SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 409: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XXIII]

Chapter 409: Chapter 409: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XXIII]

The battlefield remained fractured where his crescent strike had torn through it.

Sections of reinforced branch continued to fall through the rain in heavy fragments, vanishing into the chaos below. The layered network Elenara had built was no longer dense. It had gaps now. Open lines. Exposed angles.

Kaedor stood in the cleared space he had carved, vitality still surging through him. His breathing had deepened, shoulders rising and falling with visible strain, yet the pressure radiating from him had not diminished. If anything, it felt harsher, less restrained.

Elenara landed on a surviving extension of wood, balanced above him.

She did not withdraw.

She did not rebuild what he had destroyed.

Instead, she widened the field.

The response did not begin above the surface.

It began below.

Deep beneath the castle, the root system shifted. Not a single branch. Not a single pillar. The entire network.

The terrain ceased to be stable.

Kaedor felt it through his boots before he saw anything move. The structure beneath him adjusted in subtle increments, forcing micro-corrections in his stance. It was not enough to throw him off balance, but it demanded attention.

The ground was no longer neutral.

"You rely too much on force," Elenara said calmly, her voice carrying through the rain. "It works for a while. It always does."

Roots began sliding beneath the barked surface like muscle under skin.

"You must know this ends the same way."

Kaedor did not answer.

His footing shifted once as the branch beneath him tilted a fraction. He corrected instantly.

This was not an immediate snare.

It was tempo.

Elenara was stretching the exchange.

"You promised your family survival," she continued, watching his reactions carefully. "Is this how you intend to protect them? By burning yourself hollow before they can even see the outcome?"

His jaw tightened.

He did not rise to it.

He had lived long enough to recognize provocation when he heard it.

Words were tools.

Nothing more.

A root pillar erupted beneath him again, not to hurl him into open air this time, but to misalign his center and fracture his stance. Around them, staggered platforms formed in irregular heights, reintroducing vertical variance.

She followed immediately.

Leaves tore free from every remaining branch within range, lifting into orbit around her. They condensed under mana pressure, edges sharpening, surfaces hardening until they resembled thin blades rather than foliage. Some circled her defensively. Others angled forward, waiting.

"You could kneel," she added, her tone still even, almost conversational despite the storm around them. "I would ensure your children live. I already told you I would take care of them." Her gaze did not waver. "They will be well kept. They will serve their role. Good pawns, if guided correctly. You need not worry."

She laughed.

That did it.

Kaedor knew what she was doing. He understood the intent behind every word. He had fought long enough to recognize provocation when he heard it.

But this... This struck deeper.

The air around him tightened as his vitality surged harder, less measured now. The pressure around his frame spiked, branches beneath his feet splintering under the sudden increase in force.

His claws flexed.

"You will not speak of my children like that," he said, the calm in his voice thinning into something heavier.

The next step he took cracked the branch beneath him entirely.

Elenara did not let the surge in his vitality go unanswered.

The branches around them reacted first.

From multiple angles, thick thorns erupted outward in converging trajectories, rising in crossed patterns that narrowed around Kaedor’s position. They did not form a simple ring. They angled inward from above, from below, from lateral vectors, reducing available escape paths and forcing him to address more than one threat at once.

This was not meant to stop him outright.

It was meant to punish forward aggression.

Kaedor answered the only way he knew how.

He drove both claws into the branch beneath his feet and tore upward with brutal force. The structure split along a jagged line, the rupture traveling through the wood like a fault breaking open. The sudden destabilization shifted the alignment of several converging thorns, throwing off their intended angles.

Two he shattered outright.

The third pierced through his shoulder before he could fully clear it.

The impact slowed him for a fraction of a second. Blood spilled across bark and rain, dark against the wood.

He did not hesitate.

He seized the embedded thorn with one claw and ripped it free, tearing flesh in the process. The wound remained open only briefly before the vitality burning through him began forcing it closed, imperfect but sufficient.

He moved forward through the narrowing cage instead of retreating from it.

Every step fractured the unstable surface beneath him. Splintered wood gave way as he accelerated, condensing his momentum into a full-body charge rather than another extended exchange.

He aimed to break through.

The impact came like a falling mass.

Elenara raised layered defenses in rapid succession—reinforced wood shields interlocked with root barriers forming angled surfaces meant to redirect force rather than absorb it fully.

The first layer cracked.

The second shattered.

The third split apart under sustained pressure.

The collision drove her backward across the branch, bark splitting under her boots as she slid, roots tearing upward behind her to arrest displacement.

