SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 425: Chapter 425: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XXXIX]

The situation had passed the point of being critical.

It was absurd.

Trafalgar cut down twenty.

Forty replaced them.

The exchange rate made no sense. Every corridor he opened was swallowed within seconds, every body that fell replaced by two more stepping out of the rifts. This was no longer a battle of endurance or positioning. It was arithmetic turning hostile.

He drove Maledicta forward again, the blade piercing through the chest of a humanoid before he ripped it free and split a Void Hound mid-leap without even turning his head.

Another wave surged.

Another gap closed.

’Tch... how much longer can that void creature keep this shit up? There has to be a fucking limit.’

He refused to believe there wasn’t a cost. The intelligent one had to be forcing the rifts, sustaining them through its own power or focus.

There had to be a ceiling.

Around him, humans, elves, lycans, and beastkin continued to fall. A lycan was dragged down behind him, claws tearing through his armor before he could even scream properly. An elven mage lost concentration mid-cast and was swallowed whole by the advancing mass. Beastkin fought in pairs now instead of squads, survival replacing coordination.

Only the strongest were still standing.

And even they were being pushed back.

Retreat was not an option. The courtyard was sealed by void bodies on every side. If escape had been possible, half the field would have taken it already. No one here was suicidal by choice.

The ground was no longer stone.

It was a layered surface of corpses.

Bodies of every race lay scattered in overlapping piles, mixed with dissolving void remains that stained the fractures in the courtyard black. The smell of burned mana and charred flesh thickened the air.

Pipin’s blue fire flared again, rising in controlled walls that forced the swarm to shift direction. The flames created temporary barriers, buying seconds at a time, but even those seconds were becoming harder to secure.

Trafalgar did not slow. The moment a narrow gap formed ahead, he surged forward and drove straight through the densest concentration of bodies, releasing [Morgain’s Linebreaker] as he coated Maledicta in concentrated mana and charged in a direct line. A cutting wave erupted outward from the blade, tearing through everything in front of him. Void bodies were lifted and fractured, thrown aside as the force carved a temporary corridor through the swarm.

He did not stop at one.

Before the gap could close, he pivoted and launched forward again, triggering [Morgain’s Linebreaker] a second time, then a third. Each charge split the formation in a straight path, scattering humanoids and shredding hounds in violent arcs. Dozens fell within seconds, their forms collapsing as he forced space into existence by sheer impact.

Each one bought him breathing room.

Each one carved out a thin stretch of ground where he could stand without claws reaching from every direction.

He had lost count of how many void creatures had fallen to Maledicta. The blade moved without hesitation, rising and falling in controlled precision, cutting through flesh, bone, and distorted matter as naturally as if it were an extension of his own arm.

At this point, it was.

Maledicta was no longer something he wielded.

It was simply how he erased what stood in front of him.

He drove forward again, breaking through another compacted group, the impact sending bodies skidding across fractured stone. For a fraction of a second, there was open ground around him.

Then the space filled.

Void creatures stepped over the fallen remains without pause. Those knocked aside regained footing almost instantly. The corridor he had carved disappeared as if it had never existed.

There was no thinning of numbers.

Trafalgar reset his footing and prepared to charge again, Maledicta already angled forward for another [Morgain’s Linebreaker]. The swarm shifted ahead of him, bodies stacking, claws scraping over the fallen as they pushed inward to close the distance he had forced open.

Then something changed.

Inside him.

A faint pulse ran through his core, subtle but unmistakable, like a vibration under the ribs that did not belong to the rhythm of combat.

A line of text appeared at the edge of his vision.

[Bloodline is reacting.]

His step faltered for half a second.

Confusion cut through the flow of movement.

This had never happened in the middle of a fight. The only time something remotely similar had occurred was when he first awakened his bloodline, when the surge of power had nearly torn him apart from the inside. But this felt different.

And the timing was terrible.

’Not now.’

A Void Hound lunged at his throat. He cut it down reflexively and pivoted to intercept a humanoid attempting to slip past him toward Aubrelle. Maledicta pierced through its torso and ripped free in the same motion.

He kept fighting.

Whatever this was, it would have to wait.

He stepped sideways to block a flanking advance, carving downward through another creature before shifting his body to shield Aubrelle’s position behind him. Blue fire from Pipin flared again, burning back a cluster that had crept too close.

The text appeared again.

[Bloodline is reacting.]

This time it was not just a notification.

Pain struck.

Not sharp like a blade. Not burning like mana backlash. It was deeper, internal, as if something inside his body was being forced into alignment. A tightening pressure built in his chest, spreading outward along his spine and ribs. His breathing hitched for a fraction of a second, not from exhaustion, but from the sensation of something adjusting beneath his skin.

It was not an external wound.

Nothing had pierced him.

The pressure increased, then compressed sharply, like a mechanism locking into place.

Another notification surfaced.

[Riftspawn class has evolved.]

His eyes narrowed as he severed the arm of a charging humanoid and drove his shoulder into it, forcing it backward.

’What?’

He split its skull with a clean upward cut and stepped through the collapsing body.

’Classes evolve?’

He had read about Second Awakenings. What else? It happened to him and everyone else, since it’s something everyone goes through. But this was not that. There had been no preparation. No ceremony. No trigger beyond combat.

This did not fit any structure he understood.

And yet the message remained.

Something inside him had shifted.