Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1556: The Rain That Changed the World

The tension in the cavern gradually thawed amidst Pallas’s overbearing nature and Sylvie’s earnest explanations. Still, no matter what she said, Pallas had absolutely no intention of letting her go.

With the Gnoll Wepwawet guarding the cave entrance and four more royal guards patrolling the deep woods just outside, it was physically impossible for Sylvie to escape on her own.

"Where are you from?" Pallas asked. "A world beyond the Whispering Woods?"

"..."

Titanion Realm. The City of Sophia.

Compared to the barren wasteland it had once been, the City of Sophia had truly come into its own. Beyond the heavy defensive bastions erected along the perimeter walls, the city center had flourished, sprawling outward from the Castellan’s Keep into a dense network of grand architecture.

This was all thanks to Butterfly Mother Sophia. It was the culmination of the Dark Butterfly Race pouring their absolute all into the territory.

Standing on the highest balcony of the Castellan’s Keep, everything beyond the city’s flickering hearths was swallowed by pitch blackness. The distant horizons were dark, and the sky above was a lightless void.

If not for the towering statue of the Giant King in the central plaza radiating a constant, sacred luminescence, the sheer terror of the oppressive darkness would have driven most of the populace to cower in underground bunkers.

"Is there truly nothing in your inherited memories regarding this celestial anomaly?" Sophia asked, glancing back at Melissa.

Compared to when they first met, Melissa had matured significantly, carrying herself with a refined, intellectual grace. Through her ongoing integration, she had developed a profound understanding of the Stoneheart Horde’s systems, culture, and customs. It was the enlightenment of true civilization. Melissa had reaped the benefits, and the spiritual intelligence shining in her eyes only grew sharper by the day.

"Nothing!" Melissa shook her head. "Mother, our clan doesn’t sit at the apex of the Insectoid Race. While we inherently counter draconian species to a degree, we only rank in the upper-middle echelon of the swarms. We are a specialized, utility-driven caste."

When it came to the Insectoid Realm and the grand swarms, Broodmothers like Melissa—who were deployed as advance units—had vast swaths of their inherited memories deliberately wiped. They were essentially defective goods. Simply put, they were cannon fodder dispatched by the swarms to bleed the enemy’s resources.

"Mother, you and the Master need to make preparations immediately," Melissa warned. "In my memories, the insectoid swarms of our home realm have never lost a war."

Spending so much time together, Melissa’s docile nature had drawn her remarkably close to Sophia. Their shared experiences and similar temperaments forged a steadily deepening bond.

"Submit to the insectoids?" Sophia’s voice dripped with disdain, revulsion, and absolute contempt. "Do you honestly believe the high-tier entities of the Insectoid Realm would ever value Broodmothers like us if we returned? To them, we’re nothing but worker butterflies meant to gather honey!"

Sophia didn’t entertain Melissa’s suggestion for a second. She didn’t possess even a shred of desire to betray Orion or the Stoneheart Horde.

Though Sophia was a Broodmother, the world she originally hailed from was a realm steeped in wisdom and high civilization. Compared to the brutal, cannibalistic laws of the swarms, an advanced civilization like the Stoneheart Horde was vastly superior for humanoid insectoids like them to grow and thrive.

Sophia had no idea what kind of civilization the swarms of the Insectoid Realm had built, but she knew one universal truth: no empire ever truly opens its arms to outsiders or subjugated thralls. To the native swarms of the Insectoid Realm, insectoids born and raised in foreign worlds weren’t kin—they were hostiles.

But in the Stoneheart Horde, with her and Kaelen anchoring their place, the Dark Butterfly Race were viewed as true, blood-sworn allies.

"In a civilization forged by countless intelligent beings, do you know what the most important element is?" Sophia asked.

"Absolute power," Melissa replied instantly.

The answer did not satisfy the Matriarch.

"Wrong," Sophia corrected smoothly. "It is the intricate web of politics, and the mutual binding and exchange of vested interests. You will only be permitted to leave my side when you finally comprehend that."

Sophia turned back to the dark horizon, ignoring the younger Broodmother. Raised in the brutal wild and untouched by the tempering influence of other intelligent cultures, Broodmothers like Melissa were fundamentally rigid. Their instincts merely drove them to blindly follow whatever entity they deemed the strongest.

It was exactly why Melissa had initially chosen to submit to Kaelen. At the time, her actions were purely dictated by her baseline Broodmother instincts. Only when Melissa finally broke free from the primal survival laws of the insectoids would she truly achieve personal growth.

Rumble!

Just as Sophia finished schooling Melissa, a deafening crack of thunder tore through the lightless sky.

Thunder roared across the firmament as jagged forks of lightning clawed their way out of the dark, dancing like wild, silver serpents. Immediately after, the heavens opened up. A torrential, apocalyptic downpour swept across the entire world.

City of Stoneheart. The Castle.

On the highest balcony of the royal castle, Orion stood bathed in the raging storm, his gaze fixed on the endless sky.

To his subjects, this was simply a violent shift in the weather. To Orion, it was the catastrophic restructuring of cosmic laws. It was the final baptism of rain before the newly merged world fully tore away its veil.

This downpour was supercharged with colossal amounts of magical elements. What was falling from the sky wasn’t mere water; it was the primordial essence of the world, nourishing all creation.

"The tectonic plates are shifting!"

Seraphina materialized beside Orion. Her face was an unreadable mask as she joined him in staring up at the lightning fracturing the sky. Through Seraphina’s eyes, those weren’t just lightning bolts—they were physical manifestations of the world’s shifting laws.

"The oceans are expanding at a terrifying rate. The Glazed Sanctum is rapidly drifting away from the Titan Continent," Seraphina noted, her brow finally furrowing in concern.

"I sense it too," Orion replied, his voice eerily calm, devoid of any discernible emotion. "The landmass of the Titan Continent is exploding outward due to the violent tectonic upheavals. The great snowy mountains in the north are melting, and a massive, uncharted continent has crashed into our northern borders. On top of that, the southern seas are receding, exposing vast new stretches of land."

"Truthfully, I can’t even begin to fathom just how unimaginably massive the Insectoid Realm must be to inflict such a staggering physical impact on the Titanion Realm," Orion murmured. "I fear our new enemies will be an absolute nightmare to deal with."

The oceans were swelling. The continents were expanding. The cosmic laws of both realms had fully integrated. These geographical cataclysms were merely the new world’s first wave of restructuring.

"If the geography continues to warp like this, our grand alliance will exist in name only," Seraphina voiced her deepest dread. "We will all be geographically isolated. We’ll be forced to fight this war entirely alone!"

Originally, the Stoneheart Horde, the Merfolk Race, and the Dragons had forged a united front. Their grand strategy for the alien invasion relied on the geographical proximity of the Titan Continent, the Silvercurrent Sea, and the Moonwake Sea. By uniting the forces of land and sea, they would have been an impenetrable iron wall.

Now, however, the catastrophic reshaping of the world’s topography threatened to completely shatter that grand plan.