SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 455: Chapter 455: Sylvar’s Funeral [VI]

The smoke thinned another fraction, and the pressure in the room changed. It did not feel like mana in the ordinary sense. It felt older, the kind that made the air itself go quiet before anyone had time to react.

The five guards collapsed almost at once. One after another their bodies gave out beneath the weight of that overwhelming aura, swords slipping from their hands as they crashed to the floor unconscious.

Trafalgar’s boots remained planted. Lysandra stayed standing as well, though her grip on her sword tightened. The pressure was there, pressing down on both of them, but it was not enough to force them to kneel.

Then the figure spoke. ”Sorry about the hole. But I needed to speak with you urgently, Trafalgar.”

The last strands of smoke drifted aside. What stood there was a man in shape only. Human in frame, but wrong in too many details to be mistaken for one. Black horns curved from his head, his eyes glowed a deep violet, and his long black hair fell loosely over his bare shoulders. He wore nothing above the waist, only simple dark trousers, and stood there barefoot in the ruined tower as though the freezing mountain air meant nothing to him.

Trafalgar stared for a second, genuinely caught off guard. Caelvyrn. He had not expected to see him here of all places. ’Why is he here?’

Beside him, Lysandra did not lower her weapon. Her expression had shifted from surprise to sharp, contained caution. She had never met him, but she knew who he was. A dragon. One of the highest beings in the world. A figure whose strength could stand above legends and patriarchs alike.

What unsettled her more was something else. Trafalgar knew him, and from the way he looked at the intruder, this was not a first meeting.

Trafalgar exhaled through his nose and lowered Maledicta slightly, though he did not dismiss it. ”It’s Caelvyrn,” he said, glancing toward Lysandra. ”It doesn’t seem like anything bad is going to happen.”

That did very little to ease her. Her eyes flicked toward the shattered section of wall, then toward the unconscious guards, then toward the silent communication panel that still showed no reaction at all. No alarm had sounded. No one from the fortress had appeared. Somehow the defenses of one of the safest places in Morgain territory had been bypassed as if they were decorative.

Her sword remained in hand. She did not trust the situation, and she certainly did not trust a dragon who could step into a sealed watchtower without the mountain itself noticing.

Trafalgar looked around the tower with a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth, more irritated than alarmed. ”It seems you wanted privacy if you released that aura of yours. Can I know what you want? And how exactly am I supposed to explain the hole? What, someone just broke into this place and this happened? Don’t fuck with me.”

Caelvyrn did not look offended. He only raised one hand and snapped his fingers.

The change was immediate. The unconscious guards stirred at once, but not like men waking up naturally. Their bodies moved with eerie precision, as if invisible strings had been attached to their limbs. Two of them rose and walked toward the breach in the wall, mana gathering around their hands as stone fragments lifted from the floor and the shattered section began sealing itself piece by piece. The crack in the reinforced glass closed with unnatural speed, frost gathering over the repaired surface until it looked almost untouched.

The other guards straightened as well, their eyes vacant for a brief second before settling back into place.

”Relax,” Caelvyrn said, as if none of it were strange. ”Everything is fine. After this I’ll just leave through the door like a normal human being.” His violet eyes shifted toward Lysandra. ”So? Is your sister trustworthy?”

That made the air tighten in a different way. Trafalgar did not answer immediately. Only a second passed, perhaps less, but it was long enough. Lysandra saw it. The hesitation was small yet impossible to miss. She understood what that silence meant. He trusted her more than anyone else in House Morgain, but not completely. The thought stung, though she accepted it for what it was.

Caelvyrn understood too. A moment later his voice sounded directly inside Trafalgar’s mind. ’This is a method for us to speak without your sister hearing anything.’

Trafalgar’s eyes narrowed slightly. At the same time the repairs finished, the wall looking whole again, the guards returning to their original posts as if nothing had happened, standing in place with weapons in hand and faces empty of reaction. The earlier breach had been erased so cleanly it was almost insulting.

Lysandra kept watching with growing unease. She knew enough to realize what she was seeing should not have been possible.

Trafalgar finally answered in the same silent way. ’Understood. Then why are you here?’

Caelvyrn did not waste time. ’The woman in black. I know you found her. I need to see her. It’s urgent.’

Trafalgar’s expression barely changed, but the wording immediately pulled an older memory to the surface. Another conversation. Another time Caelvyrn had spoken of her in a way that had sounded far less serious than this.

’Are you trying to flirt with her again, like you told me before?’

Caelvyrn did not smile. That alone changed the atmosphere more than if he had released his aura a second time. His violet eyes stayed fixed on Trafalgar, completely serious, stripped of the easier tone he sometimes carried. ’This is important, Trafalgar du Morgain. I’m usually kind to people I like, and I do like you. So please, don’t joke when I tell you something serious.’

Trafalgar straightened slightly without meaning to. Whatever this was, it had nothing to do with some old curiosity or one of Caelvyrn’s strange whims. The urgency in him was real. ’Can I know what this is about?’

’Of course. It concerns you as well.’ A short pause followed. ’It’s about the Primordials.’

That pulled Trafalgar’s attention into full focus. ’What about them?’

Caelvyrn’s gaze shifted briefly toward the repaired wall, then back to him. ’During the war, I was there. Not as a participant for obvious reasons. I watched from the sky.’ There was no arrogance in the admission. If anything, he sounded almost thoughtful. ’It was interesting. You did well. Better than most would have in your place. Though I can’t say I was surprised.’

Trafalgar said nothing. Lysandra, still unable to hear a word of this, remained watching both of them from the side with growing tension.

’I observed the battle from above,’ Caelvyrn continued, his tone growing quieter. ’And because I was there, I noticed something I would not have noticed otherwise. With that said... I wasn’t the only one watching.’