SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery
Chapter 246: Diverging Currents

Chapter 246: Diverging Currents

The vents twisted like veins through the underbelly of the facility, narrow and echoing with every breath. I followed close behind Alexis, her silhouette cast in strips of dim light. The metal beneath us creaked with our weight, but the hum of the labs beyond the walls was louder. Equipment, movement, distant voices. The facility was alive.

And it was hunting.

We stopped at a junction where the duct split in three directions. Alexis crouched, quiet, motionless, her breathing shallow. I pressed my back against the wall of the shaft, listening.

Below us—boots. Talking. A voice I recognized: the researcher from before.

"I don’t know where the rest are," he muttered. "I did hear that Evelyn and Anthony were taken to a more secure location due to them being perceived as bigger threats. We should look for Camille and Sienna first then."

A static burst interrupted the voice. The boots faded. We stayed still.

Only when silence returned did Alexis turn her head slightly toward me. Her eyes were wide, but not panicked.

"They don’t know where we are," she mouthed.

I nodded. Then whispered back: "We just need to stay ahead and play it safe."

I waited for the tremor to pass from my fingers before moving again.

We crawled forward, careful. My body throbbed with strain. Every muscle seemed tenser than it should be. Skills kept flickering in and out, like lights on an unstable grid.

"By the way, I think I know what’s happening," I said quietly.

Alexis glanced back.

"Our skills... they only shut down fully when he sees us. 3829."

"Line of sight?"

"It’s a theory. I felt it before—how things slip worse when he is looking. I don’t think he erases anything. He just... efficiently severs the link while you’re visible. Like blinking a light off."

She nodded. "Then we stay hidden. Move smart."

I shifted forward, trying to ignore the ache building in my arms. "Strategist is still holding—barely. Instinct too. I can feel them working around the gaps."

Alexis paused at the next grate, peering through the slits.

"Clear?" I asked.

"Two guards. Left hall. One’s moving. The other is—wait."

She ducked just as a flashlight beam swept across the wall outside. A second later, footsteps moved off.

"Okay," she breathed. "Right passage."

We dropped into a service room—unused, low-lit, filled with wire racks and broken consoles. A mechanical whine droned above, masking our descent.

I closed the vent behind us. Alexis pointed toward a side door.

"Through here. There’s another maintenance shaft. If we follow the southern layout, we might find..."

She trailed off.

I knew why.

There was something else down here.A presence—sharp, deliberate, too still to be patrols.The kind of presence that didn’t search. It waited.

And we weren’t alone.

She stood against the wall like she’d been carved into it. Motionless, arms folded, posture effortless. Like the shadows had chosen her shape.

Subject 3830.

No restraints. No hesitation. No visible injuries besides the scarring she already had.

The faintest twitch of her lip—an almost-smirk—was the only acknowledgment of our arrival.

"You’re late," she said, voice dry as stone.

Alexis stiffened beside me. I could feel the tension rise off her skin like heat.

I took a step forward, hands slightly raised—not in surrender, but recognition. "You’re alive."

"Obviously."

Her gaze swept over us, lingering on Alexis. Something unreadable flickered behind her eyes. Curiosity? Amusement?

"They gave you something," she murmured. "I can see it in your posture. The merger job title, huh? How quaint."

Alexis didn’t answer. Neither did I.

3830 pushed off the wall with a lazy grace. She moved like someone who didn’t need to worry about consequences.

Her eyes locked on mine—piercing, emotionless. "If you’re here, I assume you got lucky. Slipped through a crack."

"I escaped," I said.

She tilted her head slightly. "Same difference."

She moved past us, glancing at the walls, the ceiling vents, the surveillance nodes half-hidden in the corners. She wasn’t scanning for threats. She was taking inventory.

She didn’t speak like someone in danger. She didn’t move like someone running. She looked like someone who had already made peace with the cost of what came next.

"You can come with us," Alexis offered. "We’re regrouping. Looking for the others. There’s still time."

3830 turned her head slowly. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because I have a mission."

No inflection. No drama. Just certainty—like gravity or death.

I studied her face. "You’re going after him."

A faint smile ghosted across her lips. Cold. Clinical. "He’s mine."

Alexis shifted beside me, the edges of her stance tightening. I felt the flicker of Vital Surge crawl along her skin—her body preparing to react, even if her mind hadn’t decided how. Though, not even I understood how her skill was affecting the physical recovery of others. It would have to be something to look into.

"You don’t have to fight him alone," I said. "We can help."

3830 shrugged. "Don’t worry. I’m not planning on dying. And besides—your job is to get the others out."

She stepped toward the dark corridor at the hall’s edge. Her footfalls made no sound.

"You’re not going to stop me?"

I shook my head. "Would it matter if I tried?"

She looked over her shoulder. The smile returned—barely there, razor thin. "No."

Alexis lowered her gaze, jaw clenched. "Be careful."

"I always am." Then, almost as an afterthought: "Also, if you could continue being loud, it gives me more room to work with."

The way she said it—it wasn’t sarcasm. It was tactics. A warning wrapped in a joke.

And then she was gone.No sound. No echo.She melted into the dark like she belonged to it.

We stood in place for several seconds, caught in the silence she’d left behind.

Alexis finally exhaled the breath she’d been holding. "She scares me."

"She should."

I adjusted my sleeves, casting one last glance down the path she’d taken.Not a single footprint remained. Just absence.

I turned back toward the opposite side. "Come on," I said. "We keep moving."

We made our way to the vent hatch she’d ignored, crawling back into the ribs of the facility. The tunnel beyond groaned faintly beneath us. The farther we moved, the colder it got—thin air, filtered lights, metal sweat condensing on our hands and knees.

Alexis crawled ahead, quiet, focused. I followed, but my thoughts weren’t with the path.

They were behind us.

In the shape of her eyes.

The way she didn’t flinch.

The way she told us not to worry about 3829.

That smile.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

If they did that to Alexis in a single day—tore through her biology, rewrote her skills, flooded her system with artificial job titles until something stuck...

Then what the hell had they done to 3830?

How long had she been in NovaCore?

What did she have to survive to come out like that?

My fists clenched inside my sleeves.

Whoever built this place—whoever thought suppressing minds and bending jobs like tools made them gods—

They didn’t know what they’d made.

They didn’t know the storm they were calling down.

And they were going to answer for it.

All of them.

But first, we had to find the others.

And I had to make sure Alexis and the rest got out.

That was my mission.

For now.