SSS Ranked Talent: I Can Upgrade My Skills Infinitely-Chapter 156: The Red Horizon, The Dragon’s Envoy

"Let them burst if they have to," Alvian replied, his voice flat. "Pipes can be replaced. A city turned to rubble cannot. Hold the output."

He cut the connection. He didn’t have time for engineering debates. The enemy wasn’t going to wait for maintenance checks.

Footsteps approached from behind. Heavy, rhythmic, metallic footsteps. Alvian didn’t need to turn to know who it was. The aura of the Titan was unmistakable, a warm, golden pressure that pushed back against the cold void radiating from Alvian.

"You haven’t slept," Valeria said. She stepped up beside him, leaning her elbows on the stone parapet. She wasn’t wearing her helmet. Her face was pale, drawn with fatigue, but her eyes were clear. The stress of command sat heavy on her shoulders, but she bore it like she bore her armor—with grim determination.

"Sleep is a biological necessity I can minimize with mana circulation," Alvian stated, though he lowered the intensity of his aura slightly so it wouldn’t chill her. "The enemy is regrouping. Sleep is a luxury for the dead."

Valeria sighed, looking out at the dark, churning ocean. "The scouts say the water temperature is rising. The Draconic Legion... they aren’t just an army, are they? They’re an environment."

"They are a terraforming event," Alvian corrected. "They boil the water to suit their metabolism. They turn the ocean into a pressure cooker."

He looked at her. A stray lock of blonde hair had escaped her ponytail, whipping across her face in the wind. Without thinking—a glitch in his own cold logic—Alvian reached out. His gauntleted hand, usually an instrument of death, moved with surprising gentleness. He tucked the strand of hair behind her ear.

Valeria froze. She looked at him, her grey eyes widening. The touch lasted only a fraction of a second, but the warmth of her skin lingered on his fingertips, a stark contrast to the absolute zero mana he usually channeled.

"Your armor needs polishing," Alvian said, pulling his hand back quickly, his voice returning to its monotone baseline. "There is soot on the pauldron. It affects the reflectivity of the [Titan’s Aura]."

Valeria blinked, then a small, tired smile touched her lips. She bumped her shoulder against his arm. It was a solid impact, metal against void-cloth.

"I’ll get right on that, boss," she whispered. "Just... make sure you’re still here to inspect it when this is over."

"I intend to be," Alvian said.

"BOOM!"

The horizon exploded.

It wasn’t an attack. It was an arrival.

Miles away, at the edge of the city’s sensory range, the ocean floor cracked open. A pillar of red light, thick as a mountain, shot upward, piercing the surface of the sea and connecting with the dark clouds above. The water around the pillar vaporized instantly, creating a massive cloud of superheated steam that rolled toward the city like a tsunami of fog.

But through the fog, they came.

They didn’t swarm like the Wyverns. They didn’t rampage like the hybrids. They marched.

Thousands of Draconic Soldiers, clad in armor made of magma and black bone, marched across the seabed in perfect lockstep. Above them, hundreds of True Dragons swam through the water column, their wings beating in a synchronized rhythm that sent shockwaves through the ocean.

And at the front of the formation, carried on a palanquin of floating obsidian, sat a figure wreathed in shadow and fire.

"The King," Valeria whispered, her hand gripping the hilt of her claymore until her knuckles turned white. "Apollyon."

[System Warning: Catastrophic Threat Level Detected.]

[Target: The Draconic Legion (Main Force).]

[Estimated Troop Count: 50,000.]

[Presence of Calamity-Tier Entity Detected.]

The entire ocean turned red. The bioluminescent lights of Azureus flickered and died, suffocated by the sheer density of the oppressive mana rolling off the approaching army.

"They aren’t attacking," Alvian noted, his eyes narrowing as he analyzed the formation. "They’re stopping just outside the range of our turrets."

"Why?" Valeria asked. "They have the numbers. They could crush us."

"Because they don’t want to crush the city," Alvian realized, a cold smile forming on his lips. "They want what’s inside. And they know that if they push too hard, I’ll blow the core and take the prize with me."

He turned to Valeria.

"Sound the alarm," Alvian ordered, his voice echoing with the authority of the High Marshall. "But hold fire. They want to talk."

"Talk?" Valeria looked at the army of monsters. "Talk about what?"

