Titan King: Ascension of the Giant Chapter 1708 The Price of a Seat

"You jerking me around?" Mondusath dropped into the seat across from Orion, waving off the succubus server who came to greet them, his eyes locked on Orion as if afraid the man would get up and bolt.

Orion lifted a hand. The server set down two cups, bowed, and slipped away.

"You're not worth the trouble of jerking around." Orion pushed one cup toward him. At his present strength, this Great Dragon King of Light didn't even register.

"What do you want?" Mondusath sat silent a long while. So many demigods gathered in Blackstone City—it had started to dawn on him that the word Orion fed him might be real.

"The Emerald Dream Realm. And Wyntyr, the home world of your dragonkind." Orion said it flat—no swagger, no urgency. His real target in calling Mondusath here wasn't the Emerald Dream Realm at all. It was Wyntyr. He and a few of his brothers already held a third of the Emerald Dream Realm; one good shove and it would inevitably be dragged into the Titanion Realm.

"Out of the question." Mondusath fired it back without an inch of give. "The Emerald Dream Realm I could help you with. Wyntyr, no. That's the heartland of dragonkind, sacred and not to be touched." Through every kind of maneuver these past years, he'd brought the dragons to heel again. Put plainly, Wyntyr was his territory now. For Orion to seize it was to dig up his very roots.

"That's the price of a seat at the table." Orion took up his cup, sipped, felt nothing. He was only a body of consciousness—no appetite to please. "I forgot to mention—back when they wanted into the Titanion Realm, every demigod with designs on it folded at least one small world into it. Go ask around." He nodded toward a demigod a little way off, one of those very men. "In your case, given those few dragon eggs from back then, I'll let you raise a satellite settlement outside Blackstone City. How much you can wring out of the Mirage Void after that comes down to what your dragonkind are worth."

Down the years, Blackstone City would hold more and more satellite settlements. In the early stretch, Orion meant to use the right to build them to win more for himself and the Stoneheart Horde.

"You serious?" Even now, Mondusath held what Orion said suspect.

"Sleep a moment. Don't fight it." Orion waved a hand, and Mondusath's head dipped; he slid into a shallow doze. Before he could shake free of the trance, an irresistible pull came dragging at him. Sensing the supreme might out of the void—the breath of an Ascendant Plane—he gave up resisting and let Orion haul him along. It was a dream; Mondusath had no idea how long it ran, no sense of time at all. When the great force ebbed, he stood in Blackstone City.

The instant he descended, Mondusath looked to the peak. Three sixth-stage demigod auras sat there, not a shred of concealment on them, setting each other off, guarding one another. Orion's god-might radiated across the whole of Blackstone City, the holy light reaching every stretch of land beyond the walls.

"Apex powers." Mondusath's voice shook a little. Demigod sixth stage was the height he'd dreamed of; the whole reason he'd labored to collect a World Dragon was to reach it. And now, on the peak not far off, three sixth-stage monsters held watch.

"This is the Mirage Void, an Ascendant Plane of the Void. Every breath drawn here pulls World Essence in and out. Move your people here and it's all gain for you, no loss." Orion's voice carried, grave, from the distant peak. In Mondusath's sense, all he could make out was a pair of eyes—and behind them an ancient tree, vast enough to blot out the sky.

"This feel—it truly is. Truly two Ascendant Planes joined to each other. How is it possible. How." As a dragon carrying the inherited memory of the ancients, Mondusath knew many hidden things. When Ascendant Planes joined, what came with it, as a rule, was a War of the Gods. The side that won the war raised its plane's rank. When a plane's tier rose, every living thing on the winning side stood a strong chance of being blessed—blood evolving, gifts waking, a divine treasure dropping from the sky. With blessings like that, the plane would turn out more and more supreme powers. In the end, the Ascendant Plane would evolve a Divine Mantle, and at last give birth to gods. Carried all the way to its end, it might even evolve a pantheon of its own, the way the Abyssal World and Hell had.

"Take a look around Blackstone City. I'll wait for you outside."

"…"

—

Stoneheart City. The Silent Goblet.

In the deepest part of the tavern stood a bedchamber that belonged to Delilah alone. It was where she most liked to be—chiefly because it was the main spot for her trysts with Orion, but the bath there was the thing she lingered over most.

The bath, steam curling, fragrance everywhere, layer upon layer of petals drifting across the water. With a splash Delilah lifted her head from the ripples and rose from the pool, black hair falling like a cataract, beads of water at her collarbone, her porcelain-white neck washed faintly jade—beautiful past bearing.

"What is it?" The beauty had risen from her bath because a succubus guard had appeared outside the curtain, which meant word important enough to need Delilah's own hand.

"Your Majesty, two new guests on the fifth floor. One's face is a blur—no reading his features. The other looks something like the Horde's great enemy from the intelligence files, Mondusath, Great Dragon King of Light. By our read, the odds are good that My Lord himself is receiving the Great Dragon King."

Orion's phantom will had appeared without notice to anyone—no need for it, no call. So Delilah's circle of advisers were left to guess.

"Great Dragon King of Light—that Mondusath?" Looks like the Emerald Dream Realm business has taken a new turn. Delilah stepped across the jade water, ripples shimmering in her wake, and lifted a hand for the servant to dress her. "Don't disturb them. A guest is a guest—seeing them off well satisfied is the whole of our purpose."

She was sure of it: if Orion had come in person, he'd come to her for a tryst, or at the least a few words.

—

The tavern. Fifth floor.

Mondusath opened his eyes by slow degrees. Blackstone City, the Mirage Void—outlandish, past believing. And in the depths of his eyes, beyond all that, churned a wild, restless excitement and hope.

If losing the World Dragon's egg had cost him his shot at ascension, then the appearance of Blackstone City threw open an entirely new door. Beyond it lay not just a fresh chance to ascend, but the very thing he'd crave even after he had—a Divine Mantle.

Godhood. Immortality. As if all of it sat within arm's reach.