Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1489: Obsidian Ascendant

Orion’s task was simple: obliterate the lingering wills.

He didn’t hesitate or waste breath on eulogies. A torrent of violet Divine Power crashed down, drowning the two consciousnesses instantly, grinding them into nothingness.

Only then did Orion imprint his own will into the Guardian Shield and the Holy Sword.

A moment later, a mix of triumph and disappointment flickered in his eyes.

The triumph came from mastering the secret method to manifest these weapons. The disappointment came from the realization that their power fell short of his expectations.

Take the Guardian Shield. Orion had hoped for its fabled "hundredfold reflection" capability. But upon seizing control, he realized the mechanic wasn’t based on a conceptual Law. It was simply a battery that discharged stored Faith Energy to mimic a counterattack.

That was the fundamental difference between these constructs and the shard of the Mirror of Theras.

The Undying Projection created by the Magic Mirror was woven from the fabric of Universal Laws, requiring very little of Orion’s own Divine Power to sustain. The Shield was just a mana dump.

As for the Holy Sword, it was even less impressive.

Orion gathered his Divine Power. With a thought, he began to reshape the weapon.

The sword in his hand elongated, the metal twisting and branching until it formed a trident—a nod to the Flame of Will wielded by Elara. He had grown accustomed to the balance of a polearm.

Having dealt with the weapons, Orion turned his gaze toward the Stoneheart Temple.

Down there, within the Sea of Blood, his subordinates were still struggling to survive their evolution.

Unbound. Unbroken. Solid as bedrock.

These were the virtues carved into the very marrow of the Obsidian Golem lineage.

Onyx had lost track of time within the Sea of Blood, but he knew the climb up the spectral mountain had been swift. Rock and mountain were one; they did not reject their own.

When he reached the summit, the suffering turned to clarity. The impurities were washed away.

It was a transcendent sensation.

Onyx looked down. Cracks were spiderwebbing across his body. Snap. Crack. Within fifteen minutes, his stone shell shattered completely, the debris raining down around him.

But Onyx hadn’t died. His perception was crystal clear.

He didn’t feel pain or loss. He felt... present. He was still standing there, even if he could no longer see his own body.

High above in the firmament, Orion materialized. He watched the anomaly occurring with Onyx, his eyes alight with curiosity.

A significant portion of the second wave of entrants were non-Giants. Initially, Orion hadn’t paid them much heed. But seeing Onyx now, and recalling Dirtclaw’s transformation, a pattern emerged.

For non-Giants, entering the Stoneheart Sea of Blood was a gamble. A small percentage died outright. The rest... evolved.

But they didn’t become pure Stoneheart Titans.

The Titan blood acted as a catalyst, a dominant agent that fused with and mutated their original lineage.

Just like Onyx.

On the peak, Onyx’s physical form had disintegrated into a pile of rubble. The weaker stone turned to dust and vanished, leaving only the hardest, most conductible essence of his being—his core minerals.

Blackstone City is bustling as always... the Black Forest seems to have many new inhabitants...

Onyx’s mind drifted through a fugue state. One moment he was standing on the eastern ridges overlooking Blackstone City; the next, he was back in the ancestral mountain range of the Obsidian Golems. Then, a blur, and he saw Stoneheart City, the southern bastion of his people.

Finally, his mind snapped back to the present.

"Is this... the Legendary realm?"

The voice was a whisper on the wind. Onyx had regained his consciousness, but he still lacked a vessel.

Just as confusion began to set in, a door opened within his mind’s eye, offering a silent guidance.

Without hesitation, Onyx stepped through.

In the physical world, a vortex formed where Onyx had stood.

Crimson water from the Sea of Blood surged upward, spiraling into a tight cyclone. As the blood solidified, the pile of elite stone essence levitated, drawn by an invisible magnetic force. Piece by piece, the stone locked onto the blood vortex, assembling like a puzzle.

The process was violent but brief. By the time it settled, Orion had descended to stand before him.

"Chieftain!"

Only the giants and the Old Guard—the ones who had followed him since the founding of the Stoneheart Horde—used that title. It was a remnant of the days when the clans first merged, a badge of honor for both the leader and the led.

"Congratulations, Prophet, on ascending to the Legendary realm."

Orion’s tone was gentle, echoing their first meeting on the ancestral mountain of the Golems.

"It is all due to the Chieftain’s grace!"

Orion smiled, saying nothing, merely gesturing for Onyx to inspect his new form.

The Onyx standing there was a far cry from the hulking construct of the past. If he was a siege engine before, he was now a precision instrument.

He resembled a knight clad in sleek, matte-black plate armor.

He had gained the ability to manipulate his size, shrinking down to a compact seven feet—the height of a tall human. He looked slimmer, almost agile.

But the internal changes were radical.

The Stoneheart Titan bloodline flowed through him, providing the core power source. The "armor" on the outside was the concentrated essence of his previous body. And inside? The clumsy organs of a golem were gone. In their place sat a swirling vortex of blood energy.

It was a perfect, positive mutation.

"How does it feel?" Orion asked, eager for data that could help predict the evolution of other non-Titan followers.

"Different," Onyx rumbled. "I feel... limitless. The old ceiling on my potential is gone."

Onyx clenched his fist. The air inside his palm detonated with a sharp crack.

He opened his hand, and the stone scales on his forearm flowed like liquid mercury, extending and hardening until a massive battle axe materialized in his grip.

"Materialization?"