Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1561: Insect Queen

At the mention of their own backyards burning, the color drained completely from Evander and Kairon’s faces. Without a second thought, and without uttering a single word, they turned and bolted from the City of Stoneheart.

"Were you just trying to scare them?" Seraphina asked, her gaze turning skeptical and probing once the two Demigods had vanished.

Orion let out a soft chuckle. He reached out, hooking an arm around Seraphina’s slender waist, and spoke in a mild tone. "Bluffing about something like this isn’t my idea of a joke."

"The reason you couldn’t detect the auras of those Demigods is partly because they are deliberately masking their presence, but mostly due to the suppressive cosmic laws of this newly forged world," Orion explained. "It won’t be long before you realize that our world has become a playground for dancing demons and warring gods."

Orion tilted his head up, his eyes locked onto the approaching Broodmother asteroid.

If possible, Orion would have loved to test the absolute depths of the insectoid swarm’s strength in one fell swoop, forcing them to reveal their trump cards. However, upon realizing the overwhelming might of the Broodmother asteroid and sensing the presence of unknown Demigods, he had decisively chosen to retreat.

Furthermore, in the wake of his retreat, the bombardments raining down from the Broodmother asteroid had scattered, striking every corner of the globe. Those bombardments were actually embedded with teleportation markers. From the moment Orion returned to the Stoneheart Horde, countless insectoids had used those markers to descend upon the newborn world, turning it into a writhing ocean of chitin and claws.

In other words, the swarm had launched an indiscriminate crusade against all non-insectoid life.

"They’ve stopped!"

Seraphina’s soft gasp pulled Orion from his grim reverie. Regaining his focus, Orion stared at the Broodmother asteroid, which had now halted its descent, hovering ominously over the center of the world. His expression grew even heavier.

...

The South, City of Blessings.

As everyone stared up at the heavens, awestruck by the meteor-like Broodmother, the reborn Laito was spiraling into a manic frenzy of realization.

That is the Insect Queen! That is Moriphara, the apex of absolute vitality, the mother who births a million swarms!

You pathetic morsels. You have absolutely no idea. Now that the two worlds have merged, this exact moment is your absolute best, and only, window to slay the great Insect Queen Moriphara!

Once Her Majesty’s cosmic laws radiate into every corner of this world, no one will be able to run.

As a former apex entity of the Insectoid Race, Laito naturally knew the swarm’s deepest secrets. The God-Devouring Insectoid Race was terrifyingly powerful for one simple reason: Insect Queen Moriphara was a supreme anomaly who had manifested a Divine Kingdom at merely the Third-Stage Demigod realm.

The very world she inhabited was her Divine Kingdom. Before the convergence, the entire Insectoid Realm had functioned as Moriphara’s Divine Kingdom. Now that the two realms had forcibly merged, her Divine Kingdom had been fractured, riddled with flaws and vulnerabilities. This was the golden window to strike her down.

The longer this dragged on, the further Moriphara’s divine power would radiate into this new world, and the more invincible she would become.

What a pity. These Titanion Realm Demigods are narrow-minded fools. Instead of launching a preemptive strike against the Insect Queen, they scattered like frightened rats.

In truth, Laito fully understood Orion’s decision. Anyone faced with a dozen Demigod auras simultaneously would instinctively choose to fall back. And that was exactly the psychological deterrent the insectoid Demigods had deliberately projected. It protected Insect Queen Moriphara while simultaneously buying the swarm precious time to amass their forces.

Just like always. The moment the war begins, the swarm claims absolute superiority.

The insectoid Demigods won’t initiate any direct assaults in the short term. They’ll just unleash their children to launch an endless, grinding invasion, slowly chewing away the enemy’s strength piece by piece. I wonder if these lowly native races will ever realize that wars of attrition are the swarm’s most lethal weapon.

...

City of Stoneheart, The Castle.

The darkness had been banished. The colossal Broodmother hung in the center of the world like a dormant meteor, a miraculous and terrifying spectacle seared into the minds of every citizen.

"The world has changed."

Inside the grand hall, Orion had summoned Dirtclaw, Gustalon, Lorelia, and Kaelen, preparing to reassign their operational mandates.

"The original Titanion Realm was divided by three continents in an inverted triangle formation. Our Titan Continent was one of them."

As Orion spoke, pure divine power spilled from his body, enveloping the entire hall. The immense divine power pooled together, filling the chamber like an ethereal ocean. Within this projected ocean, three continents and countless archipelagos rendered themselves in perfect detail, mapping out the old Titanion Realm.

Dirtclaw, Gustalon, Lorelia, and Kaelen remained silent, immersed in Orion’s divine projection, viewing their original world from the omniscient vantage point of a god.

"With the integration of the Insectoid Realm and the Titanion Realm, our world has been completely restructured."

At Orion’s words, the projected world dissolved back into a sprawling, featureless ocean. This time, when the lands rose from the waters, there were nine supercontinents. The largest landmass sat dead in the center, encircled by the other eight continents from all directions.

"Our Titan Continent is here!"

Within the sea of divine power, the easternmost continent suddenly pulsed with a dark red glow, branded with a violently blinking sigil of a Stoneheart Titan. The commanders followed Orion’s cue, focusing on the newly mapped Titan Continent—the seat of their Horde.

It was drastically different from the Titan Continent they knew. Now, only the southernmost fraction of the landmass resembled their familiar topography. A jagged, highly pronounced mountain ridge ran straight through the middle of the continent, acting as a brutal dividing line that split the landmass in two.

"As you can see, the territory to the north of our Titan Continent has expanded by more than threefold." Orion stated. "This is the direct result of a continent from the Insectoid Realm violently crashing into the Titan Continent during the realm integration."

Everyone’s eyes locked onto the northern expanse. A mountain cannot house two tigers. This was the sovereign territory of the Stoneheart Horde; they would absolutely not permit any alien race to occupy it.

"Praise the King!" Dirtclaw was the first to snap out of the awe induced by the three-dimensional divine projection. "This is a divine gift bestowed upon our Stoneheart Horde. I, Dirtclaw, volunteer to lead the Fourth Legion and conquer this new frontier in Your Majesty’s name! Your Majesty’s glory shall illuminate the entire continent!"

For a Horde Legion Commander like him, the explosive expansion of the Titan Continent was an impossibly seductive prospect. To expand the Horde’s borders, to carve their names into history, to be sung about in legends for generations—that was their ultimate pursuit. That was their absolute glory.

"Father, I am also willing to march north. I will spill the Horde’s glory across every inch of that land beneath our feet!"

Following Dirtclaw, Kaelen’s voice rang out through the great hall—sonorous, powerful, and blazing with righteous fire.