Psychic Overlord

The lights dimmed, and the marble floor of the arena began to shift once again, the central panel folding away into a smooth silver-tinted platform.

This was the signal that the Silver Division had officially taken the stage.

Lysandra’s voice rang out at this time. "We now begin the Silver Division duels! These students represent not only rising stars of the Academy, but also the bridge between the dreamers and the contenders. The Silver Division is where potential begins to turn into power."

The crowd leaned forward with excitement as the first Silver Division match appeared: [Ethan Voss Jr. vs. Kamea Illich]

Kaizer raised an eyebrow. "The President’s son?"

"Adopted, still carries the name." Sophia noted without missing a beat.

The match was swift but elegant. Ethan wielded chronostasis, a limited time-field suspension that created small "lags" in enemy perception while Kamea, a glass-thread manipulator, launched strands of invisible wire through the air to cut and bind.

For three minutes, the battlefield looked like a glitching slideshow, as Ethan slowed down individual projectiles while dodging others with inch-perfect precision.

The end came when Ethan paused one of Kamea’s threads mid-air, sidestepped, and used it to slice through her own protective formation.

"Winner: Ethan Voss Jr.!"

From the Special Echelon, Ragnar muttered. "Chronostasis already? In Silver?"

Tessa also whistled. "Looks like privilege came with some skill."

Lysandra’s next announcement brought a sudden hush over the arena. "And now... it’s time for the first match from one of the most eccentric forces in the Silver Division..."

She grinned. "Give it up for our beloved seekers of psychic divinity... The Divine Cognitive Order!"

The crowd burst into mixed laughter and cheers as three of the group members marched out in full coordinated fashion.

Morgan wore a flowing cloak with metallic eyes sewn into it, arms folded like a prophetess.

Eloise, short and sharp-eyed, wore a headpiece shaped like a silver circlet of wires and emotion sensors, her steps light and twitchy.

And then there was Julius, bare-chested, painted with psychic glyphs, and walking with the gravitas of a man who thought he was the Overlord reincarnated.

Their names flickered overhead.

[Morgan of the Divine Eye vs. Colin Tran]

The match began without fanfare, but Morgan didn’t move at all. Rather, she simply ’opened’ her eyes, literally.

The "eyes" on her robe flickered as actual psychic nodes activated, and a barrage of distorted mental noise hit Colin on the head like a brick wall.

He clutched his head immediately. "What the hell?!"

"She’s broadcasting fragmented memories, loops of trauma, confusion, and identity breaks. It’s a low-level psychic hacking technique." Sophia explained.

Colin tried to retaliate with a gravity pulse, slamming the arena floor upward, but his aim was off. He fired too far left, clearly his spatial awareness was completely skewed.

"She’s desyncing his equilibrium, mental misalignment." Kaizer noted calmly.

Rina chuckled cruelly. "That’s just mean."

Colin stumbled once more and collapsed as one of the eye-laced threads wrapped around his wrist and locked him to the ground.

Lysandra raised a hand. "Morgan wins by mental destabilization! Our first full psychic win of the tournament!"

The crowd, half-cheering, half-laughing, clapped and called out "All Hail the Divine Eye!"

Morgan bowed deeply... then slowly turned and stared directly at Kaizer from across the field, clearly looking for praise. Kaizer looked away with twitching lips.

He had no idea that Julius and his crew were so popular in the school that even spectators knew of them. What had they done in previous tournaments that made them so acclaimed?

The next match was: [Eloise of the Echo Veil vs. Brennan Quayle]

This match was unusual from the start.

Brennan, a thermal pressure manipulator, flooded the stage with blistering hot air in pulsing shockwaves, something that would quickly force one to adapt or be defeated in the closed space of the arena.

But Eloise? She just... danced.

Her feet tapped in strange patterns, and psychic lines began to glow underfoot like a circuit board.

"She’s activating an Emotion Burst, all feelings are fuel!" Julius commented from the side, arms raised like a preacher.

The air shimmered with psychic power that was invisible to all but other psychics.

Suddenly, Brennan gasped and staggered. "What is this?! Why do I feel like I’m being... watched?!"

Kaizer narrowed his eyes. "She’s actually focusing the hidden negative emotions in the crowd onto him, of which the premier is embarrassment."

