Chapter 428: Chapter 428: The Fall of the Thal’zar [XLII]
Lysandra steadied her footing despite the tremor running through her legs, knowing she did not have enough mana left for another full technique. She forced her grip tighter around her blade.
The strike never fell.
The creature paused out of recognition.
Its head tilted slightly, attention shifting away from Lysandra and toward the massive breach in the chamber wall—the opening carved when it had first entered. Fractured stone frad the gap, dust still drifting through unstable currents of mana.
It turned fully toward it.
And looked down.
For a brief mont, the chamber was silent except for Lysandra’s uneven breathing and the distant roar of battle echoing upward from below.
Then the creature felt it.
It felt it as sothing older than that—sothing that should not exist anymore. Sothing that, by all logic, should have been erased hundreds or thousands of years ago. Even the creature itself could not recall when it had last encountered that presence, nor could it na the mory clearly, but it recognized the essence instantly. It was wrong. It was hostile to its very nature. It was its natural enemy.
And it was here.
The wound from Lysandra’s attack still burned across its body, the Core Tear effect disrupting its internal flow, but that damage barely registered compared to what it now sensed below. Through the breach in the chamber wall, its perception extended downward, and the battlefield beneath unfolded in its awareness like a distorted reflection. It saw a black-armored figure moving without pause, cutting through Void creatures in relentless succession. They were not falling randomly. They were being erased with intent. Dozens within monts. Entire clusters collapsing under his advance. The Void pouring out of the rifts were dying faster than they could reposition.
The creature did not rely see it.
The creature rembered it.
Like a distant echo surfacing from sothing buried deep within its existence, it recognized the pattern. The suppression. The eradication. The way Void flesh yielded under that specific presence.
Primordial.
The attack from Lysandra lingered across its torso, but it no longer mattered. Her blade had forced a reaction, yes—but it was not the threat. Not the true one.
Rage surfaced.
A murmur slipped from its mouth, the words forming with unnatural clarity now that it chose to speak.
"You... you need to die now."
Its back convulsed violently as the flesh split open and wings forced their way outward, tearing through tissue as they expanded to full span. The pressure inside the chamber surged, fractured walls crumbling further as the released void energy distorted the air. Lysandra staggered under the shockwave, barely managing to keep her footing as the force pushed past her.
The creature did not look at her again.
It bent its knees and launched forward in a single explosive movent, wings spreading wide as it tore through the breach and dove downward toward the courtyard below.
Lysandra saw the shift too late.
The mont the creature turned away from her, she forced her body to move. Her legs responded half a second slower than her mind, pain flaring through her side as she attempted to step forward. Mana exhaustion dragged at her limbs like weight tied to her bones, and the wound along her ribs tore open slightly under the strain. She pushed anyway.
Her knees buckled.
She caught herself with the tip of her blade, breath breaking into a sharp inhale as her vision blurred for an instant. The creature was already airborne, wings fully extended, its descent aid directly toward the battlefield below.
"Shit! Trafalgar, be careful!" she shouted, voice cutting through the fractured chamber and spilling down through the breach.
Arthur’s head snapped toward the hole in the wall, his grip tightening instinctively around Garrika’s unconscious form. He stepped forward half a pace as if he could still intervene, as if distance could be crossed by will alone.
But it was already too late.
The intelligent Void creature had left the chamber.
Below, the battlefield had beco centered around one figure.
Trafalgar moved through the swarm without hesitation, the effect of his evolved passive still feeding into every motion. Each void creature that fell reinforced the montum building inside him, power layering over power in asurable incrents. He was no longer rely holding ground—he was advancing, carving space where none should have existed. Blue flas from Pipin flared at his flanks, and allied fighters regrouped behind the corridors he forced open, but the core of the shift remained him.
Then, through the roar of combat and the distortion of rifts still flickering at the edges of the courtyard, he heard it.
A voice.
Faint.
Above.
"Shit! Trafalgar, be careful!"
His blade split another humanoid from shoulder to hip, but his eyes narrowed slightly beneath the black helm.
’Lysandra? She shouted sothing...’
He did not stop moving, yet sothing in the air changed. The pressure in the courtyard shifted in a way that had nothing to do with numbers. It was directional. Focused. The surrounding void creatures hesitated for a fraction of a second, their formation tightening instinctively as if reacting to sothing higher in their hierarchy.
Trafalgar felt it before he fully processed it.
A descending pressure.
The air above compressed unnaturally, wind currents spiraling downward as mana distorted in a tightening vortex. The flas around him flickered sideways under the shift, shadows stretching across fractured stone.
He stepped back half a pace and raised his head.
Through the torn sky frad by broken walls and lingering smoke, he saw it.
The intelligent Void creature diving toward him, wings spread wide, void energy trailing behind its descent like a falling executioner.
The battlefield froze for a heartbeat.
And then it was coming straight at him.
The instant the pressure broke into lethal range, Trafalgar vanished.
He triggered [Severance Step], his form bending sideways in a curved distortion as space itself warped around his movent. He reappeared several ters away just as the intelligent Void creature struck the ground where he had been standing.
The impact was catastrophic.
Stone exploded in a violent shockwave, fractured slabs launching into the air as a deep crater ford at the point of landing. The courtyard trembled under the force, cracks racing outward like veins splitting through bone. Several void creatures were crushed instantly beneath the descending mass, erased by their own superior.
Dust and debris rolled outward.
When it settled enough to see clearly, the intelligent Void creature stood within the crater, wings folding slowly against its back as its gaze fixed directly on Trafalgar.
Then it spoke.
"I didn’t expect any of you to still be alive," it said, its voice calm but layered with sothing darker beneath it. "Even if you’re the only one left, you won’t be able to change anything." Its head tilted slightly. "It’s been a long ti since I’ve seen a Primordial. My body burns just thinking about it. Killing one with my own hands... that will be gratifying."
Trafalgar felt his skin prickled beneath the black armor, not from fear, but from recognition. The hostility was ancient. Directed at his very existence. He did not respond verbally. His grip tightened slightly around Maledicta as he asured distance, posture steady despite the crater between them.
He could hold.
For a ti.
That much he knew.
A streak of blue cut down from above.
Pipin descended in a violent arc, releasing a torrent of blue fla aid directly at the intelligent Void creature. The fire crashed against its form, engulfing it in burning light.
For half a second, it looked promising.
Then the creature moved.
One arm swept outward through the flas, dispersing them with raw void pressure before striking upward. The impact connected with Pipin mid-dive, sending the phoenix spiraling across the courtyard in a violent arc before crashing into shattered stone. The blue flas flickered erratically as he struggled to rise, visibly stunned from the blow.
Trafalgar did not look away from his opponent.
The escape item Caelum had given him was still secured at his side.
He could activate it.
He could leave.
But that option was not viable.
If he retreated, Aubrelle would die.
The others would die.
The heirs above would fall.
This was not a battle he could abandon.
This was his mont to endure.
He raised Maledicta slightly.
And stepped forward.
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