Titan King: Ascension of the Giant Chapter 1716: Dust of the World Tree

"No—no—" Aednor's shock was cut short by a cry of despair, and when he made out the world-shaking collision in the void, a chill ran down his own spine and his throat worked.

Both stood for the Weave of Reality, but Orion and Mordava were not on the same level at all. One stood for an Ascendant Plane, the other for a small world—a stone against an egg, true and plain. Mordava was torn utterly apart, not on the level of the body alone but ground out and annihilated at the level of the rules.

Alongside it came the clash and contest of two World Trees. They met in the rift between space and time, and the terrible churn of space looked set to remake heaven and earth, to work creation over again. The two World Trees' root-systems tangled into each other, and space shuddered under their mutual cinching and locking, then caved in. In that moment the void turned to sea, and the waves rolled high.

A long, long while passed, until nothing was left across heaven and earth but a soft rustling.

As a world-spirit, Elara found the scene strangely familiar. She lifted a hand and caught one withered yellow leaf after another. A fine golden wind, leaf on leaf falling, layer on layer staining, all of it sighing down. A scene like this meant Timira's World Tree core had been shattered, its trunk turned to countless falling leaves, scattering on the wind, passing on the wind.

"Living and dying—that's the fate of us all. Go on, then." Elara turned her hand, and the leaves in it went falling on down.

"Truly an incredible being." Beside her, Elara's strange gesture was caught by Aednor and the others. In their view, what Elara had reached out to catch just now was no falling leaf at all, but flickers of starlight, gone as soon as seen. That starlight was no ordinary thing—it glimmered once like a firefly, then burst apart and scattered, vanishing fast without a trace.

The World Tree shattered, and the world lost its core, lost its support. All things fell still, and the whole world's vitality took shape and gathered together, trying to mend and bind itself back into the World Tree it had been.

"It's come back—the World Tree's gathering again. How can a thing like this happen—" Aednor, Thaddeus, Naya, Braham, Anya all cried out. World Tree reformation—could a thing like that really be done?

"No use. Dead is dead." Elara closed her eyes, letting the starlight enter her, letting the wild wind blow her hair about. She was listening—listening to the last dirge the World Tree left in this world.

As if to bear out her words, the World Tree gathering in the void came apart again, the phantom leaves dispersing, the withered branches snapping off, the bark on the trunk peeling away tile by tile. Fissures ran across the World Tree, and after a single frozen instant it scattered into nothing.

"It's finished." Elara opened her eyes, the gaze clear, neither glad nor sorry, nothing readable in it. "Teleport out. There's nothing here that needs us—leave it to daddy to deal with." She looked down on Aednor, Thaddeus, and the rest and gave the order, calm.

Aednor raised his head and looked up at Elara, at this girl standing atop a Snail-Dragon handing down commands, and for a moment felt a smothering weight he couldn't put a name to.

"Right." A moment later they teleported away, and the whole world was left with nothing but World Tree roots, devouring like mad the World Essence scattered across Timira in ruin.

—

The Abyssal World. The Nightmare Knights.

A three-headed, six-armed Nightmare Knight rode an uncommonly tall Nightmare beast at the head of the column, coming out of the fog first of all, his form flickering, switching back and forth between hidden and seen. Behind this Nightmare Knight came a string of Abyssal species hooked and bound on soul-chains—the slave-stock his team had taken. To come out of the fog was to be back at camp. The Knight at the head lifted the weapon in his hand, and the Nightmare Knights hidden around the slave-stock all showed themselves, driving the whole "flock" into camp to wait on the Lord to spark new kin to life.

"Rolan—well done. With this batch of slave-stock we can make good our losses on the fourth layer of the Abyss." The Nightmare Knights' Commander laid his longsword on Rolan's shoulder, and green ghost-fire passed through the blade and into Rolan, raising his soul-strength, raising his power with it.

Rolan nodded, led his Nightmare beast back to a tent, and sank into stillness.

I don't know where this is. The Lord says we're in the Abyssal World. They say the Abyss has many layers—I want to know which layer I'm on.

Why do I want to know? Because there's always a faint voice in my soul asking, crying out.

I remember it was Year 56 of the Stoneheart Calendar when I set foot in the Abyssal World for good.

Wait—Year 56 of the Stoneheart Calendar, what in the world is that? Whose calendar is that?

And how long has it been since Year 56 of the Stoneheart Calendar? I want so badly to know.

Seems I've forgotten something, and I can't call any of it back—the moment I reach for it my head aches.

Stoneheart. Stoneheart. Such a familiar name.

So tired today. On the Commander's order I went out to take slave-stock, readying to wake a fresh batch of kin.

We ran into a band of powerful beings. They call themselves Doomguard, the favored darlings of the Abyssal World.

It wasn't the first time we'd met that kind of monster—the people clashed with them back on the fourth layer of the Abyss, and by the Commander's account both sides took losses.

I know full well it wasn't like that. At the start, we did have the upper hand.

But once that band of Doomguard drew in their demigod by way of an offering, we began to break.

Many of the people died getting clear of the fourth layer.

If I weren't the Commander's own guard, I might have been thrown away too.

The Commander says if we want to survive in the Abyssal World we have to keep to rules like that—to let most of the people go on living, a small part of the people has to be sacrificed.

It sits hard. Of the people sacrificed, some were eaten by the enemy, some burned to ash, some simply ground to pieces.

Once the new kin wake, the Commander means to lead us to the sixth layer of the Abyss.

The sixth layer. The sixth layer.

For some reason the sixth layer of the Abyss draws me—as though something there is waiting for me.

Not good—my head's starting to ache again, that furious cry sounding in my skull once more. I have to sleep. Stillness makes the world go quiet.

Right—the Commander said those Doomguard are a legion too, and the ones I ran into before were the newest batch of hunters on our trail.

It hurts. Better sink into stillness, and quick. I can't think on it any longer.

Rolan. My name is Rolan.