Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1674: The Puppet Master’s Folly

Continent of the Pantheon, the Hall of Souls.

This was where the Cult of Four stored their followers’ soul marks. But the pantheon had changed. The faithful no longer worshipped the original four gods. Instead, they prayed to Kysar and his three fellow Archbishops, who had crowned themselves the new deities. It was a calculated move—rebuilding the faith while siphoning the original gods’ divine power.

Clown paced outside the Hall of Souls, his gaze fixed on the imposing structure. He could feel his soul mark resting inside. Ever since discovering its location, he had breached the hall countless times in secret. Every attempt had failed. Every failure cost him a precious living vessel.

Those who knew Clown recognized him as a master puppeteer. Few realized his puppets came in two distinct varieties: dead constructs, devoid of life and thought, and living vessels. The latter were fully conscious beings, completely unaware they were being controlled. These living vessels were Clown’s perfect, untraceable proxies.

My odds are better this time, Clown thought. The four gods stripped away most of Kysar’s divine power. He’s a fraction of what he used to be. If I’m careful, I can take back my mark.

He hesitated. Brute force or stealth? A direct assault meant mobilizing his hidden factions, risking catastrophic exposure. One misstep, and Kysar would grow suspicious. If Archbishop Kysar crushed the soul mark, Clown would drop dead on the spot. But infiltrating alone meant facing the Archbishop without backup.

To hell with the risks. As long as they don’t immediately trace it to me, I have a way out.

He made his choice: both. A violent distraction outside, a silent infiltration inside.

Under the cover of a pitch-black night, a riot erupted around the Hall of Souls. Hordes of Cult of Four zealots, incited by Clown, surged toward the gates under the guise of purging traitors. It hardly took any coaxing; many wanted their soul marks back and resented being held hostage. Clown had simply tossed a spark onto dry tinder, and the prairie fire roared to life.

But the grand spectacle Clown envisioned never materialized. A demigod stepped out of the Hall of Souls and crushed the uprising in moments.

Clown didn’t care. The slaughter provided the perfect cover. His living vessel slipped into the Hall of Souls.

But the moment his puppet stepped into the Hall of Light, Clown’s fleeting hope shattered into despair.

"Inciting a riot. Weaponizing the faithful against the Hall. Slipping into the Hall of Light in the chaos." The voice resonated with crushing weight. "On the Continent of the Pantheon, only a Bishop possesses such reach and power. Who are you?"

Four towering statues dominated the Hall of Light. They did not depict the original gods, but rather the four former Archbishops: Kysar, Maximilien, Kendry, and Eryx. The divine pressure radiating from the statues paralyzed Clown’s puppet. Even stripped of their divine power, these entities were former masters of Demigod Artifacts. Clown, a mere first-stage demigod, stood no chance. Furthermore, the four Archbishops had laid countless traps before betraying their gods for freedom. As new worlds merged into the Titanion Realm, the Archbishops’ strength was steadily recovering.

"My identity doesn’t matter," Clown bargained through his puppet, desperate for a sliver of survival. "Give me my soul mark, and the storm outside will stop."

Archbishop Kysar’s laughter echoed through the hall, tinged with madness. "The best joke I’ve heard in years. You belong to the Cult of Four. Tell me, have you ever seen a man walk away with his soul mark?"

The four Archbishops’ own soul marks were held by the original gods. To sever those chains, they had all died once. Even having miraculously survived, the other three were still in deep slumber. Since they hadn’t reclaimed their own marks, Kysar would never let an underling reclaim theirs. They would suffer exactly as he had.

"I can make a deal!" Clown pleaded. "I—"

"Die," Kysar commanded, cutting him off.

A blinding light swept the hall. Clown’s living vessel was instantly reduced to ash.

Far away, deep within a subterranean palace.

"Kysar, you bastard!" Clown roared, his fury erupting over the failed mission.

What is he thinking? He didn’t even give me a chance to explain! Logic dictated that Kysar should have feigned negotiation to extract his identity before killing him. Unless... they don’t trust the Bishops at all. Not a single one of us.

Clown fell silent. He couldn’t fathom Kysar’s motives, but one thing was certain: he now faced a lethal crisis from within the Cult of Four itself.

Has it really come to this?

He stared at the sacrificial magic circle glowing faintly on the floor before him. He had prepared it before launching his heist. It was his ultimate failsafe—a self-sacrifice to activate before Archbishop Kysar could track him down and wipe him from existence.

...

Valkorath Realm, Blade’s Edge Peak.

The air stagnated. Mountains vanished into the fog, leaving only the blurred, leaden silhouette of the peak.

Commander Thresh sat by a campfire, expressionless, with neither wine nor meat.

The summit was silent. No insects chirped; no birds sang. All of creation seemed to hold its breath.

Amidst the dead silence, muffled thunder rolled across the sky. Deep within the clouds, it sounded as if a behemoth was turning over. Lightning arced, fracturing the heavens.

"Thunder rolls but no storm falls. Something on your mind?"

With another rumble, Deputy Commander Edward’s storm avatar arrived, riding a flash of lightning.

