SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 394: The Fall of the Thal’zar [VIII]

Chapter 394: Chapter 394: The Fall of the Thal’zar [VIII]

Trafalgar turned to her fully.

"Aubrelle," he said, his voice low but sharp. "What’s wrong? Did you see something through Pipin?"

She didn’t hesitate this time.

"Yes," she answered. "Something is coming."

Her grip tightened again on the reins, knuckles pale beneath the rain. She wasn’t looking ahead with her covered eyes, not really. Her head was angled slightly upward, toward the sky where Pipin circled, seeing what she could not.

"It shouldn’t be here," she continued. "And if we don’t deal with it quickly..." She paused for a fraction of a second, just long enough for the weight of it to land. "...it will kill us."

The words cut cleanly through the noise of the battlefield.

Trafalgar felt his posture change without thinking, his body reacting before his mind finished processing what she had said. He stepped closer to her, one hand tightening around Maledicta’s grip as his gaze swept the paths ahead, the broken streets slick with rain, the gaps between ruined structures where something could already be moving.

"Where?" he asked.

"Behind us," Aubrelle said. "It’s coming from the same direction as before."

She drew in a slow breath, steadying herself.

"It’s the same kind of presence I sensed in the last battle I was part of," she continued. "Something that shouldn’t still be moving, something that doesn’t feel alive anymore, but refuses to stop."

Her fingers tightened slightly around the reins.

"It doesn’t matter how wounded it is," she added. "As long as it keeps walking, it’s a threat. And if it reaches us, it won’t just die on its own."

"Alright," he said. "Tell me exactly what you’re seeing."

Above them, unseen by most, Pipin adjusted his flight, circling tighter as the rain continued to fall. Somewhere out there, beyond the curtain of water and smoke, something that should already be dead was still walking toward them.

And it was close.

"Exactly what it sounds like," Aubrelle said, her voice steady despite the tension riding underneath it. "It’s someone infected by Icarus."

She didn’t soften it.

"The body isn’t acting on its own anymore. Whatever he put inside them is keeping it moving," she continued. "If it gets close enough, it won’t matter how many wounds it has. It will spread."

Rain slid down her sleeves as she tightened her grip again.

"We have to burn it," she said. "Completely. Before it reaches anyone else."

Trafalgar didn’t ask for clarification. He didn’t question the assessment or look for alternatives that would waste time. The moment the words settled, his decision was already made.

"Understood," he replied.

A flicker of light formed in his hand as he materialized an item, the mana signature simple and familiar rather than overwhelming.

[Blazewick Torch – Common Rank]

Want light? Have fire.

The flame caught instantly, steady despite the rain, more practical than imposing. Not a weapon meant for glory. Just something that burned.

Aubrelle glanced at it, then back toward the direction Pipin was watching.

"What did you summon?" she asked, even though the answer was already obvious.

"A torch," Trafalgar said. "If we need distance, we can have someone fire from range and set it alight before it gets here."

For a moment, only the rain answered.

Then Aubrelle shook her head slightly.

"Good idea," she said. "But you won’t need it."

She drew in another breath, slower this time, focus narrowing.

"I’ll handle this."

Trafalgar frowned slightly beneath the helm.

"What do you mean, you’ll handle it?" he asked.

She straightened in the saddle, her posture shifting into something tighter, the kind of focus that stripped the world down to a single point. Above them, Pipin continued to circle, wings beating in a controlled pattern as he tracked the infected lycan’s uneven advance through the rain, its movement dragged forward by something that refused to let it fall.

Trafalgar followed her line of attention for a moment before looking back at her.

"The torch is just an option," he said more quietly. "If it gets closer, we—"

"I know," Aubrelle cut in, her voice calm.

She didn’t turn toward him. Her attention stayed fixed upward through Pipin’s sight, her fingers loosening on the reins as if she no longer needed them to stay grounded.

"It’s a good plan," she continued. "Simple. Effective. It would work."

That alone made the tension in his chest tighten.

"But," he said, already knowing the answer.

"But this isn’t something we should allow near anyone," Aubrelle replied. "And it’s not something I want someone else dealing with."

Trafalgar studied her profile, the bandage covering her eyes unmoving as rain slid down her hair and shoulders. Her tone carried no urgency, only certainty, the kind that came from having already decided.

