Terror had frozen my limbs.

This is the difference between A-rank and S-minus. We are ants trying to stop a hurricane.

The machine turned toward me. It lifted its massive saw and lunged.

I tried to dissolve into shadow, but the beast’s red aura warped space itself and blocked my skill. My ability failed.

I raised my bare arms, saturating them with the last of my Eitra in a desperate, frantic defense.

The saw slammed into my forearm.

The pain was beyond words.

My Eitra shattered like fine glass; the teeth of the saw tore into my flesh and ground bone. I screamed until my throat ripped.

Black and red blood sprayed my face.

The beast struck me again with its other limb, hurling me across the chamber.

I slammed into a giant glass tube. It shattered; yellow, viscous fluid and deformed human corpses cascaded over me.

I lay amid glass and dead flesh, my left arm dangling at a grotesque angle, nearly severed; my clavicle was shattered.

Blood flowed from me like a river; my mind sank into a fog of death.

The monster walked toward me slowly. Its heavy steps tolled like funeral bells.

It raised its saw above my head, poised to end me and shred me to pieces. I closed my eyes.

"I’m sorry... Damian, Sia, Aiden..."

But the blow did not fall.

Instead, an explosion rocked the station from its foundations.

Not an Eitra blast of the beast’s making, but a concentrated electromagnetic detonation beyond human comprehension.

I opened my eyes with effort.

The automaton that had been about to kill me froze in place.

I looked at its armored chest and saw a head-sized hole straight through it.

There was no blood, no shrapnel — the flesh and steel around the shot had been vaporized, turned to glowing ash by absolute heat.

The nightmare staggered and collapsed to its knees; its head detonated, and its burning body fell like useless scrap.

I turned my gaze through smoke and sparks toward the entrance.

A man stood there, wearing a long, dark brown leather coat that draped to his ankles.

He carried no sword or staff.

He held a gigantic handgun — more like a man-portable cannon — its muzzle still smoking with a blinding white heat.

His aura — my God — his aura was not Eitra seeping like smoke but like the lie of stars. The air around him bent; light fractured.

At his presence it felt as if a mountain had been set on my chest.

The man lowered the gun and stepped into the light. His hair was short and ashen; his face was a map of old scars that told of wars we hadn’t read about. He smoked a thick cigar and puffed it with blasé calm amid the inferno.

"Jackson Reed?" I whispered, blood bubbling at my lips.

Jackson Reed. The supreme commander of the Execution Squad in the Eternal Blade.

The man said nothing as he stopped in front of me and looked at my shattered body and my team sprawled in blood.

No shock. No pity. His face was flint.

"You did well for children playing in the grown-ups’ yard," Jackson said in that rough, gravelly voice like stones rubbing. "Medical evac teams are on their way. You better bind that arm before you bleed out, Blackwood’s daughter."

"You... what are you doing here?" I croaked, spitting blood.

He crushed his cigar under his boot.

"I’m doing my job. This goes far deeper than Alpha Team can handle. Stay alive. And don’t follow me."

With that cold instruction he stepped past us without looking back.

He walked over the automaton’s corpse and strode toward the rear door through which the scientist had fled.