Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1384: Rite of Sacrifice

Orion’s eyes widened as the realization hit him. He wasn’t just watching a memory; he was experiencing it through a specific perspective. He was seeing what Sylvana had seen.

This meant that during the cataclysmic Giant-King Duel, while Orion fought for his life, Sylvana had been watching the entire time. But she hadn’t been watching the fight. She had been looking at something else.

So, the curse didn’t come from the clash between me and Balor? Orion thought, his mind racing.

He had always assumed Sylvana’s blindness was a result of her own limitations—a backlash from trying to divine the outcome of a battle between such powerful entities. But the evidence now suggested something far more sinister. She had seen something she wasn’t supposed to see.

A mysterious Titan... sudden, overwhelming calamity... a world dominated... irresistible... Change... no answers...

Her fragmented thoughts echoed in his mind. These were the impressions she had gathered the moment her sight was taken. Suddenly, Sylvana’s internal voice rang out, sharp with panic.

What is that?

It looks like... it’s watching me.

Where is it?

Orion felt a chill. He was merely a passenger in this memory, sharing her field of view. In the dark void before them, the spectral forms of Orion and Balor were locked in combat, yet Sylvana’s attention was drifting away from them.

I see it. It’s in the sky.

Her voice trembled, pointing the way for both herself and Orion.

She tried to look up, to focus on the anomaly, but she couldn’t. The moment she identified the direction, her voice cut out. It was as if her consciousness had been erased from the memory, leaving Orion alone in the void.

Something in the sky?

Orion tried to tilt his head back. It was agonizingly difficult.

What kind of power is this?

Even with his current Demigod-level will, he felt suppressed, pinned down by an invisible, crushing gravity.

No... I will look. I need to see what is up there!

Unlike Sylvana, Orion possessed the soul of a conqueror. He forced his gaze upward, inch by excruciating inch, fighting the spiritual pressure until he was looking at a forty-five-degree angle into the heavens.

There, looming over reality, was a blurred silhouette.

It was colossal. Its body blocked out the entire firmament.

In comparison, the duel between Orion and Balor—a fight that shook the earth—looked like two ants skirmishing in the shadow of a mountain. This entity possessed a mass comparable to a star.

Straining his vision, Orion saw more details. Behind the main figure, shadows writhed and extended. Arms. Massive arms that could block out the sun.

Maybe... eight of them?

Orion tried to push further, to sharpen the focus, to see the face of this cosmic horror. But the memory couldn’t sustain the weight of the truth.

The world fractured. The sky collapsed. Everything dissolved into nothingness.

Soraya City, Purification Tower.

The kaleidoscope of colors vanished. Orion snapped his hands back, the connection broken. On the altar, Sylvana gasped.

Her deep slumber broke instantly. Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing clear, vibrant pupils. She took in the unfamiliar stone ceiling, the soft ambient light of the tower, and finally, the face of the man she had seen only in her dreams.

"My love!"

"I... I can see?"

Her first words were disbelief; her second were pure, unadulterated joy.

"How does it feel to have the world returned to you?" Orion asked calmly, his voice grounding her. He reached down and scooped her up into his arms.

A flash of delight crossed Sylvana’s face, followed immediately by a deep crimson flush. When she was blind, touch was her only language. She had let Orion do anything to her—ravage her, pose her, own her—without a second thought. But now, with the lights on, seeing his intense gaze fixed on her, she suddenly felt overwhelmingly shy. The intimacy felt newer, rawer.

She buried her face in his chest, then pulled back slightly, her brow furrowing. "Your eyes..."

She looked closely at Orion. His left eye seemed dull, as if covered by a thin layer of gray fog.

"It’s nothing," Orion lied smoothly, blinking once. The fog vanished, and his eye returned to its normal piercing clarity. "Just the aftereffects of the purification light."

Sylvana relaxed, accepting the explanation.

"You haven’t seen the Valkorath Realm yet," Orion said, shifting the subject. "Let me show you our world."

"Yes. Please."

Orion’s confidence and Sylvana’s adoration created a perfect harmony. For the next two weeks, they disappeared together, touring the realm like a pair of newlyweds.

Half a month later, Orion returned to the castle with a sighted Sylvana on his arm.

The reaction from the inner circle—Lilith, Violet, Soraya, and the others—was one of genuine fascination. Lilith, in particular, pulled Sylvana aside, staring into her eyes as if inspecting a rare gem.

"This is excellent," Lilith declared, ever the pragmatist. "Now that you can see, you can handle a bigger workload. I need help managing the logistics."

It was an honest assessment. Even when blind, Sylvana had been a capable administrator. With her sight restored, she was a force multiplier. Furthermore, she posed no threat to the hierarchy; as a Legendary-level entity, she knew her place below the Queens.

Her return brought a festive atmosphere to the castle. Orion, however, did not join the celebrations. Upon his return, he retreated immediately to his private sanctum and entered a deep sleep.

In reality, his consciousness descended into his Abyssal World.

Orion manifested his true Titan body. He stood in the darkness, massive and terrifying, and fell into a long, brooding silence.

If Sylvana were here, she would have realized that what she saw in the tower wasn’t a trick of the light. One of Orion’s eyes was indeed blind.

However, Orion’s physiology was unique. He had shifted the affliction. The curse that had taken Sylvana’s sight now resided in the eye of one of the secondary heads of his Stoneheart Titan form. That specific head kept its eye shut tight, sealing the curse away.

Who was that titan?

Was it me? Someone else? Or... my father?

Father. The word felt ancient to Orion, distant and dusty. Yet, whenever he thought of his origins, a strange tranquility washed over him.

His mind replayed the image of the figure spanning the sky. It was blurry, but the multiple arms were distinct. It reminded him of his own Stoneheart Titan form. A bold hypothesis formed in his mind: If that wasn’t his parent, could it be a glimpse of his future self? A projection of his ultimate potential sent back through time?

He had to consider it. Because in saving Sylvana, Orion hadn’t just performed an act of charity. He had gained something.

The eye wasn’t just "blind." It was a prison.

Orion had used his own divine physiology to quarantine the Fate Curse transferred from Sylvana. Inside that sealed eye, trapped within the curse itself, was a trump card—a burst of power that could save his life in a critical moment.

Furthermore, the process of sealing the curse had unlocked a new understanding of the universe’s mechanics. He had acquired a new ability.

[Divine Art: Rite of Sacrifice]

It was a supreme technique that used living beings as raw material. It allowed him to refine a living soul and body into a dedicated weapon.

Orion realized that the white Bone-Forged Sword formed from Grommash was a crude, accidental prototype of this very art. The pieces were coming together, and the implications were terrifying.