Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1579: Bait and Burn

"The treasures of gods aren’t so easily plundered."

"Our Champions Alliance is in for a rough ride. Nothing but trouble ahead."

Thresh knew the brutal truth of the world: every titan who clawed their way to the top left a trail of corpses and a wake of enemies. In his eyes, the greedy Orion already possessed the spark and the capital to rise.

"Kids these days. Always looking to stir up trouble."

"Was that brat testing my boundaries?"

"Have I been too soft lately?"

"Nonsense. How dare he doubt his peerless, almighty Commander—a man who wrestles ancient gods and flattens all modern rivals? He needs a beating."

"Then again, the kid has big things to do. I’ll just beat up his son instead."

This was a different Commander Thresh. This was the man behind closed doors.

A pity Orion had already left and missed it.

...

Titanion Realm. The Great Kigal Ocean.

Before the realms merged, this deep-water expanse belonged to the Dreadfin Race. Nobody called it the Great Kigal Ocean anymore. Ever since the swarm invaded, it was known only as the Insectoid Sea.

Oooom!

A low, resonant thrum vibrated through the abyssal depths. It was a long, guttural screech that tore through the trenches, sharper than a dragon’s roar and more piercing than a whale’s song.

A demigod’s aura erupted without restraint. The crushing pressure instantly pulverized the physical forms of the lower-tier insectoids lurking nearby. The weaker ones had their souls obliterated on the spot.

"It’s the leviathan!"

"Found you!"

"Is he out of his mind? It’s a death wish!"

The moment Kairon’s demigod aura spiked, three equally terrifying presences plummeted from the sky. This was a standard swarm hunting pack. Their target: Kairon.

Water churned.

Accompanied by the Dreadfin’s deafening cry, the ocean boiled. A colossal, horn-covered head breached the deep blue surface. It tilted upward, glaring at the three insectoid demigods hovering in the sky.

"Filthy crawling scum! Your very existence taints the Titanion Realm!" Kairon bellowed. "I swear I’ll drive you from our home! My wrath will be your death knell!"

Surrounded by peers of equal strength, Kairon showed no fear. Yet, he didn’t strike first. His mere appearance was a declaration of war. He let his massive body slowly rise from the depths. Even just his exposed upper half—a mountain of jagged dorsal fins—radiated an ancient, indestructible sharpness.

"Feel my fury!"

Before fully breaching the water, Kairon coiled to strike. But the airborne demigods beat him to the punch. Three beams of raw divine power blasted into Kairon in the blink of an eye.

"Hahaha... I’ll slaughter every last one of you!"

Bathed in searing light, Kairon didn’t utter a single scream. Instead, he laughed. A mad, gleeful laughter.

The three hunters in the sky couldn’t see it, but deep within Kairon’s colossal body, a page from The Chapter of the Profane was ravenously devouring his divine power. Having previously consumed a Fel Fruit, his physical vessel was already fully transformed. He had only shown himself to draw their attacks. He needed the strength of the insectoid demigods to further empower himself before fully converting into pure, conceptual divine power.

"The wrath of Kairon will reduce you to ash!"

It was a bizarre sight. Still howling with laughter, Kairon’s physical form began to phase out, dissolving into a halo of black-gold light.

"divine power integration!"

"Manifesting the rules!"

"Dammit, he’s trying to—"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Realizing his goal, the panicked demigods unleashed another volley of attacks.

Too late.

Instead of interrupting him, their energy fed directly into The Chapter of the Profane, granting Kairon another surge of strength.

The Realm of Rules was a vast, formless expanse, flowing like an endless river.

A ripple disturbed the tranquil currents, expanding into outward waves.

So this is the realm of rules?

A phantom silhouette surged from the depths of the myriad rules—Kairon, now fully converted into a being of pure conceptual power. The world before him felt both intimately familiar and entirely alien.

"I didn’t expect you to resist this way. Do you truly value your own lives so little?"

Mature. Elegant. Merciful.

That was Kairon’s first impression of the female voice. He turned to face the speaker.

"Insect Queen Moriphara?"

The woman before him had blurred, indistinct features. Her lower half dissolved into a spool of ethereal threads that wove seamlessly into the world’s rules. Compared to Kairon’s phantom form, Moriphara was far more solid. Despite her facelessness, Kairon could sense an overwhelming, maternal aura radiating from her. She possessed a gentle demeanor, perfectly balanced with the absolute authority of a sovereign.

For a fleeting moment, Kairon thought he saw Seraphina. Moriphara and Seraphina shared an undeniably similar presence.

"You seem surprised to find me here in the domain of rules," she said. "With your current realm, you shouldn’t be here. Those people must have pushed you to use a forbidden technique. You are a pitiful creature, blinded in both sight and wisdom."

Insect Queen Moriphara’s eyes seemed to pierce through the fabric of reality itself. A diamond-shaped gem of wisdom pulsed with an eerie light on her forehead. Furthermore, her voice was pure. Unsettlingly pure. It lacked any emotional undertone—no indifference, no coldness, no mockery. She was merely stating an objective fact: Kairon was a deceived, pathetic pawn.

Yet, to Kairon, that utter lack of emotion was violently abrasive. The swarm was the entire reason he had been backed into this corner in the first place.

"Me, blinded? Me, a pawn?" Kairon roared. "Then what does that make you? A horde of looters? Invaders? To me, you’re just a pack of damned, crawling bugs!"

The demigod’s explosive fury caused the very fabric of the realm to tremble. This was his newly acquired power. Now that he too was an embodiment of the rules, he could violently contest Insect Queen Moriphara at the most fundamental level of reality.

"You probably don’t realize it, but the ones who helped you simply sent you here to die," Moriphara said. "Think carefully about who your real enemies are."