SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant Chapter 900: The Ledger

Kesh did not wait for them.

The moment the locks engaged he went deeper into the command facility without looking back. Red emergency lights flashed along the ceiling while heavy doors sealed every intersection behind the four of them.

Trafalgar followed with Rhosyn and Zafira close behind. The pressure barrier running through the structure stopped Rhosyn from opening a passage outside, which meant Kesh had chosen this place knowing exactly what its systems could do.

"Kesh."

The admiral stopped at the end of the corridor and put his hand against another control plate. The door in front of him unlocked with a heavy metallic click.

"You already lost the Deep Chambers," Trafalgar said. "Ithanne has the records. Burning something now won't save you."

Kesh glanced over his shoulder.

"You still think this ends with me."

Trafalgar's expression changed, and Kesh had already opened the door.

The chamber beyond was smaller than the archive Rhosyn had found. Reinforced cabinets on one wall, an old disposal furnace on the other, and everything in it military, from the numbered shelves to the Tide seals stamped into the cabinet doors.

Kesh crossed to the last cabinet, pushed a metal key into it and turned.

"What's in there?" Trafalgar asked.

"You've involved yourself enough."

The cabinet opened. Inside were four ledgers, and Kesh took the thickest of them.

Trafalgar had no idea what it held, but he knew what it was worth. Kesh had moved soldiers without Corvyn's approval, sealed a command facility and trapped three people inside to reach it.

Zafira came through the doorway beside him with red mana already gathering around her fingers.

"If you burn that now, you won't even need Trafalgar to accuse you."

Kesh carried the ledger toward the furnace. "I stopped caring about accusations several hours ago."

…

Outside the facility, Corvyn reached the main entrance with household guards behind him. Two Tide squads held the landing, and their captain stepped forward as he came up.

"Where is Admiral Varlan?"

"Inside, my lord."

"Open the facility."

The captain turned to the control panel and entered one command, then another. The screen stayed red.

"Full emergency lockdown. Admiralty authority."

"Override it."

"I can't from here, and communication's blocked during the protocol."

Corvyn looked at the sealed door for a moment before he spoke again.

"Who ordered the additional units around this facility?"

"Admiral Varlan."

"I gave specific limits to that deployment."

Nobody answered. Corvyn looked across the soldiers on the landing and saw several of them turn toward the Tide captain before reacting to anything he said, waiting on their own officer rather than the man whose faction had put them there.

It lasted a few seconds. He counted every one of them.

"Open this door."

The captain lowered his voice. "My lord, the admiral's order specifically prohibits access."

Corvyn stared at him until he looked away.

"My order replaces his."

The captain finally turned to the engineers. "Start the manual release."

…

Inside, Kesh opened the furnace and heat spilled across the chamber.

Trafalgar moved.

Maledicta formed into his hand, dark metal drawing out of mana and finishing before his fingers closed on the grip. Obsidian Wings followed, black plate building across his body until the last piece sealed over his head.

[Godstep].

BANG!

He crossed five metres in almost no time at all, and Maledicta cut toward Kesh's wrist.

A weapon appeared in Kesh's hand just as fast. A long naval spear of dark steel, and the shaft came across between the sword and the ledger.

CLANG!

The impact stopped Trafalgar dead. His boots scraped backward while Kesh held him off with one arm.

He felt the difference at once.

Kesh was an Apex. He was still Ascend.

The spear twisted and its lower end drove at his ribs. Trafalgar read it through the shoulders and hips and packed mana over the exact point before contact.

[Origin Guard].

THUD!

The armour and the concentrated mana took most of it, and the rest threw him sideways hard enough to dent a cabinet with his shoulder.

Rhosyn was already moving.

She closed the distance without using her dimensional ability and put her fist straight at Kesh's face. He blocked with his forearm.

BOOM!

The floor cracked under his boot.

She followed with a punch to his abdomen and a knee toward his side. Kesh turned with the second one, caught her leg against the shaft of the spear and shoved her back. She landed cleanly.

Unlike Trafalgar, she had moved him.

Zafira raised one hand.

[Crimson Thread].

Red lines shot across the chamber and fixed to cabinets, shelves, the furnace frame and the spear itself, then more behind him, cutting the route to the fire.

Kesh looked at them once. Then he pulled, and several tore out of their anchors.

"He's stronger than the reports," Zafira said.

Kesh threw the ledger onto the metal table beside the furnace and took the spear in both hands.

Trafalgar pushed off the damaged cabinet.

[Godstep].

BANG!

He came out behind Kesh with Maledicta already falling toward his shoulder, and Kesh turned fast enough to intercept.

CLANG!

Trafalgar had expected the block. Mana compressed into the point of contact.

[Ruin Pulse].

BOOM!

The second impact went through Maledicta and into the spear a fraction after the two met. Kesh's arm jerked. The shock ran down the weapon and reached him under his own guard, moving him a full step sideways.

Trafalgar followed.

[Morgain's Linebreaker].

Dark mana sheathed Maledicta as he drove forward in a straight charge, and the cutting force tore across the floor and reached Kesh before he had finished recovering.

Kesh planted one foot and brought the spear down.

CRASH!

Mana burst through the chamber, throwing paper off the shelves and splitting a cabinet door. Trafalgar forced Maledicta forward and the spear stopped after a few centimetres.

Zafira's fingers shifted.

[Widow's Stitch].

One thread caught Kesh's wrist. Another wrapped his ankle.

[Scarlet Draw].

She pulled, his balance went, and Rhosyn came through the opening and drove her fist into his side.

BOOM!

This time he crossed the chamber. His back struck the edge of the metal table and the ledger slid toward the floor.

Trafalgar saw it fall. Kesh saw it too. Both of them went.

[Godstep].

Trafalgar reached it first, and his hand was less than a metre away when the spear arrived. He barely turned in time.

[Origin Guard].

CRACK!

The point hit the reinforced section over his forearm instead of his chest, and pain ran from his wrist to his shoulder. He went backward, and the ledger landed between them.

Kesh stepped over it.

Mana started pouring out of him and the pressure in the room changed. Cabinet doors rattled, Zafira's threads pulled tight against their anchors, and the emergency lights flickered.

Trafalgar got up and flexed the arm. Nothing broken, and [Origin Guard] had barely held that one.

Rhosyn moved up beside him while Zafira reset threads around the chamber.

Kesh rolled his shoulder once. Rhosyn's hit had hurt him and [Ruin Pulse] had reached him, and neither had come near stopping him.

He picked the ledger up, put it under one arm and raised the spear, and the mana around it went dense enough to crack the floor under the point.

"You wanted to know what I was protecting," Kesh said. "Now you know."

Trafalgar tightened his grip on Maledicta.

He had expected Kesh to be strong. He had not expected this much between them.

Outside, Corvyn's engineers were still working on the lockdown.

Inside, Kesh took one step forward and the chamber shook under the weight of his mana.

Taking an Apex alive was going to be far harder than reaching him had been.