SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery-Chapter 226: Silent Protocol

The moon lit her like a target.

Silver across her shoulders. Pale against the ridgeline. It touched the scars on her jaw like fingers trying to understand what survival looked like and decided to cast it in cold light. Her coat—torn, patched, too heavy for the jungle—hung loose around her frame like it didn’t care what the climate demanded. It was stitched with materials that didn’t belong together—military fiber, old leather, faded canvas, parts of a tent, maybe parts of someone else’s coat. Each seam was a refusal. Each tear was a memory someone had tried to erase.

She looked like ruin dressed in stubborn cloth.

Like something the world had tried to kill once, maybe twice, maybe more—but failed to bury deep enough. Something discarded by time and stitched back together by spite and bad weather.

And 3830 didn’t slow.

Not when the scout moved.

Not when the wind changed and carried with it the stink of human adrenaline. Not when that synthetic tang of sweat and plastic coating rolled across her tongue like the taste of an ambush.

Not even when the quiet broke.

He came at her fast.

But not reckless-fast. Not the kind of speed that’s all instinct and no sense. This was something better. Measured. Built. The kind of fast they craft in labs and test in arenas. The kind of speed that understands timing isn’t just muscle—it’s data.

He was trained. Sharpened. Everything from his posture to the way he closed the gap said professional.

But he chose the wrong target.

Because he committed.

To her.

The blade was angled smart—low and rising. It would’ve slipped right under the ribs, straight through the diaphragm. Quick. Clinical. Designed to end things before they could get messy.

But she stepped into it.

No system.

No strategy.

Just muscle and memory and pain carved into instinct.

Her hand moved—not in defense, but in choice. She chose to take the blade. To meet it.

She caught it.

Not the hilt. The steel.

Her fingers wrapped around the weapon like she was shaking hands with it.

The edge sliced clean into her palm. Skin opened with barely a sound. Tendons flexed against steel and lost. Blood gushed—thick, dark, hot.

But she didn’t let go.

Didn’t flinch.

The scout’s eyes widened behind his visor. Half-hidden, but enough to see the calculation in his stare turn sideways. Something between surprise and something worse.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

She was supposed to retreat. Cry out. Flinch. Fall.

Instead, she stood taller.

"Predictable," she muttered.

The word was quiet. A dismissal. A diagnosis.

Then she twisted.

Hard.

The blade tore sideways with a wet, dragging sound. It snapped free from his grip and spun into the undergrowth like a discarded tooth.

Before he could shift weight, her boot came down on his lead ankle—sharp and sure. Just enough angle. Just enough pressure.

A crunch.

Not bone, but leverage. His stance collapsed.

He staggered.

And she was already there.

Her shoulder smashed into his chest—not like a trained hit, not even a strike. It was just force. Raw and unsanded. Like a wall choosing to move.

He flew.

Arms flailed. Back bent. He crashed into a root and barely stayed upright, one hand hitting the dirt to stop the roll.

But she didn’t press.

She watched.

And that’s when she saw it again.

That flicker.

That micro-adjustment.

How fast he recalibrated. How his knees bent just so. How his fingers twitched like they were syncing to a rhythm only he could see. He was mapping her already. Rebuilding her body in his head, inch by inch.

He was watching for her next move.

Not like a fighter.

Like an analyst.

He wasn’t just trained—he was designed for this.

Trained to see people as motion. Weakness. Probability.

To read bodies like textbooks and write responses in pain.

Target Identification, she thought.

Lock and exploit.

He reset his stance, flicking a short baton out from his sleeve this time. Not a blade. Not distance. Control. He wanted to keep her in a zone he could predict.

She didn’t give him that.

She moved in.

No sound. No threat. Just forward pressure.

He tried to sidestep. Adjusted for her expected dominant hand.

She shifted.

Not with grace. Not like the operatives they used to send.

She was jagged. Wrong-footed. Almost clumsy.

Except it wasn’t a mistake.

His baton swung—and missed.

He stumbled as the counterweight dragged him wide.

