Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1559: A Planet-Sized Broodmother

"Where are they?"

That was Seraphina’s burning question. She could sense the descent of countless insectoids, yet she couldn’t detect the aura of a single Demigod. This eerie phenomenon left her both shaken and deeply concerned.

"Up there," Orion said. His voice was deadly calm, completely devoid of emotion. He raised a finger, pointing straight toward the heavens to give her the answer.

Seraphina tilted her head back, a frown marring her beautiful features. She couldn’t sense a damn thing; her eyes were met with nothing but an abyss of absolute darkness.

Screech!

Suddenly, a bizarre, piercing cry echoed across the entire world. It sounded like the caw of a carrion bird mixed with the chittering of an insect. The sound carried no oppressive weight or coercive physical power, yet it rang perfectly clear in the ears of every living soul.

Immediately after, a cascading chorus of insectoid shrieks erupted, reverberating endlessly between heaven and earth.

Hearing this, Orion’s expression changed drastically.

Roar!

Without a second thought, Orion unleashed a furious, earth-shaking bellow. The deep, resonant roar rolled out from the castle like the tolling of a massive brass bell, sweeping across the entirety of the City of Stoneheart.

Simultaneously, in all the other cities across the continent under the Stoneheart Horde’s banner, Orion’s roar erupted from his statues, forcefully suppressing the apocalyptic chorus of insectoid shrieks.

Because Orion reacted with blinding speed, the citizens of the Stoneheart Horde suffered no ill effects.

But on the other side of the world, upon a different continent, a gruesome tragedy was already unfolding.

The Human Kingdom, Dawnbreak.

Dawnbreak was a newly established royal capital. On this continent, only nations governed by sovereign rule possessed royal capitals. Dawnbreak was newly minted because it had been founded by outsiders. It was the seat of King Harold; his human kingdom had migrated from another landmass to lay down roots on this new continent.

Yet, those fragile, budding roots were instantly shattered by the world-rending insectoid shrieks.

"Hurry! Issue the order! Activate the defensive wards!" Harold panicked. The chittering in his ears felt like an invasive, demonic curse.

The shrieks couldn’t affect beings at the Legendary level or above. But those at the Alpha level were instantly driven into a rabid frenzy upon hearing it, losing their minds and slaughtering anyone in sight.

As for those below the Alpha level—regardless of whether they were noble or commoner—they were actively undergoing insectoid mutation.

It was a visceral, horrifying metamorphosis. The stronger ones sprouted antennae from their skulls, their teeth sharpening into jagged mandibles. The weaker ones suffered horrific regressions of their torsos and limbs. Some mutated into bloated, writhing grubs, while others sprouted grotesque arthropod legs and tentacles. The most severe cases completely transformed into feral insectoids, unleashing wave after wave of bloody chaos throughout the city.

"Divine Decree: Tranquility!"

Just then, the voice of the human Demigod, Evander, finally echoed out from Mount Demigod, forcefully crushing the insectoid shrieks.

Even so, the decree—laced with the overwhelming will of a Demigod—still failed to halt the mutations of the vast majority.

"The integration of the two worlds is complete. The enemy has descended. Prepare for war."

Evander couldn’t afford to worry about the commoners right now. His only viable move was to hold the line at Mount Demigod, systematically deploying his forces and drafting battle plans, all while swatting down the immediate chaos spawned by the insectoid vanguard.

"Where is the enemy?"

Atop his mountain, Evander stared up at the sky. Just like Seraphina, he couldn’t detect the enemy’s physical presence. But Evander was shrewd. Since the enemy hadn’t materialized on the horizon or erupted from the earth, he deduced they were likely stationed high in the exosphere, or perhaps lurking within a fragmented pocket dimension.

"Gods, let’s just hope they aren’t overwhelmingly strong."

The Titan Continent, City of Stoneheart.

Orion had sensed the enemy and pointed Seraphina in their direction. Yet, both of them were still staring into a wall of absolute blackness.

"I’m going up to take a look," Orion declared suddenly. Without another word, he blasted off the balcony, rocketing into the sky like a reverse meteor.

"I’m coming with—" Seraphina instinctively moved to follow, but quickly killed the impulse. With Orion gone, someone had to hold down the fort for the Stoneheart Horde and the Mermaid Race. She couldn’t abandon her post.

"You better come back," she whispered, her eyes fixed on the endless dark.

High in the firmament, there was nothing but inky blackness. However, the dark didn’t blind Orion’s senses, nor did it throw him off course. He tore upward along the trajectory of his intuition, ripping through layer after layer of cloud and shadow.

Suddenly, Orion slammed on the brakes.

A crushing sense of peril washed over him. He felt as though he was being watched by some unfathomably powerful entity—or perhaps millions of them at once. A psychic wave of pure annihilation, slaughter, and ravenous hunger crashed into his mind.

A piercing avian screech echoed within his sea of consciousness. It was the psychic roar of the Divine Art: Mental Metamorphosis - Roar of the Roc.

The moment the Roc’s cry rang out, the invasive thoughts of destruction and carnage invading his mind completely shattered. The psychic roar unleashed a storm of Orion’s fierce, unyielding willpower, terrifying the encroaching chaos and repelling the mental invasion.

Orion’s eyes clouded over for a fraction of a second, but absolute clarity quickly returned.

"Cowards hiding in the dark. Let’s see exactly what you are!"

Staring straight ahead, Orion’s body began to rapidly expand, manifesting his true form as a Stoneheart Titan. Towering and majestic, the Titan gripped a trident in one hand and a heavy shield in the other, exuding an aura of absolute dominance.

Without a shred of hesitation, Orion channeled a tidal wave of divine power into the trident, condensing a terrifying amount of destructive force.

"Go! Show me your true face!"

CRACK!

The sheer force of the trident was devastating—it was power compressed to its absolute limit. With the integration of the two realms, the cosmic laws of the newborn world were far more robust, and the very fabric of space was considerably tougher. Yet, the trident Orion hurled effortlessly tore through the void, leaving a long, jagged spatial scar in its wake as it hurtled toward the unseen enemy.

Then came a sound that defied description. It was like the soft hiss of water from a sprinkler, or the faint, crackling static of the first rays of dawn breaking over the horizon.

Orion’s hurled trident blazed like a shooting star in the darkness... before silently disintegrating into the void ahead, extinguishing like a dying ember.

That specific trident was a trophy Orion had seized from the Holy Order’s Saint, forged from a Demigod-tier Divine Templar. Simply put, it was a one-time-use consumable—a solid trump card with massive destructive yield. Yet, even supercharged with Orion’s berserk divine power, the weapon had been obliterated before it could even touch the enemy.

A flicker of disappointment flashed in Orion’s eyes, quickly followed by a spark of savage elation.

The trident hadn’t reached its target, but as it disintegrated, it erupted into a colossal fireball, briefly illuminating the darkness ahead.

What it revealed left even Orion deeply shaken.

An asteroid was hurtling straight toward him.

No, not an asteroid—a Broodmother.

A Broodmother the size of a literal planetary body, trailing a massive, writhing tail of tentacles, was descending upon this newborn world.

Radiating from that celestial-sized abomination, Orion sensed over a dozen distinct Demigod auras, along with the endless, suffocating stench of an infinite insectoid swarm.

This was the grand army of the Insectoid Realm. They had finally arrived.