Titan King: Ascension of the Giant Chapter 1720: Roots of the Golden Age

No one knows a child like a mother; just what kind of temper Pallas had, Lilith knew better than anyone.

"Pity and tolerance are fine virtues in a sovereign, true—but without Orion's supreme strength and standing behind them, they make a man easy to use and easy to fool. A sovereign who can be jerked around is a stain on me, on you, on the Stoneheart Horde, on Orion. A Stoneheart Horde like that—its glory is gone."

Delilah cocked her head and looked Lilith over, an unconcealed surprise in her eyes.

"That's where you and I differ. For blood-feeling, for the great cause, for glory, you can let some things go. Me—so long as Orion didn't say otherwise outright, I'd likely have kicked off a civil war." The Succubus Witch Queen, and Orion's wife—both held Authority, but their footing differed, and so did their thinking.

"Which is exactly why you can't be Orion's wife. Even without me, the one to rise wouldn't be you—most likely it'd be Sylvana or Sophia." Lilith gave a faint smile, the confidence on her face glinting bright in the moonlight.

"Heehee—you think I covet your place as Orion's wife? I've said it: this isn't my ground. The Abyss is." Listening to Delilah's careless, scornful laugh, Lilith shook her head and said nothing. The notion at the very bottom of this sister's heart had never once changed.

"And now this isn't your ground either. Where do you mean to go next? Care to go keep an eye on the tavern?" How to put it—if everything Delilah had said before was the outer coat, then the thought she let show now was the true sweet center. Lilith was moved. She understood: this was the reason Delilah had felt her way into the castle in the dark. When it came down to it, the two of them were true sisters, full blood.

"I'm very busy in the Abyssal World. While Orion was away, that rage-dragon led the people and pushed the holdings out a bit further—" Catching the burning fix of Lilith's gaze, Delilah meant to cover, meant to explain, but talking on she couldn't carry it through.

"I'm going to the Valkorath Realm. There's a city there that's mine alone. Not to hold Authority—to cultivate in earnest." Lilith dipped her head, her voice a touch faint, but firm. "I can't drag it out any longer. I'm afraid—I'm so afraid. Afraid that one day I'll grow old, even die; afraid of leaving Orion; afraid of not seeing Pallas take a wife and have children; afraid you and I will wither together, our faces gone, our bodies turned to white bone. Without making demigod, we can't so much as glimpse Orion's back."

Lilith lifted her head and fixed Delilah in dead earnest.

"Power doesn't matter. All of it goes to the children and grandchildren sooner or later. I want to do as Orion does—chase strength to its limit, chase the deathless immortality."

Delilah reached out and gently smoothed the few stray strands of hair at Lilith's brow.

"It's too hard. Truly too hard." Delilah let out a sigh, her voice full of despair. "You don't know—in the Abyssal World, beyond cultivating in silence, all I did was get hold of Banshee Crystals by every means there was. Trade, bounty, theft, plunder—if it could land me Banshee Crystals, I tried it. The banshees across my Abyssal holdings, I killed off every one."

In the places people couldn't see, Delilah's effort and her grit ran bloody and ruthless. She did it all for nothing but to step into the demigod realm the sooner. And yet, for all the thousands upon thousands of Banshee Crystals she'd swallowed, she was still barred outside the demigod threshold. Gift, truly, is not a thing you can make good by later effort just because you say so.

"I know. Orion's said it—so long as we cultivate in earnest, he can find us everything we need." Lilith looked at Delilah; this was her invitation. She wanted to make demigod, and she wanted her sister Delilah to make demigod too. And this, of course, was the very thing Orion most wished to see. With the handover of power and responsibility, Orion hoped all his women would throw their whole energy into cultivation. Whatever the end of it, it beat never trying at all.

"You dog of a man—you trust him that much?" Delilah gave a soft laugh, the despair on her face scattering clean away. "Leave it there, then. It's enough that you've somewhere to go." Delilah rose, melting into the dark by degrees, and was gone from the castle just like that, as though she'd never come.

—

Three days later. The central square of Stoneheart City.

The merry horn-calls had rung without pause from the break of dawn. Fountains burst across the square, and the guards stood in long ranks, walling off a carpeted road into the castle through the central ground. Old folk with children in their arms, flower-selling girls, rangers with weapons on their backs, drunks just out of the tavern, dwarves perched on mounts on purpose—the crowd pressed close, shoulder to shoulder and heel to heel, gathered beyond the cordon to be the first to lay eyes on the splendor of Queen Elara.

"I'll bet you anything—since the Titan Continent first had a history, there's never been a celebration as grand as this. The human kings of old had none like it, nor the blood-elf race. The Stoneheart Horde, as it is now, is one of a kind." The one who let out that sigh was the human Kadir, standing in the spectators' formation. Once the highest overseer of Stoneheart City's colosseum, he'd now been raised by Queen Elara to the Stoneheart Horde's minister of finance, and would next take a seat in the cabinet brain-trust Elara was forming—one of the chief figures in the Horde's hold on power.

"With the Horde grown to such a scene, that banking institution My Lord once proposed—is it going to be rolled out now?" The fat man Nico stood right at Kadir's side; the two of them had run the colosseum together, the best of partners.

"It's been quietly in force a long while. Horde war-merits, Wishing Tree merit-redemption points, special Glory Points, the outward currency used in other worlds—every contribution that can be traded for resources and goods ties back to the bank." Kadir turned to look his friend over, decked out in full dress. After Kadir's promotion, Nico had become the colosseum's man in charge. With Elara's accession, Nico would shortly have to lead the colosseum's honor-guard along behind her and swear loyalty to Queen Elara.

"Fat man, the golden age we're looking at now is just the half-length of branch the Horde's great tree shows above ground. In the places we can't see, its roots are coiled everywhere. When you swear loyalty in a bit, keep your manner solemn and your head quick."

As a friend, Kadir reminded the dead fat man in front of him time and again.

"Rest easy, I know. I swear loyalty to Her Majesty alone—beyond Her Majesty's orders, I heed no one's word." Fat Nico might be fat, but he was no fool; he knew weight and rule.

"Heh. See those Snail-Dragons Her Majesty stationed at the colosseum? That size, that shell—big and flat, fit to carry people and haul heavy loads both. And with a Snail-Dragon's steady, hardy pace, all I need is to dress them up a touch and they'll become the brightest sight in Stoneheart City—no, the brightest sight in the whole Stoneheart Horde."