Titan King: Ascension of the Giant-Chapter 788: Sympathetic Evolution

Alexander shook his head, waving away Orion’s humility as if it were a pesky fly.

"It took the fastest of us over a century to ascend to the rank of Archlord," he said, his voice flat with fact. "And you? How many years has it been? Your talent is undeniable. Now, let us return."

Orion, who had been secretly basking in the praise, was taken aback by the sudden shift. One moment, a rare compliment from the stoic assassin; the next, it was back to business.

Titanion Realm, Stoneheart City.

Within the fortress, Lilith frowned, her gaze fixed on the small, still form of Pallas lying on the bed. Her face was a mask of calm, but beneath it, a storm of anxiety raged.

Earlier that day, while Lilith was attending to matters of state in the great hall, the giant prince had been playing on the castle ramparts under the watch of his handmaidens. Without warning, a shroud of blood-red flame had erupted around him. His clothes were instantly incinerated, and after a single, agonized cry, Pallas had fallen into a deep coma.

"What have you found?" Lilith asked, forcing her voice to remain steady.

Two dark shapes detached themselves from the shadows behind her. Her personal guard. The moment the incident occurred, she had them secure every handmaiden and guard who had witnessed it.

"My Lady," one of the shadows reported, "our interrogations have yielded nothing. There was no assassin, nor did any outsider approach the prince. We are certain of it. What happened to His Highness... it came from within."

Lilith’s eyes narrowed, becoming as cold and deep as a wolf’s.

"What in the hells happened?"

A shimmer of spatial energy announced Delilah’s arrival. She stepped from the portal directly beside Lilith, her eyes immediately locking onto the bed. Pallas was now encased in a pulsating, crimson cocoon.

Delilah’s eyebrows shot up. The moment Pallas had collapsed, Lilith had used the bond of their twinned souls to summon her sister. In Lilith’s eyes, while her twin was dangerously ambitious, she was also frighteningly capable.

Delilah had used a realm-locked teleportation scroll—a priceless artifact Orion had given her for emergencies—to return from the western coast. That she would expend such a treasure spoke volumes of her devotion to Pallas, and to the future of the succubus race.

"The initial investigation shows no external factors," Lilith said, her words clipped and precise. "He was playing, and then he was simply... on fire. The flames were incredibly powerful; any who drew too near were burned."

"But strangely, Pallas himself, at the heart of the blaze, has no burns. He is only in this coma. Something inside him has changed, something we cannot see."

After listening to Lilith’s report, Delilah looked even more bewildered.

"We cannot delay," she decided after two sharp breaths. "Contact Orion. If anyone knows what this is, it will be him."

Lilith nodded and closed her eyes. A moment later, Orion’s voice echoed in the room. It was deeper than they remembered, resonant as a great bell.

"Do not be concerned. I have had a breakthrough in the Emerald Dream Realm and have, by chance, ascended to the rank of Archlord."

"My son’s bloodline has sensed this, and it is undergoing a sympathetic evolution to match my own."

"The same phenomenon is likely occurring in the human kingdom, with the boy Kronos. Send word to them."

"And this news of my ascension... keep it secret for now. I will return as soon as my business in the Dream Realm is concluded. When I do, the current situation of the Stoneheart Horde will change."

The voice faded. In the bedroom, Lilith and Delilah stood in a silence so profound it felt like a spell.

After a long time, Delilah let out a heavy sigh.

"Ever since he led the tribe to victory in the south, I knew he was destined for a future we could scarcely imagine," she murmured, a deep melancholy in her voice. "I just did not think that future would arrive so soon. Now... now all we can do is watch his back as he walks away from us."

She was dejected. Orion was an Archlord. And she was still stalled at the peak of the Alpha-rank, unable to even glimpse the path forward. Lilith felt her sister’s helplessness as her own. For all their tireless work, for all their devotion to Pallas and their people, fate had chosen another.

"The message to the human kingdom," Lilith asked quietly. "Should I explain the cause?"

"No. Simply inform them that the Giant Lord’s bloodline is awakening."

Delilah cast one last look at the cocoon on the bed, then turned and strode from the castle. She had to return to her post. Thankfully, the Four-Winged Blood Bat she had left for Lilith was still stabled here; she would not have to waste time traveling by land.

Lilith followed her out, watching in silence as her sister took the lift platform to the ramparts, summoned the great bat, and vanished into the sky. Only when the dark speck was gone from sight did she return to the bedroom to keep her vigil over Pallas.

The South, Human Kingdom, Rose Manor.

In her private chambers, Princess Ava paced like a caged lioness. On the bed, her son Kronos was also wrapped in a cocoon of blood-red energy.

"Go!" she snarled at a guardsman. "Ride to the capital again! Bring the Royal Physicians! If they dare make excuses or delay, you will drag them here in chains!"

It was the seventh time she had given the order.

After the guard scrambled out, she whirled on the giant Tarn, who stood anxiously in the corner. "And you. You still have no idea what this is?"

Kronos had been training with Tarn when it happened, practicing his martial skills. If Ava hadn’t been watching her son’s training at that very moment, Tarn would have a hundred questions to answer that he could not.

"The cocoon has the scent of the giant bloodline, like an awakening," Tarn said, shaking his massive head. "But it is not like the awakenings in our histories. Our people awaken at the age of eighteen, after the rites in the Cavern of Trials. I have never seen anything like this."

He was an Alpha, but the deeper secrets of his own blood were a mystery to him.

"I have already sent a warrior with a message to the Horde," he added, his voice strained. "I pray they send a reply swiftly."

He felt utterly powerless, a knot of fear in his stomach as he looked at the unconscious boy. He had grown fond of Kronos over their months together; their bond was like that of brothers. If anything happened to him, Tarn didn’t know how he could ever face Orion again.

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