SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant Chapter 806: The Second Impact

Caelvyrn stopped a few metres away and looked between Dravok and Trafalgar, apparently taking a moment to decide whether being invited there as training equipment offended him.

"You could have asked normally," he said at last. "Instead I walk in and immediately hear that you need something with thick scales. Wonderful. It's good to know my contribution to this great training effort has been reduced to being difficult to stab."

Dravok didn't look remotely apologetic. "You'll survive. Stand there and let him hit you."

Caelvyrn sighed, but he was already rolling one shoulder loose. "The things I do for people. Fine, but if he damages anything important, I'm adding it to his debt."

Trafalgar summoned Maledicta again, dark motes folding together until the black blade settled into his hand. "You say that like I've ever managed to damage anything important on you."

"Exactly. I'd like to keep that excellent record intact."

Dravok stepped aside and pointed toward Caelvyrn's chest. "Don't use a Morgain skill yet. You're still trying to learn the pulse itself. Adding more mana structures on top of it will only give you another place to make a mistake."

Trafalgar nodded and moved in.

Caelvyrn didn't bother taking a stance. He simply stood there in his human form and waited, arms loose at his sides, looking almost insultingly comfortable.

Maledicta struck his chest.

Dark scales appeared beneath the blade at the instant of contact.

Trafalgar released the mana.

It exploded outward.

A short burst of black power rolled across Caelvyrn's chest and pushed his shirt back against his body, but the dragon himself barely moved. The scales remained perfectly intact.

Caelvyrn looked down, then back at Trafalgar. "Very dramatic."

"I know."

"And completely useless."

"I know that too."

"Good. Saves me explaining it."

Trafalgar took a slow breath and reset.

The second attempt went the opposite way. He waited for Maledicta to hit the scales, felt the impact travel through his wrist, and only then released the compressed mana.

Too late.

The pulse snapped into the air after the blade had already started rebounding away.

Dravok shook his head. "You're treating the two parts separately. Strike first, then pulse. That's why you're late."

"Because they are two things."

"They are, but the technique can't feel like two things."

Trafalgar frowned at that.

Dravok came closer. "The impact creates the path. Ruin Pulse has to enter through that path while it still exists. If you're consciously waiting for the first strike to finish before releasing the second, you've already missed it."

Trafalgar looked down at Maledicta. He understood exactly what Dravok meant, which somehow made the failures more irritating.

He knew the structure.

[Sword Insight] had shown him enough of it by now that he could feel where the mana had to gather and how the release should move through the point of contact.

His body simply refused to match that understanding.

He tried again.

Too early.

Again.

Too late.

Again, and the mana compressed correctly but spread sideways across the scales instead of driving through them.

After several more attempts, Caelvyrn finally raised a hand.

"Stop for a second."

Trafalgar lowered Maledicta, breathing harder than he wanted to admit. "What?"

Caelvyrn tapped one finger against the scales covering his chest. "You're hitting me normally and then exploding mana at my skin. That's not the technique."

Dravok gave a quiet grunt from behind him. "See? Even the lizard understands it."

Caelvyrn turned slowly.

For a moment, he looked genuinely offended.

"I think you'll find it's because I'm an exceptionally wise and well-informed dragon who has spent a very long time studying this world and everything in it. That seems slightly more relevant than your insistence on calling me a lizard."

Rhosyn laughed from beside the pool.

It wasn't loud, but Caelvyrn heard it.

He looked toward her, then back at Dravok, and exhaled through his nose. "Wonderful. I've become the joke now. I'm glad everyone is enjoying themselves."

Trafalgar almost smiled, but the irritation sitting behind his eyes killed most of it.

He lifted Maledicta again. "Can we continue?"

Caelvyrn's expression settled when he heard the edge in Trafalgar's voice. "Of course."

The next several days were worse.

They left the dimension when Trafalgar's head began to ache too badly, rested in the castle, then returned. Outside, only hours passed at a time. Inside, those hours became days of Maledicta striking Caelvyrn's scales again and again.

Trafalgar failed hundreds of times.

The sound became familiar.

Steel against scale.

Mana bursting too soon.

Mana snapping uselessly after contact.

Dravok corrected him until the same explanations started irritating Trafalgar simply because he already knew every word before the old man spoke them.

"You're anticipating again."

"I know."

"Then don't."

"I'm trying."

"Trying doesn't change the timing."

Trafalgar lowered Maledicta and looked at him. "You think I'm not aware of that? I know exactly where the mana should be. I know when it should release. Sword Insight has practically drawn the whole thing inside my head."

Dravok remained calm. "And your body still hasn't learned it."

That was the part Trafalgar hated.

Godstep had been similar, but there he'd felt his muscles slowly adapting. Every day had built something physical, and eventually the movement had clicked into place.

Ruin Pulse gave him less to hold onto.

The window was simply absurd.

Too soon by a fraction and the pulse died against the surface.

Too late by the same fraction and there was no path left to carry it inward.

Trafalgar struck again.

The scales caught Maledicta.

He felt the contact.

Released.

The pulse burst across Caelvyrn's chest.

Wrong again.

Trafalgar stepped back sharply, jaw tight, and drove Maledicta point-first into the black ground beside him.

"Damn it."

Rhosyn's attention shifted toward him from the pool. Her expression tightened slightly at the frustration in his voice, but she stayed quiet.

Dravok did the same.

Caelvyrn, surprisingly, didn't make a joke.

Trafalgar closed his eyes for a moment.

He could feel the answer sitting there.

He understood it.

That almost made it worse.

Then Caelvyrn spoke, quieter than before.

"You're still waiting for the hit."

Trafalgar opened his eyes.

Caelvyrn tapped the scales over his chest once.

"Stop thinking of the pulse as something that comes after the impact."

Trafalgar stared at him.

Caelvyrn held out one hand.

"Make the impact carry it."