Titan King: Ascension of the Giant Chapter 1709 Winds of Cataclysm

The Mirage Void. The Boundless Expanse.

While Orion and Mondusath talked terms in Stoneheart City, Moraeon, Lord of the Boundless Expanse, sat caught in a knot he couldn't cut. A sixth-stage apex himself, he'd hungered for a Divine Mantle just as long. The only reason he stood watch over the Boundless Expanse was a promise—the Sovereign of the domain had sworn that when the next Divine Mantle took shape, he'd throw his full weight behind Moraeon's claim.

But the world goes as it pleases. Some ancient being had played the Mirage Void, joined it to the Titanion Realm—another Ascendant Plane—and thrown Moraeon's plans into disarray. From that first brush with Orion and Commander, Moraeon had grasped that their enemy was no weakling. They were strong. They'd only grow stronger. And once word of twelve Divine Mantles in the Mirage Void got out, the Boundless Expanse was bound for a cataclysm of the highest order. How to keep himself whole through it, and bleed the most out of it for himself—that was the thing Moraeon turned over and couldn't settle.

"There was never a chance before. It's different now. When the winds gather, the one who can punch straight through the clouds rides them to the ninth heaven." So said Alwin, the other apex of the Boundless Expanse, in a fix no different from Moraeon's—why else would he have bent his neck to serve as another man's enforcer. "Lord, the cataclysm's coming sooner or later. We need to lay our plans early."

Everything in and around Alwin's words nudged at Moraeon, working to seduce him into turning his coat alongside him.

"Think about it—how long does the Mirage Void have to bank before a thirteenth Divine Mantle takes shape? If the times were still steady and settled the way they were, sure, we could wait. But now?" The thought of that terror who'd wrecked his avatar in a single stroke left Alwin shaky, his nerve gone thin. And the moment Commander said he'd spread word of the Mirage Void abroad, Alwin had known a cataclysm was past dodging—one that would drag in even the Sovereign-tier powers at the Mirage Void's summit. No one slipped clear.

"The Sovereigns watch over one another, set like horns to support a line, solid as a sheet of iron. Hard going." Moraeon sighed inwardly. It wasn't that the Mirage Void had never seen a revolt before, never had a Divine Mantle change hands. Because it had, the Sovereigns kept old customs and compacts between them, and their guard against each other had grown that much tighter. If even the Sovereigns watched one another, then so much the more their underlings—and Moraeon still wavered.

"To get a hand on a Divine Mantle, we have to pull the Sovereigns into this cataclysm fast. Only if a few of them fall in the fighting abroad do you and I stand a chance. A chance doesn't come from waiting it out. You make it." Alwin's manner and mood turned reckless, unbridled. With the Sovereigns asleep, apex powers like them stood at the very peak of the Mirage Void's power, nothing to fear. "Lord, if you're afraid of the reckoning, you can do nothing at all. Find somewhere to sleep. I'll handle every part of it."

Alwin held Moraeon's eyes, taking the work on himself, the blame on himself. It wasn't persuasion. It was a squeeze. If you don't want to act, then don't stand in another man's road—he means to pass you, to climb. Block the road at a moment like this and you get run down.

"Don't rush. Let me think more. Just you and me, we can't bring it off." Moraeon didn't flinch back. As Lord, he held more power than Alwin, a freer hand to act—and naturally his designs ran deeper, further. "We need more partners of like mind. We have to carry the fire to the other regions, or it all stays a daydream. Only with the fire on them will the rest see hope, and choose the same road we're walking."

The Mirage Void had no shortage of powers above demigod sixth stage. Moraeon wanted to gather the apex powers who held no Divine Mantle, and use the cataclysm the joining of the two worlds had brought to bring down some of the Mantle-holding Sovereigns—and carve out his own opening.

"Lord, you mean we give up resisting the outsiders?" Light sparked in Alwin's eyes, the corner of his mouth lifting. He'd brought Moraeon around.

"We can't. I won't allow it." Moraeon shook his head. On the matter of the war abroad, he couldn't throw the fight in the open—not a scrap of the outward show could be missing. Otherwise, once that Sovereign woke, a single look into it would lay everything bare.

"Then how do we carry the fire to the other regions?" Alwin's eyes lowered, casting for a good answer.

"Simple. We step up the blockade in our own region—pen them in, force that outside power to push toward the routes leading to the others. Do it that way, and even if the Sovereign wakes, he'll have nothing to say."

"…"

—

Stoneheart City. The Silent Goblet.

Mondusath seen off after their talk of terms, Orion came to Delilah's bedchamber. He leaned back in the lounge chair, one arm around the slender curve of Delilah's waist, the other resting on the armrest, fingers working at his temple. A phantom he might be, but some small habits hadn't changed.

"The Abyss side—it's all arranged?" Orion had gone easy, hands-off—a touch, nothing past it. Until his Divine Vessel fully took shape, he had no body in truth; that thing was beyond him. It was part of why he'd gone so long without tending to the bond with his women.

"Rest easy. Eparus woke from his sleep and has held the high tower since. And several more of the Scourge Wardens have risen to Arch Lord. With them backing us, short of a demigod attack, no one can shake the Stoneheart Horde's place on the sixth layer of the Abyss." For some reason, the old wild streak had gone out of Delilah too just now. She leaned into Orion, prizing every minute the two of them had together—a pleasure that came from feeling deepened and minds run in quiet step.

"And Soraya?" Orion's voice was flat, nothing readable under it. With Blackstone City and the broodmother Lorelia gone, the Horde's holdings in the north needed a power it could count on to hold them. He'd called Soraya back to fill exactly that gap.

Soraya had ascended to demigod by a peculiar means, and Orion hadn't gone to see her, let alone to offer congratulations. The way he saw it, he'd failed her. She looked to have ascended to demigod, but in truth the road ahead of her was cut. Barring some surprise, Soraya would spend her whole life at the first stage of demigod—and among the weakest of that rank at that. Orion hadn't worked out yet how to make it up to her. He didn't have the nerve to face his own woman.