SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 431: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XLV]

Chapter 431: Chapter 431: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XLV]

The voice belonged to Valttair.

He stepped forward from the upper edge of the fractured courtyard with the same calm composure he carried in any other setting. There was no urgency in his posture, no visible fatigue, no sign that the outcome of the world’s future had been hanging in the balance moments earlier. His presence alone altered the atmosphere.

He had been present for longer than anyone below realized. From a broader vantage point, the situation had already stabilized before the fighters at ground level could perceive it. The interior of the castle had been cleared of void creatures some time ago. Heirs from several families had reinforced the structure and secured the upper levels. What had once been a collapsing defense had gradually turned into controlled ground.

Those trapped in the courtyard had not known.

Surrounded by the tide of void creatures and forced into constant combat, their perspective had narrowed to immediate survival. Trafalgar had been locked into his duel, focused entirely on the intelligent Void creature. The others had been too occupied with holding their lines to notice the wider shift unfolding beyond their sight.

Now the difference was visible.

The swarm was no longer suffocating. The density had dropped sharply compared to earlier. Where once every cleared space had refilled instantly, gaps now remained open. The rifts had thinned, and the influx that had felt endless no longer carried the same overwhelming pressure.

The battlefield had crossed its peak.

The battle was approaching its conclusion.

The intelligent Void creature had felt the shift before it fully understood it.

Its body carried the weight of accumulated damage that it had chosen to ignore while momentum still favored it. The wound from Lysandra’s strike had destabilized its core more than it initially calculated. The bleeding inflicted earlier had never completely stopped. Regeneration continued, but it no longer flowed with the same dominance it had displayed at the beginning of the battle.

Before descending into the courtyard, it had already been engaged once by Valttair and Icarus together. That exchange had not ended in its favor. It had withdrawn, recalibrated, then forced new engagements—first against Garrika and Lysandra, then against Trafalgar. Each clash had shaved something from its reserves. Nothing individually decisive. Everything cumulative.

Now, standing across from Trafalgar with Valttair entering the field, the margin it once possessed had thinned to something fragile.

Valttair approached without haste.

His steps were unhurried, measured, almost casual. There was no tension in his shoulders, no urgency in his expression. He did not look like someone arriving at the brink of catastrophe. He looked like someone stepping into a situation already finished.

The intelligent Void creature’s gaze shifted toward him, and for the first time since descending into the courtyard, unease surfaced clearly across its posture. The plan it had been building around fractured fronts and overwhelming numbers was no longer intact. The balance had shifted beyond recovery.

"Seems like Icarus couldn’t do much after all," it said.

Valttair stopped a short distance away, his eyes settling on the creature without visible strain.

"Did you truly believe that abandoning him and fleeing would give him any chance at all?" he replied evenly. "It appears he was the one who filled your mind during those conversations, not the other way around."

With a smooth motion, he materialized his sword.

The blade formed from condensed white light, solid yet almost weightless in appearance. It did not flare dramatically, nor did it emit blinding radiance. Instead, it held a steady brilliance, restrained and absolute, its presence alone asserting dominance over the space between them.

The intention was unmistakable.

Valttair’s blade angled slightly.

And then the air tore open.

Across the courtyard and along the fractured walls of the castle perimeter, space split violently in jagged distortions. The rifts did not unfold gradually this time; they were forced open in abrupt, unstable bursts, as if something had ripped them wider through sheer strain. The ground trembled beneath the surge of displaced mana, the pressure thickening instantly.

The intelligent Void creature did not move to strike.

It acted instead. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The openings widened in rapid succession, their edges fraying and unstable, and from within them poured a final wave. Void bodies spilled into the battlefield in overwhelming numbers, far denser than the thinning tide that had remained moments earlier. Hounds, humanoids, higher-ranked forms—all emerging simultaneously in compressed clusters.

It was not reinforcement meant to reclaim control.

The surge lacked coordination. There was no gradual build, no tactical spacing. The creatures flooded outward in sheer volume, colliding against one another as they expanded from the rifts. The pressure they created was immediate, swallowing cleared ground and filling the courtyard with movement once more.

A curtain.

A smokescreen.

A desperate final exertion of whatever control remained.

The intelligent Void creature’s posture did not relax.

But its timing had changed.

It needed obstruction.

It needed chaos.

It needed a window.

The battlefield, which had begun stabilizing under coordinated pressure, was thrown back into violent saturation for one final surge.

Valttair did not flinch when the surge erupted across the courtyard.

The air around him began to tighten instead.

White mana gathered along the length of his blade in dense layers, not exploding outward but compressing inward, condensing into something that made the surrounding space hum under its weight. The vibration was not loud, yet it was unmistakable. Even the unstable rifts seemed to recoil slightly in response to the pressure forming around him.

Across from him, Trafalgar did not step back.

The sudden flood of void bodies crashed into the courtyard, but instead of shifting into defense, he advanced into it. Maledicta carved forward immediately, each swing deliberate in purpose, not wild, not scattered. He was not trying to hold the line anymore. He was clearing it.

Void hounds that attempted to swarm were split mid-lunge. Humanoids emerging too close from unstable rifts were cut down before their footing stabilized. Every step he took created space not for survival, but for positioning.

The heirs who had secured the upper levels began moving as well. Reinforcements descended from broken archways and fractured balconies, spreading outward in coordinated patterns. Defensive stances shifted into forward momentum. Techniques that had been used to stall now pressed into finishing strikes. Beastkin and lycans who had been holding narrow sectors advanced in pairs, pushing back clusters that had only just emerged.

Valttair stood at the axis of it, mana still building in silence. Trafalgar carved a path through the surge, clearing a direct line toward the intelligent Void creature. Around them, the remaining combatants adjusted without hesitation, cutting down the excess flood with focused precision.

The surge had been meant to create confusion.

What moments ago had resembled renewed chaos now shifted into coordinated pressure from every direction.