Titan King: Ascension of the Giant Chapter 1727: The Gathering Storm

The Mirage Void. The Void Mirrors.

Moraeon, Lord of the Boundless Expanse, swept his eyes round the wholly empty great hall of the Council of Mirrors, a bad feeling at the bottom of his heart. By the original plan, he'd have besieged Blackstone City from every direction, driving it off into other regions, dragging the other great domains into the water to fight the invaders alongside him. They had, in fact, gone and done just that, but the result fell short of his hopes. Blackstone City's territory not only hadn't shifted or shrunk back—it had swelled and spread like a flood, near enough to claim a good half of the Boundless Expanse. The thing had grown big, grown beyond control, grown past his own capacity, and along with the tension and the weight Moraeon felt, there was a faint thread of expectancy too, a tangle of feeling past putting into words for anyone outside.

"Moraeon, your face looks a touch heavy. Don't tell me the Boundless Expanse has been lost." A little way off, light gathered on a new mirror-dais, and before the figure within had taken shape, a teasing, joking voice came through.

"The enemy's powerful, and fearless with it. I keep feeling they're waiting for us to come knocking, setting traps, waiting for us to walk into our deaths. Keep on this way and the Boundless Expanse may truly be lost." Moraeon watched the figure finish gathering into form; he had a great many questions he wanted to put to the other.

"Logan, what's the situation with the invaders who turned up at the Tower of the Dead? Have you traded blows with them? How strong are they? How do things stand at the Tower of the Dead now?"

Logan, Lord of the Tower of the Dead, didn't answer Moraeon's questions. He fixed Moraeon with a look of surprise. Today's Moraeon was unlike his usual self—forward, full of words, a thing that didn't square with Moraeon's habitually silent temper.

"Speak, will you—what are you looking at?" Moraeon was a touch impatient; the Boundless Expanse's battle-situation was poor, and he badly needed the other regions' situations for reference, to weigh against and reach the call most to his own advantage.

"My friend, haven't you noticed how very abnormal you are today? Your words anxious, your face urgent, visible tension and unease at the bottom of your eyes—Moraeon, just what is it you've run into?" Logan, Lord of the Tower of the Dead, watched Moraeon, the crimson eyes hidden under his helm fixed on him, a mood quietly gathering of the sort that would strike an enemy dead the moment something went wrong. "Or has the Boundless Expanse truly been lost in your hands?"

Catching Logan's gaze, Moraeon realized he'd let no small amount of feeling show in his anxiety. He drew a deep breath and let it out slow, and on that one breath the tension, unease, anxiety, every negative feeling drew back and reined in, and Moraeon became once more that silent Lord of the Boundless Expanse.

"That's the Lord of the Boundless Expanse, Moraeon, I know. If you couldn't get back to normal, I'd start to suspect the enemy had seized your soul and mind, made you their hidden agent." Seeing his friend back to himself, Logan, Lord of the Tower of the Dead, let out a quiet breath of relief; a moment ago he'd truly thought something had gone wrong with Moraeon, thought the enemy might be pounding at the door. "Out with it, then—what in the world has gone wrong in the Boundless Expanse?"

Logan fixed Moraeon once more; he wanted to know what great matter could so disturb the mind of a power like Moraeon. They were sixth-stage apex powers, after all—beyond the gods, the beings in this world that could threaten them were precious, precious few.

"When they've come, I'll lay it out in full." Moraeon was very calm. In that brief moment of stillness just now, he'd discovered a grave problem.

Logan, hearing it, nodded and said nothing, standing silent on his mirror-dais to wait on the other two.

A quarter-hour passed in a blink, and on the other two mirror-daises light-screens lit one after the other—the Lords of two more regions where fighting had broken out descending in.

"Moraeon, you'd best explain yourself—why invoke your authority to open a four-way council?" The one who spoke was a humanoid great dragon, Joe Kaijiri, Lord of the Dragon's Grave. He and Moraeon were sworn enemies, who'd once fought tooth and nail over the post of Lord.

