My life was never anything noteworthy. Living as a serf in a farm owned by one of the richest Russian nobles didn’t give a lot of chances to a nobody like me.
Jesus never gave me anything, rather, he took away everything. The nobles starved me, the Tsar took away my youth and my fellow men took away my wealth.
I was done with life. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe the priests and their worthless chatter; all the while drinking our lifeblood money.
Hence, the day I threw myself off a cliff wasn’t unexpected. There were plenty of people like me who died by suicide due to the terrible conditions around.
What was unexpected was what would then happen. Perhaps God took a notice of me, or something I don’t comprehend spared me.
Awaking in an ocean of lava was nowhere near pleasant. I first thought that I had fallen into hell, but after looking around for a while, I noticed this wasn’t like the priests had described. It was just like Russia, only… younger?
I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. At least I knew one thing: I was still alive.
My body hadn’t changed. Or at least as far as I looked. I did feel something different in me, but I wasn’t sure what exactly.
After a couple days of wandering around, I found out what truly changed. I noticed I wasn’t thirsty nor hungry. That was especially good, since this place only had magma.
Even though I was immune to hunger, heat burned my body constantly while my body regenerated at lightning speed. It turned into a vicious cycle of pain that refused to end.
Days passed. My endless march through this hellhole tore away at my sanity. Loneliness and confusion threatened to truly send me mad. The days turned into years before transforming into decades. The loneliness of the roaring volcanos and vicious magma was the only company I had during my march.
As time passed, my body evolved and adapted. I grew increasingly resistance to both pain and fire as I was scorched day and night by the roaring flames of the earth. My body also grew, even without me taking in any nutrition.
Looking back at it, I’m not sure exactly as to how I managed to keep my mind together for that long. However, after a thousand or so years of confusion and pain, I broke.
Years passed. I wandered around like a madman, sometimes my mind would break and I would scream to high heavens and either cry until my tears ran out or try and break something.
Except there was nothing to break. In my initial stages of madness, I began eating the very ground and lava I walked on just to spite this world.
As time went on, things only got worse. My sanity continually degraded as I turned into a complete madman. I would drink lava like it was water and eat minerals like it was bread.
I don’t remember exactly how long I spent in this state or what I did, but when I regained my mind, I had changed. I could barely remember my past. In fact, I couldn’t recall it at all. I could only see vague visions of it. I had spent thousands of years there at that point.
I was confused at first. It was like waking up from a dream that didn’t feel at all like one. I was dazed, but I don’t think I ever felt happier than I ever did right then and there. The feeling of coming back from the void of insanity is indescribable.
My body had grown immensely. From an average of 1.6 meters tall, I had turned into a 10-meter tall giant. Due to my continuous consumption of strange rocks, my skin turned reddish and became much harder. Not only had I become completely immune to the insane temperatures, my body itself now produced large quantities of heat.
For the next hundreds of years, I studied myself and the world around me. I theorized based on what I remembered from my memories.
After thousands of years of doing so, I became bored. I began doing more and more experimentations, trying to delve into the deeper meanings of this world and my life. I collected everything I could recall from my past life and worked off of that.
I continued to chew on interesting minerals and rocks, as well as drink lava. It had become somewhat of a habit during my time spent in insanity, and I eventually grew used to it. Maybe because there was simply nothing else for me to do.
I continued to wander around, but eventually reached a point where I had seen everything there was to see. Of course, the world would shift under my own eyes and the things I saw were all different, yet they were all the same at the core.
I continued my studies. I would examine my own body, cutting myself open and examining my insides. I also found out that if I ripped out my eyes, I could still see through them as long as they were not crushed. Even better was new ones would regrow from my ‘main’ body, and I could have infinite pairs of eyes.
Managing them became annoying after a while though, so I destroyed all of the excess ones. Time began to blur as year after year passed. At one point, a big boom went off somewhere in the distance and the world shook, but after a while, I forgot about it.
After some millions of years later, I noticed that the world was turning blue. The lava was disappearing and water was replacing it. At this point, my blood was hundreds of times hotter than lava and my inner skin was close to my blood in temperature. I did cool off my outer skin, as to let myself perform experiments here and there without scorching everything.