"So," he said carefully, "what are you going to do?"

Rain continued to fall around them, steady and unrelenting, drumming against armor, stone, and soaked earth alike. Neither of them moved.

Then Trafalgar felt it.

A subtle shift, the kind that made the hairs at the back of his neck tighten before his mind could name the reason. He lifted his gaze instinctively, eyes tracking upward through the curtain of rain.

Something had changed in the sky.

Pipin’s flight pattern broke.

The pale bird with red eyes slowed, its wings spreading wider as it began to descend. For a heartbeat, it hovered there, suspended against the gray clouds, rain sliding off its feathers without soaking in.

Then the change took hold.

The light tone of its plumage darkened gradually, layer by layer, until blue dominated its form—deep, dense shades that caught the rain and shed it in faint, glowing trails. Feathers elongated and sharpened, their edges traced by a steady blue fire that clung to the body instead of flaring outward.

The flames wrapped around Pipin as if they had always been there, revealing rather than forming something new.

Its eyes ignited next, no longer simple points of color but twin sources of focused fire, burning with an awareness that made Trafalgar’s breath tighten behind his helm.

The rain hissed where it passed too close.

He stared upward, rain streaking down the obsidian visor, a single thought surfacing uninvited from a place far older than this battlefield.

’A blue phoenix?’

Not the decorative creatures of stories meant to inspire awe, but the ones from older myths, tied to fire that erased as much as it renewed, to endings that made room for what followed.

Above them, Pipin beat its wings once.

The air trembled and Pipin moved.

The blue phoenix folded its wings and dropped from the clouds, cutting through the rain in a controlled descent until it hovered directly above the approaching figure. From the ground, the infected lycan looked barely aware of its surroundings, head hanging low, steps dragging forward through mud and water as if pulled by something it no longer understood.

Up close, the damage was unmistakable.

The body was broken beyond any natural limit. Muscles tore with every step. Mana circulated in erratic pulses that did not belong to the host. Whatever Icarus had planted inside was doing all the work now, forcing motion where there should have been collapse.

Tears ran down the lycan’s face.

Not from pain alone, but from exhaustion so deep it had stripped away resistance. Trafalgar saw it clearly through rain and distance alike, his enhanced vision cutting through the distortion. The eyes were unfocused, awareness flickering in and out, as if the person inside was drowning and surfacing only long enough to suffer again.

Pipin descended lower.

Just a few meters above the infected.

For a brief moment, nothing happened.

Then the fire came.

Blue flame poured from Pipin in a continuous stream, dense and concentrated. It struck the body head-on, wrapping around it in a controlled torrent that burned without spreading, without hesitation. The rain hissed violently where it met the fire, evaporating in bursts of steam that rolled outward.

The infected kept walking.

One step.

Then another.

The fire scorched flesh and bone alike, yet the thing inside still pushed forward, driven by the plague that refused to release its grip.

And then Trafalgar noticed the change.

The tension drained from the lycan’s face. The strain around the eyes softened. The mouth slackened, no longer pulled tight by pain or fear. Whatever awareness remained seemed to settle, as if the person inside finally understood that it was over.

At last, there was no resistance.

Pipin did not stop.

The blue fire continued until the body gave way completely, collapsing inward as flesh, bone, and corruption alike were reduced to nothing. When the flames finally ceased, there was no corpse left behind. No ash. No trace of infection.

Only blue fire lingering briefly on the ground, flickering quietly before fading into the rain-soaked earth.

Trafalgar exhaled slowly.

’The vision wasn’t wrong,’ he thought.

That was all.

There was no time to think about it any further.

A loud sound echoed from the direction of the castle, deeper and heavier than anything that had come before. Then another followed, and another, each one rolling through the rain-soaked battlefield with enough force to be felt underfoot.

Trafalgar turned his head toward the source.

The incursion had begun.

The strongest forces had finally moved.

Whatever was happening inside the castle was no longer contained, and he knew what that meant for the outside. Pressure would spill outward. Enemies would move. Lines would shift. The area they were holding would not stay quiet for long.

He tightened his grip on Maledicta and forced his focus forward.

There would be more work soon.

’I hope Karon comes back soon,’ he thought.

The rain kept falling.

And the war was about to grow louder.