Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1566: A Hidden Blade, A Sea of Storms

Titanion Realm. The Floating Continent.

The night was filled with the endless, overlapping chittering of insectoids, completely masking the muffled sounds of shifting earth deep underground. In the pitch-black heart of an eerily silent, lightless forest, the foul stench of death and the Abyss began to seep up through the soil.

Crack. Snap. One by one, skeletal hands clawed their way out of the dirt. A thick, unnatural fog of necrotic energy rapidly flooded the woods. As if spooked by a sudden, lethal predator, the chaotic chittering of the nearby insectoids rapidly retreated until the forest fell into absolute, deathly silence.

"Mmm... a familiar, yet entirely foreign environment."

"There’s a scent in the air that simply doesn’t exist in my memories."

From the deepest depths of the unnatural fog, a towering Skeletal Knight dragged itself out of a freshly excavated tunnel. It was a bizarre and terrifying sight, as several distinct voices echoed directly from within the hollow ribcage of the single undead vessel.

"Of course it feels foreign to you!"

"Bloodfeather, the Titanion Realm is no longer the world we knew!"

The first voice belonged to Bloodfeather. The second, answering him, was Carola. Both had served as elite guards to the former Chieftain of the Stoneheart Giant Race, Clymene.

"According to our intelligence, this is an entirely new landmass. It’s a continent originating from the Insectoid Realm," a seductive, distinctly female voice purred from within the Skeletal Knight. It was the Succubus Elder, Jayne. As a succubus, she had always served as the tactical mind of their vanguard unit. "When the two worlds merged, the insectoids’ territories expanded with it."

"This floating continent is undeniably guarded by a Demigod!"

"Chieftain, we are running out of time to prepare!"

As undead constructs, Skeletal Knights made for the absolute perfect vanguard and scouts.

"There is no need to rush," Clymene’s voice finally echoed, commanding and calm. "Lord Eparus and Lord Vex will descend shortly after us. We are not fighting this war alone. Right now, our primary objective is to construct as many necropolises as possible before we are detected, paving the way for the Horde’s Abyssal army."

Against a sprawling, endlessly multiplying swarm like the insectoids, the undead—masters of skeletal summoning and necromantic conversion—were the ultimate counter. This was Orion’s grand design, and Clymene was fully privy to the strategy. Furthermore, this invasion was being launched deep behind enemy lines, directly into territory the swarm had already claimed.

Clymene didn’t yet know the absolute upper limits of the swarm’s power, but she was certain of one thing: barring the Demigod-tier powerhouses, the current Stoneheart Horde didn’t fear the insectoids in the slightest. No matter how many millions of bugs they threw at the wall, the Horde could crush them.

"Jayne, unleash your Voice of Beguilement," Clymene ordered. "Cast an illusion over the insectoids in the immediate vicinity. We cannot allow news of our insertion to leak. Additionally, we need to begin harvesting living sacrifices en masse. If the Conquest Legion is to deploy heavier forces, a vast sum of sacrifices is mandatory."

"..."

The Titanion Realm had officially been transformed into a cosmic chessboard. The insectoid swarm and the native Demigod alliance, spearheaded by Orion, were the two dominant players locked in a brutal match. Yet, out on the fringes of the board, other unknown powerhouses were quietly placing their own hidden pieces.

Orion summoning the Conquest Legion from the Abyssal World was exactly that—a hidden dagger planted in the chaos, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

...

Far Away. The Silvercurrent Sea.

Above the ocean, the sky was a bruised expanse of black clouds. Apocalyptic storms raged, torrential rain pouring down as silver serpents of lightning violently fractured the heavens.

Beneath the surface, the ocean was practically boiling. Massive, chaotic currents violently churned as countless figures darted through the water, painting a brutal, sprawling portrait of deep-sea warfare. Merfolk soldiers, sea clan warriors, and abyssal leviathans were locked in a bloodbath against aquatic insectoids. The pristine waters were shredded, muddied, and dyed a sickening, rusty crimson.

BOOM!

BOOM!

Two colossal waterspouts violently erupted from the oceanic depths, tearing straight into the stormy sky. They slammed into each other, twisting, grinding, and violently washing away the surrounding clouds in a pure display of evenly matched destructive force.

When the two titanic pillars of water finally ripped apart, Seraphina and a bizarre stranger stood atop their respective spouts, deadlocked and ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

"Your Grace, if the Merfolk Race submits to our God-Devouring Insectoid Race, I, Raigor, can promise you will be spared from the slaughter," the stranger offered. "So long as you pay tribute, you will be permitted to live and thrive in your original territories."

The Demigod offering the ultimatum was Raigor. He was a grotesque, jarring existence—possessing the heavily muscled torso of a human, but trailing a massive, slithering serpentine tail. His features were deeply unnerving; it was impossible to discern whether he was male or female. Where his nose should have been, there was only a pitch-black, hollow cavity. Staring at it for too long induced a creeping sense of visceral dread.

"What a joke. Since when do we need your charity to live in our own domain?"

Seraphina leveled her trident directly at Raigor, her eyes blazing with absolute fury. Submit. Surrender. Pay tribute. To Seraphina, the very words were a vile, grating insult.

In any realm, the Merfolk Race sat at the absolute pinnacle of beauty. Seraphina knew exactly what would happen if they bent the knee. Her people would be subjected to endless, nightmarish exploitation. Their wealth would be stripped, their bodies commodified. Her kin would slowly be reduced to slaves—tools to be traded, sold, and used for the swarm’s perverse amusement.

Therefore, resistance was absolute. It was a fight to the bitter end.

"Your Grace, you clearly do not understand the board," Raigor sneered. "Twelve Demigod Progenitors of my race have descended upon this realm. This world will become our ultimate nesting ground. All who resist will be utterly annihilated!"

As he spoke, Raigor spread his hands. Two spheres of deep, spectral-blue cosmic laws condensed in his palms. Influenced by this terrifying power, the surrounding ocean roared, and the lightning in the sky violently converged. In seconds, a supermassive sphere of lightning crackled to life around Raigor, radiating a suffocating, apocalyptic pressure.

It was a blatant threat.

As an oceanic Demigod, Seraphina’s cosmic laws were intrinsically tied to water. Lightning was her natural, elemental counter.

"No matter how many Demigod phantoms you manifest, we will crush them one by one," Raigor promised, his voice dropping into a glacial, murderous chill as Seraphina refused to buy his bluff. "Until we slaughter you completely!"

"We’re both First-Stage Demigods. Who the hell are you trying to scare?" Seraphina shot back fiercely. "We’ll see who kills who!"

Seraphina gripped Moonwake with both hands. Behind her, a colossal, majestic Merfolk phantom erupted into existence. Facing the apocalyptic storm of lightning and rain, the phantom showed zero fear. Treating the very fabric of the void as its ocean, the colossal Merfolk slammed its tail against the air and violently charged the enemy.