Water was fun to play with. I could dive into it much easier than I could go into lava, and it was also pretty comfy near the bottom.
More millions of years passed. I once dug my way into the center of the world to see what it was like. It took a while but it was worth it for all the strange delicacies and weird objects in there. It was also the first time in a while I felt something far, far hotter than lava, so I decided to hang out in there for a while, hoping my body would benefit from it.
It was not until a long while later that I dug out of there. It took me a couple millennia to get out, but I enjoyed the trip.
When I finally did, what greeted me wasn’t the reddish earth still burning hot, but a green world.
I was awe-struck at the beauty of all the new things. I faintly recalled their name from times so ancient they barely seemed real. Trees. Plants. Animals.
Animals. I thought. Are there animals somewhere?
I spent the next million years searching for them. Eventually, they started popping up. They were all so, so very small. But that didn’t stop me from tasting them. They were too small for me to enjoy though so I just left them alone.
Well, I did so until I found out the animals in the oceans were very big, and very, very tasty. I gobbled them all up, enjoying the feeling of their soft flesh sliding down my throat.
After a couple hundred years of feasting, I dozed off for a while near the bottom of the sea. When I awoke, the animals out of the water had turned huge too.
I spent the next million years watching as the little things grew and changed. They grew claws to fight each other, some even became nasty to eat, and others even fought back against me, often unsuccessfully.
At one point there was a sea beast just as large as me. Our fight lasted for an entire year, mostly due to how inexperienced I was at actually fighting. Eventually, it’s injuries got the best of it and it died.
After I finished feasting on it, my body changed significantly. I grew bigger, my arms grew longer and more slender. My crimson body turned shinier and my smell and hearing improved.
I was curious as to what caused these changes. However, no matter what I thought of, I could not understand. I decided to just ignore it and search for another beast as powerful as the last one.
Alas, there were none. No matter where I looked, all I would ever see were small. weak little critters running away at the mere sound of my footsteps.
As I continued to search for a challenger, I grew more and more attached to the critters. Many animals began to live on my body, birds nested on my head and animals would use my body for protection whenever I stopped walking.
I enjoyed the songs of the birds and the company of animals. After searching for a good place, I found a small mountain around my height and sat down in front of it, leaning my back to it. Essentially, I found a chair.
There, I sat still, waiting and watching as animals lived and died in front of me. Many made me their home, abusing the fact that the temperature in the area around me was always perfect for life due to the fact my body absorbed heat when there was too much and released it when there was too little.
It was fun to watch as the little animals lived. I studied their tactics for survival and formulated many different ideas, mostly out of boredom.
One little animal interested me the most. I could remember them living on trees, but now they lived on land and walked on two feet, just like me. They also used stones and other objects to help them catch and kill prey.
After a thousand years, I decided to offer the little ones a gift for their company. I released some of the heat in my fingertip and lighted on fire a branch. One of the little ones picked it up and ran back to show it to the others. Well, it wasn’t quite that simple showing them that it was not only harmless but good if used properly, but I was still happy at seeing their own obvious happiness.
The loneliness of the past was finally being filled. I sat there and observed from my giant throne as the world around me lived and died.
The little ones with fire began to advance at a terrifying rate. They settled everywhere in the world, they began to make tools, they built a culture, and they learned to speak words.
Soon, they began to make villages. Tribes formed and fought for dominance, as food became less of a problem due to agriculture.
It saddened me to see them fight, but I didn’t want to interfere. Some began to give offerings to me, they built small temples and altars all around me and ladened them with gifts.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
They called themselves humans, a name which gave me a feeling of deja-vu, but I couldn’t understand why.
Humans continued to develop. Those who lived in the area I was built legends around me, worshipped me. They gave me company and showed me love, so I showed them love too.
There was one point where my tribe was attacked by a giant army. Things looked bleak, it was 4000 of my people against 10.000 invaders. For the first time since I sat down, I moved.
I picked up a giant stone from where I was sitting and threw it at the invaders. All hell broke loose as the stone mercilessly squashed a thousand of their men.
They saw me though. They saw that I moved. They realized I wasn’t just a statue, but a living titan, and I wasn’t afraid to stomp them down if they annoyed me.
