~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
"What's wrong, Jia?"
Inside the convoy trailing Kong, Dr. Ilene Andrews caught Jia reaching for the door handle and immediately leaned forward.
'They... my people.'
'They're over there!'
'They're about to be in danger!' Jia's small face was tight with urgency. She had felt the psychic signal from her people. She could find them , but she had to move now.
The entire convoy rolled to a stop.
Given the situation, splitting up was their best option. One group would follow Jia to find the Iwi. The other would stay with Kong and help him find his home.
"ROAR! Roar roar!" Kong saw the convoy halt and stopped too, turning to look back at Jia as she pushed the door open and stepped out. He asked what was going on.
'I can't come with you anymore.'
'My people , I have to go find them.' Jia cradled Kong's plush toy against her chest, her eyes soft with reluctance as she signed through their telepathic bond.
If her people hadn't called out to her, she would have wanted to stay with him.
"Roar..." The light went out of Kong's face. He wanted to protect Jia more than anything, but the pull of his bloodline wouldn't let him stand still either.
That was when Natsuki pushed his own door open and stepped out.
"Hey, big guy." He looked up at Kong, completely unbothered. "Go find your people. Don't worry about her."
"I'll protect Jia for you." He gave the giant ape a casual nod. "Trust me."
The big guy might be a little simple, but his heart was solid. Any other Titan would have already turned around and followed its instincts without a second thought.
"ROAR!" Kong's eyes brightened. He brought one hand up and signed to Natsuki.
'Thank you.'
He knew what Natsuki was capable of. With Natsuki watching over Jia, she would be fine. This guy really was one of the good ones.
"One more thing," Natsuki called after him. "If you run into trouble, call for help."
Countless Titans roamed the Hollow Earth. They had explored less than one percent of it and had already been hit twice. If Kong found himself up against multiple Titan-class creatures at once, things would turn ugly fast.
"ROAR ROAR!"
THUD! THUD!
Kong slammed his fist against his chest in response, twice, hard enough that the sound bounced off the cavern walls. He was not someone to be underestimated. On Skull Island, he had clawed his way from infancy to adulthood through one fight after another. Combat was the one language he had never needed to learn. And unlike most Titans, he knew how to use tools.
Jared rolled down the driver's window. "We'll stick with Kong. I'll contact you the second anything changes."
He and Old De would take half the group and keep moving with the ape. Kong was too important to lose , the most significant bridge between humanity and the Titans they had, living proof that coexistence was possible. Nothing could happen to him.
Between their firepower and Kong's instincts, they could handle most of what the Hollow Earth threw at them.
"Good." Natsuki had already seen how Jared and Old De read a fight. There was no one better to send. "I'll leave it with you."
He helped Jia back into the vehicle, and the car swung into motion, falling in behind Dr. Serizawa's vehicle as they headed in the direction Jia had pointed.
The other three vehicles kept following Kong.
...
Deep inside the Iwi territory, ten Titan Giant Apes tore through the biological membrane concealing the entrance and pushed into a hidden mountain ravine, crude weapons in hand. ROAR—, !! ROAR-OWW, , !! AWWW-ROAR, , !! Their challenge screams split the air like a blade.
This quiet corner of the Hollow Earth had been at peace for centuries.
That peace was about to end.
The lead gray ape did not charge immediately. Flanked by its escort, it walked forward slowly, unhurried, deliberate. Among its kind, this ape was the elder, the thinker , second in rank only to the Scar King himself.
Beyond them rose the Iwi's stone hall. Rows of warriors stood at every position around it, wrapped in ochre-yellow robes, crystal spears planted at their sides, eyes fixed hard on the invaders.
"ROAR!"
When the gap between them closed to under two hundred meters, the gray ape raised one hand. The column behind it stopped.
Then its gaze settled on the largest man among the Iwi warriors.
'We have no desire for war.'
'Give us full control of the passages, and we have no reason to kill any of you.' The elder ape's thoughts pressed through the silence.
It knew the Iwi could hear Titan minds. Communication between them was possible , and it intended to use that.
In the ages before memory, the Titan Giant Apes of the Hollow Earth had been humanity's protectors. They had stood between the weak and everything that wanted them dead. But nothing stays that way forever.
Roughly three million years ago, one of their own changed all of it. An ape of exceptional cunning , its raw strength only marginally above the others, but its ambition something else entirely. It discovered a way to claim a crystal capable of controlling Shimo, an ancient Titan of terrible power. With Shimo in its grip, it turned on the rest of its kin, enslaved them one by one, and set in motion a campaign to conquer the world from below.
That ape's name was the Scar King. The Iwi's murals still carried the story of what came next.
The suffering had been total , humans and Titans alike driven to the edge. But in the end, an atomic dinosaur swallowed a source of ancient energy the Iwi's ancestors had called the "Star," and emerged from the other side wielding the power to fire light itself. It drove the Scar King and every ape that followed him into a cavern deep in the Hollow Earth's rock, and sealed them there.
While the atomic dinosaur lived, they had not dared to come out.
But now, things were different.
'Never.' The Iwi warrior met the elder ape's gaze without flinching, both hands white-knuckled around his crystal spear.
The Iwi territory was threaded with passages leading to the surface. If those apes took them, they wouldn't just have the Hollow Earth , they would have a doorway to everything above. The surface world would be destroyed.
While the two sides faced each other, the High Priestess stepped forward from the crowd.
She looked at the ten apes standing at the edge of the stone hall and felt no illusion about what was coming. She had already made her decision: they would fight until there was no one left to fight.
She prayed they could hold out long enough. The prophecy spoke of a girl , an Iwi girl who would come from above. To stop Titan Giant Apes, only the power of another Titan would be enough.
Before every great battle, Mothra left behind an egg , a seed of herself, preserved for resurrection. One of those eggs lay in this territory right now.
They had to survive long enough for that girl to come. Whatever it cost them.
Seeing the Iwi refuse to yield, the elder ape let its patience run out. It leveled its green crystal axe at the stone hall and gave the order.
Begin.
And at that exact moment ,
BOOM——!!
➤ Next: Fluent Combat — Steel and Blood
— .—— .—— .—— .—— .——
Enjoying the story?
📚Read 35+ chapters ahead on Patreon.
💎Join the free community tier for early access to the latest updates:
🔥patreon(.)com/DarkGolds