Titan King: Ascension of the Giant-Chapter 771: To Kill an Archlord

Chapter 771: To Kill an Archlord

“So, this is the Shadow Army,” Orion murmured, his gaze sweeping across the battlefield below.

Countless dark forms flickered in and out of existence, weaving through the chaos. They would materialize only when an enemy was exhausted or had overextended, their attacks sudden and lethal.

“They have their weaknesses,” Alexander stated, his tone as flat as the barren plains around them. “They cannot hold a line. To send them into a direct melee is to misuse their strength.”

He spoke as if assessing a shipment of grain rather than his own elite soldiers.

“But for flanking, for assassinations, for running down a broken foe… they are peerless.”

“Don’t sell them short, my friend,” Orion countered, shaking his head. He saw more than just assassins. He saw a force whose true strength was masked by its unorthodox nature. They were not meant to be fodder for the grinder.

“Every shadow is a survivor, born from slaughter and death. I have every confidence in them. But they are not legionaries; they have not learned the shield wall or the phalanx. The heart of the battle does not belong to them.”

Orion conceded the point with a nod. In the crush of a pitched battle, the will of the individual warrior was often sublimated to the unified strength of the cohort. Singular prowess could be blunted by sheer mass and discipline.

“Have you faced their kind before?” Alexander asked, his gaze also fixed on the unfolding carnage below.

At the very front, clashing with the vanguard of undead, were the true denizens of this corrupted land: Shadow Banshees whose wails could turn a warrior’s mind to jelly, Night Stalkers that moved with an unnatural fluidity, and hulking, nameless things of grasping tentacles.

The banshees and stalkers were alien, creatures from a different reality, and they did not fear the undead in the way a mortal man would.

Some banshees unleashed psychic assaults, seizing control of the very skeletons sent against them. Some stalkers seemed to know the nature of the unliving, sidestepping the mindless first charge with contemptuous ease.

“We have, but not in such numbers,” Orion admitted, his eyes narrowed on the fight. “The infernal spawn we fought on the Dusk Continent had their own ways. Their hellfire could scour a wraith from existence in a single blast.”

“And the Ashenveil Sprites… skeletons that drew too near them would simply crumble, their necromantic bindings dissolving into nothing.”

“But we held the advantage. Once we slew their lords, our own champions broke them. Few survived.”

Alexander’s expression remained grim. “The situation is not as we predicted. If we are to survive, we must first seize a place where we can make a stand. That means the southern coast. With the sea at our backs, we can halve the pressure on our forces.”

“The Sea Folk might raid,” Orion noted.

“A small risk,” Alexander replied with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “The sea is its own cauldron of war. The great houses of the deep have no time to trouble themselves with the squabbles of land-dwellers.”

As he spoke, a profound gravity settled over him.

“Protect our necromancers. They are the key. Without the undead legions, our armies would be broken and sent fleeing back to their home realms. Queen Lolth’s spider-brood… they are not enough to turn this tide.”

Isabella’s cavalry and Lolth’s spiders were being ground down. The Banshees fought a brutal, retreating battle, their numbers dwindling, their territory shrinking with every passing hour.

“Their losses are heavy,” Orion observed. “Why does their Archlord not show herself? Does she feel no pain for her people?”

“You mistake their nature,” Alexander said, his voice devoid of emotion. “To the dark races, followers are tools, not kin. Their own life is paramount.”

“She will not appear until the other two Archlords arrive to support her. These creatures value their wretched lives above all else.”

He wasn’t sneering; he was stating a fact of the cosmos. In the endless wars he had witnessed, this was the common thread. Power sought self-preservation above all.

Even Leonidas, even the Deputy Commander himself, had been that way for a long time. It was not a judgment, merely an observation.

Orion fell silent. He had fought his share of Archlords, and their temperament was much as Alexander described.

On Titanion, the white dragon Frostsire and the Seadragon King’s avatars, upon discovering Orion was a Transcendent warrior, had not escalated the conflict. They had chosen to parley, to seek a resolution that benefited both sides.

A resolution that benefited both sides.

The thought struck Orion with the force of a physical blow. He was learning something new, something vital.

The gulf between a Lord and an Archlord was not merely one of power, but of perspective. Their view of the world, their very calculus of action, was different.

He had to learn this. The future of the Stoneheart Horde depended on it—half on stable growth, the other half on inter-realm war.

War was simple: you fought to win, by any means necessary. But creating the stability needed for growth? That required something more. It required diplomacy.

And diplomacy, he was beginning to understand, was an art form—a delicate dance of politics, economics, history, and culture, all employed through negotiation, maneuvering, and sometimes, the threat of annihilation, simply to carve out a space of peace.

“We push forward,” Alexander declared, his eyes pulling back from the battlefield. The blood and violence below could no longer touch him. He had learned long ago to encase his heart in ice.

“We force her out.”

“Deeper into their territory?” Orion questioned, a flicker of doubt crossing his face. “That’s a risk, my friend. If they turn the tables, we’ll be caught in a pincer.”

“The shadows I cast ahead have returned. The armies of the two Archlords to the north are already in pursuit.”

“We are out of time. We must crush the southern host before they arrive.”

Orion took a deep breath, the foul air of the battlefield filling his lungs. He nodded.

Pincered from the north and south. Compared to this, his and Leonidas’s campaign on the Dusk Continent had been a simple conquest. There, they had Onyx’s fortress at Red Moon Valley, a stable anchor with a teleportation array that allowed for constant reinforcement. They had a secure rear from which to launch their expansion. Here, there was no safety.

“Alexander,” Orion began, his voice low and intense. “You and the Deputy Commander… do you have a way to pinpoint her? The Shadow Banshee Archlord?”

He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with a hunter’s light. “If we can find her, perhaps we can kill her before the others arrive.”

Alexander didn’t answer immediately. He neither confirmed nor denied it, but the subtle shift in his posture was enough.

“You do, don’t you?”

A thrill shot through Orion. He had spoken on a whim, but he saw now that Alexander, the master strategist, might already possess the means.

“Let’s go,” Alexander said, a chillingly calm smile touching his lips.

“Perhaps we can try.”

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