I sighed, running a hand through my hair. There it was. The confirmation I'd been dreading but expecting. Victoria had hit her ceiling. S-Class Rankers were the stuff of legends, sure, but the leap to SS? That was reserved for the freaks, the anomalies, the chosen few. And she wasn't one of them.
Not without something extraordinary.
The system didn't sugarcoat it, which I appreciated in a twisted way. It saved me the trouble of holding onto false hope. But the reality still chafed. All the time I'd invested in Victoria—maneuvering her rise, feeding her ego, ensuring her loyalty—it had been a long game, and now it felt like I was staring at a busted hand.
