SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant Chapter 805: Learning Ruin Pulse

The following morning, they were back inside the dimension.

Trafalgar had slept longer than usual, and judging by the way Rhosyn looked when she stepped through the Gate, she had done the same. The exhaustion hadn't disappeared entirely from her face, but she looked better than she had among the roses the day before.

Dravok was already walking toward the open training ground when Trafalgar joined him. "You were asking about an offensive skill last time. I figured you've waited long enough."

Trafalgar raised an eyebrow. "That was quicker than I expected. Yesterday you sounded like you were going to make me wait another month before even mentioning one."

"I wanted you to learn the other two first. Now you have movement, defence, and enough control over both that giving you another thing to think about won't make everything worse." Dravok stopped and turned toward him. "This one should fit you better anyway."

"Because of Maledicta?"

"Because you already have good ways of hitting people. What you're missing is a way to make those hits matter more against things that don't care about being hit."

That was enough to get Trafalgar's attention.

Dravok raised one hand, and pale motes gathered above his palm. His plain sword formed between them a moment later, dropping into his grip with the same unremarkable appearance Trafalgar remembered from their first fight.

"The technique is called [Ruin Pulse]. It doesn't replace Sunder, and I'm not teaching it because there's anything wrong with your Morgain techniques. Think of it as something you add on top of them."

Trafalgar summoned Maledicta in answer. Dark motes folded together until the black blade settled into his hand, and he rested it loosely against one shoulder.

"All right. What does it actually do?"

"Hit me."

Trafalgar looked at him for a moment. "You're going to have to be slightly more specific."

Dravok lifted his sword horizontally between them. "Hit the blade. Don't use a skill. I want you to feel the difference before I explain it."

Trafalgar brought Maledicta across.

The blades met with a clean metallic crack.

For the smallest fraction of a second, it felt like any other contact.

Then something punched through Maledicta.

A second impact travelled down the blade and exploded into Trafalgar's hands, driving through his wrists and forearms hard enough that his fingers nearly opened around the grip. He stumbled back, staring at the sword as the vibration worked its way up to his elbows.

At the same moment, [Sword Insight] stirred inside his skull.

Pain pressed sharply behind his eyes.

It wasn't the unbearable agony Sunder had caused, but it was far worse than Godstep. The technique flashed through his head in disconnected pieces: contact, compression, release, a second force arriving inside the first before his mind could properly separate them.

Trafalgar pressed two fingers against his temple. "That's unpleasant."

"It's supposed to be." Dravok lowered his sword. "The first strike opens the door. Ruin Pulse sends the real damage through it."

"So it's a second attack."

"Close, but don't think of it as two separate attacks." Dravok tapped the flat of his sword with one finger. "You strike normally. At the exact moment your weapon makes contact, you compress another mass of mana at that point. A fraction later, you release it forward through whatever you've hit."

Trafalgar looked down at Maledicta. "Through armour."

"Through armour, scales, thick hide, bone. Anything that normally forces you to waste time cutting through the outside before you can damage what's underneath."

That was exactly the sort of attack Trafalgar could use.

He had fought enough creatures whose bodies were battles in themselves. Even Sunder, for all its power, was still a large commitment. Ruin Pulse sounded like something he could put behind an ordinary strike and make it far less ordinary.

"Show me again."

Dravok raised his blade. "Watch the mana this time. Forget the sword itself."

Trafalgar focused.

The weapons collided.

He caught more of it now. Dravok's mana didn't gather beforehand in any obvious way. It stayed hidden until the instant steel touched steel, then compressed around that tiny point of contact before driving through in one dense pulse.

[Sword Insight] pulled at it again.

Another spike of pain drove behind Trafalgar's eyes, and this time he saw more.

The timing was viciously narrow.

"You can't prepare it early," Trafalgar said.

Dravok nodded. "If you do, the mana releases against the surface and most of the force spreads outward. You'll make noise and accomplish very little."

"And too late means the blades have already separated."

"Exactly. The contact gives you the path. You have to release while that path still exists."

Trafalgar considered it, then raised Maledicta. "Let me try."

The first attempt was terrible.

His blade struck Dravok's, and Trafalgar pushed mana forward a moment too early. Dark power burst around the contact in a short flare, loud enough to sound impressive and weak enough that Dravok barely moved his wrist.

"Too soon," Dravok said. "You're anticipating the impact instead of using it."

Trafalgar tried again.

This time he waited too long.

The blades touched, began to separate, and only then did the mana discharge. It snapped uselessly into the empty air between them.

Dravok looked at him. "Now you're afraid of being early."

"I gathered that."

"Then stop correcting one mistake by making the opposite one."

The days that followed made Godstep look generous.

They trained inside until Trafalgar's head began to ache, then left the dimension and rested in Caelvyrn's castle before returning again. Hours outside became days within, and those days piled up quickly, each filled with the same metallic crack of Maledicta meeting Dravok's sword.

Trafalgar watched Ruin Pulse again and again.

[Sword Insight] kept giving him pieces, but never enough to hand him the technique whole. Each demonstration brought another sharp pressure behind his eyes, another fragment of understanding, and another reminder that this skill sat higher than the previous two.

There were days when Rhosyn watched from beside the pool without saying much.

Once, after Trafalgar pushed through several demonstrations in a row and blood started running lightly from one nostril, he caught her expression tightening before she looked away. She didn't tell him to stop, and he knew she wouldn't interfere with Dravok's training, but she looked distinctly unhappy about watching his own skill tear at his head again.

Trafalgar wiped the blood away and kept going.

By what he guessed was the fifteenth day of actual practice, he could finally create the second mass of mana without ruining his first strike. What he still couldn't do was release it at the exact instant Dravok wanted.

Too early.

Too late.

Too wide.

Too weak.

Every failure earned another correction.

Dravok let their blades separate and shook his head. "You're still treating the pulse like something you launch. Don't. The contact is already there. Let the mana follow the impact into the target."

"I understand that."

"You understand the words. Your mana clearly doesn't."

Trafalgar breathed out and rested Maledicta against his shoulder. "I'm starting to miss getting punched."

"You'll get plenty of that again later."

A voice came from behind them before Trafalgar could answer.

"How touching. I leave the two of you alone for a while and you're already reminiscing about the good times."

Trafalgar turned.

Caelvyrn was walking toward them from the Gate, hands tucked casually behind his back.

Dravok looked at him, then at Trafalgar.

"Speaking of the King of Velkaris."

Caelvyrn's expression immediately brightened. "Finally, someone uses the title I deserve."

Dravok ignored that entirely.

"I needed something with scales thick enough for him to practice on."