The Founder.
Everything traced back to the Founder.
The Coordinate.
The Founding Titan.
Unleash the Rumbling—awaken the Colossal Titans sleeping inside the Walls and crush every living thing underfoot.
Annie had received a proper Marleyan history education. She knew well the threat issued when the 145th King Fritz, fleeing with his "filthy people," retreated to Paradis Island.
Back then, the hero Holos grievously wounded King Fritz, forcing him to take the Founding Titan and withdraw to that isolated island.
There, he declared that if the world ever dared to invade Paradis again, he would march the Colossal Titans fixed within the Walls and flatten the world.
Out of fear—and to avoid driving King Fritz into a corner—the merciful Holos ultimately granted them room to live, broke off the fight, and the world enjoyed peace without war.
Even so, terrified that the wall-dwellers might one day break their oath never to leave the island, Marley dropped large numbers of Pure Titans there every year.
They believed only by making their own kind slaughter one another could the world remain stable.
However…
To Annie, reality clashed with Marley's narrative at every turn.
Marley's "history" read like a fairy tale cobbled together by a third-rate hack.
Everything seemed to add up—and yet everything felt off.
Still, whatever the angle, everything began with the Founder—with the Founding Titan.
If Marley recovered the Founding Titan, then it would all be over, right?
Worst case, the Walls would become a new internment yard, and the guilty Eldians would remain enslaved.
Just thinking of their piggish, ugly faces made her sick.
But Annie had no choice. She'd become a Warrior candidate for her family—and for herself.
If it would let her live comfortably, if it would let her cruel father rediscover the love he'd denied his child, then it was worth it—no matter what.
With that, Annie set the Female Titan's unique fighting stance.
She faced Eren.
Eren faced her.
"Eren! We're counting on you! You're our last hope!"
Armin shouted into Eren's ear.
Blinking with exhaustion, the Attack Titan looked spent.
"Rrrraah!"
Mustering his resolve, Eren drove his freshly transformed Attack Titan straight at the Female Titan!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The ground quaked as he thundered forward.
The Female Titan stood steady as a rock.
She lifted one leg, both fists raised over her head.
"What a strange stance," Armin said. Around him, many of Eren's classmates were shouting over one another.
"Hey, Armin—do you really think Eren can beat her? This is his first transformation," Jean asked uneasily. "An hour ago, we were calling him a crazed Abnormal. If Roger hadn't transformed first, we wouldn't even know Eren had this terrifying power."
Armin fell silent.
"You're right, Jean. This is too risky. We don't even know why Eren can transform, and we're forcing him to fight. But—"
He pointed around them.
Right now, hordes of Titans were breaking off from Roger and turning toward the humans.
"But if we don't try, our only end is death!"
Armin's shout hit everyone where it hurt; they fell into heavier silence.
"No matter what, I won't let Eren fight alone," Mikasa said, drawing her twin blades.
Seeing her steel flash, the others followed suit.
"Then we fight," Marco said—and he was the first to charge.
By now, Eren had closed with the Female Titan.
And on the run-up, he saw the Survey Corps soldiers she had killed—dead beyond saving.
You deserve to die!!
Eren's fury surged.
How could the people who lived alongside him just be snuffed out like this?!
"Rrraah!!"
"Rrraaaah!!!"
The Attack Titan roared and swung for the Female Titan!
But—
Annie pivoted and swept across his path.
Whssst!
With her calf encased in hardened crystal, that single sweep blasted the Attack Titan's head from his shoulders!
Crack!!
A concussive report—the Attack Titan's head and Annie's shin shattered in tandem.
The ruined head sailed and thumped to the ground.
With the Titan's head gone, Eren's true body was exposed out of the nape.
Because this was his first transformation, his own head was yanked along with the Titan's flesh.
Blood gushed; both the Titan and Eren's true body lost their heads at once, slumping to their knees, torso upright, arms limp.
Annie knew he wasn't dead.
A Titan shifter doesn't die that easily.
No—
She meant, "the body doesn't die easily."
Marleyan scientists had once tested how much a shifter could regenerate.
They severed a shifter's head and, as he teetered on death's edge, extracted his spinal fluid for the next inheritor.
Just as predicted, the power transferred without issue.
But you couldn't dawdle—the devouring had to be immediate.
Annie hadn't intended to kick Eren's head off, but it didn't matter—she could still inherit the Founder.
She stepped in close and, controlling the Female Titan, swallowed Eren's true body.
His companions saw it happen with their own eyes.
"Eren!!"
Mikasa panicked, cutting away to try to save him.
But as she flared her gas and rocketed toward the Female Titan—
suddenly—she heard a pounding run.
Loud. A Titan's stride!!
She snapped her head around—
and saw Roger's transformed Titan thundering in, his body sheathed in dense, full armor.
War-scythe in hand, he shouldered Titan after Titan aside; his speed only climbed—like Reiner Braun's Armored Titan when it smashed the Wall!
"Die, you vermin!! You disgusting bugs!!"
Roger roared. His Jaw Titan in armored plating bellowed as he bowled over the Titans ahead of him, trampling them to death!
"?!!"
Annie heard it—a scream like the Reaper's own shriek!
No—
Don't come any closer!!
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