— Kyle Valtier’s POV —
At the heart of that rippling purple void, where there was no ti and no sky, I sat on the black glass floor.
I swallowed the last piece of grilled at and drank what remained of the crystal-clear water. Warmth began returning to my frozen limbs, and the faint aether energy started to seep slowly, repairing my shattered cells.
Valisera stood before , watching with her cold crimson eyes, waiting for to finish eating so she could begin dictating her terms for using as a tool in her hands.
She thought she controlled the flow of the ga entirely.
But I, having regained part of my awareness, realized that remaining a "ghost" hidden in her pocket dinsion wouldn’t grant the access I needed to destroy the network of traitors.
I needed a cover.
I needed authorization to walk in the light while slaughtering in the dark.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, stained with dried blood, and lifted my head to look at her directly.
"I have a proposal," I said in a calm voice, regaining so of its usual roughness.
Valisera raised one eyebrow with mocking curiosity.
"A proposal? From a dying sewer rat? Go on, entertain ."
"I want to join magical intelligence. I want you to diate for to beco an official agent in the FBI, under your command."
A deadly silence fell for two seconds.
Then... Valisera burst into laughter. It wasn’t her usual cold smile this ti, but a genuine, ringing laugh, as if I had just told the funniest joke in human history.
She threw her head back, placing a hand on her stomach from the intensity of her laughter.
"You?" she said, wiping a fake tear from the corner of her eye.
"You want to diate for a Rank G nobody to join the elite of the FBI? My God... if they saw bringing you to headquarters for the first ti, standing beside this frail body that looks like it would break if a strong wind blew, they’d think I brought a private cleaner or a new buffet worker for that damned Kyrion’s office!"
I didn’t smile. I simply watched her coldly.
"Kyrion Drathis," I said, pronouncing her leader’s na slowly.
"One of the FBI elite. A legendary man who broke into Rank S and is considered one of the pillars of intelligence in Elysium. Yes, I know who he is. And I know that rely standing in his presence requires a powerful aura. But..."
I braced my hand on my knee and stood up slowly, despite the pain in my ribs.
"This weak Rank G person you mock... is the one who toyed with your ’Alpha’ squad and made them look like amateurs. This G is the one who killed Arthur Sterling, a Rank A investigator. And the one who blew off his colleague Marcus’s head, who was Rank B. And this weak cleaner... would have escaped from all of you, if not for your personal and sudden intervention. Numbers and letters an nothing, Valisera—and you know that better than anyone."
The smile gradually faded from Valisera’s face. She looked at with a new evaluation.
My words were as precise as a surgeon’s blade.
I had proven, in practice, that I possessed tactical value far beyond my pathetic classification.
"Even if I were to ignore your rank," Valisera said, her tone returning to icy coldness,
"How do I employ a sadistic killer in a law enforcent institution? The FBI is not a cheap assassination guild."
"I only killed those who deserved to die," I replied steadily, my eyes glinting behind the shattered mask.
"Arthur and Marcus were human traffickers, sending children to death labs. I did the job you failed to do."
Her crimson eyes narrowed.
"And what about your attempt to kill Eva Blackwood? Was she a human trafficker too when you tore open her insides?"
— Eva... so she didn’t die. Damn it! I had hoped she would bleed out.
I kept my composure.
"Retribution," I answered simply, my tone devoid of regret.
"That bitch tried to kill in the previous mission, shattered my mask, and nearly blew my head off with her sniper. She started it. In our world, the one who pulls the trigger first must be ready to receive a bullet in their shadow. It was personal vengeance—and I took it."
Valisera walked a few steps around , inspecting like defective rchandise.
"Let’s assu I accept this shaless excuse," she stopped in front of , crossing her arms.
"What do I gain from officially placing you in intelligence? I could keep you here as a secret hunting dog without the burden of putting you into the records."
I smiled beneath the mask.
It was ti to reveal my second trump card.
"If you keep here, I’ll be blind. I need your files, your internal network, to know what I’m hunting. And in return... I’ll give you sothing no one in the entire intelligence possesses."
I stepped slightly closer and lowered my voice.
"Do you rember when I told you Arthur confessed nas and locations to before I killed him?"
"Yes."
"I lied."
Valisera frowned in sudden anger.
"What?"
"Arthur didn’t confess anything important. He was just a frightened insect who didn’t know who controlled him. But..."
I raised my right hand, playing with strands of black aether between my fingers.
"I possess a very unique skill. A skill I didn’t explain to you. Have you heard of the ability [Bloody Harvest – Skinbound Reaping]?"
She slowly shook her head. Exceptional skills aren’t recorded in books.
"It’s a cursed system skill," I continued in a dark tone.
"At first, I thought it only granted the physical strength of those I kill. The damned system didn’t explain its hidden feature. I only discovered it when I killed Marcus—Arthur’s companion. When I end a human life and harvest their energy... if their brain is still intact at the mont of death... the skill allows to tear out and extract ’fragnts of their last mories.’"
I could see genuine shock flash in Valisera’s beautiful yet terrifying eyes.
"Reading mories from fresh corpses?" she whispered, like soone who had discovered a mine of pure gold.
"Yes," I confird, even though describing the process made feel nauseous. I rembered the mont of Marcus’s death—how flashes of his life, his secret etings, and the faces of his associates flooded into my mind like a distorted, blood-soaked film.
"When I killed Marcus, I saw so of their secret locations. I saw familiar faces within the halls of the FBI. If you bring into intelligence, I won’t just be a killer. I’ll be a walking ’lie detector.’ Every traitor I kill will give the na of the next one. I will dismantle the network of officials from the inside out."
Valisera fell silent. The tactical value I offered was imasurable.
But suddenly... sothing strange happened.
Valisera’s expression twisted. She shut her eyes tightly and raised her hand to clutch her head, as if a severe migraine had struck her.
Her lips moved with inaudible words.
She looked as if she was barely holding her nerves together.
There was a conflict raging inside her. As if another person... or another entity... was screaming within her skull, disturbing her, trying to force her into sothing she refused.
— Accept! Bring him into the light! Let the altar be filled with blood!
That was how I imagined the voice whispering to her, based on the suppressed fury twisting her expression.
"Shut up..." Valisera whispered through clenched teeth, pressing her fingers to her temples.
Then she opened her eyes. She took a deep breath, and the cold composure returned to her features—as if that internal struggle had never happened.
"Very well, Kyle Valtier," Valisera said, pronouncing my real na clearly enough to make shiver.
"You’ve got your job. But rember... you work for . If I discover you’re playing a double ga, I will burn you from the inside out."
I nodded, a sick smile forming beneath my mask.
"Our first step," she added as she turned to open the spaceti gate.
"Take off that ridiculous mask. And take a bath—your sll is like a rotting corpse. Tomorrow morning, the ’new recruit’ will be introduced to Alpha Squad."
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