Titan King: Ascension of the Giant Chapter 1686 Lord of Dreams

"A Wishing Tree? Anything I want?" Lorelia mused. "Oh... that makes sense. No wonder I got so much good stuff!"

Carefree as she was, Lorelia was no fool. She connected the dots quickly.

"Did you ever stop to wonder why the Wishing Tree gave you all those treasures, and why it funneled an ocean of World Essence into you just to push you to the demigod rank?" Orion asked, turning to look her in the eye.

It was time for the spider to know the truth, before her arrogance got her killed.

"Why?" Lorelia countered, her beautiful eyes wide. "Isn't it because I'm cute and pretty?"

Orion almost laughed. He reached out and ruffled her hair again. "Cute and pretty are worthless in the face of raw talent." He finished the gesture with a light flick to her forehead.

"My Lorelia commands the laws of dreams, and you're a broodmother. The Wishing Tree pulled you into this Ascendant Plane to act as the vanguard. It wants you to use Blackstone City as a foundation to build The Endless Bastion and hold the line against the enemy."

Her mastery of dream laws was the true reason the Will of the Realm favored her. For anyone else, this void Ascendant Plane was a death trap. For Lorelia, it was Paradise. She was a Dream Weaver, a Lord of Dreams. The resources here were hers to command. The World Tree evolved into the Wishing Tree primarily because of her affinity for dream laws. Lorelia, the Wishing Tree, and Blackstone City formed the anchor for this world, in that exact order. Everything revolved around her.

"Master... are you saying I'm just cannon fodder?" Lorelia asked, her voice dropping to a frightened whisper.

"Yes. Are you scared?"

"Yes!" she wailed, her lower lip trembling as tears welled in her eyes.

"Don't be. I'll be right here with you." Orion pointed at the Wishing Tree. "I can merge with it. The Wishing Tree is my home now. No matter who the enemy is, we'll face them together."

"Really? You won't leave this world?" Lorelia's tears vanished. She grabbed his arm, bouncing on her toes in pure joy.

"Actually, Blackstone City is still Blackstone City. It remains connected to the Horde. It's still our territory," Orion explained, seizing the moment to ground her in reality. "This place is called the Mirage Void. It's an Ascendant Plane, just like our Titanion Realm. The experts here..."

He laid out the harsh truths of their situation, ensuring the Spider Queen understood exactly what was coming and what she needed to do.

...

Back at the World Tree, upon his throne.

Orion's form solidified. The vacant stare in his eyes hardened into sharp focus, immediately drawing the attention of the gathered heavyweights.

"We'll wait for the other three to return," Orion said, nodding to Commander Thresh and Kaidric to stall their silent questions. He turned his gaze back to his own demigod experts.

Nearly fifteen minutes passed before the Lifeless Dreadgod, Archbishop Kysar, and Moriphara materialized on their respective thrones.

"Well?" demanded the phantom of The Progenitor Swarm. His relationship with Moriphara was far closer than the alliance between Twelve-Skulls, Decay, and the others.

"The Will of the Realm established a massive hive for us in that plane," Moriphara reported. "My subjects with dream affinities thrive there. The rest cannot reproduce at all."

As a broodmother, the moment she arrived in the other plane, she began spawning workers and soldiers, quickly determining which strains were viable in the dreamscape. "I scouted a sixty-mile radius around the hive. No enemy contact yet." She glanced at Orion, the Lifeless Dreadgod, and Archbishop Kysar as she spoke, prompting them to share.

"My situation is similar, though I possess a Dais of Judgment, not a hive," Archbishop Kysar said, his expression grim.

"I have Demonic Pillars," the Lifeless Dreadgod said, shooting a look of undisguised contempt at Kysar. "The environment is the same. We can transit between the Demonic Pillars and reality via the dreamscape."

Orion suppressed a sigh. Outsiders were outsiders; not a single one of them was telling the whole truth. All four cities were built upon the roots of the World Tree, which meant the other three territories absolutely harbored something akin to his Wishing Tree. Yet, none of them mentioned it. They were hoarding the information. Orion was curious, though, if any of them possessed a key asset like Lorelia.

"My situation matches yours," Orion said flatly, brushing off their expectant stares.

"So, the enemy uses dreams to disrupt the Titanion Realm, and we can initiate a planar invasion by entering the dreamscape and anchoring to those physical cities," Abyssal Demon·Decay deduced. His pitch-black eyes swept over the continental lords with thinly veiled disdain. As an apex predator, his grasp of planar mechanics vastly eclipsed theirs. He saw right through their petty omissions. "Both sides play offense and defense. Whoever stretches the frontline further wins."

"We face a contradiction," Commander Thresh noted, addressing the core issue after Orion had telepathically fed him the name 'Mirage Void'. "First, we must resist being pulled into the dreamscape to survive. Second, we must actively enter the dreamscape to invade the Mirage Void. How do you resolve this?"

"Can you control the dreamscape within the radius of your divine light?" Infernal King of the Hell·Twelve-Skulls asked the four lords. To his race, the dreamscape was home turf. He fully believed he could go another round with the Commander in the Mirage Void.

"We can, but only within our territories," the Lifeless Dreadgod answered, obligated to reply to the ally he had summoned. "Because the laws have bled over, our actual borders have shrunk. The areas beyond our divine light are highly susceptible to the dream's pull. We can't stop it."

He paused, adding a vital piece of intel. "Also, horrors spawned from a mix of dream and dark affinities frequently manifest in The Lifeless Expanse. They always appear in the wilderness. Their forms and races change constantly. I suspect they are shaped by the fears of those pulled into the dream. Whatever we fear, the dreamscape spawns."

Orion frowned in deep thought. This was new. No such monsters had appeared on the Titan continent yet. He was certain there was a fundamental difference between his domain and The Lifeless Expanse, but the exact reason eluded him for now.