SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

The quiet moment of peace on the athletic field felt like a distant, half-remembered dream.

Back in his apartment, the world was once again made of cold, hard data.

Miles sat at his desk, the glow of his laptop screen casting long shadows on the wall.

The encounter with Clara had cracked his armor, but the mission was about to demand he build it back up, thicker and stronger than ever.

In front of him, the encrypted files from Broker's drive were laid bare, a digital roadmap of the city's criminal underworld.

The system had organized the data with ruthless efficiency, creating flowcharts and network diagrams that made the complex web of illegal operations look like a simple, solvable equation.

And at the center of that equation was one name.

Cross-Continental Logistics.

"So, this is it," Miles muttered to the quiet room.

"The next level of the game."

[CORRECT,] the system replied, its text scrolling across the corner of his vision. [THE TARGET IS NO LONGER A DISPOSABLE STREET-LEVEL ASSET.]

[CROSS-CONTINENTAL LOGISTICS IS A PRIMARY NODE IN THE CROSS CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE.]

[NEUTRALIZING THIS TARGET WILL CAUSE A SIGNIFICANT DISRUPTION TO HIS OPERATIONS.]

"Yeah, I got that part," Miles said, leaning back in his chair and wincing as his shoulder protested.

"It's a big, scary building full of big, scary people."

"What I want to know is, what's the plan?"

"Do I just walk in the front door and ask to see their secret crime-ledgers ?"

He half-expected the system to give him a flat, logical answer.

Instead, a detailed, three-dimensional blueprint of a massive warehouse and office complex appeared on his screen.

[INFILTRATION PLAN ALPHA IS PREPARED,] the system announced.

Miles leaned forward, his sarcasm forgotten, replaced by a cold, professional focus.

He watched as the system began its tactical briefing, highlighting entry points, guard patrol routes, and security sensor blind spots in the digital model.

The facility was located in the same industrial district as Warehouse 7, but it was a different beast entirely.

It was modern, clean, and fortified.

Ten-foot-high electrified fences.

Infrared cameras.

Pressure plates near all major entry points.

And guards.

Lots of them.

"These guys don't look like the Crimson Serpents," Miles observed, zooming in on a satellite image of two guards armed with military-grade assault rifles.

[CORRECT,] the system confirmed. [THEY ARE NOT GANG MEMBERS. THEY ARE EX-MILITARY. PROFESSIONAL MERCENARIES.]

[THEY ARE COMPETENT, DISCIPLINED, AND LOYAL TO THE CROSS CORP PAYCHECK.]

"Fantastic," Miles deadpanned. "So, not the 'get distracted and shoot at shadows' type."

"This just gets better and better."

The system continued, unperturbed.

[FURTHERMORE, THE FACILITY'S HEAD OF SECURITY IS A CONFIRMED MID-TIER SYSTEM USER.]

A new file popped up on the screen.

It was a personnel record for a man named Kaelen Vance.

His photo showed a man in his late forties with a shaved head, a jagged scar across his face, and the cold, dead eyes of a shark.

His service record was a long list of black-ops missions in forgotten warzones.

His system profile was short and terrifying.

[SYSTEM TYPE: THERMAL MANIPULATION. PYROKINESIS.]

[THREAT LEVEL: HIGH.]

Miles stared at the file, a cold knot forming in his stomach.

Fire manipulation.

He had a shield that could block kinetic energy.

He had a blade made of shadows.

He had no idea what either of those things would do against a man who could throw fireballs.

"Okay," he said, his voice a low whisper. "So, we have professional soldiers, a fortified compound, and a boss who can literally barbecue me with his mind."

"This sounds less like a plan and more like a very elaborate and painful suicide note."

"What's the objective here, exactly?"

[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: RETRIEVE THE UNALTERED DIGITAL SHIPPING MANIFESTS FROM THE CENTRAL SERVER ROOM,] the system stated. [THIS DATA WILL PROVIDE IRREFUTABLE PROOF OF CROSS CORP'S ILLEGAL ARMS TRAFFICKING.]

The blueprint on the screen highlighted a small, heavily reinforced room in the center of the main building.

The server room.

His target.

[SECONDARY OBJECTIVE,] the system continued, and a new, unfamiliar icon appeared in Miles's vision.

It looked like a swirling vortex.

[ABSORB THE CORE ENERGY FROM THE HOSTILE SYSTEM USER 'KAELEN VANCE' UPON HIS NEUTRALIZATION.]

Miles blinked.

"Absorb his energy?" he repeated.

"What are you talking about?"

[THE ECHO PROTOCOL HAS THE CAPACITY TO INTEGRATE FOREIGN SYSTEM ENERGY,] the system explained, ignoring his gallows humor.

[ABSORBING A TIER-3 SYSTEM CORE, SUCH AS THE ONE POSSESSED BY VANCE, WILL PROVIDE A SUBSTANTIAL INCREASE IN HOST EXPERIENCE POINTS.]

[IT MAY ALSO UNLOCK NEW, UNFORESEEN EVOLUTIONS FOR YOUR OWN ABILITIES.]

"So, let me get this straight," Miles said, rubbing his temples.

"The side-quest is to… eat the bad guy's soul?"

"Is that gluten-free?"

[ANALOGY IS FUNCTIONALLY INACCURATE BUT EMOTIONALLY RESONANT,] the system replied.

It was the closest it had ever come to making a joke.

Miles let out a long, slow sigh.

This was insane.

The risks were astronomical.

But the rewards…

Proof.

Hard evidence that could bring Silas Cross's empire crashing down.

And a power-up that could give him the strength he needed to survive the fallout.

It was a gamble he had to take.

He had spent his whole life as a ghost, hiding in the shadows.

It was time to start a fire.

"Alright," he said, his voice firm, his decision made.

"Let's do it."

He spent the next hour memorizing the blueprints, the patrol schedules, the security system schematics.

He was no longer just reacting.

He was planning.

He was hunting.

He stood up and walked to the small closet where he kept his gear.

He pulled on a dark, lightweight hoodie and black cargo pants.

He checked his equipment with the focused precision of a soldier preparing for battle.

The burner phone, loaded with the facility's schematics.

The encrypted drives, ready to receive the stolen data.

His multi-tool.

He didn't need anything else.

His real weapons were a part of him.

The speed of the [Echo Step].

The shield of the [Aegis].

And the blade of the [Phantom Edge].

He was ready.

He slipped out of his apartment and into the night.

An hour later, he was crouched on the roof of a derelict building a hundred yards away from his target.

Cross-Continental Logistics was a fortress of concrete and steel, bathed in the cold, white glare of security lights.

Barbed-wire fences glittered under the floodlights.

Armed guards patrolled the perimeter with a grim, professional efficiency.

It was a quiet, sterile monument to corporate power.

The system's tactical overlay came to life in his vision, painting the world in lines of data.

He saw the guards' patrol routes highlighted in red.

He saw the camera sightlines as cones of yellow light.

He saw the small, two-foot-wide maintenance duct on the roof of the main building, a tiny blind spot in their billion-dollar security net.

His entry point.

He looked at the fortress, at the impossible odds.

The scared kid who had been beaten in an alley would have run.

But he wasn't that kid anymore.

He was a weapon.

He was a ghost, and it was time to go haunting.

He took a final, steadying breath.

[Initiate infiltration,] he commanded in the quiet of his own mind.