Titan King: Ascension of the Giant Chapter 1713 Shadows of Greatness

The Titan Continent. The Great Bastion of the East.

"Here you go, brother—the little street rat." Up on the Bastion Wall, Leonidas held out a purple-gold dragonling, wrenched up by the scruff like a chick, the little thing thrashing hard in his grip, right in front of Orion.

"My name's not street rat. I'm the noble Purple-Gold Divine Dragon—Scamp Lahaire!"

Orion looked the dragonling over. So this was his second student. Why did the little thing have the same edgelord streak as his father?

"Brother, the street rat's yours now. Long as you don't kill him, beat him, curse him, whatever—if he won't listen, take this to him." Leonidas held out a bone rod, ground from one of his own dragon bones, with a bloodline-suppressing pull on Scamp.

Street rat? Father King? Scamp Lahaire? Orion's expression turned subtle. The little thing had inherited the name Lahaire—looked like Leonidas set real store by the boy.

"Father King, who's he?" Scamp's big eyes darted everywhere, stealing looks at Orion while drinking in everything on the Bastion Wall, all curiosity.

"He's your pa, your master, the teacher your old man found for you." Leonidas bared his teeth in a grin and slapped a palm down on Scamp's back; the little thing went tumbling, rolling through the air toward Orion.

Orion caught him, dangled the little one by the tail, and brought him in close for a good look.

"Belly's a bit big, kind of like a worm. None of a divine dragon's grace to him. Bit ugly."

Orion said it straight. Against Leonidas's true form, Scamp's belly bulged a touch—plainly the bloodline wasn't pure enough, dragged down by his mother Daize's blood, pulling the floor of the divine-dragon line lower.

"You're ugly! Your whole family's ugly! My mother says this is exactly how a great dragon's supposed to look!"

An ordinary child, hearing a grown-up call him ugly, would likely shrink into himself. Not Scamp—he fired back, and wore it like a badge.

"Insulting your teacher, no grasp of respect for your elders. That earns a punishment." Whump—Orion had barely finished before he hurled Scamp away; the little one slammed into the wall a way off and let out a string of pained yowls. Before Scamp could so much as climb up, Orion's big hand closed, and the little thing went flying back the way it came, snatched by the tail again.

"Not bad. Body's solid enough. Holds up to a knocking around."

Hearing Orion's verdict on his boy, Leonidas split into a grin, well pleased. For Orion to say that was to say Scamp's gift and ceiling made the grade—fit to be raised as a student.

Hearing Orion's verdict on his boy, Leonidas split into a grin, well pleased. For Orion to say that was to say Scamp's gift and ceiling made the grade—fit to be raised as a student.

"Bloodline's not pure enough, no matter. Once I've banked enough merit in the Mirage Void, I'll trade at the Wishing Tree for something to raise the little one's blood. By then I'll see my street rat make demigod in flawless shape."

Orion nodded. Back when the lot of them first met, no one would've had a good answer to a bloodline problem. Not now. Set before the Wishing Tree, a bloodline problem was no problem at all.

"Know who I am now?" Orion gave Scamp a little lift, set to throw him again, making his point.

"Pa! Master! Teacher!" Catching the itch in Orion's eyes, Scamp came back quick—he had no wish to eat a loss right here, flung and slammed about for sport. Hitting that wall really did hurt, though. The wall here seems a bit different from the ones on Father King's land. Scamp grumbled it in private, casting about for a chance to slip away and bolt.

"There's promise in him. A good seedling." Bend when you must, stretch when you can—the second things look bad, switch your footing on the spot. In Orion's eyes that was the bright mark, the virtue, the way of a creature that lives long. With some things, staying alive is the whole of it.

"He's yours. Knock him around all you like." Leonidas let go entirely, handing over his best-gifted little one just like that.

"Then I'll take the street rat out for a wander." As Orion said it, he cast a glance at the corner of the wall behind him; seeing that Leonidas had something to say and in the end said nothing, he flickered and was gone from the Bastion Wall.

A good while passed before Pallas came out from the corner of the wall, crossed to Leonidas's side, and looked off into the distance with him.

"You know, of all your brother's children, you're supposed to be the closest to him. Why not show yourself today and see him?" Leonidas turned to Pallas. Since the little one had come to the Bastion Wall and lived through the deaths of so many comrades-in-arms, he'd gone quieter, and a touch low.

09:17

"The closest, sure. And the most useless." Pallas's mood ran tangled—proud and honored on the one hand, on the other let down and slumped at his own good-for-nothing showing.

"Now even my little brother's stronger than me."

Stationed on the Bastion Wall though he was, Pallas, as the Stoneheart Horde's purest-blooded giant prince, had eyes everywhere; of course the latest word on the Horde reached him. His sister Elara was leading a portion of the people on a campaign through other worlds—the very thing he and Elara had craved most as children. Now his sister had her wish, and he was "penned" on the Bastion Wall. His eldest brother Caelus, gifted past compare, was off cultivating in seclusion somewhere, readying a breakthrough to demigod, his strength and standing out of all reach. Forget catching up—Pallas couldn't even see him, couldn't touch him. His second brother Kronos and elder Rolan had braved the Abyss; win or lose, live or die, they were Horde legends. His little brother Kaelen had gone into Blackstone City early on his dream-butterfly body, come away with no end of gains, his strength rocketing up. Side to side or top to bottom, Pallas couldn't dig up a shred of superiority anywhere.

"Your brother spotted you. Before he left, he took a look at the spot where you were hiding." Leonidas clapped Pallas on the shoulder, soft with comfort. "As one father to another, I can tell you flat: no father throws his own child away. Even a good-for-nothing, he'll keep, and watch him grow, and let him live a life of his own. All the more a child like you, with fine blood and gift—there's no shortage of hope riding on you." It came from the heart; Leonidas felt it deep. "The only reason you reckon yourself not good enough is that your sights run high. The ones you measure yourself against are the better lot. Look at the street rat, look at your guards, look at that crowd of kin you brought over from the Stoneheart Horde—which of them is your better? In their eyes, you're every bit as much a mountain that stops a man in his tracks at the sight of it."

Leonidas envied Orion a little. Same Survivors, the both of them—how was it the brother had carved out a whole new branch of his race, what right had his children to be dragons among men, every last one?

"Boy, measuring yourself against others is good for nothing. Other people's shine, other people's growth—it's noise, it's fog. All it does is jam your read on things and blur your heart."