The imperial warship cut through the clouds like a blade.
Below them—
Flames.
Smoke.
Ruin.
The eastern border city of Vaelthorne was collapsing.
Harold stood at the edge of the warship platform, wind tearing at his uniform.
Beside him stood Commander Cassian Drayke.
Behind them, three Vanguard S-tier hosts prepared for descent.
The projection hadn't done it justice.
The corrupted Devourer dominated the sky.
Its body resembled a colossal whale fused with predatory avian features. Wings spanned across half the skyline, beating slowly, each flap generating spiraling vortexes of compressed air and water vapor.
Beneath it—
A rotating oceanic spiral.
Anything caught inside was pulled upward.
Then consumed.
Harold watched as a B-tier Titan host attempted a flank assault.
The Devourer did not dodge.
It inhaled.
The spiral intensified.
The Titan host was dragged mid-flight into its maw.
Gone.
No explosion.
No struggle.
Just absorption.
Harold felt the Whale Falcon stir violently inside his mind.
The second sealed door trembled.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Luke's voice was steady.
"It is feeding on Titan energy."
Cassian glanced at Harold.
"You feel it."
"Yes."
"The Devourer bloodline evolves by consumption," Cassian said. "If we allow it to continue, it may breach SSS-tier threshold."
Harold's eyes narrowed.
"It's not there yet?"
"No."
"Then we end it now."
Cassian studied him.
"You are not fully awakened."
Harold's lips curved slightly.
"Neither is it."
Cassian gave the signal.
"Vanguard, descend!"
The Battlefield
Harold landed atop a crumbling tower.
The ground shook from distant detonations.
Civilians had mostly evacuated, but Titan hosts littered the battlefield—some unconscious, some barely alive.
The Devourer turned its massive eye downward.
It saw him.
The vortex beneath it shifted direction.
Locked on.
Harold exhaled slowly.
"Monkey King."
The first sealed door inside his mind burst open.
Golden light flooded his veins.
His body transformed instantly.
Golden fur erupted along his arms.
A blazing aura ignited around him.
The Ruyi staff formed in his grasp.
He leapt.
Skyward.
The Devourer inhaled.
The vortex roared.
Buildings tore free from foundations and spiraled upward.
Harold drove his staff downward mid-air, expanding it tenfold in length, anchoring it into a tower below to resist the pull.
The suction intensified.
His muscles strained.
The Monkey King snarled inside him.
This was no ordinary opponent.
This was hunger incarnate.
Cassian entered the sky in a streak of silver lightning, his Titan manifestation resembling a colossal armored gryphon.
He slashed at the Devourer's wing—
The blade sank deep.
Black-blue energy spilled.
The Devourer shrieked.
But instead of weakening—
The wound began closing.
It absorbed ambient Titan energy from the battlefield itself.
Luke's voice sharpened.
"It is feeding passively. You must disrupt the core vortex."
Harold's gaze shifted downward.
The spiral beneath the Devourer wasn't just wind.
It was a rotating Titan core.
An exposed Devourer nucleus.
Dangerous.
Unstable.
Perfect.
Harold grinned.
"You wanted a fight?"
He retracted the staff and launched himself directly toward the spiral.
Cassian shouted, "Don't—!"
Too late.
Harold dove.
Inside the Vortex
The world became water and pressure.
Wind howled like a screaming ocean.
Debris struck him from all sides.
The Monkey King aura flared brighter, resisting disintegration.
The deeper he went—
The stronger the Whale Falcon pulsed inside his mind.
The second door cracked again.
The Devourer sensed it.
The spiral tightened violently.
Trying to crush him.
Trying to absorb him.
Luke's voice cut through the chaos.
"It recognizes your potential."
Of course it did.
Devourers hunted strength.
And he carried two SSS-tier Titans.
The vortex's center came into view—
A rotating sphere of dark oceanic energy.
Raw Devourer core.
Harold roared and swung the Ruyi staff with full force.
The strike connected.
The sky exploded.
The Turning Point
The Devourer shrieked in agony.
The spiral destabilized.
Cassian and the Vanguard seized the opportunity.
Combined Titan techniques rained down.
Explosions tore across the Devourer's body.
One wing collapsed.
It faltered.
But then—
It did something unexpected.
It stopped fighting.
Instead—
It opened its jaws wide.
And aimed directly at Harold.
Not the army.
Not Cassian.
Him.
Luke's tone darkened.
"It chooses you as prey."
The Devourer inhaled with everything it had.
The sky bent inward.
Harold felt his body lifting uncontrollably.
Even the Monkey King aura flickered under the force.
This wasn't mere suction.
It was targeted devouring.
The Whale Falcon's sealed door blazed violently.
Chains rattled.
If he allowed it—
If he let that pressure push him further—
He would break through.
But it wasn't time.
Not yet.
He gritted his teeth.
"Not like this."
The Monkey King roared.
Golden light erupted from his body in a pillar that split the sky.
He expanded the Ruyi staff to colossal proportions—
And jammed it straight into the Devourer's open jaws.
The staff grew.
And grew.
And grew.
Until it tore through the back of its skull.
Silence.
Then—
The Devourer shattered.
Fragments of dark Titan energy rained across the battlefield like falling stars.
The vortex collapsed.
The sky cleared.
Harold fell from the air.
Cassian caught him before he hit the ground.
Aftermath
The battlefield was silent.
Vanguard forces stared at Harold.
SSS-tier guards lowered their weapons slowly.
Cassian studied him carefully.
"You entered the vortex."
"Yes."
"And survived."
Harold's gaze drifted skyward.
The second door inside his mind now had visible fractures.
The Whale Falcon was closer.
Much closer.
He felt it.
Hungry.
Awake.
But restrained.
Cassian's voice lowered.
"That Devourer chose you."
Harold met his gaze calmly.
"I know."
Far above—
On a distant mountain ridge—
A familiar figure watched.
Kairos Venn.
He smiled faintly.
"Good," he murmured.
Then he disappeared.