SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 405: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XIX]
Rain slid off Thaleon’s clean armor in thin streams, as if the battlefield refused to stain him. Lysandra was the opposite—blood and water clinging to her sleeves, her blade low, posture tight with fatigue she refused to show.
Trafalgar saw them properly now. His breath did not change, but his mind did. ’Why are you here.’
Valttair and Elenara had gone down. That was the plan. If Kaedor was above, fighting on that massive root, then the lower levels should still be the true threat—meaning Icarus and the Void Creature were beneath the castle, where Lysandra and Thaleon were supposed to be.
So either the plan had failed...
...or the battlefield had shifted again.
Trafalgar’s gaze sharpened, not on their faces, but on details. Lysandra’s stance. The way she carried her weight. The blood patterns. Thaleon’s calm. The absence of damage. The way his summons circled with perfect timing, cutting threats down before they could reach him.
’Something went wrong down there.’
Another distortion rippled near the civilians.
Trafalgar did not wait.
[Severance Step].
His body folded into motion again, a curved dash that blurred through rain and smoke alike. He vanished from where he stood and reappeared behind a humanoid Void Creature that had just forced its way past the outer line.
Maledicta moved before the creature could turn.
A clean arc.
A precise cut across the throat.
The head separated half a heartbeat later, the body collapsing forward as if its strings had been cut. It dissolved before it fully hit the ground.
Something shifted behind him.
Another Void lunged, elongated arms snapping forward, claws aimed for the gap between armor plates.
Trafalgar did not retreat.
He adjusted his center of gravity mid-stance, pivoting on his forward foot as if the world itself had tilted for him. His torso rotated sharply, and Maledicta reversed direction in the same motion.
The blade drove straight through the creature’s chest.
He pulled it free without slowing, the body sliding off the edge and crumpling into the mud.
More Void surged in.
This time they did not come one by one. They pushed together, heavier shapes forcing space open, trying to overwhelm through mass.
Trafalgar’s stance shifted as he activated [Earthsplitter], mana condensing along the length of Maledicta, thick and compressed, weight gathering into the blade until the air around it felt dense.
He raised it and brought it down in a brutal two-stage cleave, the first impact biting through armor and warped flesh, the second driving into the ground itself.
Stone fractured beneath him. Cracks raced outward in jagged lines as a shockwave burst from the point of contact, lifting mud and broken debris into the rain.
Void Creatures staggered violently, their footing torn away as the terrain buckled under them. Larger forms reeled backward, balance shattered, their mass working against them as the force rippled through their frames.
Trafalgar did not give them time to recover. Mana surged again as he flowed directly into [Morgain’s Linebreaker], pure energy wrapping around Maledicta in a dense, cutting sheath. He drove forward in a straight charge, rain splitting around him as the released wave tore through the cluster ahead.
The line of Void in front of him broke open under the impact, bodies thrown aside or carved through in a single violent path that stretched several meters forward. Those left standing were forced back, momentum crushed beneath the advance as the corridor cleared in one decisive motion.
When the last body finished dissolving into the rain, Trafalgar lowered Maledicta just enough to turn fully toward her.
"What are you doing here, Lysandra? Weren’t you with Valttair?"
Lysandra wiped rain from her brow with the back of her wrist, blade still in her other hand.
"That was the plan," she said. "We went down with them. But Elenara lost control for a moment."
Her jaw tightened slightly.
"She split part of the tunnel. It collapsed. We were separated from the main force."
A Void Creature lunged too close as she spoke. She cut it down without turning her head.
"We considered clearing the rubble," she continued, "but breaking it risked destabilizing the rest of the structure. It could have caused another collapse."
"So we pulled back."
Her eyes flicked briefly toward the corridor.
"We ran into civilians on the way up. We brought them with us. Then the rifts opened."
Steel rang somewhere behind them as another wave collided with the line.
"And now we’re here."
Trafalgar absorbed it all in silence. The timeline aligned. The collapse explained their presence. The evacuation explained the numbers moving through the corridor.
"Good," he said at last. "We needed the extra hands."
His gaze sharpened slightly.
"Do you know how the others are doing?"
He did not clarify which others.
Lysandra understood.
Trafalgar’s mind had already moved ahead. If one of the other fronts collapsed, the pressure would not disappear. It would shift. Void Creatures would spill outward. And if they found less resistance elsewhere, they would come here.
More bodies. More numbers.
More risk.
’If they fall, the weight comes to here, to us.’
He did not care whether his brothers survived.
But he cared about the consequences.
More Void meant more power through Riftborn Feast. Each kill layering strength into him, permanent, undeniable. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢
He could feel that path clearly.
He did not want it.
Not if it meant Aubrelle and Garrika stood beneath the increased pressure.
Growth could wait.
Their survival could not.
Thaleon reached Aubrelle’s position without slowing.
The effect was immediate.
The Watermages straightened. The Morgain soldiers adjusted formation without being told. Even the rhythm of the Void pressing against the outer line seemed to falter for a breath.
Stability.
Aubrelle did not turn her head toward him, but her posture eased by a fraction. Pipin circled lower, fire tightening its arcs as if anchoring itself to his presence.
For a brief moment, the assumption formed naturally.
With Thaleon here, Aubrelle was safe.
Trafalgar let that thought settle.
It did not last.
Thaleon stepped closer, rain sliding cleanly off his armor, summons moving in precise intervals around him as they intercepted threats before they reached striking distance.
"The heirs of House Thal’zar are still inside," he said. "We are to retrieve them. Elenara’s order."
Silence pressed in after that.
