Titan King: Ascension of the Giant - Chapter 1275

Chapter 1275: The Trojan Gambit
Abyssal Second Layer. Vigil’s Point.

Silence settled over the territory, heavy and absolute.

After Makareth’s purge, the atmosphere at Vigil’s Point shifted from chaotic to deathly still. The dissenters—the loud ones, the schemers—had been dragged out and slaughtered. That was the Demon way of handling HR disputes: simple, direct, and incredibly effective.

“Hand over the controls to the defensive ward,” Orion said, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “Staring at them isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

Orion had been analyzing the Unhallowed for hours. He hadn’t found a structural weak point—the things were walking glitches in reality—but the hunger in his gut was undeniable. He needed that gray crystal.

“Hulk, the territory is stable,” Makareth rumbled, his voice low. “We don’t need to be this aggressive. You saw what those things can do.”

Makareth had tanked the Unhallowed; he knew their damage output. His advice was sound: hold the line, let the wards do the work.

“I’m not looking for stability, Mak,” Orion replied, his voice tightening. “I’m looking for loot. Unique resources.”

Orion didn’t wait for permission. He seized control of the ward’s interface. A moment later, the massive Abyssal Dreadfin he was piloting shuddered. Its tentacles whipped into a frenzy, and with a burst of speed, the colossal beast charged straight out of the safety zone, headlong toward the Unhallowed.

It was a brute-force play. Orion couldn’t find an exploit, so he was forcing an interaction.

ROAR!

SCREECH!

Two distinct monstrous cries tore through the sky—one cold and indifferent, the other violent and desperate.

To Makareth, it looked like suicide. The Abyssal Dreadfin launched itself straight into the gaping, bat-like maw of the Unhallowed like a steak being thrown to a starving dog.

And that was exactly what happened.

The Unhallowed clamped down. Rows of serrated teeth sheared through the Dreadfin, biting the massive leviathan clean in half.

But this was the play.

The bottom half of the Dreadfin—the discarded husk—plummeted from the sky. It crashed through the barrier and slammed into the ground at Vigil’s Point. The flesh writhed, blood spurting like geysers before the regenerative traits kicked in, sealing the wounds. The carcass went limp, entering a state of suspended animation.

Delilah moved instantly. “Secure the perimeter!” she barked. The Stoneheart Horde soldiers swarmed the fallen carcass, weapons drawn, creating a no-go zone.

Makareth looked back up at the sky.

The battle wasn’t over.

High above, the Unhallowed had swallowed the top half of the Dreadfin, but it wasn’t celebrating. It was thrashing. It roared and choked, looking for all the world like it had swallowed a mouthful of molten lead.

Orion’s gambit was a classic Trojan Horse, executed with brutal efficiency.

He had sacrificed the Dreadfin’s physical shell to deliver the payload: his Body of Faith. He let himself be eaten to bypass the external armor and attack the enemy from the inside out.

It was a high-risk, high-reward strategy. If he failed, he was digested. If he succeeded…

Orion opened his eyes. He was in.

He wasn’t inside a stomach. There were no organs, no biological walls. He had entered a pocket dimension—a pure, monochromatic Gray World.

Floating in the center of this void was the prize: a Gray Crystal, pulsing with dull light and wrapped in a chaotic tangle of roots and tendrils.

Orion looked down, and a chill ran through his spirit.

Below the crystal wasn’t a floor, but an ocean. And it wasn’t water. It was a slurry of dissolved existence.

Thousands of abyssal species, mountains, rivers, artifacts, fragments of cities… everything the Unhallowed had ever consumed was floating in that gray fog, being broken down into raw World Essence. The crystal pulsed, and the roots dipped into the slurry, sucking up the liquefied reality.

It was a scene worse than any hellscape. It was absolute entropy. The heat death of matter.

Drifting in the fog, Orion spotted the remains of an Arch Lord Demon. The corpse was half-melted, just a skull and a partial ribcage remaining. The frozen expression on the bone suggested the Demon had died screaming, trying to claw its way out of the fog before being dissolved.

“Crap.”

The moment Orion focused on the Demon, the dimension reacted. The immune system came online.

The gray fog surged upward, blotting out his vision. Thousands of root-like tendrils shot out from the mist, lashing toward his Asura Titan Form, trying to drag him down into the digestion pool.

“WAAAGH!”

Orion roared, unleashing his mana. A manifested Ocean of Faith exploded around his Asura Titan Form.

Arcs of lightning crackled through the golden liquid, creating a high-voltage barrier that incinerated the approaching roots. Simultaneously, he materialized hundreds of tridents formed from pure Rule Power, launching them into the fog to clear a path.

But the gray mist was relentless. It was thick, viscous, and suffocating.

“Open up!”

Orion pushed harder. Dark red Abyssal Energy rose from his core, mixing with the golden faith. The two energies clashed with the gray fog, hissing and popping as they fought for dominance.

It was a sluggish, grinding advance.

Orion realized quickly that his physical gear—the [Abyssal Devil Shield] and [Spite of the Wrathful Star]—was useless here. The enemy wasn’t physical; it was a manifestation of the Unhallowed’s internal laws. You couldn’t stab a rule. You had to rewrite it.

“Domains. Deploy.”

Three distinct Domains, powered by the Lord’s Stone, expanded from the Asura Titan Form. They pressed outward, creating a bubble of ordered reality that pushed back the chaotic gray fog.

With the pressure relieved, Orion burned through his Faith Energy without reserve, extending his senses.

There. Far ahead. A faint, pulsing gray light, brighter than the fog. The core.

He was bleeding resources. Every second in this hostile instance cost him weeks of accumulated faith. But he was committed. Sunk cost fallacy be damned—he was finishing this.

I am the weapon, Orion thought, his focus narrowing to a singular point. My will is the spear tip. The fog means nothing.

Lightning is my engine. Abyss is my armor. Forward.

This wasn’t delusions of grandeur; it was the mechanics of the Asura Titan Form adapting to the environment. He was channeling the Rule Power directly into his avatar.

The Asura Titan Form began to shift. The humanoid shape dissolved, reforming into a colossal, singular construct—a massive Trident wreathed in lightning and Abyssal Energy.

It looked like a Divine Artifact hurled by a god. It pierced the “wall” of the dimension, grinding forward inch by inch.

The gray fog evaporated on contact, but the cost was astronomical. The Ocean of Faith around him was evaporating just as fast.

“I fight for myself,” Orion’s voice echoed from the steel, metallic and unyielding. “And I don’t stop.”

The moment he spoke, the drain accelerated. The ocean of golden power vanished, sucked dry to fuel one final, world-shattering thrust.