SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery

The streets were a warzone.

We hit the asphalt at a dead sprint, smoke clawing at our faces, Evelyn half-slumped as she held my hand and Anthony was carving a brutal path ahead of me.

Sirens screamed from every direction, raw, broken sounds that bounced off shattered concrete and twisted rebar. Windows exploded above us, raining glass in glittering sheets. Somewhere to the east, a car alarm warbled hysterically until it was drowned out by a second explosion, something big, something deep enough to make the pavement tremble under my boots.

It wasn’t just civilians against the government anymore.

It was everyone versus everyone.

Government agents in full black tactical gear clubbed civilians back with riot shields, only to be swarmed by mobs wielding chairs, crowbars, broken bricks. Protesters tore into each other over scraps of ideology, gangs of teenagers looted the hollowed-out convenience stores, and every few blocks, you saw it:

Fires.

Buildings gutted and burning from the inside out. Smoke pouring down the streets like ink.

And somewhere in all that madness—

We were a few heartbeats away from being swallowed alive.

"Stick to the sides!" I barked, using Command Presence "Keep low, keep moving!"