SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 513: Chapter 513: Final Trial [V]

The four directors were watching everything.

High above the hunting grounds, dozens of floating projections shifted one after another, each one showing a different section of the test area. Some students were fighting in groups. Some had already cornered wounded prey. Others were running because they had aimed higher than they should have. Among those projections, one image began to draw more attention than the others.

Trafalgar and Bartholomew.

Selara adjusted her glasses slightly, amused already. ”Oh? That one is interesting.”

Eryndor folded his arms. Althea said nothing, but her attention remained on the same image. Kaelen stood at the front with the same cold posture as before, though his eyes lingered there a moment longer than necessary.

The projection showed Bartholomew standing before a serpent nearly eight meters long, its body wrapped in jagged rock growths, its broad head lifted above the thinning forest line like something carved out of the land itself.

Kaelen spoke first.

”Oh,” he said, voice even, ”it seems Trafalgar has affected some of our students positively as well.”

Selara’s smile widened.

Kaelen kept watching the projection. ”It appears someone may achieve something remarkable.”

Back in the hunting grounds, Bartholomew heard none of it.

His whole world had narrowed to the serpent ahead of him.

Its body moved with a grinding sound every time the stone plating scraped against itself. The thing did not rush immediately. That made it worse. It just stayed there, raised high, tongue flicking in and out, as if deciding whether Bartholomew counted as prey or a minor inconvenience.

Bartholomew’s fingers tightened around the bow.

His mouth had gone dry.

Trafalgar stood off to the side without any trace of concern, arms folded, Maledicta no longer raised. He was not going to interfere. That much was obvious.

That should have made Bartholomew feel worse.

Instead, it did something strange.

It forced him to understand that this was real.

No one was stepping in for him.

No one was going to finish this in one slash and tell him he had done enough.

This was his fight.

Bartholomew inhaled shakily and reached for an arrow.

The serpent moved first.

Its head dropped and shot forward with terrifying speed, the heavy plates along its neck grinding against each other as it lunged. Bartholomew barely managed to throw himself sideways. The jaws crashed into the ground where he had been standing a breath earlier, dirt and roots exploding upward.

His heartbeat slammed against his ribs.

’Move.’

He rolled, came up on one knee, and fired.

[Piercing Shade Arrow] formed around the shaft in an instant, black light wrapping itself along the arrow with thin glowing veins twisting through it. The mana compressed so tightly that the shot screamed through the air as it flew. It struck the serpent high along the neck.

The problem became obvious immediately.

It hit stone.

The impact burst in a shower of sparks and black mana, cracking part of the rock plating but not punching through. The serpent recoiled more from surprise than pain, then turned fully toward him.

Trafalgar watched from the side and thought, ’Good. He tested the armor first instead of panicking and wasting three more.’

That alone was already an improvement.

The serpent rushed him again, this time not with its jaws but with the sheer force of its body. The first swing of its tail came in low and brutal. Bartholomew tried to leap back, but not far enough. The rock-armored tail clipped his side and sent him skidding across the ground hard enough to tear skin through his uniform.

Pain flared hot across his ribs.

He almost lost the bow.

The bracelet on his wrist did not react.

Not lethal.

Not even close, apparently.

”Get up,” Trafalgar said, his voice carrying without effort. ”If that was enough to break you, I overestimated you.”

Bartholomew clenched his teeth.

That was a horrible thing to hear.

It was also exactly what he needed.

He pushed himself up while the serpent coiled slightly, preparing another lunge. Bartholomew forced air into his lungs, steadied his footing, and changed the way he held the bow. Not like prey. Like someone actually thinking.

Its body was armored.

Its head was broad but heavy.

Its movement changed every time it had to turn.

And the underside, from what little he had seen, was not fully protected.

’If you panic, it kills you. If you think, you kill it.’

Trafalgar’s words came back cleanly.

Bartholomew drew another arrow, but this time the mana flowing around it was different. It did not gather in black compression. It ran pale and silver along the shaft, leaving a fine tail of light behind it.

The serpent lunged.

Bartholomew waited later than he wanted to.

He shot only when the mouth opened.

