SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 403: Chapter 403: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XVII]

Karon forced his way in through the chaos, roots surging up from the broken ground at his feet and spreading outward to clear a path. They twisted and thickened into barriers as they moved, shielding those behind him from stray blows and falling debris. The motion was not elegant. It was urgent, practical, driven by necessity rather than control.

The group that followed him was smaller than it should have been.

Not just visibly reduced, but uneven. Gaps where entire squads should have been. Faces missing. Some walked under their own strength, others leaned on shoulders or dragged wounded companions with clenched teeth and shaking arms. The Watermages were there, fewer than before, their formation loose but functional, spells already half-formed in their hands as they moved.

Karon did not stop to count them.

His eyes were already searching.

He found Trafalgar near the center of the position, Maledicta still in hand, rain sliding off the blade as if it refused to cling. For a moment, relief crossed Karon’s face—brief, restrained—before the weight of everything else pressed back down.

He raised his hand.

Roots erupted around them, thick and interwoven, rising fast and closing overhead. In seconds, a dome formed, sealing them off from the worst of the outside pressure. The sound didn’t vanish, but it dulled. Explosions became muffled thuds. Impacts against the barriers sent vibrations through the living walls. Distant screams still carried through the gaps, distorted but unmistakable. Something heavy struck the dome from the outside, hard enough to make the roots groan as they absorbed the force.

Inside, the air felt tighter.

Karon shifted his grip, adjusting the weight in his arms. His brother was conscious, eyes half-open, breathing shallow but steady. Blood stained his clothes, darkened further by rain that still slipped through in thin threads where the roots hadn’t fully sealed. Pain showed clearly in his face, but he did not speak.

Karon stepped closer to Trafalgar.

For a brief moment, neither of them said anything. The sounds from outside filled the space instead—another impact, a burst of magic, something shrieking before being cut off abruptly.

Karon broke the silence first.

”You’re still standing,” he said.

His gaze flicked past Trafalgar, taking in the scene inside the dome. The Morgain soldiers holding their lines. The Watermages repositioning. And then—

The lycans.

They were there, moving through the formation with claws bared and bodies already soaked in blood that wasn’t all their own. Fighting. Coordinated. Alive.

Karon’s jaw tightened.

He looked back at Trafalgar, the tension sharpening immediately.

”What are they doing here?”

Karon’s voice came out low and tight, cutting straight to the point.

He tilted his head slightly, indicating the lycans fighting inside the formation, moving alongside Morgain soldiers and allied troops.

”Why are Thal’zar lycans fighting at your side?” he continued. ”We left them bound.”

Roots rose around them, closing enough to separate the conversation from the rest of the battlefield. The noise outside didn’t disappear, but it dulled, impacts and distant screams bleeding through the living barrier in uneven waves.

Trafalgar met his gaze.

”It was a decision I made,” he said. ”At the moment it was needed.”

Karon turned fully toward him, anger no longer hidden.

”A decision,” he repeated. ”And you thought that was yours to make?”

Another heavy удар shook the roots, dust falling between them.

”Yes,” Trafalgar answered.

The pause that followed was short, but heavy. Karon’s jaw tightened, frustration clear, held back with effort. There was too much history tied to those lycans for him to ignore what he was seeing.

”You don’t get to do that,” he said. ”Not with them.”

”I didn’t do it lightly,” Trafalgar replied. ”And I didn’t do it for them.”

Karon frowned. ”Then for what?”

”For this,” Trafalgar said, gesturing briefly toward the muffled chaos outside the roots. ”When the rifts opened and everything started coming through, half our forces were gone. I needed fighters who could still stand.”

Karon’s eyes hardened.

”You’re not au Sylvanel,” he said. ”You don’t carry what they’ve done.”

”No,” Trafalgar said. ”But I was here when the Void stopped caring about names, houses, or old grudges. I’m a Morgain, Karon,” he said. ”My name carries weight too.”

Karon’s expression sharpened at that, but Trafalgar continued before he could cut in.

”You broke orders to go after your brother,” he went on. ”I understand why. I agreed to it. But it still cost us. While you were gone, the rifts opened. Not one or two. Hundreds.”

The roots around them shuddered as something struck the outer dome again, hard enough to make the barrier flex. The sound bled through, distant and constant, a reminder that none of this was theoretical.

”The Void didn’t choose targets,” Trafalgar said. ”It didn’t care who wore which colors. Your forces were half of what we had. Half.”

Karon’s grip tightened on his brother, knuckles whitening.

”So I made a choice,” Trafalgar continued. ”I needed soldiers. Not later. Not after discussions. Right then.”

Karon shook his head once, sharp and restrained. ”And you decided the answer was them.”

”Yes.”

The word landed without hesitation.

”There was no other source,” Trafalgar said. ”No reserves nor reinforcements waiting behind a gate. Just prisoners who could still fight and creatures that were tearing everything apart.”

Another impact rolled through the dome. Roots groaned, then held.

”I heard the lycan captain earlier,” he said. ”He was speaking to his own soldiers.”

Karon’s gaze shifted briefly, almost against his will, toward the lycans beyond the roots.

”He told them the House Thal’zar had to survive,” Trafalgar continued. ”That whatever happened to Kaedor, didn’t matter as long as the house endured.”

The roots shuddered again as another impact struck the dome, closer this time.

”There are things unfolding here you or me haven’t been told,” Trafalgar said. ”Not because you’re incapable. Because you’re the fourth heir. That comes with limits, whether any of us like it or not. ”

Karon drew in a breath as if to respond, then stopped himself.

For a moment, he said nothing.

The sounds outside pressed in instead. A distant detonation. Metal screaming against stone. Something heavy striking the barrier again and again, testing it.

Karon exhaled slowly.

He still didn’t agree.

But the anger no longer had the same edge it had a moment ago.