Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1569: Blackstone Will Not Fall

"Abaddon’s aura is fading!"

"The enemy is powerful. Could all of Abaddon’s fission avatars have been destroyed?"

"There was a slight anomaly when the seal activated—a moment of stagnation. Did something go wrong?"

A gentle, sacred, and deeply maternal voice echoed through the floating planetary hive. It was Insect Queen Moriphara.

Since Orion had dragged Abaddon into his Divine Kingdom, the warding boundary—forged from Moriphara’s own Divine Kingdom—quickly sensed Abaddon’s life force plummeting to rock bottom. Combined with the unnatural stutter when her domain initially expanded, the Insect Queen immediately realized something was wrong. She didn’t believe Orion had escaped the seal; the spatial lock she and Moniq were channeling hadn’t suffered any external breaches.

"Moniq, remain vigilant. The sealed entity may be playing tricks!" Moriphara projected her grim premonition to Moniq outside the sealed space.

"Rest assured, Your Majesty. I will not let the enemy escape!"

...

The South. Blackstone City.

Atop the highest peak of Moonshadow Valley, Dirtclaw stood with Rendall and Onyx flanking him a step behind. They looked down upon Blackstone City and the brutal siege raging across its walls.

Though Dirtclaw had been tasked with the Northern Crusade, the harsh reality was that the Fourth Legion couldn’t advance a single inch. An endless sea of crawling horrors outside the city walls had completely stalled their march. To forge north and expand their borders, Dirtclaw first had to lead his men to scour the immediate perimeter and stabilize the Stoneheart Horde’s northern frontline.

"I wonder how Thunderhawk City and Lysinthia City are holding up?"

Thunderhawk City was essentially the harpy roost within Thunderwood Forest. The fortress the Stoneheart Horde had constructed there had been granted to Thunderhawk Rayden as his personal fief. Because the roost bred harpies, Orion wanted Rayden to subjugate and lead them. Tactically, only an apex aerial predator could effectively tame a flock of natural-born flyers and beat them into submission.

"Don’t worry, Archelder. Those harpies hold absolute aerial superiority. The swarm won’t be breaching that city anytime soon," Onyx replied. "As for Lysinthia City, it backs right up to the Misty Gulf. The waters are teeming with Ocean Hunters. No matter how many bugs wash up on those shores, they’ll just be reduced to fish food."

Rendall and Onyx were old comrades who had jointly enlisted in Dirtclaw’s Fourth Legion. It was a funny twist of fate; back in the day, Dirtclaw used to run errands for these two elders. Now, Rendall and Onyx were drawing their pay under Dirtclaw’s command.

"Besides, Elder Lysinthia has already teleported over. They’ll be fine." Rendall nodded. Hearing Onyx mention Lysinthia eased his anxieties considerably.

"This current stalemate is a damn headache," Dirtclaw sighed in sheer frustration, pulling his gaze back from the bloody frontlines.

The sheer volume of feral insectoids was absurd. Even an Archlord powerhouse like Dirtclaw found it incredibly daunting. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to vault over the walls and slaughter the invading swarm to the last bug. What kept Dirtclaw anchored in place were the faint, terrifyingly powerful auras lingering in the void.

He didn’t even need to guess. Those were the Archlord-tier insectoids commanding the swarm from the shadows.

"Heavy hitters lurking in the dark waiting to strike, and an endless tide of cannon fodder grinding us down. The enemy isn’t giving us a single opening to counterattack!"

Having survived countless wars and seen the worst the world had to offer, Dirtclaw had formed his own tactical read on the battlefield. The enemy’s strategy was obvious: they were going to systematically bleed the Stoneheart Horde dry, chewing away at them piece by piece in a brutal war of attrition.

"Legion Commander, are there really that many of them?" Onyx asked. Both he and Rendall were only at the Legendary level; their senses couldn’t penetrate the veil to detect the hidden insectoid Archlords.

"Prophet, there are four Archlords out there. They’re dug in at the north, south, east, and west of Blackstone City."

In truth, Dirtclaw didn’t dare charge out to slaughter the swarm. Aside from the obvious risk of getting jumped by four peers, he was terrified that the moment he left, the enemy Archlords would launch a decapitation strike on Blackstone City. It wasn’t that he feared the city falling—but as the Commander of the Fourth Legion, handpicked by Giant King Orion himself, he absolutely refused to let any disaster befall the territory under his watch. These intersecting pressures left Dirtclaw with his hands tied.

"Oh my... when did our Blackstone City get so lively?"

Just as Dirtclaw, Rendall, and Onyx were scowling in deep thought, a sweet, deceptively innocent voice tinkled in their ears.

A moment later, Lorelia, the Cave Spider Queen, materialized beside them in a little red dress, peering down at the carnage on the walls.

"Wow... so many bugs trying to climb the walls! Archelder, Prophet, could you drag them all down into the subterranean rifts for me? My newborn subjects are growing so fast, and they’re just absolutely starving!"

With that, Lorelia pulled her gaze from the battlefield, tilted her head, and stared at Rendall and Onyx with wide, expectant eyes. The little girl’s face was a picture of pure innocence—just like the helpless fledgling Rendall used to feed back in the day.

"Alright, I’ll catch some for you myself in a bit!" Facing Lorelia—the respectful little creature who had grown into a powerhouse pouring all her strength back into the Horde—Rendall couldn’t muster a single thought of refusal. He agreed instantly, his heart swelling with genuine paternal pride.

"I’ll give the orders right away," Onyx added, offering Lorelia a warm, indulgent smile.

"Lady Lorelia! You’ve emerged from seclusion!" Unlike the two elders, even as an Archlord, Dirtclaw remained as fiercely sycophantic as ever.

His eyes practically sparkled. The moment Lorelia had returned to Blackstone City, she had vanished into her hive to incubate her brood. Her absence meant Dirtclaw had been entirely deprived of her Archlord-tier support. Moreover, a Broodmother of Lorelia’s caliber was an asset that needed to be fiercely protected; Dirtclaw would never dare ask her to join him on the front lines.

"Mhm... incubating little spiders is exhausting. I came out for some fresh air." Lorelia rewarded Dirtclaw with an approving look before tilting her head back to stare at the bruised, stormy sky.

"Dirtclaw, the enemy is bullying us right on our doorstep. How can you just stand there and take it?" Lorelia’s gaze darkened, the innocent persona evaporating in a split second.

"Child, this is your home. If a bandit breaks in, you chase them out." Without waiting for Dirtclaw to answer, Lorelia began to hum—an eerie, off-key rendition of a little song Orion used to sing to coax her when she was young.