Chapter 10: Misunderstanding
Titan.
A being that exists in myth, powerful enough to be called a demigod.
With the pale language of humans, it is difficult to describe the terror of such a colossal creature, but through records in ancient texts and grimoires, people can still understand from the sidelines what the existence known as a Titan truly means.
In the Elemental Summoning school, more than half of the great spells above Gold-rank are summons of beings like Frost Giants, Fusion Core Giants, and Cliff Giants, and their origins all extend from the simplification of a single spell—Legendary Summon: Elemental Titan.
In the Mana Construct school, the most powerful puppet creation is named the Titan Colossus. This giant construct, imitating the Thunder Titan through metal and runes, possesses most of the strength of a true Titan, and that alone is enough to elevate an Alchemist to Legendary High-rank.
As for the Battle Qi Steel Armor, Titan Body, and Earth Divine Power skills used by warriors, they all employ various means to mimic the power of these giants. Without exception, they belong to the most powerful category of skills.
A Titan is pure strength.
And at this moment, a pure-blooded Titan opened its eyes. It spread its arms, buried beneath solid rock and earth, and let out a roar that shook all things.
Thus, the mountains trembled.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The King of the Dark River—Titan Urbendini—rose from the Saya Mountains. Every movement it made was like a mountain crashing onto the earth, causing the peaks to collapse. In truth, half of its body was a third of this towering mountain range. The giant’s upper body, standing over a hundred meters tall, merely shook slightly, and the entire world was turned upside down.
Now, it could be seen that the core of the original Dark River Forest was merely a network of veins on this Titan’s chest. The enormous treant was just an avatar manifested by this giant—whose bones and muscles were rock and earth, whose blood was elemental mana, and whose tendons were plant roots—to facilitate communication with ordinary people.
It was probably just a bit of its hair.
“Damn it, Number One always said Urbendini was powerful, but he never mentioned that this guy is a Titan that should have gone extinct long ago!”
The Crystal Puppeteer stood atop his red crystal puppet. He and his two companions had retreated to the top of a nearby hill, watching the scene anxiously. However, after observing for a while, this spellcaster, whose plans had been completely disrupted, clacked his upper and lower jaws together, producing a mechanical sound tinged with a strange tone: “Wait, its strength isn’t as great as imagined.”
Beside him, the skeleton archer, also in skeletal form, flickered the soulfire in his eye sockets for a moment and nodded in agreement with the puppeteer’s assessment.
An adult pure-blooded Titan’s strength is at least Legendary Mid-rank. Although most newly matured Titans, due to a lack of combat experience and their overly massive size, find it difficult to defeat ordinary racial Legends who have come a long and arduous path, their unique advantages are not so easily caught up to. Every Titan possesses the power to manipulate weather, move mountains, and alter terrain. Every move they make is an unstoppable natural disaster for ordinary people.
But now, the Crystal Puppeteer could sense that the Titan before him seemed to be greatly suppressed in strength for some reason. Not only was it not controlling the natural weather, but its legs were still buried in the earth, unable to be pulled out, with only its upper body able to move.
If they were facing a pure-blooded Titan at the peak of its power, possessing the strength of the Saint Domain, then the Death Shadow Commander and his group, whose own power was also restricted, would turn and flee without a second word. But if the opponent was just a crippled invalid with its power sealed and unable to move, then there was a way to handle this.
Urbendini, however, had no time to worry about what its opponents were thinking. At this moment, the Earth Divine Child, having revealed a portion of its true power, extended its mountain-like giant hand and swept it directly toward the Death Shadow army ahead.
Rumble! Without using any supernatural power, this seemingly restricted Titan only used the strength of its physical body, but even that was earth-shattering. A massive palm print slammed into the Saya Mountains. A circular shockwave, like an magnitude eight earthquake, spread outward, leaving a huge depression in its wake. The Death Shadows within the palm print were, without exception, scattered, shattered, and completely annihilated like ants.
With a single strike, it killed thousands of elite Death Shadows at the forefront. Urbendini’s body was still continuously absorbing the surrounding earth and rock, layering shell after shell upon itself, growing even larger.
If one looked down from the sky, they would see the entire Saya Mountains slowly collapsing due to the giant’s actions. Tens of millions of tons of rock layers were torn apart, suspended in the air, and then attached to its body, as if the apocalypse had arrived.
At this moment, the dragon-winged girl, being rapidly carried into the distance by the moving tree roots, was almost speechless with shock.