The invaders retreated. They never showed up again. Meanwhile, people turned fervent as offerings and rituals to me were quadrupled, and the stone I threw became a sacred site to them.
Under my newfound and improved protection, even if it was not necessary, my people prospered. They built beautiful temples and became invaders themselves.
They conquered the surrounding lands and named themselves the Kingdom of Aksum. The king was essentially a supreme ruler whose duties were many, but the main one was conducting religious ceremonies.
When the kingdom was inaugurated, the priests declared that it would be me who would choose the king. Many of the elites and powerful of the kingdom, as well as many of the lower-ranking politicians, all performed one of the biggest ceremonies I ever saw. Several animals were sacrificed, huge dances were held and tons of offerings were given.
Eventually, the time came when three men came forward. Each offered themselves to become the first ruler of the kingdom, each having several points to their legitimacy.
As they completed the final religious lines that they themselves came up with, and I never asked for, silence befell upon everyone. I was tempted to tease them for a bit and leave them hanging, but I didn’t want them to stop believing in me, I didn’t want them to abandon me.
My hand, which must have looked absolutely titanic to these people, slowly rose up. Instantly, the priests began to pray and do their own thing while the elites watched with wide eyes as the legends were confirmed before their own eyes.
It’s a thing to believe in a god, but it’s a completely another story to see your own god before you, one that moves and exists. If they had faith levels, it would have shot up from 20 to 100.
I chose a young man. I simply lowered my finger down and touched his head with it, as gently as possible, of course.
The reason for my decision was because, despite his low support, he was brilliant, decisive and charming. I then touched the other two candidates and, for the first time ever, I spoke.
“The first shall be the Ruler, The second shall be the sword, and the third shall be the shield.” I declared. My voice was shaky, having never spoken before.
The people were impressed. The ruler and the two other guys who I nominated fell to their knees and prayed.
To be honest, I had no need to go out of my way to do this, but I just felt really bad for giving something to one but not the others. What if they got sad because of me? What would I do then?
Life returned to normal as the Kingdom of Aksum became a regional power, then a world power. It’s borders stretched from the Horn of Africa to the Mediterranean. At least from what I could see from the maps that people carried around.
Three hundred years passed. Many kings came and went, the two families of the Shield and Sword each became the main pillars for Aksum, providing aid to the kings when needed.
People still worshipped me. At one point, a particularly devour and ambitious king built a gigantic temple right beside where my foot was, and named it the Great Temple.
It was really pretty. To thank the king for his efforts, I decided to help them on a campaign against Aksum’s rival that I knew they had been really struggling with.
The whole kingdom shook that day as I rose up from my seat for the first time in tens of thousands of years. I was careful not to step on anything or anyone, and once I was out of the city, I began my march.
Thousands of horsemen followed after me as I charged towards the enemy kingdom. I think it was called Egypt, but I wasn’t too sure, nor did I really care. Upon reaching their borders after a week, the horsemen that had been tirelessly following me for the whole week gathered up along with the armies defending the border, and they followed me in a giant host as I stampeded towards an enemy stronghold.
There was no real battle to speak of. Even before I arrived, the earth-shattering sound of my footsteps and my giant shadow made every defender flee for their lives, not even thinking of trying to fight. I stomped the city a couple times, mostly due to childish anger at not getting some fight, but continued on towards the enemy.
The same thing happened to most other towns along the way. Some surrendered, and I left those to the Aksumite soldiers to deal with. There was one town with a particularly headstrong governor in it that refused to surrender or flee, so I unleashed all my pent-up anger on it.
Not too far from a child’s tantrum, I smashed the city like a kid smashed his toys. Arms flailing around, the sheer force smashing through anything that stood in their way and feet stomping down, crushing all opposition. Fire came out as I breathed sun-scorching gasses that had been trapped in my lungs ever since my trip to the core of the planet.
Nothing was left of the city after I was done. After this event, I didn’t even have to reach the capital as they surrendered unconditionally, as long as their royal family was spared. The elites weren’t so eager to agree, but I didn’t really care so I just went back.
