Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1612: Storm of Mutations

"A flickering spark daring to challenge an inferno."

Orion casually pointed a finger, conjuring the manifestation of a Stoneheart Titan on his branch of the World Tree. The Titan’s primary head opened its maw and swallowed the invading vile energy whole.

After swatting away The Lifeless Dreadgod’s petty trick, Orion frowned. The moment he purged the corruption, he sensed a massive downpour of black rain drenching The Bastion of the West—the exact borderlands where the Titan Continent met The Lifeless Expanse.

The black rain was highly corrosive, rapidly reducing a vast stretch of neutral territory into a barren wasteland. Plumes of black smoke hissed from the scorched earth, choking the sky with a foul, evil aura.

Seizing the home-field advantage? Orion thought. Terraforming the battlefield to suit his kind while blinding our scouts? Orion saw right through the strategy. The Lifeless Dreadgod was an entity born of a Demigod Artifact. Ancient beyond measure, it possessed an endless repertoire of apocalyptic invasion tactics.

"An eye for an eye," Orion murmured. He retaliated instantly. He had his own arsenal of world-warping tricks.

The dense, primordial bloodline of the Stoneheart Titan surged through the World Tree’s root network, invading the other three branches like a rolling crimson storm. The Lifeless Dreadgod, Archbishop Kysar, and Moriphara reacted instantly, deploying their respective powers to purge Orion’s corrosive, curse-laden energy.

Simultaneously, Orion summoned a torrential rain of blood over the continents ruled by his three rivals.

Interesting. A primordial Bloodline Curse! After purging Orion’s energy, The Lifeless Dreadgod analyzed the sheer malice hidden within it. It was pure rot and damnation.

This meant that any soldier stepping into the contested zone between the Titan Continent and The Lifeless Expanse would be subjected to the warring wills of both Orion and The Lifeless Dreadgod.

The Lifeless Dreadgod’s corruption would mutate its victims, sprouting grotesque appendages and dragging them into madness. Orion’s blood magic, however, would corrode their very essence, forcing their genetics to mutate into Stoneheart Titans. Afflicted by the Bloodline Curse, their lives and deaths would be bound entirely to Orion’s whim.

Stoneheart Titans were descendants of Abyssal Giants. Orion was a creature of the Abyss, a demon in his own right. He had never feared the dark.

Caught in the crossfire between The Lifeless Dreadgod and Orion, Archbishop Kysar and Moriphara were forced onto the defensive. It wasn’t that they lacked power, but neither possessed such insidious, large-scale terraforming magic. Yet, they weren’t entirely helpless.

Over the Continent of the Pantheon, a tempest raged. A steady drizzle of black rain fell along the border it shared with The Lifeless Expanse, rotting the soil and twisting the local flora and fauna.

Many scouting parties from the Cult of Four were caught in the downpour. The black rain warped their flesh and shattered their minds, reducing them to wandering monstrosities driven only by bloodlust.

Before the black rain even ceased, isolated showers of blood broke out across the continent. The scarlet drops melted seamlessly into the skin of anyone they touched. Those drenched by the blood rain mutated on the spot, their bodies festering as their sanity evaporated.

Cultists sprouted second heads or grotesquely swollen giant arms, turning on their comrades in frenzied, indiscriminate massacres. To Archbishop Kysar, these vile mutations were absolute heresy.

High above the Continent of the Pantheon, a massive, ethereal structure materialized—The Dais of Judgment, casting its shadow over the entire landmass. Archbishop Kysar stood at its pinnacle, radiating a boundless, blinding golden aura.

"The Four Gods walk with us. Let the light pierce the shadows. All heresy shall be cleansed!" his voice boomed across the realm. "This world harbors no sanctuary for evil or darkness!"

As the holy light washed over the land, the black and crimson clouds dissolved. Down below, the mutated abominations erupted into spontaneous, golden flames, burning until nothing but ash remained.

Having purged the immediate heresy, Archbishop Kysar gazed down from The Dais of Judgment, his eyes clouded with worry. He knew perfectly well that a single cast of the Divine Light of Purification wouldn’t permanently erase the insidious corruption sown by Orion and The Lifeless Dreadgod.

The toxic downpours had already planted countless malignant seeds deep within the Continent of the Pantheon. Archbishop Kysar could only play a lethal game of attrition—finding and purging the taint as it sprouted.

The Swarming Continent. The Planetary Hive.

Unlike Archbishop Kysar’s heavy-handed cleansing, Insect Queen Moriphara made absolutely no attempt to repel the toxic rain conjured by Orion and The Lifeless Dreadgod.

Her spectral avatar stood atop the highest spire of the Planetary Hive, silently watching her Swarm march in orderly lines directly into the toxic downpours.

Some insects mutated wildly, sprouting foreign limbs before tearing into their brethren. Others melted entirely under the corrosive rain, dissolving into foul puddles of sludge. Some suffered from the Bloodline Curse, their carapaces forcibly shifting as their biology attempted to mimic the Stoneheart Titans.

Whenever a pseudo-Titan emerged, the surrounding Swarm instantly converged, burying the anomaly under an endless tide of mandibles and claws until it was consumed entirely.

This grim cycle of mass suicide played out endlessly across The Swarming Continent. Uncountable drones marched to their deaths, allowing themselves to be corrupted, twisted, and cursed.

Finally, a breakthrough. From beneath a mountain of rotting carapaces, an Insect King pulled itself free, completely immune to both the black and crimson rain. It threw its head back and unleashed a deafening, world-shaking screech.

Seeing the successful birth of this new evolutionary strain, the grim tension on Moriphara’s face vanished. Where there was one, there would be millions. If there was one thing the Swarm never lacked, it was numbers.

Unlike Orion, The Lifeless Dreadgod, and Archbishop Kysar, Insect Queen Moriphara actually preferred to delay the inevitable war. The Hive’s endless multiplication required time and biomass. The longer she stalled, the more insurmountable her numerical advantage would become. That was precisely why she hadn’t launched an offensive against the Titan Continent or the Continent of the Pantheon.

She was simply buying time.