She stepped into his chest, driving her elbow into the soft spot beneath his collarbone. His breath hitched, and she grabbed the side of his hood, yanked him forward, and brought her knee into his gut.

He grunted. Not a full sound.

He was holding it in.

Good.

That meant it hurt.

They circled each other in the half-light.

He kept scanning. She saw it in the way his eyes twitched between her joints. Hip. Shoulder. Elbow. He was measuring angles. Calculating threats. Trying to find the center of her pattern. fгeewebnovёl.com

She didn’t have one.

"Doesn’t add up, does it?" she said, panting lightly. "I’m not supposed to move like this."

He didn’t answer. His mask flickered—internal display systems running diagnostics.

"Let me guess," she went on. "They told you I was unstable. Contained. Fragile. Threat level low if solo."

He threw a knife this time—quick, underhanded. Aim was good.

She slapped it out of the air.

His eyes widened.

"You don’t know what we are," she said. "You’ve seen the reports, the numbers, the job titles—but you don’t understand what the experiments did."

He reset. Fast breath now. Frustrated.

"Those experiments they did on us?" she said. "They weren’t meant to just shape skillsets. They rewrote bodies. Nervous systems. Muscle density. Reflex thresholds. You think your classification makes you strong?"

She held up her hand—the one still bleeding.

Fingers still closed.

Grip still solid.

"We were built to survive the failure of everything."

He charged her again.

This time, she let him hit.

His baton connected with her ribs—a solid blow. But her body didn’t fold. She turned into the force, catching him under the arm with her elbow. Then drove her forehead into his visor.

The sound was ugly.

Plastic cracked.

He stumbled back, reeling, the edge of his mask chipped, one lens gone.

"You rely too much on your gear," she said.

He growled—actually growled—and pulled a short blade from his boot.

This one was jagged. Personal.

She knew what that meant.

Last resort.

"Let’s finish this, then," she said.

He came fast. Blade raised. No finesse now—just speed and anger.

She caught his wrist with both hands and twisted hard. The bone popped. The knife fell.

He screamed.

She headbutted him again.

Then again.

He dropped to his knees.

Blood streamed down his temple now—hers and his, blending.

"You don’t know what you’re dealing with," she said, low, close to his ear. "You think your little jobs mean something. You think skills make you a weapon."

She wrapped one arm around his neck and pulled tight.

"I am what happens when you build something and throw it away."

He struggled.

Fingers clawed at her forearm.

Knees kicked back weakly.

Nothing effective.

"Your government made me."

She bent him sideways.

Took him to the dirt.

Pressed her weight down until the struggle stopped.

And when it did—

She didn’t stand.

She stayed there.

Kneeling beside his limp body.

Her breath came in short, uneven bursts, like it couldn’t decide whether to calm down or break apart. Her hands were slick with blood—his and hers, warm and sticky where it clung to her skin. It coated her knuckles, seeped beneath her nails, smeared across the curve of her palm where the blade had kissed too deep.

Some of it had gotten into her mouth. She could taste the iron now. Bitter and real.

She didn’t wipe it away.

She just stared.

At the red streaks across the soil.

Like they were a painting.

Like they were something she hadn’t seen in years—not like this. Not this fresh. Not this quiet.

No alarms. No sirens. Just the aftermath.

Then she laughed.

Not big.

Not loud.

But deep.

Raspy and wrecked and alive.

A sound like gravel being ground in her throat. Like something rising from a long, dark pit that hadn’t seen daylight in a very long time.

"They keep sending you," she whispered, staring at the corpse. "And you keep dying. God, you’d think they’d learn by now."

She leaned back slightly, lifting her gaze upward.

To the canopy.

To the stars behind it.

To the watchers she couldn’t name but always felt.

She looked up like she could see something watching.

Maybe she could.

"Once you get a job title or something, then you could perhaps stand a chance against me. Until then, either go home or accept that they sent you to die," she said, almost to herself.

Then she fully stood up.

Wiped her face with her torn sleeves.

And vanished back into the jungle.

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