Titan King: Ascension of the Giant Chapter 1717: Madness in the Abyss

The first layer of the Abyss. The Horncant tribe.

In this Abyssal World of black fog and danger, holding bloody rites and putting faith in some powerful being was one of the chief roads to winning protection. Right now, the assorted low Demons mixed in among the Horncant tribe piped on bone flutes and worked their incantations, hacking the heads and bellies off all manner of flesh-and-blood Abyssal creatures, carving runes in their blood, making vessels of their entrails, devoutly calling on some nameless evil being.

Just as the crimson blood was about to twist into a mystic rune on the altar, the ground began to quake, the sound of it like some huge monster pounding at a dead run toward the altar. As the tremors grew faster and fiercer, a scaled palm, big as a small hill, thrust suddenly out of the dark. Midway it turned from palm to claw and crushed the near-finished rite in one swipe.

The ceremony wrecked, a terror of a giant, vast as a mountain, stepped out of the dark at last—five-headed, eight-armed, hideous past bearing. The eyes of the topmost head burned with bloody light, and every time its mouth opened and shut, beams and magma sprayed out, cutting down every Demon that tried to flee. That wasn't the cruelest of it. The terror cut down the Horncant Horde's Abyssal species, then crushed them to a pulp and swallowed them down, mouthful by mouthful.

"Tsk, tsk. You've gone quiet, no words from you—looks like you've grown used to the killing. Enjoy it, then. This is the everyday of the Abyssal World, the feast that high Demons like us are meant to relish." Done jeering, the terror put out a great hooked tongue, swept a small demon's corpse a little way off into its mouth, and chewed in slow, even rhythm, the look on it all satisfaction.

"Any trace of the Nightmare Legion?" When the area nearby had gone dead silent, Kronos's voice came from the terror's frontmost head, firm and cold.

To find his elder Rolan again, to gather the four giant branches whole, Kronos could bear anything—even being grafted into by an Abyssal devourer, even a terror of a head perched on the noble, glorious Stoneheart titan body, drinking his blood.

"None. There's no shadow of any Nightmare Legion in these small demons' memories at all. The way I see it, the Nightmare Legion left this area long ago, gone somewhere farther off to take slave-stock. Hear me out—we go on deeper, devour more Demons, and sooner or later we turn up the Nightmare Legion's trail." The terror-head perched on the Stoneheart titan body talked as it chewed, savoring the sweetness of fresh flesh.

"You found nothing?" Kronos muttered, his face turning to self-reproach by degrees, then sinking into silence. Back when he and Rolan parted, Rolan had drawn the enemy off to who-knew-where; he himself had fallen into an illusion-trap the Abyssal devourer laid and come within a hair of being swallowed. If he hadn't manifested his true Stoneheart titan form and, somehow, pinned down that devourer with its peak Archlord-tier power, Kronos figured he'd have been long dead.

And alive though he was, Kronos felt he'd become a deformed monster. To hold off that graft-type Abyssal devourer, Kronos had to keep the Stoneheart titan form every moment, only then keeping his wits and staying clear-headed. An Abyssal devourer—that was the great enemy of the Giant race, an Abyssal monster that ate giant-folk for food. Kronos had never figured he'd run into one on the very first layer of the Abyss.

"Move. We go somewhere farther off to hunt our meat."

"Tsk, tsk—" The terror-head let out a wild, sinister laugh. The little thing it had grafted into turned out to be a new branch of giant, and a second-generation divine-nature bloodline at that. The terror-head reckoned that once it refined the little thing beneath it through and through, it was sure to undergo a flawless evolution—an evolution even past the forebears.

"No—no—" Kronos stopped, lifted his head to the heavens, his eyes full of the Realm Barrier. "I can't tell if what you're saying is true or false, but one thing I'm sure of—you're jerking me around. Since there's no trace of my elder Rolan here, I won't hunt, I won't linger in this place." Kronos said it word by word, slow but firm, his gaze clear too. "I'm going to find my elder Rolan no matter what. Without him I've no face to go back to the Horde with, no face to meet my mother and daddy. I'm leaving the first layer of the Abyss."

Kronos drove the body to step skyward, all eight arms raised, and slammed them hard at the Realm Barrier he could see but not touch.

"Boy, you've lost your mind. Force the Realm Barrier open and you'll easily stir up a strong Arch Lord on the other side—a moment's slip and someone hauls you off to be a slave, and getting your blood and vitality drained dry, your flesh and bone shaved off, those are the everyday, easy parts." On this point the Abyssal devourer hadn't lied to Kronos. When Orion first entered the Abyss and forced the Realm Barrier open, he'd been mobbed. If his strength hadn't been so great, the end of it didn't bear thinking about.

"You won't help me find my elder Rolan, then we die together—together." Kronos fired it back ringing and hard. He'd thought it through: the old thing up on his head was a deep-scheming monster. Since he couldn't best it in wits or strategy, he'd use his life to force the old thing to put its strength out, a backstop for his own search for Rolan.

"Tide-spawn, stop—stop—will you stop, damn you. That powerful being those small demons offered to just now is right by the Realm Barrier you're cracking open—it's the sacrifice that drew him in. By the feel of him, he's a match for what I had before I grafted into you, at the least. You fool, why go stirring up a peak Arch Lord?" The Abyssal devourer was getting frantic. A peak Arch Lord he was, true enough, but ever since grafting into Kronos his power had dropped by more than half, his whole store of blood and vitality drawn off into Kronos somehow, only deepening Kronos's own bodily foundation instead. The enemy across the way was plainly no one to provoke; avoiding him was the wise call. But Kronos would have it no way but up and at him.

"You're the tide-spawn. I am the noble Stoneheart titan." Kronos was wild, fevered. He didn't know why he'd turned out this way, swept now and then by a fierce recklessness. Ever since the monster up top grafted into him, he'd had a feeling: don't raise his strength soon and before long he'd be pulled helpless into sleep, his body taken over by another. What would happen then, he didn't know either. So a thread of fear had taken root in him.

The recklessness just now wasn't a simple brainless call either. Kronos meant to stake his life—to provoke a powerful enemy, to feel out whether the Abyssal devourer up top was hiding any cards. Know yourself and know your enemy, and you'll come through a hundred battles—that was the lesson Orion had taught him, and Kronos reckoned it sound.

"Kill—it's one of three. Either you help me grow strong, or you help me find my elder Rolan, or you die with me—die, die, die." Kronos had no mind to stop at all, eight arms flailing wild, picking up speed toward the second layer of the Abyss.

"You like to hunt, don't you? I'll give you a hunt and plenty. You like the flesh of high-tier Demons, don't you? There's some right there. Hahaha—" No madness, no making it through—Kronos slid into a state of demon-thrall.