Chapter 86: Chapter 85: Birth of Titan Heart (2)

They traveled across the battlefield like falling stars, their divine presence warping the terrain beneath them. When they reached the fault zone, the atmosphere was oppressive. The wind had stopped. The air tasted of ozone and ancient dust. The ground for kilometers was unnaturally smooth, polished into a glassy sheen.

​At the center of the devastation stood the Sovereign. It did not turn to face them. It simply stood there, hands clasped behind its back, staring toward the horizon as if waiting for a guest who was late.

​Ann descended first, his boots hitting the glass-like earth with a sharp, resonant thud.

“So, You are the Titan’s answer. You are the thing the Unity spat out to stop us.”

​The Sovereign did not move. It remained as still as a statue, its emerald skin reflecting the golden glow of Ann’s aura.

​Gaia hovered a few feet off the ground, his eyes darting around for a trap.

“It doesn’t even acknowledge us, Ann. It’s like we’re not even here. Is it possible it’s just a mindless puppet?”

​Ann’s eyes narrowed, his mana beginning to swirl in a violent, golden vortex.

“It hears us. It’s just deciding if we’re worth the effort of a response.” He raised his hand, gesturing toward the Sovereign with a finger of light.

“By the divine authority of Ruthenia, and the blood of the Mountain God, I command you: Kneel!”

​The command carried the weight of a collapsing star. It was a verbal contract that had forced mountains to crumble and lesser heirs to fall to their faces.

But the Sovereign merely tilted its head slightly, as if listening to a distant, mildly interesting song.

​Then, it spoke:

“Authority rejected. The concept of kneeling is a vestige of your failing systems. It holds no weight in the new order.”

The voice did not come from its smooth face; it resonated directly inside their minds, a sound like grinding tectonic plates and rushing water.

​The Divine Kings flinched, some of them clutching their heads in pain as the Sovereign’s voice bypassed their mental defenses.

Ann also felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest, a rejection of his very essence.

​”You can speak,” Ann said, forcing his voice to remain steady despite the cold sweat on his brow.

“Then you should understand the terms of this world. You know who we are.”

​”Understanding was unnecessary before,” the Sovereign replied, finally turning its head. Its emerald eyes locked onto Gaia, and the giant god’s heir felt a sudden, sickening drop in his stomach.

“Now, understanding is mandatory. You are the relics of a dying age. You are obsolete.”

Rumble!

​Without warning, the ground beneath Gaia did not crack or open; it simply ceased to be.

The Sovereign had removed the spatial coordinates of the earth in that specific area.

Gaia plummeted into a void for a split second before stabilizing himself with a roar of mana. His face flushed with rage.

“What the hell was that? It just deleted the terrain!”

​The Sovereign raised one hand, palm upward. “Gravity inverted.”

​The two Divine Kings closest to the Sovereign were ripped from the sky as if by the hand of a titan. They were slammed into the earth with such velocity that their divine shields shattered like glass, creating shockwaves that leveled the nearby hills.

​Ann’s patience snapped, “Attack! Erase this blasphemy from the world!”

​Divine light erupted in a blinding cascade. Beams of molten fire, lances of compressed mountain stone, and blades made of pure gravitational force converged on the Sovereign simultaneously. The explosion should have left a crater visible from space.

​The Sovereign stepped forward, walking through the fire and stone as if moving through a light rain. The fire curved around its body, seemingly afraid to touch it. The stone lances dissolved into raw earth and rejoined the ground. The gravitational blades were sucked into the crystal heart at its chest and absorbed as raw energy.

​The Sovereign looked at Ann, and for the first time, a flicker of something like disappointment crossed its features.

“I expected more from the heirs of the gods. Your power is loud, but it lacks substance. It is a flicker against the sun.”

​Ann let out a primal roar, activating Avatar Displacement. His body expanded, and his skin turned to living basalt as divine energy moved through his veins.

“I am Ann! The heir of the Mountain God! I am the one who will inherit this battlefield! You will not dismiss me like a common servant!”

​He struck with a fist that could have leveled a continent.

The Sovereign did not dodge. It reached out and caught Ann’s fist with a single, unarmored hand. The impact sent a shockwave through Ann’s entire divine form, causing visible fissures to spread across his stone-like skin.

​Ann screamed in agony, his divine essence leaking from the cracks. He wrenched himself free, staggering back as his golden light flickered and dimmed.

Gaia shouted from above, “Fall back, Ann! We can’t hit it! It’s not just strong, it’s controlling the fundamental laws of the region!”

​It was too late. The Sovereign did not rush; it simply arrived. It appeared in front of the Divine King of molten stone and seized him by the head. With a casual squeeze, the King’s divine core shattered, and his body dissolved into a puddle of cooling lava.

​Another Divine King attempted to flee, his wings of light beating frantically. The ground beneath him surged upward in a forest of obsidian spikes, impaling him mid-air before he could even let out a cry.

“We aren’t fighting a monster! We’re fighting the world!”

​Ann felt a cold, paralyzing terror for the first time in his long life. It wasn’t the fear of death, but the fear of being truly, utterly irrelevant.

“Retreat! Emergency displacement! Now!”

​They fled through a tear in reality, Ann forcing his failing mana to drag Gaia and the remaining two Kings through the collapsing spatial tunnel.

As they vanished, the Sovereign watched them go, its expression unchanged. It did not pursue. It had no need to.

​The Sovereign placed one hand over the pulsing crystal heart in its chest. Across the entire Primordial Battlefield, every Earth Titan (from the smallest drone to the largest Duke) let out a roar in unison. Their eyes glowed with a synchronized emerald light, and their movements became fluid and tactical.

​The Sovereign’s voice echoed across the stones and the sky, reaching every ear in the Liberation Cult and the Divine Empire:

“Hierarchy established. The age of the individual is over. The age of the earth has begun.”

​

—-

Thud.

​Ann collapsed onto the cold floor of Ruthenia’s inner sanctum, coughing up thick, golden blood. Gaia knelt beside him, his face grim and his hands trembling as he tried to stabilize Ann’s flickering mana.

​”That thing… It wasn’t born to protect the Titans from us, Ann. It wasn’t a defensive reaction.” Gaia said.

​Ann wiped the blood from his mouth,

“I know. It was born to replace us. It doesn’t see us as rivals. It sees us as a nuisance to be cleared before the real work begins.”

​Silence settled over the room.

One of the surviving Divine Kings whispered from the corner, “If that thing marches on the Cult… if it targets Aegis…”

​Ann snorted, “Then even Aegis will learn what it feels like to have the world turn against you. But we have to prepare. When Aegis falls, we will stand above his corpse as victors.”

​Far away, beneath the shifting earth and the synchronized marching of a million Titans, the Sovereign began its long walk. It did not hurry. It knew exactly where its target was. It was walking toward the one existence that had forced the Titans to evolve. It was walking toward Aegis.

​The Primordial Battlefield had finally birthed its ruler, and the age of scattered titans was officially over.

​

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