SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 410: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XXIV]

Chapter 410: Chapter 410: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XXIV]

The rain did not slow.

Neither did they.

The distance between them had narrowed to little more than a stride when Kaedor moved first. He could feel it clearly now—the thinning of his reserves, the instability in the reinforcement that had sustained him through the last exchanges. There was no space left for caution.

[Blood Surge Reinforcement] flared again, but this time it was no clean amplification. The vitality did not flow through him in a steady current. It burned through muscle and bone like something forced where it no longer fit. Veins darkened further beneath his skin, shoulders tightening as he dragged more strength forward than his body was meant to hold.

Each motion cost him.

He paid it anyway.

He launched into a full-body charge, compressing momentum into forward impact. Short displacement bursts cut through the rain as he chained rapid claw strikes into the advance, each Predator’s Rend tearing apart the defensive roots that rose to intercept him. Reinforced wood shattered under repeated contact, splinters scattering as he carved a direct path.

Elenara did not step back.

Instead, she widened her control. The root network beneath the fractured platform responded in subtle shifts rather than explosive growth. The terrain tightened under Kaedor’s feet. Micro-adjustments in angle and density stole fractions of stability from his footing, forcing him to compensate mid-step. It was not enough to stop him outright, but it demanded precision at a moment when his control was already fraying.

He forced through it.

The last barrier between them broke.

They collided at close range.

His claw drove into her side with heavy force, the impact cutting through reinforced fabric and drawing fresh blood. The strike carried enough weight to shift her stance half a step before she anchored herself through the root beneath her heel.

She answered immediately.

A reinforced root shot upward along his flank, striking into his ribs with concentrated force. The impact did not pierce through fully, but it drove air from his lungs and bent his posture momentarily off-center.

Both bled.

Neither yielded.

Kaedor pressed forward again, but the rhythm was no longer clean. His breathing had deepened into something uneven, each inhalation pulling sharper than the last. The vitality reinforcement that had flared so violently moments earlier began to flicker at the edges, its surge no longer seamless.

Kaedor understood the flicker.

He did not have the margin for another prolonged exchange. If he was going to end it, it had to be now.

The remaining vitality that had been spreading through his limbs compressed toward his core, condensing into a final focused surge. His claws tightened, shoulders locking as he prepared to release one last penetrating strike meant to end the fight in a single motion.

The compression wavered.

For a moment it held, unstable but contained.

Then the flow dipped.

The reinforcement faltered mid-channel, the surge failing to fully stabilize before release. The burn inside him did not convert cleanly into power this time. It stuttered.

A fraction of a second opened.

That was enough.

Elenara moved without haste.

Reinforced roots surged from beneath the fractured platform and from behind him in layered arcs. They did not explode outward as before. They rose with controlled force, thick and interwoven with dense mana, wrapping around his arms first, then across his torso, then locking around his legs in successive coils.

Kaedor reacted instinctively, trying to tear through them.

His claws dug into the nearest binding, but the strength behind the motion was no longer what it had been moments earlier. The vitality that should have fueled the break was too thin and unstable.

The roots tightened. They did not jerk. They compressed steadily, forcing his arms inward, limiting extension, restricting the rotation of his shoulders. The structure beneath him held firm.

He strained again.

The roots held.

His body trembled under the accumulated exhaustion, the earlier surge now exacting its price. The reinforcement that had flared so violently flickered once more and then dimmed entirely, leaving only the weight of his own failing reserves.

He dropped to one knee.

Rain ran down his face and along the curve of his jaw as he knelt on the fractured root, bound in place by layered coils that did not loosen.

He remained there, breath uneven, the vitality that had sustained him finally spent.

Elenara stepped forward.

The fractured branches around them responded at once. From every surviving extension of wood, from every exposed root line that still clung to the broken structure, leaves tore free in waves. They rose into the air and began circling her in dense formation, rain tracing along their edges as mana compressed them tighter and tighter.

The orbit thickened.

Edges hardened.

The leaves no longer resembled foliage.

They were blades.

The storm gathered around her, rotating in controlled layers that hummed faintly under pressure.

Kaedor lifted his head.

For a moment, there was no fury in his expression. Only fatigue.

They had stood like this once before.

Not as enemies.

As heirs.

Before crowns weighed down their decisions. Before houses stood behind every word. Before alliances turned into obligations and ambition hardened into rule.

A faint breath escaped him, almost a laugh.

"You were always better at long games."

Elenara’s gaze did not waver.

"You were always too willing to gamble."

He lowered his eyes briefly, rain falling steadily across his face.

"You should be careful with your children, Elenara."

She did not interrupt.

"If the plague reaches even one of them..." His voice grew thinner, but it did not break. "It will not end well. Icarus is not just a schemer. He is a monster. A true monster." His breathing slowed further. "The world will be better without him... even if it is not with us."

The leaves shifted.

The orbit tightened one final time.

Elenara lowered her hand.

The [Razorleaf Storm] descended.

The first wave struck through his shoulders and thighs, blades driving cleanly through reinforced flesh and pinning him deeper into the fractured root beneath him. The second followed without delay, piercing through abdomen and chest, cutting through armor and muscle with precise penetration.

He did not cry out.

Blood flowed downward with the rain.

The storm did not stop.

Layer after layer of hardened leaves drove into him in measured volleys, each strike and each angle calculated to prevent collapse while ensuring destruction. His body remained upright only because the roots and embedded blades held him there.

The rain washed over steel-like edges and red-streaked bark alike.

Elenara made one final gesture.

The last concentrated sweep passed through his torso and throat in a unified arc, cutting deeper than the previous volleys, severing what remained of resistance.

The storm slowed.

The leaves lost their orbit and fell, clattering softly against broken wood.

The roots loosened.

Kaedor’s body tipped forward and collapsed onto the shattered platform.

The vitality that had sustained him was gone.

The rain continued without pause.

Elenara stood over him, the last of the hardened leaves dissolving back into ordinary foliage as they touched the broken wood. The air no longer trembled with opposing forces. The violent pressure that had filled the space between them had dissipated, leaving only the steady sound of rainfall and distant combat.

She looked down at Kaedor’s body.

There was no triumph in her expression.

Only completion.

For a brief moment, she closed her eyes.

"For what it is worth," she said quietly, "you fought as a head of your house."

The rain ran across his body and pooled beneath him, washing blood into the cracks of the shattered root.

Below them, the battlefield had not yet understood.

Void Creatures still moved. Troops still clashed. Rifts still flickered in unstable intervals across the terrain. The war had not paused for the fall of a pillar.

Elenara’s gaze lifted toward the lower depths of the castle.

’I hope Valttair has finished his task as well,’ she thought. ’From the number of rifts that opened, it seems the pressure shifted heavily toward him. I cannot allow that to affect my future pawn. I will have to deal with the rifts for now.’

In the distance, deeper within the fractured structure, heavy detonations echoed upward. Shockwaves traveled faintly through the root network beneath her feet.

That was Valttair.

Still fighting.

One of the Eight rulers of the world had fallen.

And the balance that had held the world in measured tension for decades had shifted irrevocably.