Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1681: Dawn in the Dreamscape

In the dreamscape, the slaughter continued.

Led by Godfrey, the wounded members of the mercenary company—the Giant Brundar, the Dwarf Stoutgut, and the Gnoll Bloodear—barricaded the heavy doors to the underground vault, holding back the grotesque, unseen monsters.

"Can someone tell me what the hell is happening?" Brundar gasped, his back braced against the thick doors. He drove his massive spiked club into the stone above the frame, his voice hoarse. "Did The Bastion Wall fall on the coasts? Are Demons from the other continents invading? Or is this the swarm?"

No one answered. None of them knew.

"Commander, do you know what’s going on?" Bloodear asked. "Aren’t we in Stoneheart City? Why is it nothing but darkness and monsters outside?" The Gnoll flared his nostrils, desperately trying to catch a familiar scent in the air. He slumped in defeat; he could smell nothing but the blood and sweat of the men beside him.

"I don’t know!" Godfrey shouted, pressing both hands against the doors. "But have faith in My lord. Stoneheart City is his domain. He’ll sense something this massive immediately. If some ancient evil descends, his statue will protect us." Since his hidden power had awakened, the halo of virtue radiating from Godfrey acted like a divine shield, pulling him from the brink of death time and time again.

"Commander... did you break through to the Legendary level?" Brundar asked. The question drew everyone’s attention, and they finally noticed the change in the commander.

"I... I think so," Godfrey said, glancing down. "I don’t even know how it happened. The two Lord’s Stones I carried just shattered and absorbed into this." He pointed at the halo of virtue, its pure white light slowly shifting to a deep crimson. His instincts told him this new power held secrets he had yet to uncover.

"Shatter!"

"Absorb!"

From the back of the vault, the young Ogre Urol crept out from his hiding spot. The two-headed toddler waved a toy trident in one hand and a wooden club in the other, parroting Godfrey.

"Father, shatter!"

"Father, absorb!"

Urol jumped up and down, seemingly excited, but the eyes on both his heads were bloodshot. This wasn’t normal play. As his adoptive father and uncles, Godfrey, Brundar, Stoutgut, and Bloodear knew exactly what this meant. The young Ogre had sensed the encroaching terror and was slipping into a fear-driven frenzy.

"Urol," Godfrey said softly, extending a finger to tap the center of each of the boy’s foreheads. It was a grounding technique he had perfected over months of trial and error. "When facing danger, we must be calm and steady. Only smart, level-headed Ogres earn everyone’s respect... and get the best food."

"Father, calm!"

"Father, steady!"

Watching his adoptive son settle down, a warm smile broke through Godfrey’s grim expression. Children were Hope. That single thought hardened the resolve burning in the commander’s eyes.

Suddenly, the deafening screech of claws and axes biting into stone echoed from beyond the vault doors. The enemy had arrived.

"Brothers! We fight to the death!" Godfrey roared, his halo of virtue blazing as he rallied his men with unyielding courage. "I stand with you, and I will fall with you!"

Just as the heavy doors began to splinter, and just as Godfrey braced to charge, a thunderous roar echoed from the heavens. Endless light flooded the darkness.

It was the light of faith. The light of Hope. And it carried a boundless, holy wrath.

The divine radiance pierced through the shadows, disintegrating everything it touched. For the nightmare creatures, there was nowhere to hide.

"It’s the Chieftain!" Brundar cried out. As a giant with a sliver of Stoneheart Titan blood in his veins, he recognized Orion’s voice instantly.

"Glory... dispel the dark and shine upon me." Yielding to a sudden awakening or perhaps raw instinct, Brundar dropped to his knees, clutching his weapon in reverence.

"It’s My lord! We’re saved!" The Dwarf Stoutgut and the Gnoll Bloodear wept with joy, embracing and jumping in relief.

"Praise My lord! My life and honor are yours!"

With the crisis averted, the adrenaline keeping Godfrey upright vanished. He collapsed to the floor, his halo fading into nothingness. Looking up at the sky, he witnessed the colossal, four-headed, eight-armed projection of his liege. In that moment, he offered his most devout prayer.

As Godfrey finished his prayer and moved to stand, the sky brightened completely. The darkness was banished, and the dreamscape dissolved into a thick mist. The commander, his son, and his brothers were forcibly ejected from the nightmare.

"Commander! Are you alright? That was terrifying!"

"Commander, something happened!"

"Commander, there’s a dead body!"

Godfrey’s eyes snapped open in his actual quarters. Outside his door, his men were shouting in panic.

Back at the World Tree, order was reestablished.

When Orion opened his eyes on his throne, he watched an invisible, formless law of power dissipate from his branch of the World Tree, banished by his psionic dominance.

"It can’t be completely destroyed," Orion muttered. Despite his immense strength and the combined forces of faith and psionic energy, the foreign law lingered.

"Save your strength," the Commander said. His voice was utterly devoid of emotion—neither sorrow nor joy. "That is the foundational law of the other Ascendant Plane. As long as it exists and remains entangled with the Titanion Realm, you cannot eradicate it completely. Reality and the void are woven together now. It is a fight to the death. There is no separating them."

"Commander..." Orion started, wanting to ask more, but Thresh cut him off.

"Help them. And in doing so, help yourself."

Orion followed his gaze and spotted the Lifeless Dreadgod, Archbishop Kysar, and Moriphara slumped on their respective thrones. To his shock, the nightmare had claimed them as well.

Orion stared at the three dormant demigods for a moment before a calculating glint flashed in his eyes. He didn’t say a word. Closing his eyes, he channeled his psionic and faith energy, surging toward the other three branches of the World Tree.

He would dispel the darkness for his allies, yes, but he would also use this perfect opportunity to plant his own seeds across their continents. It was the ideal moment. No one could stop him. It was a brilliant, overt power play.

"This is getting interesting. Even they succumbed to the dream," Kaidric mused, glancing from the Commander to the Infernal King of the Hell Twelve-Skulls, Abyssal Demon Decay, and the Void Progenitor Insect Queen. A thrill of anticipation danced in his eyes. "Do you think we’ll be dragged down too?"