A Titan! Hilya, with her deep family knowledge, naturally knew of this being that existed only in myth. As a direct descendant of the Earth Mother Goddess, Titans had always symbolized the incarnation of the earth and mountains. Their power represented the purest and most violent force in this world. But they shouldn’t exist in this world. The Grandia World had no gods, no faith in any deity. The Earth Mother Goddess existed only in the most ancient texts, and so did her descendants.
Hilya had always believed that the various gods and legends in ancient texts were merely illusory beings imagined by predecessors, and that Titans might just be exaggerated versions of the many elemental giants in this world. But she never imagined that all of this was real.
“Lost souls, return to rest.”
Just as the girl was being moved to the far distance by the tree roots, a vibration far surpassing thunder echoed in the lung cavity of the giant’s upper body. The next moment, a storm containing the power of lightning, traveling at over three hundred meters per second, spewed from its mouth. The gale, carrying sparks of lightning, effortlessly annihilated a large swath of Death Shadows, and also blasted a massive crater into a neighboring mountain peak.
But at that moment, amidst the chaotic Death Shadow army, red, purple, and brown lights suddenly flared up. They transformed into a single beam of light, charging straight against the storm in a straight line toward Urbendini.
The three crystal puppets, though not as massive as the Titan giant, were still the most powerful mana constructs. Under their master’s control, the crystal puppets activated their mana cores within the storm, causing the Saint Stone Seeds within to erupt with immense power.
Then, like three meteors, they crashed straight into the Titan’s upper body.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of rapid, meteor-like impacts merged into one. The rock shell of the giant that was struck rippled like water on the spot, then shattered directly. The Titan’s flesh, composed of rock and earth mixed with mana and tree roots, was torn apart like paper by the three sturdy crystal puppets. The outer layers of their bodies swirled with three completely different types of special energy.
The red light symbolized the power of flame. This red crystal puppet emitted such intense heat that its entire body turned red-hot. The earth and rock around it turned into lava, with lightning circling its outer shell. These pure elemental forces formed chains of light, like long rainbows, that began to coil along the torn wounds toward the giant’s upper body. These high-temperature light streams continuously burned and interfered with the opponent, halting the Titan’s actions of absorbing surrounding rock to reinforce its defenses.
The purple crystal puppet, on the other hand, displayed terrifying corrosive power. Clusters of dark purple shadow energy were launched like cannonballs, striking the giant’s body and eroding large holes into it.
The brown crystal puppet stood still. Then, countless rocks and earth flew toward it, just as they had toward the Titan earlier. In no time, a giant rock puppet, nearly two hundred meters tall, appeared in the center of the battlefield. With the hum of machinery, it charged forward and blocked Urbendini’s attacks against the other two puppets.
The three crystal puppets respectively played the roles of controller, artillery, and tank. Their coordination instantly halted the Titan’s assault, forcing Urbendini to focus on these annoying constructs instead of sweeping away the other Death Shadows. But the Crystal Puppeteer showed no sign of joy. Its body glowing with three colors, its soul operating under extreme load, it stood in the distance, mentally controlling each puppet’s actions, completely unable to attend to anything else.
The opponent, for some reason, had merged with the earth. Its lower body was unlikely to grow back.
Having confirmed this, the puppeteer breathed a sigh of relief, but this did not change the situation. Urbendini’s strength, while not enough to make them despair, was far beyond what it alone could handle.
“Eramos!”
It shouted a name loudly: “It’s your turn.”
Hearing this, the skeleton archer standing beside it decisively raised the longbow in his hand.
It was a plain bow, as if just pulled from some old relic. It didn’t even have a bowstring, looking like nothing more than a bent iron rod.
But the skeleton archer named Eramos extended his bony fingers and lightly plucked the bow’s body. A golden ribbon of light, like sunlight, appeared where the bowstring should have been. Ripples of energy, like water patterns, began to spread in all directions.
“Sunfall Divine Archer Eramos, it’s you!”
The giant, more ancient than most Heroic Spirits, was currently entangled by the three crystal puppets, but it still detected the actions of the distant enemy. Recognizing the divine arrow, whose legend said it could shoot down nation-destroying dragons, pierce sea-king beasts, and whose power was like a falling sun, now gathering in midair, Urbendini let out a furious roar.
It first punched the earth crystal puppet, which was wrestling with it, sending it flying. Then it grabbed the red crystal puppet, which had transformed into a chain of flames binding it, and hurled it like a stone at the purple puppet. Immediately after, it plunged both hands into the earth, raising a several-hundred-meter-thick rock layer amidst a massive tremor, forming a barrier before it.
And the next moment, the ribbon of light bent, energy converged, and an energy arrow, nearly ten meters long, materialized under the skeleton archer’s control. Then, at over ten times the speed of sound, it shot straight toward the center of the Titan’s chest!
