Titan King: Ascension of the Giant - Chapter 1160

Chapter 1160: The Apocalypse Flame

“Hahaha… he’s coming! The invader is heading this way!” a voice shrieked from the depths of the volcano, a sound of pure, unhinged madness.

“Nyxira, you bitch! You’re going to be the death of the entire Cretaceous race! By fighting me here, you’re just bleeding us both dry while that third party grows stronger! You will regret this, you wretched bitch! Even in death, I will drag the Cretaceous race down with me to serve as my funeral pyre! Hahaha… hehehe…”

The voice was a storm of hysteria and irrational fury. But beneath the rage, Nyxira heard something else: the sound of weeping. Of utter despair.

And that was exactly what she wanted to hear.

“Orric,” she whispered to the fire and stone, her voice as cold as the void. “You will die. I will see it done, even if it costs me my own life.”

***

The Third Layer of the Abyss.

War banners snapped in the unnatural winds. A vast, sprawling army stretched to the horizon, a tide of power that seemed ready to swallow the world.

“We march!”

“WE MARCH!”

From a high dais in the center of a castle square, Orion stood before the thunderous roars of the First Army, the Scourge Wardens, and the Legions of the damned. He raised his scythe high, carving a cross of pure force into the air. Before the eyes of his entire host, the very fabric of the world tore open.

From the other side of the rift, a voice of cold judgment rang out. “The Scourge Wardens must be purged!”

CLANG!

An attack was already underway. A blade of searing light shot through the portal.

“Heretics who shelter the Scourge Wardens share their guilt! They too must be purged!”

“Those who stand in my way,” Orion’s voice boomed back, a counter-wave of power that rolled across the Third Layer, “will be given no quarter!”

Countless tendrils of blood-light erupted from beneath his feet, intercepting the sword-light and shattering it into a million harmless shards. Without a moment’s hesitation, Orion strode into the spatial rift. For this abyssal campaign, he had transferred the Boots of the War-Tyrant and the Lightning Cloak to his Deathly Soul-Reaper avatar, augmenting its combat capabilities.

“Death to the Doomguard!” Eparus, guardian of the war banner, roared in fury, plunging into the rift right behind Orion. He knew. All the Scourge Wardens knew. The ones who had attacked were their ancient, sworn enemies.

Against such a foe, there could be no retreat.

“DEATH TO THE DOOMGUARD!”

“DEATH TO THE DOOMGUARD!”

Holrivus and Thronlis led the charge, the rest of the Scourge Wardens following them into the breach, a wave of righteous hatred.

“CONQUEST!” Bloodfiend Vex bellowed, hoisting the banner of the Conquest Legion. He charged forward, the power of three hundred thousand Bone-gnawer beast soldiers surging through him, pushing his own aura to the very brink of the archlord level. After Orion, Vex was now the single most powerful being in the Legion.

ROAR!

Twin bellows of fury echoed as the abyssal dragon Xalathar and the dracolich Phorzak flanked Vex, plunging into the portal with him.

“Guard the banner!” Ashreign, commander of the Wraith Knights, shrieked. He spurred his Nightmare forward, his lance leveled, leading his spectral cavalry in a thundering charge that shook the very foundations of the Abyss.

Only the newly formed First Army remained, their commander Bidalun watching the vanguard disappear into the shimmering tear in reality. He turned to his troops, his eyes blazing.

“All forces! Advance!”

***

The Fourth Layer of the Abyss, The Isle of Embers.

As Orion’s defiant challenge faded from the Third Layer, it thundered across the Fourth.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

He swung his scythe in a furious arc, each strike so powerful it caused the space around the blade to collapse, leaving trails of tiny, gray fissures in its wake.

And yet, his assault failed to shatter the greatsword of the giant before him.

His enemy was a giant of demonic heritage, five hundred feet tall. A pair of wings, wreathed in green flame, sprouted from his back, casting a hellish, flickering light that blotted out the sky.

This was a Doomguard. An archlord of the Doomguard, an entity capable of meeting Orion’s power head-on. He wielded a greatsword of green fire, wore armor of living flame, and sported a pair of massive, cruelly curved horns. His eyes were pits of burning green fire.

Orion suddenly understood why Eparus, Holrivus, and Thronlis, all at the peak of the Legendary level, had been hiding in the first, pathetic layer of the Abyss. A hundred Legendary-peak warriors wouldn’t be enough to slow this single Doomguard down.

“You wretched thing!” the Doomguard bellowed, his voice a grating of stone on steel. “You have trampled on the dignity of the giant! Endless pursuit will be your reward!”

Though powerful, he was clearly being suppressed by the sheer, overwhelming force of the Deathly Soul-Reaper. His fury was born of frustration.

“Weren’t you the one who came to purge me?” Orion’s voice was laced with contempt.

The Deathly Soul-Reaper teleported, reappearing instantly behind the Doomguard as a phantom image of a colossal scythe materialized in the air.

KRAK!

The Doomguard was fast. The teleport had not been a clean surprise attack. The horns atop his head grew with unnatural speed, twisting back to form a shield of solid Drakthul that intercepted the blow.

But it only blocked it. It only saved him from annihilation. The force of the impact sent the Doomguard’s massive body flying like a runaway mountain.

“You heretic! YOU HAVE ANGERED MORVAIN!” the Doomguard roared, humiliated. To be sent flying, in full view of his own troops and the hated Scourge Wardens, was the ultimate disgrace. “I will kill you, wretch! I will judge you, and I will wear your corpse as a pendant on my blade!”

“APOCALYPSE!”

Morvain, a mid-tier archlord, knew from their brief exchange that this foe was beyond him in a straight fight. Otherwise, the Scourge Wardens would never have bent the knee.

“Be careful!” Eparus’s warning cry came from the distance, where he was already engaged with another Doomguard lord. “He’s using their ultimate technique! They can become the flame of ruin itself and bring the end upon you!”

But the warning came too late.

The Doomguard archlord Morvain had already dissolved into a maelstrom of green fire, a raging tempest that swept directly toward Orion. Orion swung his scythe, attempting to cut through the flames, to extinguish the storm.

“Hehehe…” Morvain’s voice echoed from within the vortex, dripping with smug superiority. “Useless. The Apocalypse Flame cannot be extinguished, and it cannot be stopped!”

It seemed Orion’s fate was sealed. He was nothing more than a meal waiting to be consumed.

In the face of this ultimate technique, Orion remained utterly unmoved.