Titan King: Ascension of the Giant - Chapter 1338

Chapter 1338: The Clockwork Signature
Note: Chapters 1336 and 1337 have been revised. Please reread Chapters 1336 and 1337.

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Orion walked past the frozen projection of the sacrifice and approached two weathered gravestones standing in the shadows of the cave.

One belonged to Rowena. It was a name Orion had buried deep in his memory files. Years ago, he had killed her brother, Reynard. He hadn’t expected her to end up with Lokiviria—the Insectoid lord he had also defeated.

And the smaller grave… that was their spawn. The hybrid child who had just opened the door to the apocalypse.

Orion stared at the stones for a moment, his expression unreadable, then turned on his heel. He didn’t disturb the dead. He simply walked back toward the entrance of the cave where the Chrono-Bubble was still active.

Kairon, Seraphina, and Evander exchanged confused glances but followed him. In this party, Orion was the tank and the leader; where he went, they followed.

A few yards away, Orion stopped and crouched. He looked down at a small object lying in the dust.

It was a clockwork beetle—a puppet.

It was a signature item. The Clown had given this to Lokiviria to “protect” him, but in reality, it was a tracking beacon and a corruptor.

Orion didn’t touch it. Since this was a visual reconstruction generated by Seraphina’s magic, the beetle was just a phantom. But the design was unmistakable.

The Clown.

That traitorous bastard from the Champions Alliance, Orion thought, a cold smirk touching his lips. He’s trying to backdoor my main base.

It all clicked. The disaster facing the Titanion Realm wasn’t random bad luck. It was a targeted strike.

The Clown and the Witch had taken a heavy loss in the Silverwood Realm. Orion had destroyed the Clown’s Demigod-level Avatar there. This was the counter-attack.

He knows the Titanion Realm is my base of operations, Orion realized. He wants to tie up my resources here so the Cult of Four can breathe easier in Silverwood.

It was a solid plan. A classic diversionary tactic. Split the enemy’s attention, force them to defend two fronts.

Unfortunately for the Clown, he had miscalculated one thing: Orion hadn’t just leveled up; he had changed the game entirely.

“Interesting,” Orion whispered. I used to be wary of you and the Witch. But now? Let’s play.

He stood up, dusting off his hands, the pieces of the puzzle locking into place.

“What did you find?” Seraphina asked, gliding over to him. She crouched beside him, her presence a mix of deadly power and intoxicating perfume.

Orion pulled her to her feet, his grip firm. He turned to address Kairon and Evander.

“The man in the vision, the one who sacrificed himself… that was Lokiviria,” Orion explained. “Years ago, during the first Civil War I participated in, I was allied with his father. Don’t ask how I know—the Insectoid bloodline is genetically stable. The kid looked exactly like the father.”

The three ancient Demigods leaned in. They were hungry for lore on Orion’s rise to power.

“In the most recent Civil War, the Alpha of the enemy faction was also named Lokiviria,” Orion continued. “Rumor had it the Insect Lord vanished from the battlefield. Now we know where he went. He came here to die.”

“As for that mysterious Arch Lord who was nuked by the Human Saint…” Orion looked at Evander.

Evander nodded grimly. The Human Saint was his subordinate. “I monitored that battle. That Arch Lord’s death was… wrong. When his Body of Faith was destroyed by the Relics, there was no corpse. No loot. No residue. It was like deleting a file.”

“He was acting strange, too,” Evander added. “No name, no history. All his actions seemed designed to stall.”

“You don’t need to guess,” Kairon interrupted, his earlier hostility replaced by tactical analysis. “That Arch Lord was a scout. A vanguard from the other world. His only job was to guide the collision course.”

Kairon was spot on. Without knowing it, he had identified the Clown’s Insectoid Avatar.

“Honestly? I don’t care about the ‘who’ anymore,” Seraphina said. She wrapped her arm through Orion’s, leaning her weight against him possessively.

“I care about the ‘how,'” she purred, her voice sultry but her eyes flashing with murderous intent. “How do we kill them? Are we just going to roll over and let them annex our territory?”

She looked at Orion, her eyes shining with pride. She had bet on the right horse, and she knew it.

Kairon and Evander remained silent, looking to Orion for the strategy. Despite their age and tenure, the hierarchy had shifted.

Orion pulled Seraphina closer, scanning the cave one last time.

“Don’t be fooled by the surface data,” Orion said, his voice dropping an octave. “The ‘World Tunnels’ are a decoy. This isn’t like the Emerald Dream Realm crisis.”

Kairon and Evander stiffened. Even Seraphina looked up at him, surprised.

“How is it different?” Kairon asked.

“With the Emerald Dream Realm, our worlds just bumped fenders,” Orion explained. “We touched, we exchanged some energy, and we had some Dark Beast tides. But the core source code of our world remained intact.”

Orion had spent time in the Primordial Void. He had built a world from scratch. He understood the operating system of reality in a way these three never could.

“And this time?” Seraphina asked, breathless. She loved it when he talked tactics. It proved her intuition right—he was a king in the making.

“This time, it’s a hostile takeover,” Orion said grimly. “The enemy world is massive, and its laws are superior to ours. Because we had a traitor on the inside running that sacrifice, their laws didn’t just crash into us today.”

He looked at the glowing remnants of the formation.

“They injected their code into our reality ten years ago. We aren’t just facing an invasion, gentlemen. We are facing assimilation.”

The silence in the cave was deafening.

Kairon, Seraphina, and Evander were Demigods, yes. But their power came from manipulating the existing system. They had no idea how to fight an enemy that was rewriting the operating system itself.