SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery-Chapter 184: The Apex Instinct

The bear didn’t charge right away.

It stared first, huge and quiet, as if deciding whether I was prey or threat. My breath came slow and steady, honed from hours of sprinting, but inside my chest—there was a tremble.

Not of fear.

Of readiness.

I wasn’t going to outrun this one.

Its weight shifted.

Then it lunged.

I dodged left, narrowly avoiding a swipe that would’ve taken my head clean off. The sheer power behind its claws carved bark from a tree behind me.

I drew my newly-bought blade in a fluid motion.

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Lv. 4)

Reflex Calibration (Lv. 3)

Instinct (Lv. 7)

Precision Strikes (Lv. 2)

I slashed once across its shoulder, the metal cutting in shallow. It wasn’t even close to being enough. It bellowed, loud and primal, the sound reverberating through my ribs.

It was fast.

Too fast for something so big.

It came again.

I ducked under the strike and slammed my fist into its jaw. The blow echoed through my knuckles—Hook (Lv. 3)—but it didn’t stagger.

Instead, it bit.

Its teeth grazed my shoulder, ripping cloth and flesh. I twisted away, gasping, blood already soaking through my coat.

Endurance Boost (Lv. 10) dulled the pain.

I backed up, assessing.

My breathing steady. My posture firm.

It circled now, one paw dragging slightly from my earlier cut. But it wasn’t backing down. If anything, it was angrier.

This wasn’t a fight I could win conventionally.

It wasn’t a person.

It didn’t think. It didn’t bluff. It didn’t care about openings or threats. I couldn’t use Intimidation Through Status or Legal Authority here.

I had to earn this one.

The bear rushed again.

I leapt to the side, rolled under its strike, and drove my blade upward into its ribs. It roared, rearing up, and I clung to its side with one hand, holding the hilt in the other.

We crashed into a tree.

I slammed the back of my head. Stars burst behind my eyes.

The bear swiped blindly, one paw catching my thigh—Muscle Optimization (Lv. 4) minimized the tear, but I felt the sharp bloom of pain anyway. I fell, rolling down a slope of leaves and branches before I slammed to a stop at the base of a fallen tree.

My blade was gone.

I coughed blood all over.

The bear thundered after me.

It crashed through underbrush, eyes locked, no hesitation.

My body moved on instinct. I grabbed a branch and vaulted myself to the side. The bear hit the fallen tree where I’d been, cracking it in half.

I landed hard. Maybe even sprained something.

Though it didn’t matter, the beast was still enraged.

I found a rock which wasn’t ideal, but it’s not like I had another option.

I turned and hurled it, striking its eye.

It roared and charged again.

I waited until the last second and dove beneath it, grabbing my blade where it had landed, mud-covered, still intact.

I stood.

It turned.

And I realized something...

I was starting to feel it.

That feeling.

That same eerie, burning clarity I felt when I fought Ragnar.

Like everything I had... every job... every skill... every experience I had lived was being used at once. I felt as if my skills were losing the barrier that limited them to their job.

Detective. Boxer. Astronaut. Firefighter. Lawyer. Construction Worker. Journalist.

The code beneath the code. My Database was practically telling me every known article about this species of bear.

Database syncing...

I didn’t question it.

I moved.

The bear lunged again and I dropped, sweeping under it with Advanced Hazard Assessment (Lv. 7) and Observation (Lv. 8) guiding my every motion. I watched the angle of its shoulders, the shifting of weight, the slight delay in its left paw.

Its rhythm.

I was inside its pattern.

Now.

I struck with everything.

Precision Strikes. Hook. Jab. Reflex Calibration.

I battered its side, dodged another bite, rolled across the mud, and rose into a counter-strike with Hook redirecting my energy through the earth beneath my feet.

I threw my entire body into the punch.

The fist tore deep into the bear’s flank.

It cried out, staggering.

I didn’t stop.

Thermal Perception (Lv. 6) and Deduction (Lv. 7) surged. I made micro-adjustments to my stance, to my angles, to my timing as I saw the sliver of heat in its body change.

I remembered Milan teaching me where to strike when fighting something bigger than you.

I remembered Anthony giving pointers of how to use force over form.

I remembered.

I used it all.

And I fought.

The bear swung again. I ducked, jammed my blade into its paw as it passed. It slammed me into a tree anyway. The bark shattered under my back.

But I was up before it finished turning.

Physical Recovery Efficiency

Muscle Reinforcement.

Muscle Optimization

Observation.

I moved with surgical fury.

The blade went into its chest once. Then again.

And then—Jab (Lv. 3)—to its nose.

It swiped in desperation, wild, pained.

I side-stepped it, grabbing its wounded leg, using Heavy Lifting (Lv. 8) and Advanced Rescue Mastery (Lv. 8) to pull with unnatural strength.

It collapsed onto one side.

I climbed it.

And I ended it.

One last strike to the base of the skull.

Deep and fast.

The bear let out a final huff. Then nothing.

It didn’t move again.

I stood, panting.

Covered in blood—its and mine.

The forest went still.

I dropped to one knee, gasping. My vision pulsed at the edges. The bear’s body lay there, massive and motionless. Steam rose faintly from its wounds. My blade clattered beside me, slick and red.

I stared down at my shaking hands.

I didn’t feel human.

I felt like a system.

Like a vessel of convergence.

Like everything I was had momentarily aligned. Skills. Jobs. Everything.

But now...

It was fading.

The moment ended.

I staggered backward, almost collapsing entirely, and reached for a tree to steady myself. My hand slipped. I caught myself on my forearm.

Pain flared.

A lot of it.

Connor’s ambush wounds—reopened.

The stitches were gone having been torn apart. Blood soaked through the layers of my coat. My leg trembled beneath me. I collapsed to a seated position and pressed my back to a nearby rock.

The sun had moved above me, casting a long shadow from the fallen bear.

I closed my eyes for just a moment. Just to breathe.

But I couldn’t stay here.

I had no idea where I was.

I looked around slowly, squinting against the light filtering through the trees.

Everything looked the same. Trees. Stones. Brush. No path. No direction. I didn’t know which way I came from anymore.

And I didn’t have it in me to trace back the trail.

I cursed under my breath and stood up very slowly.

My side screamed.

My thigh threatened to give out.

But I moved.

Step by step.

Every instinct in my body told me I couldn’t afford to stop. I had to find something, anything. Civilization. Shelter. A trail marker.

I trudged through the woods, each step heavier than the last.

Time blurred.

A fever built in my bones.

The wind pressed cold against my sweat-soaked skin.

Eventually, after what felt like an hour of limping in a random direction, I spotted it.

A tower.

It was wooden, narrow and crude, but tall enough to see through the trees.

A ranger’s outpost.

Maybe abandoned. Maybe not.

Didn’t matter.

I reached for it like a man dying of thirst.

The stairs creaked beneath me as I climbed. My hand clutched the railing, trembling. My vision blurred again. Twice I almost slipped.

But I made it to the top.

The door was unlocked.

I pushed it open with the last of my strength and stepped inside.

There was a radio. A desk. A cot in the corner. A faded map on the wall. Shelves of supplies.

I stared at it all, half-aware, half-dreaming.

And then...

My knees gave out.

The last thing I saw was the ceiling tilting sideways.

Then darkness swallowed everything.

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