"We will speak when the others arrive." Commander Thresh nodded, tossing two dry branches into the fire.

The Deputy Commander stepped to his side and fell silent.

Moments later, the avatars of Leonidas and Alexander materialized on the peak.

"Commander, why so grim? Did something happen?" Even a brash warrior like Leonidas sensed the tension.

"Weather like this is rare in the Valkorath Realm." Alexander nodded to the Commander and Deputy Commander before sitting beside the latter. He knew the realm’s weather mirrored the Commander’s mood; Thresh was its absolute master.

Seeing his attempt at levity fall flat, Leonidas realized the gravity of the situation. He stayed quiet, sitting next to Alexander and frowning at the flames.

"Apologies for the delay." The void rippled as a demigod phantom stepped from a spatial rift. Behind the phantom stretched the endless Ever-Burning Volcano.

"You’re not late. Hulk will be here shortly," Deputy Commander Edward greeted, gesturing for Arthas to take a seat and wait for Orion.

Orion’s Insect King avatar was only at the Arch Lord rank, making him slower than the rest. He had just entered the Valkorath Realm and was hurrying toward Blade’s Edge Peak.

Fifteen minutes later, Orion arrived.

Noting the heavy silence and eerie atmosphere, he said nothing and sat directly beside Commander Thresh.

"The other members are not demigods. They are not qualified to attend this meeting," Commander Thresh finally spoke. "The traitors, Clown and Witch. Their fates are sealed."

The words stunned the group. The oppressive atmosphere gave way to dead silence. Even the rolling thunder above had quietly faded away.

"Sealed?" Leonidas stared at Thresh, his tone thick with disbelief after a long pause. "Are you saying those two bastards are dead?"

Commander Thresh glanced at him, then swept his gaze across Edward, Alexander, Arthas, and Orion. He stood, waved his hand to summon an ice coffin, and dropped it to the side before sitting back down.

"Witch is in the coffin. She came to me recently—not to beg for forgiveness, but to seek a sliver of Hope for rebirth. She left her fate in your hands."

Thresh’s tone was flat. Expressionless, he fed another branch to the fire.

Edward, Leonidas, Alexander, and Arthas rose without a word and approached the coffin. Leonidas, the most impatient of the brothers, slapped the lid away.

"It’s really her." Leonidas’s voice suddenly fractured, mixing fierce vindication with an inexplicable, hollow sorrow.

"Barbara," Arthas murmured, speaking Witch’s true name. She was once their comrade.

"Is it finally over?" Deputy Commander Edward stared at her, his emotions equally tangled. She had been the target he wanted dead more than anyone.

Noting their strange reactions, Orion hesitated before joining them. He needed to see if the woman inside was the same Witch he had encountered.

What he saw was a figure entirely stark white—hair, brows, and pupils. He recognized her race instantly. A succubus offshoot. A Weeping Banshees. A racial traitor.

"This is her true form?" Orion asked, half in awe.

Arthas nodded. "Barbara hails from the Abyss. She has many succubus avatars."

Just as Arthas prepared to elaborate, Alexander spun around. He strode over to the Commander and locked eyes with him.

"She wouldn’t have come to you unless she was entirely out of options. What aren’t you telling us? What does she mean by a ’sliver of Hope for rebirth’?"

Alexander knew Witch as well as she knew them. She was exceptionally resilient, a brilliant woman who always found an escape route.

Thresh met his gaze and nodded. "Did you see the crystal orb in her hands? It holds a fragment of her soul."

The Commander glanced at the ice coffin, honoring his promise to Witch.

"Before she entered her slumber, she volunteered to be my sacrifice. She cares not to whom I offer her. She believes I am the only one who can protect that fragment of her soul from the gods."

Thresh paused, raising an eyebrow. "She certainly trusts me. Clearly, she knows a great deal about Awakened."

He sighed. The greatest traitor to the Champions Alliance trusted him, its Commander, above all else. It was an absurd, bitter irony.

"Speaking of the Awakened, I can share a few secrets with you," Thresh continued. "In the future, we plan to sacrifice certain Awakened. We will use them as bait to test the gods. If we find ourselves lacking the Divine Mantle, baiting and slaughtering gods with Awakened is also on the table."

This was a closely guarded secret among apex powerhouses, a contingency many had been preparing for. If Survivors like them failed to grow strong enough, they would eventually become prey themselves.

Aside from Edward, the revelation left Orion and the brothers stunned.

Sacrifices. Bait. God-slaughter.

Orion quickly recovered and looked at Edward; the Deputy Commander had performed a sacrifice before.

"My case was different," Edward said. "When I caught that Awakened, I didn’t offer him to a god. I sacrificed him to the Survivor’s Platform. Only then did I learn the truth."

Orion frowned in thought. He had realized long ago that the Survivor’s Platform was not a dead object—though it wasn’t necessarily alive, either.

After a long moment, Leonidas, Alexander, and Arthas snapped out of their daze and turned back to Thresh.

"You hold priority over Witch’s fate," the Commander said. "Make your decision. I am not lacking one Awakened."