Chapter 401: Chapter 401: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XV]
The rain fell without interruption.
There was nothing above them to stop it. It poured straight down onto bodies where they had fallen, washing blood across the open ground and turning stone and earth into a thick mire of mud, ash, and shattered remains. Every step sank slightly before pulling free again.
Trafalgar kept moving.
Maledicta never left his right hand.
The sword was constant, solid, its presence anchoring every movent as he advanced through the downpour. It rose and fell in short, controlled arcs, cutting through anything that ca too close to it’s edge. There was no excess in his swings. Just enough to keep moving.
To his left, mana flickered when needed.
A blade appeared for an instant in his off hand, struck, and dissolved again. A dagger ford, flew, and vanished into particles before it could hit the ground. Nothing stayed longer than it had to.
Lycans fought beside him in the open, claws tearing into the Void at close range. So fell almost imdiately, dragged down by numbers they could not push back. Others pressed forward anyway, choosing motion over survival.
Farther out, humans and elves from other families tried to hold secondary paths. They bought seconds. Sotis less. Screams were cut short as the rain swallowed sound.
A Void Creature broke through toward a wounded ally.
Trafalgar did not slow. Maledicta flashed once, cleaving the creature apart mid-lunge. He drove his shoulder into the ally with his left side, sending them stumbling away through the mud.
"Move," he said, breath tight, voice low. "Don’t stop here."
The ally did not look back.
Another cry rang out sowhere behind him. Then nothing.
Trafalgar kept his eyes forward.
There was no structure left to the fight.
Just pressure from every side, rain blurring vision until blood and water looked the sa. He cut down what reached him, redirected what he could, forced space where there was still room to move.
He knew it without pretending otherwise.
He could not save everyone.
Stopping ant being surrounded. Slowing ant being buried. The Void did not hesitate, did not tire, did not wait.
Trafalgar advanced a few more steps before turning his head toward Aubrelle. Rain struck against his visor as the noise of the battlefield pressed in from every direction.
The pressure closed in all at once.
Void hounds surged from the front, bodies low and fast, skidding through mud and blood as they tried to overwhelm by number alone. At the sa ti, humanoid shapes pushed in from both sides, arms stretching, movents jagged as they sought to collapse around him.
Trafalgar advanced straight into it.
[Morgain’s Linebreaker] wrapped Maledicta in dense mana as he drove forward, the charge tearing through the first wave and sending several bodies tumbling across the soaked ground. The impact forced a narrow path open, just wide enough to move through.
He kept going.
While his forward montum held, [Arc Slash] followed, a dark-blue wave tearing outward from the blade and slicing down the Void Creatures that tried to close in from the flanks. The cut was clean and imdiate, bodies splitting apart before they could recover their footing.
Sothing heavier moved at his side.
A humanoid Void Creature with a visible mouth lunged in from the flank, close enough that its presence cut through the rain before Trafalgar fully saw it. He reacted without breaking stride.
Maledicta dissolved from his right hand in a flicker of mana.
Nightpiercer ford in his left.
Trafalgar twisted his torso mid-step and drove the blade backward in a single, precise motion, piercing straight through the creature from behind. The strike went through its core and out the other side, the body collapsing into the mud as he moved past it.
He did not look back.
Maledicta was already back in his right hand as he continued forward, the rhythm of his advance uninterrupted.
Behind him, the lycans surged through the opening he had carved. Claws and fangs tore into what remained, bodies colliding at close range as they pushed into the space Trafalgar had forced open. The pressure shifted as the group followed, montum carrying them through before the Void could fully close the gap again.
Rain continued to fall, washing over broken forms and fresh cuts alike.
Garrika fought close enough that Trafalgar could feel the shock of her movents through the ground.
She stayed in human form, rain running down black hair plastered to her back, leather clinging to her fra as blood mixed with water across her skin. Her wolf ears were flattened, tail cutting sharp lines through the air as she moved, fast and relentless.
She went in first.
[Lupine Rush] detonated forward in a sudden burst, closing the distance in an instant and driving her straight through a Void humanoid before it could even raise its arms. She did not slow after the impact, boots skidding through mud as she pivoted toward the next threat.
A larger creature turned toward her, its body layered with hardened plates.
[Beast Claw Barrage] followed imdiately, a rapid storm of strikes that hamred into the armor again and again until it cracked and gave way. The Void Creature staggered, pieces of its plating breaking apart under the force.
Another reached for her from the side.
She answered it with her teeth.
[Moonfang Rend] tore through flesh and bone in a savage bite, ripping an arm free in a spray of dark matter and blood. The creature scread once before collapsing, the sound drowned out by rain and steel.
A different Void slipped through the chaos behind her, closing in fast.
Trafalgar did not turn.
[Widow’s Whisper] ford in his left hand and left it just as quickly, the dagger spinning backward through the rain with surgical precision. The blade buried itself in the creature’s throat, cutting the sound off instantly as bleeding spread and it fell face-first into the mud.
The dagger dissolved into mana before it hit the ground.
Garrika kept moving, not looking back, trusting the space behind her to stay clear. Trafalgar stepped into the gaps she created, Maledicta rising and falling to finish what she left standing.
They moved together without words.
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