"Foolish four-legged lizard—it's plainly a grave problem, or Moraeon wouldn't invoke his authority to open a four-way council. Put that horned head of yours to some use." Taking up from Joe Kaijiri was Hal, Lord of the Spirit Prison, a mysterious being shrouded in shadow, his exact form beyond making out.

"Before the two of you descended, I felt unease, felt tension, a sense of anxiety with me every moment—Logan saw it, he can bear witness." It was true; Moraeon met Joe Kaijiri's and Hal's eyes in turn, by way of conveying his earnestness, his gravity. "Logan's reminder brought me back to calm, my heart still as water. And yet, once calm, I found that my divine soul was trembling, my rule-force gone disordered, even my Divine Kingdom shuddering faintly. You ought to know what that means—the Boundless Expanse is about to see some great matter that threatens my very life."

As Lord of the Boundless Expanse, on his own domain Moraeon's sense ran with a bonus to it, and a demigod's gift for premonition didn't, as a rule, go badly wrong.

"The invaders in the Boundless Expanse are spreading at a terrifying speed—top-tier strength or rank-and-file strength, I hold no advantage on either count. I can say for certain now: before long the Boundless Expanse will be lost, the whole domain taken by the enemy." If the Moraeon of before had still carried his own little schemes, then now there truly wasn't a scrap of private design in him; in the face of crisis, saving his own neck first was what mattered most.

"My counsel is that the four of us together call a full mirror-dais council, and propose to wake at least one of the Sovereigns." Moraeon's ringing voice echoed at the other three's ears, but not one of them answered—even Moraeon's friend, Logan, Lord of the Tower of the Dead, fell silent. They trusted Moraeon's word, but going by the assessment of the fighting in their own regions, they felt there was exaggeration in it. For under their own suppression, the territory of the invaders in the other three places hadn't spread far; they were confident of swallowing the enemy whenever they pleased.

"How many sixth-stage apex powers have shown up in the Boundless Expanse?" Joe Kaijiri, Lord of the Dragon's Grave, put the question. Sworn enemy of Moraeon he might be, but he wouldn't lightly pass judgment on a grave matter.

"Two. They're powerful—neither Alwin nor I is a match for them. Last probe, we were beaten back." On the matter of being beaten back, Moraeon felt no shame. For one, with neither side calling out a Divine Vessel, any clash counted only as a probe; for another, no apex power could be taken lightly—the same result would have come even had Joe Kaijiri gone, for Moraeon had once beaten him.

"I'm for calling a full mirror-dais council, but whether to wake a Sovereign, let everyone decide. You ought to know—disturb a Sovereign and you'll have to bear the terror of their wrath when they wake." Joe Kaijiri set out his decision. In fact, Moraeon's proposal stood to benefit all four of them. Rather than have the four great domains each face the enemy alone, far better to drag everyone in and pool the strength of all to clear out the invaders in one stroke. That way they'd have time to cultivate, even to sleep and bank up their depth.

"My thinking is the same as Kaijiri's—I'm for calling a full mirror-dais council. Before that, I've a suggestion: the three of us each send one sixth-stage apex power to reinforce the Boundless Expanse." A thing that stood to benefit him, Hal, Lord of the Spirit Prison, wouldn't refuse. Beyond that, Hal had no wish to bear the consequences of disturbing the Sovereigns—a Lord had once been flayed alive for just that. "Send five apex powers and we can surely probe out part of the enemy's true situation. Only with solid results will we have grounds to talk the other eight quarters round to waking a Sovereign."

A second probe—a forcing of the issue, and a triggering of the crisis both.

"Good." Moraeon ran his eyes over the others, and after a moment's silence took up Hal's suggestion. While the chance was here, Moraeon too wanted to get to the bottom of what was strong enough to leave him so ill at ease in spirit—to threaten his very life.