[Moonbind Arrow] flew in a clean silver line and buried itself just beneath the serpent’s jaw where rock gave way to scale. The effect came a heartbeat later. Filaments of pale mana burst outward from the impact point like roots of moonlight and wrapped across its neck and upper body, spreading along the nearby ground as well. The serpent jerked violently. Its movement did not stop, but it dragged, slowed, hindered just enough to ruin the clean angle of the attack.

Its jaws closed on empty air.

The body slammed through brush and low roots instead of through him.

Bartholomew stumbled back, already reaching for another arrow. Sweat had started running down the side of his face. His hands were still shaking, but now the shaking had direction.

The serpent tore at the silver bindings with brute force alone, fragments of light snapping apart under the pressure of its muscles. It hissed, enraged now, and drove its head low before surging toward him with a shorter, nastier movement aimed at his legs.

Too fast.

Bartholomew tried to retreat, but one of the roots caught his heel. The serpent crashed into him side first and threw him off balance. He hit the ground hard enough to lose his breath. The bow nearly slipped from his grip again.

The serpent rose above him, shadow swallowing half his body.

Its mouth opened.

Bartholomew’s fear spiked so sharply it almost emptied his head.

Almost.

Instead of rolling away blindly, he made the ugliest decision possible.

He stepped in.

Mana compressed around his free hand in pale blue and white lines, like cracks of stormlight running over his fingers and knuckles. The serpent’s jaws came down just as Bartholomew drove his fist forward.

[Skybreak Knuckle] landed against the softer underside of the jaw with a dry, violent crack. Electricity burst out across the impact point and raced along the serpent’s mouth in brief branching flashes. The whole head snapped sideways. Its bite missed him completely, and the shock running through its jaw made the monster recoil in furious confusion.

Bartholomew did not even know he had yelled until after the punch landed.

He threw himself backward, dragging in air, chest heaving. His hand hurt like hell.

But it had worked.

Trafalgar’s mouth curved slightly.

’Good.’

That one had genuinely surprised him.

The serpent thrashed once, more in rage than in pain, and smashed its tail across the ground. Dirt burst upward. A rock plate split loose from its own side under the force of the movement. It was stronger than Bartholomew. Much stronger. But now it was also angry, and angry monsters got sloppier with every exchange.

Bartholomew saw that too.

That was the first moment Trafalgar knew the fight might actually go his way.

Bartholomew lifted his bow again. He was breathing like a man who had just outrun death twice in a row, uniform torn, ribs screaming, right hand half-numb from the electric recoil, but his face had changed. He was focused.

The serpent came again, wider this time, trying to use the trees less and its own reach more. It wanted to crush him in open ground.

Bartholomew retreated on purpose, drawing it farther out, letting it commit more of its body with each movement. Another arrow formed at his fingertips under a black glow.

[Piercing Shade Arrow] screamed from the string and slammed into one of the cracks already running through the rock plating near the base of the neck. This time it bit deeper. Not a killing blow, but enough to drive black mana through the gap and make the serpent jerk violently.

It turned toward him in fury.

Good.

Bartholomew fired [Moonbind Arrow] again, this time not at the neck but lower, aiming near where the body curved. The silver-tailed shot buried itself between two plates, and threads of pale mana spread over the ground and around the serpent’s lower body, slowing the turn just enough to unbalance the next charge.

The monster came anyway.

Of course it did.

Bartholomew ran in calculation.

He cut around a thicker trunk, forced the serpent to twist after him, waited until its injured side came into view again, and shot another [Piercing Shade Arrow] straight into the damaged section. The compressed mana shrieked through air and punched far enough this time to draw a full-body recoil out of the beast.

The serpent retaliated by smashing forward in a low rush that clipped Bartholomew across the shoulder and sent him crashing into a tree.

Pain exploded down his left arm.

His bow almost dropped.

The bracelet stayed inactive.

Still not lethal.

Bartholomew coughed, pushed off the trunk, and stared at the serpent through blurred vision.

It was still coming.

He was still standing.

Trafalgar watched him wipe blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and thought, ’Yeah. He’s grown, also I didn’t expect him to learn new skills when I was away.’

The serpent pulled back again, preparing for another strike, but now one side of its rock armor was fractured, its jaw still twitching from the earlier shock, and part of its movement kept dragging under the remnants of silver mana still clinging to it.

Bartholomew inhaled hard and nocked another arrow.

This time, when he raised the bow, his hands were still shaking.