Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1633: Abyssal Hatchery

In the uncharted depths of the Southern Seas, deep blue gave way to pitch black.

A massive octopus stretched its tentacles through the water. Eyes blinked open from within its slime-coated suckers, glowing phosphorescent in the dark. Faint curses and the phantom wails of sirens drifted through the water.

The psychological assault, however, had zero effect on the bizarre sea worm lurking in the trench. Half-buried in the silt, the worm instantly launched a counterattack against the massive octopus.

It arched its back. Rows of spiked bone plates, etched with mysterious insectoid runes, erupted along its spine. Beads of verdigris venom oozed from the tips. With a violent spasm, the worm launched the bone spikes through the water like poisoned daggers.

"What the hell is this thing?" Kraken, the massive octopus, stared wide-eyed. His tentacles blurred, rapidly weaving hand seals.

"Water Style: Water Dragon Jutsu—Nine-Dragon Wall!"

It wasn’t actual ninjutsu. It was an innate racial skill called Water Bullet Roar that Kraken had possessed since birth. However, during his edgy weeb phase, he had renamed it. He’d yelled it so many times over the years that it just stuck. And as his power leveled up, so did the skill’s force.

Just as the poisoned daggers tore through the water, nine serpentine water dragons erupted in front of Kraken, biting each other’s tails to form an interlocking barrier. The wall deflected every incoming spike.

Defense was just step one. While weaving the seals, Kraken’s remaining tentacles spewed a dense, black mist. This wasn’t normal ink—it was a lethal neurotoxin. As it dispersed, it coalesced into a specialized poisonous domain.

The mist swiftly engulfed the sea worm, locking down the domain. Kraken hid within the murky water, watching his enemy rather than rushing in. The reason was simple: the toxin wasn’t doing a damn thing.

Through the gloom, Kraken clearly saw the worm’s gaping maw spewing a dark green slime. The viscous fluid coated its entire body, forming a protective membrane that rendered it completely immune to the poison.

What the hell is this? Kraken thought. An Insect King? No, that doesn’t make sense. Didn’t Orion say this sector was clear of hostiles for now?

Kraken frowned. This Arch Lord-tier sea worm was exceptionally strong—definitely at the upper echelons of its rank. Otherwise, it couldn’t have shrugged off his poison domain so easily.

Kraken locked onto the worm, his aura flaring as his combat presence climbed. This was a territorial dispute, and he refused to lose his turf.

After a momentary standstill, the fight exploded.

Kraken charged. His tentacles whipped forward like dragons, his roar echoing like cannon fire through the water. Every eye on his tentacles snapped open, pupils slitting into narrow vertical lines. He was holding nothing back.

In the darkness, the worm bristled with bone spikes. Every time the massive octopus wrapped a tentacle around its prey, the spikes punched rows of bloody holes through his flesh, sending plumes of dark blood into the water.

But the pain didn’t slow Kraken’s charge. The sheer tensile strength of his tentacles far exceeded the worm’s expectations. Foregoing further probing, the massive octopus closed the distance, wrapping the worm in an inescapable death grip.

It was a brutal, close-quarters brawl between behemoths.

In the frantic, do-or-die struggle, bone spikes and jagged plates sliced into the massive octopus’s underbelly. Bladed fins severed the tips of his tentacles. In return, Kraken’s tentacles constricted tighter. His suckers flared open, the eyes within them turning into abyssal black holes that viciously drained the sea worm’s blood essence.

The savage tug-of-war lasted for ten grueling minutes. The battle only ended when Kraken completely drained the severed upper half of the sea worm, leaving behind nothing but an empty, shriveled husk.

"Something’s wrong with its lower half," Kraken muttered. He tossed the husk aside and used a tentacle to wrench the worm’s buried lower half out of the silt.

What he saw next made his skin crawl.

Beneath the worm’s buried abdomen lay a hidden cavern coated in a pale blue slime. Inside the cave sat clutch after clutch of pale blue eggs.

"The Swarm. A broodmother!" The realization hit Kraken like a physical blow. This wasn’t some mutated sea beast; it was a bona fide member of the Swarm.

I have to destroy this. Without a second thought, Kraken whipped out a magic scroll and tore it open. It was a forbidden spell scroll gifted to him by the Deputy Commander—a weapon of catastrophic power.

The water crackled violently. An endless torrent of lightning erupted from the scroll, blasting straight toward the egg-filled cavern.

But right at that moment, a phantom silhouette surged out of the cavern. With a casual swat of its hand, it snuffed out the localized grid of lightning. An Arch Lord-tier forbidden spell, shattered instantly.

"I knew something was off!" Kraken immediately kicked into reverse, jetting backward at top speed. He hadn’t struck the cavern personally because his instincts had screamed danger—the scroll had just been a probe.

"You interrupted my reincarnation, tentacled filth. Did you really think you could just walk away?" the phantom hissed. "Die!" The demigod phantom extended a hand. A localized black hole of suction erupted from its palm. The fleeing Kraken, along with thousands of cubic yards of surrounding seawater, was yanked backward. There was nowhere to run.

"Orion, help!" Kraken bellowed.

Roar!

A furious bellow ripped through the trench. The next second, tsunamis violently churned the ocean’s surface, while a dormant seabed volcano violently erupted. Beneath the crushing weight of the descending divine pressure, every living creature in the sector either spasmed in terror or blacked out completely.

"Even Moriphara wouldn’t dare intrude here, yet you think a mere demigod phantom can?" a booming voice echoed. "Die."

A colossal claw breached the seabed. Without any flashy explosions or wasted energy, it casually swatted the demigod phantom out of existence.

Erasing the threat, the claw didn’t linger. It scooped up the entire egg-filled cavern—silt, bedrock, and all—and vanished back beneath the earth’s crust.

Floating safely in the distance, Kraken hovered in the deep water, staring at the devastated trench where a demigod-level clash had just ended.

"Learn anything?" A demigod phantom materialized directly above Kraken. He instantly recognized the aura. It was Orion.

"It was over too fast. Not much," Kraken grumbled, waving his tentacles. He rolled his massive eyes upward, studying the Abyssal Dreadfin phantom resting atop his head. "Orion, didn’t you say this sector was supposed to be clear of hostiles for a while?" Kraken asked, still rattled. At his current power level, going toe-to-toe with a demigod phantom was a suicide mission.

"Nothing is absolute," Orion replied calmly. "What I can guarantee is that since I claimed rulership over the continent, no one from the outside could have slipped past my senses to infiltrate this zone."

Orion swept his gaze over the ruined trench. Satisfied that nothing had been left behind, he turned his attention back to Kraken. "Which leaves only one possibility: this broodmother and that demigod phantom were already stationed near the continent of Titan before the realms merged."

"You need to pick up the pace," Orion continued. "The Mycelial demigod has already deployed hives on both sides of The Bastion Wall. It won’t be long before the Mycelial bleed into the oceans as well."

Hearing the grim update, Kraken fell into a heavy silence.