SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 430: Chapter 430: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XLIV]

Trafalgar did not retreat after the exchange.

He stepped in again.

[Morgain’s Final Crescent]

All remaining momentum in his stance condensed into a single decisive arc. Maledicta traced an inverted crescent through the air, black energy gathering along the blade’s edge before releasing forward in a compressed, explosive sweep. The strike tore through space itself, a dark half-moon expanding outward with violent intent, carrying enough force to rip through mana and flesh alike.

The antiboss cut connected.

The intelligent Void creature crossed its forearms and absorbed the majority of the impact, void pressure surging outward as it attempted to brace against the incoming force. The collision fractured the stone beneath its feet, cracks spidering outward from the point of contact as the black crescent pressed forward.

The Core Tear effect applied.

For a moment, its internal flow destabilized again, overlapping with the disruption Lysandra had inflicted earlier. The creature was forced half a step backward despite its guard, forearms visibly split where the arc had carved through reinforced void flesh.

It did not stagger.

But it had been pushed.

The black aftertrail of the crescent lingered in the air behind the impact point before slowly fading.

The intelligent Void creature lowered its arms and examined the damage briefly, dark fluid sliding down its forearms where the cut had penetrated. The wound was not fatal, but it was deeper than the previous exchanges.

Its gaze lifted back to Trafalgar.

”Is that all you have?” it asked calmly, flexing its fingers as void energy attempted to reassert stability through its disrupted core.

Its tone sharpened slightly.

”The one above was stronger.”

Something shifted inside him.

[Riftborn Devourer] intensified.

The pressure around Trafalgar did not merely increase—it condensed. The earlier calculation in his gaze thinned until only focus remained. The rational layer of analysis did not vanish entirely, but it receded behind something more primal. The Frenzy Mode deepened, threading through his muscles and nerves like a current that refused to slow.

The next exchange began without signal. The intelligent Void creature advanced with a sweeping strike aimed at his upper body, and Trafalgar stepped into it instead of away, redirecting the force with Maledicta before rotating through the motion to counter. His cuts were sharper now, more direct. Less ornamental. Every swing carried weight behind it, driven by forward pressure rather than spacing.

Claws met steel.

Steel answered.

They traded at close range, the distance between them collapsing into brutal proximity. The creature’s strikes were heavy and precise, aimed to break structure rather than graze, but Trafalgar’s footwork adapted instinctively. He angled his shoulders just enough to reduce impact, redirected momentum instead of absorbing it fully, and retaliated before the exchange could reset.

No single blow decided the clash.

The creature cut across his flank, grazing armor and tearing fabric beneath. Trafalgar responded with a short, brutal upward strike that forced the creature to guard high. A backhanded void slash cracked against Maledicta, and he answered with a low sweep that forced it to shift its footing.

Back and forth.

Constant.

Neither yielding ground cleanly.

But something else was happening beneath the surface.

While they exchanged at the center, lesser void creatures continued to fall at the edges of Trafalgar’s reach. Every incidental cut, every wide arc, every redirected swing that caught an advancing hound fed into the passive that was still evolving in real time.

Another died.

Power layered.

Another cluster collapsed.

Speed sharpened.

His acceleration between movements increased subtly, then noticeably. The weight behind his blade grew heavier without him consciously pushing harder. The pressure he exerted on each clash began to stack.

The intelligent Void creature felt it.

At first, it matched him evenly.

Then its guard began to absorb more force than it returned.

Trafalgar pressed forward with a sequence of short-range cuts, not wide arcs now, but tight, aggressive slashes that forced the creature backward step by step. Each impact drove void energy outward in visible distortion. The ground beneath them fractured further under the sustained pressure.

As the clash intensified at the center of the courtyard, the battlefield began shifting in ways neither combatant had directly caused.

At the edges of the shattered stone, one of the rifts flickered.

Then closed.

The distortion that had been tearing space open snapped inward violently, sealing shut with a compressed implosion of warped air. The void creatures emerging from it were cut off mid-transition, half-formed bodies dissolving into black residue before fully manifesting.

Another rift followed.

Then two more.

Dozens.

Across the courtyard’s perimeter, the pulsing tears in space began closing one after another in irregular intervals. Some resisted for a few seconds before sealing. Others vanished abruptly as if their anchor had been severed from elsewhere. The steady influx that had defined the battle until now began thinning in measurable increments.

The intelligent Void creature noticed.

Its head shifted slightly, attention dividing for the first time since engaging Trafalgar directly. Its internal flow was still unstable from accumulated damage, but this change was external. Strategic.

”There is another one...” it murmured, voice low but edged with recognition.

The words were not directed at Trafalgar.

They were a realization.

Somewhere beyond direct sight, Rhosyn was moving unseen, working with precision rather than force. She was not attacking the swarm head-on. She was targeting the structure. One rift at a time. Systematically. Efficiently. Severing the source rather than contesting the tide.

Void creatures on the outer edges began thinning as their reinforcements failed to arrive. Clusters that would have been replenished remained diminished. The density of the battlefield shifted subtly but unmistakably.

The pressure changed. The swarm no longer felt infinite.

The intelligent Void creature fixed its full attention back on Trafalgar, void energy condensing along its limbs as it stepped forward with renewed intent. The closing rifts had registered somewhere in its perception, but they were secondary. The primordial presence in front of it was the immediate threat.

”I will eliminate you now.”

The certainty in its voice remained intact.

Yet the battlefield told a quieter truth.

The wound at its neck continued to bleed in thin, persistent lines. The disruption inflicted earlier by Lysandra still interfered with the stability of its core. Regeneration that should have restored full balance lagged slightly behind. Individually, none of these factors were decisive. Together, they altered the margin.

It lunged.

A crushing downward strike aimed to shatter Trafalgar’s guard entirely. Maledicta rose to meet it, steel and void colliding with explosive force. The impact still carried immense weight, but the recoil was no longer absolute. Trafalgar’s boots slid only a fraction before he planted firmly and pushed forward into the exchange instead of yielding ground.

That was when the shift became visible.

His movements were not cleaner. His technique had not changed. What had changed was pressure. Every lesser void creature cut down in the last minutes had fed the passive evolving inside him, and that accumulation was now expressing itself in raw output. His blade struck heavier. His transitions were sharper. The delay between intention and execution had narrowed.

The creature attacked again in rapid succession, claws blurring in layered arcs meant to overwhelm through volume. Trafalgar answered each one, redirecting, stepping inside angles, forcing close-range exchanges that denied the creature full extension. Shockwaves rippled across the fractured courtyard, cracks widening beneath their feet.

Step by step, the intelligent Void creature began giving ground.

Another collision split the air between them. This time, when it crossed its forearms to absorb a diagonal cut, the guard fractured visibly before stabilizing. The creature was forced half a step back to re-anchor itself.

That half-step lingered.

Its gaze sharpened.

Calculation replaced certainty.

The realization formed slowly but unmistakably: the balance was no longer static. The primordial in front of it was not stagnating. He was increasing.

And as that awareness began to surface—

A new voice drifted across the battlefield, calm and almost amused.

”Suppose I should step in now. I was enjoying myself quite a bit, I must say. Good work, Trafalgar.”