*'What is this? Are they even human? Those movements, that gear, and what's with the audio-visual special effects?'*
Countless question marks flashed through Zeke's mind. He was absolutely certain that if his Titan squad had transformed and launched a full-frontal assault right from the start, they would be completely dead by now.
*Roar!*
Zeke could summon nearby Pure Titans using a special roar. Compared to the other Nine Titans, Zeke wasn't just a majestic long-range artillery battery; he could even act as a summoner.
The accompanying biochemical unit hadn't expected the situation to change so rapidly. Before they even saw the Walls, one of the Beast Titan's arms had already been chopped off.
Zeke's title was the Spear of Marley, focusing on long-range attacks, with his close-combat abilities being better than nothing. Now that his "spear-throwing" hand was gone, he could only fight as a summoner until his next transformation.
One major function of the biochemical unit was to artificially create Pure Titans when there were none in the vicinity.
Needles filled with Zeke's spinal fluid were fired from semi-automatic weapons. Levi twirled his twin blades into an impenetrable blur, deflecting every single needle.
Hannes followed closely behind. The older man, tough as ever, didn't choose the same defensive method as Levi. Instead, his hands blurred into afterimages, catching the needles one by one relying solely on his eyesight and finger strength.
With a flick of his wrists, he applied force with his index and middle fingers simultaneously, shooting the tiny needles back like a scattering shower of blossoms—Secret Technique: Two-Finger Vacuum Catch!
"What a despicable trick," Hannes spat on the ground, watching the biochemical unit bathe in golden lightning and transform into Pure Titans at Zeke's roar.
Transforming into Titans actually made it easier for the Survey Corps' elite vanguard to strut their stuff.
In an instant, sword aura went flying and magic spells bombarded the area. Slicing the nape was completely outdated in the eyes of these soldiers; bigger, stronger energy blasts were the true romance of violence.
The dazzling audio-visual spectacle lasted for about two minutes, by which point the Survey Corps soldiers had pretty much drained their energy reserves dry.
The surroundings were a complete mess; not a single intact tree could be found within a radius of several hundred meters.
Down a small dirt path leading toward the plains, the Beast Titan stumbled and sprinted for its life. To avoid ruining the grand plan, Levi uncharacteristically held back his killing blow, letting the Beast Titan escape.
Having barely scraped by with his life, the Beast Titan wasn't brain-dead enough to see the special effects stop and foolishly think he suddenly stood a chance again.
He knew perfectly well that for this gang of ruthless monsters, killing him would be easier than slaughtering a chicken.
His only option now was to seize the power of the Founding Titan and trigger The Rumbling; it was the only way to save his own life.
As his stamina slowly drained away, the Beast Titan stumbled and collapsed. Zeke's true body struggled to crawl out from the Titan's nape.
"Those guys deliberately let me go. And this direction... Grisha is over here. Heh, they have absolutely no idea what kind of power The Rumbling truly represents, nor do they know what the Founding Titan is capable of."
Zeke sneered, glaring in the direction of the Walls. A crawling Abnormal Pure Titan scurried over, scooped him onto its back, and rapidly sprinted toward the Walls.
Grisha wasn't inside the Walls. Instead, he was waiting at a temporary outpost about ten kilometers away. He wanted to give his eldest son one last chance.
Zeke was no longer a child. Giving him this opportunity was purely a favor granted out of respect for Grisha's diligent work and stellar performance at the medical clinic. As for whether Zeke could grasp it, that was entirely up to him.
"Father, you've grown old." Zeke stood in front of Grisha, his body trembling slightly. "Or perhaps a peaceful life has worn away your edge?"
Grisha froze, his entire demeanor seeming to age several years in that single instant. In his youth, he had been radical and fanatical—a personality that had subjected Zeke to a dark, miserable childhood.
This had ultimately caused Zeke to completely lose the moral compass that a normal person ought to possess.
Grisha had wanted to use this opportunity to try and make amends, but it was painfully obvious that the chance had already slipped away.
"The Attack Titan is a utility-type Titan, and the Founding Titan cannot unleash its true power without royal blood. Father, you are no match for me. Just be a good boy and let me extract a sample of your spinal fluid. Otherwise, I'll have to resort to the simplest method."
Transforming into a Titan and eating Grisha alive.
Grisha didn't say a word. Instead, he simply turned his head to look at the matchbox-like house behind him.
At this point, trying to point fingers or preach to him as a father would just seem pretentious and hypocritical.
Zeke's eyes were eerily calm, as if the man standing before him was nothing more than a complete stranger. But just as he prepared to make his move, he froze.
The power of the Founding Titan had somehow transferred into his body out of thin air.
"Ha... Hahahaha! I have no idea how you managed to do that, but at this point, it doesn't matter anymore!"
Bathed in golden lightning, the Beast Titan's massive frame materialized once again. Then, its original ape-like body rapidly began a secondary mutation.
White bone armor pierced through its flesh from the inside out. Its height skyrocketed from seventeen meters, reaching a terrifying one hundred and twenty meters in the blink of an eye.
The Rumbling was merely a means of self-preservation. What Zeke truly wanted was the administrative authority to control all Eldians, allowing him to realize his Euthanasia Plan.
Who knows what was going on in his head, but Zeke's grand plan was to strip all Eldians of their reproductive abilities, forcing the entire race to naturally die out.
Zenith's stance on the matter was to just let him do whatever. After all, he had already revoked every single administrative permission in Paths except for the ability to trigger The Rumbling.
Zeke quickly discovered this fact as well. His one-hundred-and-twenty-meter-tall body threw a fit of impotent rage—it was like happily buying a massive gold chain, only to get home and realize it stuck to a magnetic door handle.
"Hurry up, I'm giving you thirty seconds to trigger The Rumbling. My live-broadcast airship fleet is already in position."
Zenith popped out of the matchbox house and flew straight up, hovering right at eye level with Zeke.
He had repeatedly fast-forwarded the plotline of the Attack on Titan world, and it was finally reaching its climax. He had frantically skipped massive chunks of the story, to the point where he wasn't even pretending to care about the script anymore.
"Look what we have here, a little flying bug... *Gah!!*" Before he could even finish his sentence, his colossal body was sent flying hundreds of meters away by a single kick from Zenith.
The physical mass of the Titans in this world was actually incredibly low. They looked massive, but their actual body weight was nothing to write home about.
Even though Zeke's Founding Titan stood a towering one hundred and twenty meters tall, if you actually put it on a scale, it probably wouldn't even weigh as much as one of Ultraseven's legs.
"Hurry up and trigger The Rumbling! Chop-chop! I've already evacuated all the civilians, so stop dawdling!"
Damian, the former Military Police squad leader, had lived up to expectations and successfully become the new King of the Walls.
The former king had sneezed during a political assembly, getting spit all over Damian's SPW employee badge. In retaliation, Damian immediately reported him to the higher-ups on charges of blasphemy against the divine.
The king was just a symbolic figurehead anyway; the true ruler of this world was the Premier. So, Zenith simply made good on his promise and let Damian take the throne.
Truth be told, the obedient lackey was incredibly cooperative with Zenith's operations in every possible aspect, leaving him highly satisfied.
Back on the battlefield, Zenith's tiny fists hammered into Zeke's colossal body, causing the earth to quake and the mountains to tremble with every single strike.
Even though his Titan body couldn't feel pain, if this beatdown continued any longer, Zeke felt like his brains were going to be scrambled into a smoothie.
"Are the humans on Paradis Island all freaking monsters?! Did the people on this island secretly evolve behind our backs over the last hundred years?!"
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