Titan King: Ascension of the Giant-Chapter 833: This Is Your Home

The blush on Lycanor’s cheeks began to fade. To be sitting so close to Orion, speaking of the past—it stirred a strange, indescribable feeling within her.

To her praise, Orion remained noncommittal.

The blood elves, he had to admit, were masters of subtlety. Grand Elder Lireesa had stated their intentions, and then, after the coronation, had led her people back to the City of Blessings, leaving Lycanor behind as a deliberate, unspoken offering. They had made no demands for a formal proposal journey to their city, nor had they requested a grand wedding feast. They had simply delivered Lycanor to his doorstep.

"Are you willing to enter my tent?"

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of giant customs would understand the weight of his question. Lycanor certainly did.

She fell silent.

A slow, triumphant smile crept across Orion’s lips. Sometimes, silence was acceptance. A proud woman was often a passive one, waiting to be claimed.

"The western territories, those that border the lands of the blood elves—I will grant them to you as your own fiefdom."

His voice was a low murmur beside her ear. "In return, you will have a duty to me, and to the Stoneheart Horde. You will act as warden of the City of the Guardian on our western frontier. The trade market between land and sea is set to open there soon. It will need a lord of your strength to protect it."

Before Lycanor could fully process his words, Orion was on his feet. He swept an arm around her waist and lifted her from her chair.

Lycanor was tall, her body a stunning example of her race’s heroic proportions, honed to perfection by her Legendary-tier power. She instinctively tried to struggle, but Orion’s hold was brutally strong, pulling her tight against him. The potent scent of a male giant and the deep, heavy drum of his heart assaulted her senses, breaking through her defenses.

The fight went out of her. Her body went slack, and she leaned against his chest.

"Will there come a day," she asked softly, "when the blood elves and the Stoneheart Horde must face each other in battle?" She had surrendered, but she had not forgotten her mission.

"According to the Horde’s grand design, war between our peoples is impossible—unless the blood elves choose to drive a knife into our back," Orion answered. He tightened his grip. "If such a war ever comes to pass, it will be because you failed to mediate the interests of both sides. Peace is not something only your people desire, Lycanor. The Stoneheart Horde has great need of it as well."

He ran his hand along the curve of her waist, feeling its softness, its supple strength—a quality, he knew, unique to a blood elf maiden who had never borne a child.

"I will be the bridge between our people," Lycanor vowed, a breath of relief escaping her. Orion had given her the answer she needed. Peace. It was the entire purpose of this union.

"The blood elves are your people. It is only right that you care for them," Orion said. "But you must understand one thing above all else, Lycanor."

He turned her in his arms to face him, forcing her to meet his gaze.

"You are my woman."

"A woman of the giant tribe."

"A woman of the Stoneheart Horde."

"From this day forward, this is your home."

In her beautiful eyes, under the sweep of long lashes, he watched a war unfold: struggle gave way to surrender, a final flicker of defiance was extinguished by acceptance.

Lycanor said nothing. She stared up at him, her gaze so intense it seemed she was trying to carve his image into her very soul.

Orion lowered his head and kissed her.

In the deep north, beneath the Silvercurrent Sea.

The journey had been an arduous one. The avatar’s party had navigated lightless trenches and fields of volcanic sludge, finally penetrating the waters of the Silvercurrent Sea. But as they approached the entrance to the hidden realm, a barrier of force shimmered into existence, and they were stopped.

"The Silvercurrent Sea is forbidden to all who are not of the Tidefang Clan."

The voice was a deep, powerful wave that rolled through the water, carrying with it an immense pressure. Orion knew at once that the one who blocked his path was an Archlord.

But Orion had not come as a guest. He had no need to announce his arrival. He had come for his woman, Marina. He had come for an answer.

Vmmmmmmm.

A low hum, a subsonic call from the ancient giant-horned whale, vibrated through the sea. To an outside ear, it was barely a sound. But to every Merfolk in the vicinity, it was a thunderclap that detonated inside their skulls.

If the Tidefang Clan would not speak, Orion would not be civil. The whale’s sonic blast was only the beginning. It coiled its colossal tail, gathering terrifying kinetic force. With a sound like tearing space, it charged, its horn aimed at the heart of the Merfolk realm.

BOOM!

The undead leviathan struck the defensive shield of the Silvercurrent Sea, and the entire underwater kingdom shuddered from the force of the blow. The impact was so apocalyptic it startled every merfolk of the Tidefang Clan.

"Insolent fool!"

From within the shimmering shield, a merman nearly ten feet long, his body covered in shimmering, hero-grade scales, shot forth with a trident in hand. A terrifying torrent of water surged before him, aimed at the ancient whale. It was Phorcys, the genius Archlord of the Tidefang Clan.

His opponent, however, was a creature that had once been an upper-tier Archlord.

The ancient whale opened its maw. A sonar cage snapped into place around Phorcys, followed instantly by an Abyssal Lock. The water in his immediate vicinity froze into a solid, unmoving mass. The elemental water he commanded was leached away, and he found himself utterly imprisoned.

"Archlord Jaklas?" Orion asked, landing atop the whale’s massive head and looking down upon the trapped Phorcys. The Merfolk before him was an Archlord, yes, but the voice was wrong. And he remembered Marina’s tail was the color of the sky; this one’s was the burnished color of gold. They were not of the same bloodline.

Orion waited, but Phorcys could not answer. The crushing power of the Abyssal Lock was lethal to the Sea-folk.

"If no one will answer, then I will kill you first and find my answers later."

Orion raised his trident. Transcendent power surged, and the blood-red weapon crackled with arcs of lightning.

Zzzt!

The trident pierced the Abyssal Lock as if it were water and plunged directly into Phorcys’s heart. For a moment, the prison of water was stained with a swirl of gold and silver blood.

But the fatal blow did not kill him.

A single golden scale on Phorcys’s forehead shattered. In that instant, he vanished from the prison. When he reappeared, he was back inside the protective shield of the Silvercurrent Sea, shaken but alive.

Orion’s expression did not change. He was not surprised.

An Archlord always had more than one way to cheat death. The golden scale, he surmised, was some manner of artifact that had taken the death blow in his stead.