The plaza was silent.
Ancient Ones- so many of them, fought against hordes of Draconic Hybrids and Humans in silence. Their faces no longer sneering. No longer arrogant.
Because they had watched a Celestbone Stage Titan, the High Zenithar himself…be torn down.
And the one who did it…
Now radiated like a sun in flesh.
Achilles Adrastia Maxwell turned his eyes to them.
The air buckled around it, the Titanic Sovereignty Core pulsing like the heartbeat of a world. Some Ancient Ones flinched. Others began to back away.
Malgorith tried to rise.
Achilles didn't even look at him.
Instead, he whispered again.
Malgorith's limbs seized.
Veins of light erupted across his form, wrapping, binding, threading his bones to Achilles' will. Slowly, piece by piece, his body dissolved into radiant essence.
One foot. One rib. One wing.
The Ancient Ones screamed in warning and rage, but did not move and could not move as they were swarmed all around!
"Stop…please…" Malgorith croaked.
"You killed and enslaved Humans as you saw fit," Achilles murmured. "You chose conquest. Now…you will simply be along the same line of conquest!"
In one final surge, Achilles stepped forward and placed his hand upon Malgorith's chest.
A pillar of light erupted from the capital. Purple gold. Blinding.
And his shadow stretched long and sovereign across the bones of a broken city.
The Adrastia Emperor King.
Capable of Assimilating in short rapid bursts!
And he proceeded to defeat the strongest Ancient One among the Ancient Titans as all those left behind…were lesser!
Their fates could be imagined.
The crater still burned even now.
Smoke curled upward like black silk toward a sky torn by war, and Thornveil trembled beneath the silence left in Malgorith's absence.
But Achilles did not.
He stood unmoved at the epicenter, golden-purple wings folding behind him like a memory of glory.
His skin shimmered with translucent starlight, and his veins, those impossible conduits of Primordial Energy, Evolutius Energy, Star Light, and Titan Blood…pulsed with wonder.
The Adrastia Emperor King had just done what many did not even think possible.
Across the city, seven Luminblood Stage Astral Core Ascension Titans floated in staggered formation as they were fighting hordes of Draconic Hybrids in different locations.
They had once been glorious not long ago, lounging like kings.
Achilles lifted his eyes and looked at all of them to let them know they were next.
Seven pairs of eyes locked with his each time.
And seven hearts, bound in pride and anchored in millennia of certainty, trembled.
One took a step back.
Another flared his aura, wings cracking space itself.
The third began to flee.
But Achilles had already raised his right arm.
And the world obeyed.
"Your blood and bones," he spoke softly, "are already mine!"
The Titanic Sovereignty Core V pulsed from his body in concentric rings of pressure. Not visible at first.
The space between him and the Titans rippled. Their flight slowed.
One of them screamed.
The Sovereignty Radius had expanded. Their being faltered in its grasp, unable to freely project power without Achilles' will woven into them!
He vanished from sight.
A beat of Nirvanic Wings.
He appeared before the largest of them- a behemoth of onyx and rust, four horns jutting from his skull as he shone black and grey! His mouth opened to shout something…
But Achilles had already placed his palm to the Titan's sternum.
The Titan convulsed, limbs thrashing, wings flaring, but it was meaningless.
He turned into liquid black goo that instantly disappeared!
The second Titan tried to flee.
Achilles pointed at him.
A ribbon of light shot from his finger, wrapping the Titan's neck.
Achilles was suddenly behind him.
His arm drove forward, palm touching the back of the Titan's skull.
Screams. A flare of starlight. An aura broken.
Down the Titan fell, folding into light and marrow and knowledge, all devoured.
The third Titan raised a barrier of pure Primordial Energy.
Achilles walked through it.
The Titanic Sovereignty Core V disintegrated the barrier mid-form, the constructs collapsing into useless dust the moment they entered the Domain of Sovereignty.
Achilles' hand reached down.
Three Titans were no more.
But their glory lived on…inside something greater.
Inside the Adrastia Emperor King!
Achilles turned to the final four Titans. Their auras crackled. Their instincts screamed to run, to fight, to beg.
But Achilles raised his left hand now.
A new power awakened.
Blood shimmered at his fingertips- not red, not gold, but a blinding purple-gold laced with evolutionary flame.
"Marrowbrand Genesis."
And from his palm, four arrows formed.
Shaped like jagged arrows of conquest and resonance, they spun through the air as blurs of royalty.
Each purple-gold crown smashed into a Titan's chest as their Luminblood Stage could not do anything to stop it!
And they struck not to kill.
Veins of branded light bloomed across their bodies. Their auras stilled. The Luminblood within them pulsed erratically as their cores were attuned to Achilles.
The Titans screamed as their wills were shackled slowly and heavily.
Their hearts beat in rhythm with his.
Their blood responded to his command.
And their very being…submitted!
Achilles lowered his hand.
He felt his Seas of Assimilation.
He felt his entire Existence.
Throughout all of his Assimilations of High Zenithar Malgorith.
His three other Luminblood Stage Astral Core Ascension Ancient Titans.
Throughout all of it…his Existence Corruption had only risen by 1%.
Gloriously, it burned with his identity as his assimilations from here on out would affect him and Corrupt him less and less!
And as he continued to refine his Bloodline…these Ancient Ones who found it so easy to enslave humans like him.. would only serve to be ground down to dust and feed his existence!