SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 365: Chapter 365: Friendly Duel [II]

Darion felt it slipping.

The exchanges before had made that much clear. No matter how many times he pressed, no matter how aggressively he tried to force an opening, nothing stuck. Trafalgar was always there, always just out of reach, reading him a fraction faster than he could adjust.

So Darion stopped playing that game.

Mana surged outward from his core, sharp and forceful, flooding into his arms and blade as he planted his feet and committed fully. The shift was immediate. Those watching felt it in their bones.

Darion activated [Morgain’s Requiem].

The first cut carved a wide arc through the air, releasing a curved black wave that expanded outward with controlled violence. The space around them filled instantly with pressure, shadows slicing through the hall in intersecting paths meant to deny movement entirely.

Trafalgar stepped into it.

Mana flowed into Maledicta without hesitation, his blade moving into the exact same opening motion.

[Morgain’s Requiem].

His first crescent met Darion’s head-on.

The collision detonated between them, shadow against shadow, the impact rippling outward in a violent shock that twisted the surrounding waves off-course. Stone beneath their feet groaned softly under the displaced force.

Darion transitioned immediately into the second cut, angled lower, faster, the wave sharper and tighter, aimed to slip beneath the previous exchange and tear into Trafalgar’s midsection.

Trafalgar’s second cut followed on the same beat.

Their crescents met in the air—but this time, the difference showed.

Darion’s wave fractured under the impact.

Trafalgar’s crescent tore through it, its edge unraveling the shadow before continuing forward. The remaining force slammed into Darion’s side, clipping his ribs hard enough to jolt him backward, breath leaving his lungs in a sharp grunt as his footing faltered.

A murmur rippled through the room.

Darion didn’t stop.

Third cut. Broader. More power poured into it, the shadow thickening as it spun toward Trafalgar’s upper body.

Trafalgar answered with his third, cleaner and tighter, the crescent slicing through Darion’s wave and dispersing it completely before the remnants could reach him. The backlash forced Darion to shift again, boots scraping across the stone.

Fourth and fifth came in rapid succession, Darion trying to overwhelm through volume, shadows filling the space in layered arcs.

Each one was met.

Trafalgar’s blade traced the same sequence, cut for cut, but every collision favored him. His crescents didn’t just block—they pressed forward, collapsing Darion’s attacks and stealing ground with every exchange.

By the sixth cut, Darion was already retreating.

To an untrained eye, it looked like symmetry. Two heirs wielding the same inherited technique, shadows crashing in spectacular fashion.

To the Morgains, the truth was unmistakable.

This wasn’t equality.

Darion was executing the form.

Trafalgar was dominating it.

Timing sharper. Mana denser. Control absolute.

And with each exchanged crescent, Darion was being driven backward, forced to defend against a technique that was no longer his own.

Darion broke the sequence.

The rhythm shattered as he abandoned the inherited form, shadows dispersing unevenly while he forced his body into motion. His sword lashed out in shorter arcs now, less ceremonial, more desperate. A sudden thrust aimed high, followed by a low sweep meant to catch an ankle. He shifted his footing mid-strike, changed tempo, tried to bait a reaction that wasn’t there.

Trafalgar saw it all.

Not as predictions or guesses, but as inevitabilities unfolding in front of him. Each adjustment Darion made registered before it finished forming. Trafalgar stepped aside by fractions, no wasted movement, no hurry. A blade passed where his throat had been a breath earlier. Another skimmed past his ribs, missing by the width of a finger.

He never chased. Never overextended.

A feint drew nothing. A sudden burst of speed met empty air. Darion tried to slip a strike in after a retreat, hoping for a lapse.

There was none.

Trafalgar’s responses were minimal and precise, forcing Darion to reset again and again without ever finding purchase. The pattern became impossible to ignore. Every attempt to disrupt the flow only revealed how completely Trafalgar was reading him.

Then Trafalgar advanced.

For the first time, it wasn’t reactive. His weight moved forward decisively, mana compressing along Maledicta as his stance aligned into a straight, merciless line. He drove in without flourish and activated [Morgain’s Linebreaker].

The charge was absolute.

Mana wrapped the blade in a dense sheath as he surged forward, releasing a cutting wave that dragged the space ahead of him into its path. The floor groaned under the pressure. Air split and folded inward. This wasn’t a wide technique meant to threaten. It was narrow, direct, built to break guard, take ground, and end the exchange in a single motion.

Darion reacted on instinct.

Mana detonated at his legs as he triggered [Morgain’s Phase Dash], his body snapping sideways in an explosive displacement. Heat lingered where he had been, a warped afterimage burned into the air as the cutting wave tore past and carved a clean scar across the stone behind him.

Trafalgar felt it immediately.

A familiar pull tightened behind his eyes as Sword Insight stirred, threads of motion and mana alignment pressing forward all at once. Pain followed, sharp but contained, flaring just enough to demand attention.

’Tch... don’t activate now.’

He steadied his breathing as the sensation receded, incomplete yet precise. The technique didn’t settle into place. The structure fractured at the edges, execution uneven, as if the skill itself resisted being taken.

He hadn’t learned [Morgain’s Phase Dash].

But he understood it. More or less.

How the mana compressed too late. Where speed was gained at the cost of stability. Why Darion bled control at the end of the displacement.

Darion landed hard, boots scraping as he regained balance, chest rising unevenly. He had escaped, but only barely.

Trafalgar took a step back. His heel slid across the stone and settled, posture still balanced, blade still low and steady. Yet the shift was unmistakable.

It was the first real retreat of the duel.

A ripple moved through the room.

Ysolde’s fingers tightened against the edge of the table, breath catching as her gaze locked onto the space between the two heirs. For the first time since the duel began, something like expectation sparked in her eyes. Darion was standing. Trafalgar had given ground.

So this was it.

Around them, several observers leaned forward, mistaking distance for momentum, retreat for pressure, finally taking hold.

Darion saw it too.

His shoulders squared, hope flaring sharp and sudden as he adjusted his stance, believing—if only for a heartbeat—that he had forced Trafalgar back.

They were all wrong.

Trafalgar wasn’t yielding.

He was shifting the angle.

His weight settled differently now, line realigned, feet placing him exactly where he wanted to be. The space he’d given wasn’t loss.

It was room.

Room to finish it.