There was no careful spacing now. No layered elevation. The distance between them compressed to striking range again as broken thorns and splintered roots fell around them, rain washing across exposed wood and blood alike while neither side yielded ground.

The collision did not end the exchange.

Brute force would not outpace him if allowed to escalate unchecked. His vitality reinforcement was amplifying beyond sustainable limits, and if she continued trading structure for impact, the branch itself would fail before he did.

She changed approach.

The air around them tightened.

From above, below, and along the fractured surface, reinforced roots surged outward at once. Simultaneously. They coiled around Kaedor’s limbs and torso in layered bands, thicker than before, darker with condensed elven mana woven through their fibers.

The roots did not merely bind. They compressed gradually, tightening in measured increments, and as they did, they interfered with the flow of mana through his body. His vitality reinforcement flickered unevenly, the surge of strength no longer flowing cleanly through his frame.

His forward momentum stopped.

For the first time since the exchange had escalated, Kaedor was held in place.

The roots tightened further.

Wood creaked under the strain as pressure increased around his arms, across his chest, around his legs. The compression forced his stance inward, limiting his ability to extend fully into another charge.

Elenara stepped forward across the fractured branch, closing the distance while maintaining control. As she moved, the surrounding vegetation responded again. A faint green luminescence spread outward through nearby roots and splintered growth, briefly illuminating the rain in a muted glow.

The regeneration pulse flowed through her.

Minor damage stabilized. The cut at her side sealed cleanly. The strain in her muscles eased just enough to sharpen her posture.

She did not rush. She allowed the roots to do their work.

Kaedor’s breathing deepened.

He stopped struggling inefficiently against the outer pressure. The wild attempts to tear free ceased. Instead, his frame stilled.

The vitality reinforcement that had been radiating outward began to contract.

The surge compressed inward, drawing back from his extremities and concentrating toward his core. The pressure around him shifted from expansive to dense, heavier and more focused.

The roots trembled.

Fine cracks began forming along their reinforced surfaces as the condensed force inside him built against the containment, the sound subtle at first but growing more pronounced with each passing heartbeat.

The cracks spread faster.

The reinforced bindings trembled under the compression building inside Kaedor’s frame. The sound shifted from creaking strain to splitting fracture as the condensed vitality reached a threshold the roots could no longer contain.

Then it ruptured.

Kaedor detonated outward in a violent surge, sacrificing a significant portion of his vitality in a single release. The reinforced roots did not unravel; they burst apart, fragments of wood and compressed mana scattering through the rain in a shockwave that tore open the space around him.

The recoil struck immediately. Blood forced its way past his teeth, muscles straining under the backlash, but he did not hesitate.

He moved through the debris.

Instead of striking from distance, he closed it entirely.

His claw caught Elenara at the waist before she could fully reposition, pulling her into his centerline. The contact was deliberate. He did not aim to slash.

He aimed to hold.

Their bodies collided, bark splintering beneath their feet as he locked her in place. At that proximity, the violet flowers still embedded along nearby branches reacted to the surge of unstable mana between them. Several detonated at once, the explosions flaring outward in bursts of purple light that tore through the fractured wood.

Elenara did not disengage.

Her hand pressed against his chest as the mana between them destabilized. The petals caught in the air around them compressed and ignited under her influence, detonating in layered bursts that overlapped with the shock of Kaedor’s condensed vitality.

Two forces collided at point-blank range.

The explosion that followed was not singular. It was compounded—his internal surge expanding outward while her controlled detonations intensified the pressure between them. The blast tore the branch apart entirely, wood and petals and splintered roots erupting outward as both were thrown free of stable footing.

They fell together through shattered structure before crashing onto a lower extension of the root network, the impact cracking the surface beneath them.

Kaedor rolled once before forcing himself upright, his breathing heavier now, vitality flickering unevenly beneath his skin. The strain of that release was visible in the tightness of his jaw and the tremor that ran briefly through his arm.

Elenara rose opposite him, blood dark against her side where his earlier strike had grazed deep enough to matter. The regeneration pulse had slowed the damage, but not erased it.

The surrounding terrain was reduced to broken platforms and exposed root lines, rain washing across splintered surfaces.

The distance between them had shortened.

Kaedor’s reserves were burning down.

Elenara’s control had been forced into narrower space.

The next exchange would not allow correction. The next mistake would mean death. And when it happened, a pillar of the world would fall.

One of the Eight rulers would not rise again.