"Surrender," Alvian said, equipping the [Lance of the Void Winter]. "Theirs, or ours."

The standoff was suffocating.

The Azureus defense grid hummed with a high-pitched whine, the turrets locked onto the massive red tide waiting just beyond the city limits. Inside the walls, fifty thousand soldiers—merfolk, humans, and naga—stood in terrified silence, their weapons shaking in their hands. They looked to the palace, to the lone figure standing on the balcony, for salvation.

Alvian watched the enemy line. He saw the movement before the sensors picked it up.

A single figure detached from the Draconic Legion. It wasn’t a beast. It was a Dragon Knight, similar to Drakon, but his armor was not white. It was a deep, shifting chromatic metal that seemed to absorb the ambient light. He rode a massive, armored sea-drake, carrying a banner of white bone.

"An envoy," Seraphina’s voice whispered in Alvian’s ear. She was hidden somewhere in the lower city, her daggers ready, but even she sounded rattled. "That’s Herald Tarrasque. Intelligence says he’s the Voice of the King. Level 59."

"Let him through," Alvian commanded over the city-wide channel. "Lower the main gate barrier. Only for him."

"Alvian, it’s risky," Lysander’s voice trembled over the comms. "He could be a bomb."

"He’s a message," Alvian replied. "Open it."

The blue field shimmering in front of the main gate parted. Herald Tarrasque swam through, his mount moving with an arrogant, leisurely pace. He passed the lines of the Abyssal Guard, ignoring their leveled spears as if they were twigs. He swam straight up to the palace balcony where Alvian stood.

The Herald stopped ten meters away. He removed his helm. His face was human, but his skin was covered in fine, diamond-hard scales, and his eyes were vertical slits of burning gold.

"Alvian of the Void," Tarrasque spoke. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a resonance that made the water vibrate against Alvian’s chest. "The Godslayer. The Anomaly."

"You talk too much," Alvian said, leaning on his lance. "State your business."

Tarrasque smiled, revealing teeth that were more like serrated daggers. "Direct. King Apollyon appreciates efficiency. He has seen your work. You killed his generals. You froze his scouts. You even managed to banish a fragment of the Demon God."

The Herald gestured to the massive army behind him.

"But you cannot stop the Legion. We are infinite. You are finite. You have built a wall, but we are the tide. We will erode you. We will starve you. And eventually, we will eat you."

"Your army is flammable," Alvian countered, his face impassive. "And I have a lot of matches. If you attack, I will detonate the city’s mana core. I will turn this entire region into a black hole. No one gets the prize. No one gets the territory."

Tarrasque’s smile didn’t falter. "We know. The King anticipates this. That is why he offers... an alternative."

The Herald reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a scroll case made of dragon bone. He threw it. Alvian caught it with one hand.

[Item: Scroll of the Challenge.]

[Description: An official challenge from the Dragon King Apollyon.]

Alvian opened it. The text burned into the air in letters of fire.

"A Duel of Sovereigns," Tarrasque announced. "Tomorrow at high noon. The Arena of Tides. You, against King Apollyon. Single combat. To the death."

"And the stakes?" Alvian asked.

"Winner takes all," Tarrasque said. "If you win, the Legion withdraws. We return to the trench for a hundred years. If the King wins... the city surrenders. The [Heart of Azureus] is ours. The civilians will be... processed... but the city will remain intact."

"Processed," Alvian repeated the word coldly. "Slaves."

"Subjects," Tarrasque corrected. "It is better than extinction."

Valeria stepped up beside Alvian, her hand on her sword. "It’s a trap, Alvian. He’s Level 70+. A Raid Boss. You can’t fight him one-on-one. The System doesn’t balance that."

"The System is broken," Alvian muttered. He looked at the Herald. He looked at the army waiting to turn his city into a graveyard. He looked at the terrified faces of his people peering from the windows of the palace.

Efficiency dictated that a siege was a losing battle. His resources were finite. The morale of his troops was hanging by a thread. A duel... a duel concentrated all the variables into a single point. It was a gamble. But Alvian didn’t gamble. He calculated.

"If I refuse?" Alvian asked.

"Then the tide crashes," Tarrasque said. "And everyone dies."

Alvian crushed the scroll in his hand. The fire text vanished.