Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1524: Beyond the Spectacle

The auction stretched deep into the night, and Theodore managed to secure quite a few excellent finds.

When the broodmother eggs finally appeared as the grand finale, the sheer spectacle and the ensuing gasps from the crowd didn’t particularly move the newlywed couple.

A faint scent of magical elixirs drifted through the great hall, carried by a gentle breeze that soothed the mind and brought a sense of profound tranquility.

"This isn’t quite what I imagined," Delphine murmured, leaning against Theodore’s shoulder. She basked in the calming aroma while watching the bidding war over the eggs drive the price higher and higher.

Every spike in the cost was met with cries of shock and heavy sighs of defeat from competing bidders.

"It just occurred to me," Theodore said softly. "Within the Horde, there are only a handful of factions with the actual qualifications and wealth to win those eggs." He ticked them off on his fingers. "The Succubi, the Constructs, the Buffalofolk, the Gnolls, the Ogres, the Blood Elves... and me, representing humanity. But at the end of the day, the only ones who truly, desperately want them are me and your brother."

Theodore had suddenly realized a glaring truth: the veteran races that were deeply integrated into the Stoneheart Horde probably didn’t care about the true value of the eggs at all.

Their aggressive bidding and uproar were just them enjoying the show and stirring the pot. They were using the auction as a stage to casually flaunt their immense wealth and power. In the eyes of those established factions, the cave spiders and Lorelia effectively served as their own broodmothers.

Whenever they needed troops, the deep bonds of friendship and loyalty they had forged with the Horde and Lorelia meant they didn’t need to go through the trouble of raising a new broodmother from scratch. As long as they provided the Horde with the necessary resources and offered Lorelia a few gifts that caught her fancy, she would gladly hand over a legion of cave spiders. That entirely bypassed the incredibly complex, resource-draining nightmare of nurturing a broodmother themselves.

"Theodore, are you saying they’re all just here for the spectacle?" Delphine asked, her eyes full of confusion.

Theodore nodded, then shook his head. "The rare elixirs, the master-crafted weapons, the combat techniques salvaged from other worlds... those are what everyone else was really fighting over."

Theodore wasn’t the only one who had walked away from the auction with incredible spoils. This was an internal auction for the Stoneheart Horde, and the beneficiaries were the very factions whose military merits had built the empire. They had earned every bit of it.

"Let’s head back," Theodore said, standing up. "The rest of this farce has no meaning for us."

Delphine rose beside him, and together they offered a polite nod of farewell to the distant Elf King, Rommath. As family, they should have been sitting together and supporting each other in such a public setting. But to avoid the sheer awkwardness of a bidding war over the broodmother eggs, they had deliberately chosen seats far apart from the very beginning. If word got out, they might be the laughingstock of the court, but that was just how the theatrical reality of their situation played out.

What is even real anymore? Theodore thought to himself.

...

Minor Hell, Ashenheart Domain.

While the Stoneheart Horde was holding its internal auction, Orion’s phantom will remained slumbering deep within a cavern.

"Ahhhh..."

Suddenly, the sound of a loud, exaggerated stretch echoed through the cavern. It was Leonidas waking up, and the dramatic noise was entirely intentional. His goal, naturally, was to rouse his companions—especially the Deputy Commander, from whom he needed a favor.

"Lion, whenever you make that ridiculous noise, it means you’re about to start kissing someone’s ass," a voice drifted out from the darkness. It was Alexander, the first to be awakened. "Whose boots are you licking this time?"

"I’ll have you know I’m a majestic dragon now, not just Lion!" he retorted, cracking his neck. His tone was obnoxiously cute. Around his old friend Alexander, Leonidas had zero shame.

"So what you’re saying is, you’ve devolved into a lapdog dragon?" Alexander shot back. "Or are you just a bootlicking dragon? A bootlicking dragon of the Divine Dragon Race?"

Leonidas rolled his eyes, choking on his own retort. He decided to just ignore him.

"Old man, I know you’re awake too. Aren’t you going to say something?"

Among the group, the only one who qualified as the "old man" was Deputy Commander Edward, who maintained the appearance of a white-haired elder. Edward remained silent. He simply stared at Leonidas, his starlit eyes seeming to pierce right through all the nonsense.

"Whenever the words ’old man’ come out of your mouth, it means you want something from me," Edward finally said. "Let’s hear it. Let’s see how you try to hustle me this time."

Leonidas offered a goofy, unabashed grin. He didn’t look the least bit embarrassed.

"Did you and Hulk stir up a hornet’s nest? Can’t handle that world on your own and need backup?" Arthas’s voice drifted eerily from the shadows. Just listening to him made one feel exhausted.

Leonidas chuckled. Whether it was Alexander or Arthas, they were his closest friends, and they shared a profound understanding. All the banter and teasing was just a way to set the stage for him to drop his real news.

"Nuh-uh," Leonidas hummed, shaking his head to indicate they had been perfectly well-behaved and hadn’t caused any disasters. "Arthas, I’m not exaggerating here, but our little brother(Orion) has gotten absurdly fierce. Fiercer than me, fiercer than you—fiercer than all of us combined."

He paused for dramatic effect.

"He literally scared off the Goddess Agaman, who was wielding a Demigod Artifact. Man, the moment he summoned his Divine Kingdom, he was an unstoppable force of nature. Utterly invincible."

Leonidas’s praise for Orion flowed like an endless, rushing river.

Deputy Commander Edward, Arthas, and Alexander remained dead silent. The news spilling from Leonidas’s mouth had given them quite a shock.

"A Demigod Artifact?" Alexander finally said. "An entity wielding that kind of power could obliterate you in a single glance. So why are you still alive?"

The blunt question was infuriating. Leonidas wanted to argue back, but he honestly couldn’t find a good counter. Besides, he still needed his old friend to keep the conversation going, so he had to swallow his pride.

"Hey, assassin, you don’t hit a man where it hurts, alright?" Leonidas deflected smoothly, playing the shameless scoundrel. "We’re brothers. Leave a guy some dignity."

"Just get to the point," Arthas interrupted. "We don’t want to burn our faith energy listening to your nonsense."

It was part of their unspoken dynamic: whenever two of the trio started bickering, the third would inevitably step in to cut the nonsense and drag the focus back to the matter at hand.

"The World of Eldoria is ours!" Leonidas said, his tone turning deadpan and serious. "And our little brother conquered it almost entirely by himself. First, he fought the Holy Son of the Holy Order and their five divine Templars. Then, he terrified the descending avatar of the supreme Goddess Agaman into retreating. And finally, without shedding a single drop of blood, he intimidated the three Demigods of the sea into packing up and migrating away."

Now was the time to properly brief his old comrades on exactly what had transpired.

"Seriously, the moment that Demigod Artifact—a fragment of a magic mirror—came out, I felt like all of us combined wouldn’t be a match for it," Leonidas admitted, a shiver in his voice. "And when the Divine Kingdom descended, an expanse of the Abyssal World literally materialized beneath everyone’s feet. It felt like it was going to suck my very dragon soul right out of my body. It was terrifying."