Psychic Overlord-Chapter 68: Standoff

Kaizer stepped out of his car and looked down, noting that his expensive sneakers had somehow fallen into a pool of dirty water.

Looking around, he realized he was deep in the old district area near the port. The port here had been hit with an accident in the past and the city decided to build another one elsewhere rather than fix this one, all of this happening a few decades ago.

The air smelled of salt and rust, mixed with something stale, like old wood left to rot in the damp. The bay stretched out in the distance, its waters dark and sluggish, lapping against rusted metal pillars that once held docks steady.

The streets here were cracked and uneven, littered with old trash and the occasional tire that had been left to dry rot in the sun. Faded road signs leaned at odd angles, their letters barely legible beneath layers of grime and peeling paint.

Streetlights stood tall but dead, their bulbs long shattered or stolen by vagrants.

Abandoned warehouses loomed on either side, their wide metal doors either locked tight with rusted chains or hanging open like gaping mouths. Some had broken windows, jagged edges forming a dangerous prospect for anyone hoping to sneak in.

Inside, the darkness stretched deep, and the scent of dampness and wet wood clung to the air.

Kaizer’s eyes settled on his target, a heavy iron grate set into the cracked pavement, its surface worn smooth from years of rain and sea breeze. A rusted sign beside it - barely hanging onto a bent metal pole - warned against unauthorized entry, though the letters had faded into near obscurity.

The entrance itself was a gaping hole in the ground, lined with damp, crumbling bricks that led downward into the dark. A set of corroded metal rungs descended along the curved wall, slick with moisture and coated in patches of green moss. The air that rose from below carried the thick scent of damp earth, old water, and something faintly sour—like rot left too long in the depths.

Faint echoes drifted up from the tunnels, the sound of water dripping somewhere far below.

This was the nearest sewer entrance to where the targets were suspected to be hiding, and Kaizer was not keen on taking shortcuts. He glanced at his car behind him and used his telekinesis to lift it into one of the nearby open warehouses and then covered it with a shielding cloth used to prevent cars from being damaged by sunlight.

Then the young man jumped below, using his telekinesis to cover his body as he controlled his descent into the sewers carefully. When he landed, Kaizer looked around and immediately felt like complaining in his heart.

A city slicking boy who later came into wealth had naturally never entered a sewer before, his only knowledge of the place coming from fictional scenes. Usually in such scenes, the sewer was dark, but had enough natural light to illuminate the protagonist’s actions.

But reality wasn’t so sweet. Minus a short radius around the entrance, everything in the distance was dark as hell since there were no reflective surfaces to bounce the light around.

If it wasn’t for the fact that his telesthesia did not care about the need for light, he would be completely clueless as to what existed in the dark. With a frown, he walked to a nearby power box at a junction and opened it, seeing that the circuit breaker had been switched off.

Hesitating, he still decided to turn it on, feeling a soft hum of electricity as the entire sector of this sewer lights came on, finally allowing his eyes to see what his psychic domain had sensed.

The abandoned sewer system of Alpha City from when it was still a city in the former United States of America was built decades ago and its age showed. The entire system, from eyesight and domain scanning, stretched out like a dark maze beneath the dead infrastructure above.

The air was even thicker than above with the damp scent of rust, caked fecal matter and old filthy water that had long since stopped flowing. Crumbling brick archways lined the tunnels, their surfaces slick with moss and grime.

The ground was uneven, littered with broken concrete, rusted pipes, and pools of stagnant water that reflected the light filtering from the corner lights on each section of the wall.

Huge drainage tunnels on the sides yawned open like black voids, their interiors stretching into pure darkness. Old maintenance walkways ran along the sides of the tunnels, their metal railings corroded and flaking at the touch.

Faded graffiti and old city markers still clung to the walls, hints of a time when workers had walked these paths.

In the dead silence, one could hear rats scurrying through the debris, their tiny claws scratching against stone, and somewhere in the distance was the sound of a thudding sound, like something striking another thing heavily.

"Hm," Kaizer muttered to himself, focusing his scan on that area and finding that it possessed signs of people passing through.

The young man lifted his body off the ground slightly with telekinesis and then charged forward, blasting through the stale air like a rocket, making sharp turns around the corners and passageways as he used his domain to scout the route ahead.

This was something he could even do before enrolling in the university, and his training had only made his control more adept. The sub-ability of Telekinesis within the Six Paths of the Mind, Transvection, was partially mastered by Kaizer thanks to his hard work over this period of time.

Because of this, he didn’t have to slowly travel through the underground, simply reaching this target destination with minimal disturbance to the airflow since he wasn’t using wings or any form of propulsion system.

Kaizer came to a stop at the edge of an ongoing standoff between four parties.

At the other side, near the exit grate that led into the bay, was a severely wounded Barnes who could barely stand and Lyle who had lost an arm and was lying against the grate, blood coming from his mouth as he sat there resignedly.

To the east were two women, both attractive with opposing demeanors. One was cold in a sexy red dress and looked like a rich noblewoman and the other was in an attractive gown and had a frosty demeanor with dead, emotionless eyes.

Both of the women looked furious and helpless, as if they were being bullied.

The part to the west were a group of seven who were huddled together, their faces full of trepidation as one of them knelt to treat the wounds of three of them, which were quite grievous. Standing at the head of the group was a young black man who was gritting his teeth with fury.

And finally, there was the group that was the focus of everyone’s fury who stood near to Kaizer himself towards the south. Of the four, three were men and one was a woman.

The four groups were in the midst of a heated debate when they felt the thunderous approach of Kaizer, their faces showing alarm and shock as the young man came to an instant stop as if his velocity never existed, landing on the ground with a placid expression.

The eyes of the woman with the hated group lit up, her long purple tongue snaking outward to lick her lips.

"What a handsome young man~ have you come here to claim the goods as well?"

Kaizer glanced at her, noting that she had half of her scalp shaved while the other half had curled purple hair. She had lightly tanned skin and possessed a mix of Asian and African American features, with a very voluptuous body that was slightly diminished by her limited height of around 5 foot and 5 inches.

She wore a pink jacket over a white bandeau that displayed her entire midriff area, along with a short pink skirt that only extended to the upper part of her thighs, secured with a large black belt. She wore black knee-length boots that were edged with metal, making her kicks very painful to take.

Kaizer looked away from her and noted her three male teammates.

The one in the lead was a buff military-looking man with a blonde buzz cut, wearing shades over his eyes. He simply wore a military green shirt and camo trousers over tactical boots, an expensive watch on his left wrist.

Beside him was a young man who wore a blindfold, his entire upper body bare and his lower body covered by a folded black cloth that reached his knees. He was completely barefoot and only had a single spear in hand which he held stably, his long black hair reaching his upper back.

Finally, the last person was a silly-looking young man who had spiky grey hair that was frazzled, along with a pair of glasses that were nerdy. He was slouched over and seemed to want to hide his presence due to shyness, but his pale eyes made Kaizer mark him as dangerous, because this fellow was also a telepath!