Sophia, standing near Kaizer, also spoke. "In his mind, it is the equivalent of being on a toilet and then being teleported into the middle of a busy mall. Or having your pants pulled down in front of your crush in middle school by the school bully."

On the field, Brennan tried to charge, but each step felt like hell, as if everyone was watching him in nakedness while pointing and laughing.

He finally collapsed, gasping as he clutched his head and turtled up to avoid the shame.

"Winner: Eloise! The Echo Veil echoes no lies!" Lysandra cheered and raised the crowd’s emotions.

"God, telepaths are so creepy." Lisa shuddered from Gold.

"They’re fearsome alright." Roland commented, intrigued.

"They can take you down without lifting a finger and you’d never even know it." Eleanor Seltzer said as she folded her arms with a raised nose.

"And now, our next match for the Silver Division... the Sovereign of Synapse, the Crown of Telepathic Salvation... JULIUS!" Lysandra announced, totally forcing herself not to laugh crazily.

Julius stepped into the arena with arms wide. "Glory be to the Neural Overlap! I, Julius the Brainwave Sovereign, bring forth cognitive apocalypse upon thee!"

His opponent, a hardlight weapon esper named Korrin Welles, merely snorted. "This guy?"

The match began and ended... in five seconds.

True to the hatred telepaths had among the esper world, Julius did not need to attack as he simply spoke a word and pointed downward.

"Sleep."

Korrin’s eyes rolled back as he hit the ground like a sack of wet bricks.

Tsk, tsk, a very technical telepathic override.

"Wha—what just happened?!" One new student blurted in confusion.

Lysandra’s lips curled, having expected this. "Word of Command Telepathy. Julius bypasses surface thoughts and speaks directly to the motor cortex. In Silver Division, it’s limited... but it works."

Davion sneered from the Heir Pavilion. "A party trick."

Rafael gave a slow clap. "A slightly dangerous party trick."

Kaizer nodded as well from the special echelon side. "He’s not good at combat, but for the average Silver tier, what he has is more than enough."

As Julius bowed low, arms out like a victorious cult leader, the crowd gave a thunderous cheer, being equal parts impressed and disturbed.

And the Divine Cognitive Order?

They stood shoulder to shoulder and chanted softly: "All minds are one. All minds are one."

Kaizer’s gaze lingered on them for just a second longer than usual, feeling that this group of ’clowns’ were actually quite... endearing.

Well, they certainly weren’t weak trash. After being given the six paths categorization and some telepathy training methods by Kaizer, they have advanced from ’jokes’ to actual contenders, something no one foresaw.

Kaizer clearly wasn’t the only one who trained hard these past 8 months.

Lysandra’s voice rang out. "Next up is the first break period! Come everyone, let’s welcome today’s sponsor, our very own Alpha City’s Daoming Corporation!"

There was a period of adverts, some talks from notable espers, even Blaze himself coming to give a speech about the work of the Supreme Force this year and the cases solved.

He also made mention of Kaizer’s work against the Ancients in his first mission and then his ’spectacular’ results at Al-Rafid, which caused those who had no clue about the hype behind him to now become aware of his frightening prowess and growth.

It also heightened the crowd’s expectation for the Titanium Division fights, so their patience began to wear thin for the remaining adverts, clamoring for the show to go on.

Lysandra came back out with a dry smile and kicked away the fellows from another esper corporation trying to hype their new mainline product.

"Tsk, sorry folks you know how it is. It’s either we pimp ourselves by the boulevard or let these corpos do their ads, and we definitely can’t let anyone take us home for $50 a night." She joked, causing the crowd to chuckle and jeer.

"How crass." Lucian spoke for the first time, opening his eyes with irritation.

"Crass is her thing, she can still beat your ass anyway." Rina retorted, having grown extremely fond of Lysandra since they were kindred spirits.

Lucian wanted to retort, but could only twitch his lips when he thought of Lysandra’s power. As one who controlled space and time, he really couldn’t beat her without making a huge sacrifice and on top of that, he wasn’t entirely sure he could beat Rina either since she was currently the only S+ esper in their entire echelon.

As such, he could only snort coldly and close his eyes once more, closing himself to the world.