Boom!
Boom!
Two thunderous sounds rang out almost simultaneously—the arrow of light pierced through the rock layer the Titan had raised in an instant, and also pierced through its body. However, due to the obstruction of the rock layer, the arrow did not hit its intended target, the center of the chest, which was the location of the Titan’s heart core—the only weakness of this Earth Divine Child.
But a violent explosion occurred on the Titan giant’s left shoulder. A blinding light, like the sun, erupted. Intense heat spread, and a mushroom cloud slowly rose from the giant’s body, reaching into the dark clouds above.
This arrow, like a falling star, was incredibly powerful. Its aftermath alone melted the rocks for several kilometers around. But the skeleton archer instantly fell apart, becoming a pile of loose bones, with only two faint flickers of soulfire in the eye sockets of its skull.
So-called Heroic Spirits, after rebirth, naturally cannot possess all the power they had in life. The Sunfall Divine Archer Eramos, in his prime, was said to be able to draw his bow nine times in a row, firing nine solar divine arrows to destroy nine cities. But now, reborn as a Death Shadow Commander, he could only unleash one full-power attack, and it would take over ten days to recover.
The same was true for the unknown Crystal Puppeteer. In its prime, it could control a crystal fortress as large as a mountain. These current puppets were merely the guards at the gates of that fortress. But such were the limitations of the Death Shadows.
However, according to the High Commander’s plan, they would soon be able to regain their full power, and even regenerate their flesh and blood bodies.
In the distance, the severely wounded Titan, its left shoulder pierced, one arm temporarily unusable, and its body covered in molten rock, roared and dispersed the surrounding explosion dust. It could have blocked that arrow of light, but just as it was channeling its full energy to defend, a great terror appeared behind the giant. Urbendini’s instincts sensed that an invisible existence was about to attack its heart core. The giant had to shift its energy focus, abandon its left arm, and protect its vital point instead.
At the same time, the misty humanoid returned to the Crystal Puppeteer’s side. It picked up the scattered bones of the skeleton archer and muttered a few words in a voice no one could hear clearly.
But the puppeteer nodded and replied, “Alright, I’ll immediately unleash the puppets’ full power to cover your killing strike.”
However, just as the Death Shadow group was about to combine their efforts to kill the Titan before them...
Among the Death Shadow army, a wise secondary commander hurriedly ran out. Without even time to salute, he nervously reported: “Commander! A high-energy reaction is rapidly approaching from the distance! The outer reconnaissance unit has been completely wiped out. Estimated strength is Heaven Realm Peak!”
“What?”
The Crystal Puppeteer looked up in the direction the ordinary Death Shadow pointed. It was the southeast of the Grandia Continent, an area where the Death Shadow army’s control was still weak.
And in the sky in that direction, a layer of crimson light, like an evening glow, appeared. An intangible high heat was rapidly driving away the surrounding dark clouds, restoring the sky to its original form.
“Reinforcements for that Titan?!”
The Crystal Puppeteer muttered with extreme wariness. Beside it, the misty humanoid stirred slightly. As former peak experts of this world, they could naturally detect the life energy fluctuations on the approaching being, radiating like solar radiation.
“As expected of an ancient Divine Child, to still have such a powerful backup plan. Heaven Realm Peak?”
Taking a deep look at the giant, which was rapidly gathering surrounding rock layers to heal its shoulder wound, the soulfire in the crystal skeleton’s eye sockets flickered several times within a second, as if calculating gains and losses. Then, it glanced at the completely disassembled skeleton archer, recalled its true mission here, and decisively gave the order: “Retreat!”
The three crystal puppets in the distance flashed with light. The explosion earlier had been the rock puppet blocking the aftermath of the divine arrow. Hearing their master’s command, they immediately ran back, lifted the group into the air, abandoned the entire Death Shadow army on the ground, and disappeared into the clouds.
This Titan was already severely wounded, losing its ability to influence the surrounding situation. Moreover, it had been confirmed that the opponent seemed to be bound here for some reason. No matter how powerful it was, it couldn’t interfere with their plans. Fighting it and an unknown powerful Heroic Spirit or contemporary expert would be completely counterproductive.
Urbendini, doing its best to heal its wounds, did not notice that its enemies had retreated for some reason. The violent explosion of the Sunfall Divine Arrow had left it severely injured, forcing it to be fully on guard against the surrounding energy reactions.
Not long after.
Joshua, drawn by the powerful energy reaction and casually annihilating various Death Shadows along the way, arrived at the Saya Mountains.
And what greeted him was the Titan’s heavy punch, thrown in fury upon sensing a presence similar to the Sunfall Divine Arrow.