They probably understood that my help was over, so they took the offer. And like that, Aksum doubled in size. I returned to my great throne, where I was promptly thrown lavish new ceremonies and offerings. I was happy, and they were happy. Everyone was happy. Except those guys that got walked over.
However, all good things must come to an end. As time passed, I began to notice things. The elites and kings who lived in my area were all extremely wealthy, and yet the average man had little to nothing to his name. The conquered were enslaved, raped or outright slaughtered. At first, it was just some mild abuse of power, but soon the whole country fell into complete corruption. The shield and sword I nominated turned into nothing more than tax collection thugs and the kings turned into tyrants.
Finally, three thousand years after the foundation of the kingdom of Aksum, where the arts, knowledge, and talents had flourished, finally fell. I couldn’t do anything about it, nor did I want to. I too had been turned from a majestic religious figure to a mere weapon, even though I basically never moved or acted. I was a weapon not to be used against opponents, but against the poor and uncultured, for they thought of me as a god, and the priests abused that notion to suppress any revolting sentiments.
I began to grow increasingly angry. I wasn’t being respected anymore, and that would have been fine by itself. However, they were also abusing my name for their own purposes.
The final straw came when one day, a young boy climbed all the way from my foot to my face. It took him 3 days to climb, and he almost slipped and died several times, not counting the hunger and thirst he must’ve felt.
When he reached my face, he had to climb my cheeks and up towards my eyes, where he began to cry.
I didn’t know what to do. “What’s wrong?” I asked, in a voice only he could hear. He looked at me with terrified eyes as he stumbled back. He would’ve fallen had I not reached out and grabbed him.
People noticed my movements because of course they did. The young boy was terrified, but he still said “Mom and dad were killed, and I didn’t know what to do… The king ordered my capture, so I ran here…”
It was then that I remembered. The little boy was the son of a prestigious general who had tried to help out a village whose whole population was put in death row. To think he would suffer such a fate.
I took a long sigh and put the boy down. Raising myself from my seat, I spent a couple minutes observing the city that had grown all around me. It was so much more beautiful than the little village tens of thousands of years ago, and yet, that village was so much happier.
“I gave my protection to this place for a long time. Today, this country no longer has my blessing. The king is a fraud, the rich and corrupt are villains.” I roared out before walking away.
I don’t know what happened after that. I was too saddened by what had gone down. I could have stopped it, but I didn’t. I could have done something, but I waited until it was too late.
It was all too late now, however. I sighed deeply as I entered into the deep waters of the Indian Ocean, the only place that would allow me to escape the mistakes I made.
I grieved at the start, but then grief turned into anger, and I took out said anger on the creatures of the deep.
I was truly hurt. I was angry at myself for not being able to do anything and even angrier for not trying. For a thousand years I did the only thing that could calm me down: I ate anything and everything.
I suppose eating is my way of dealing with stress. I met a couple of interesting creatures down in the depths that I left alone simply because they were interesting, but everything else was swallowed up.
By the time I felt ready to return and see what the humans had done twenty thousand years had passed and I had grown to a little over 1000 meters in height. A little move from me could cause a gigantic earthquake or tsunami, and if I chose to, I could always breathe out an inferno of fire and heat.
I walked forward until the ocean floor was high enough for me to see outside of the water. The world had certainly changed since I last saw it, at least from where I could see.
A great city, filled with tall buildings and magnificent structures. As I looked around myself I saw little metal fishes that rode on the waves running away from me.
I grabbed one of the bigger ones near me and brought it up to my eye. After examining it, I discovered that there were humans inside. I was quite surprised, but after a moment of thought, it made sense. Humans liked technology after all.
I threw the metal fish into my mouth and gulped it down. After doing so, I walked out of the water and onto solid land.
In the past, I always avoided walking over living things. However, there were so many of them now that it was simply impossible for me to avoid them. I shrugged mentally and just chose to ignore the fact they existed.
I ripped out of the ground one of those tall buildings and looked at it for a bit. it was quite fragile, as it came apart the moment I picked it up. It suffered the same fate as the metal fish.
As I was about to walk off towards something more interesting, I felt a bunch of pokes on my legs. I turned to see what was happening and saw a large amount of flying metal birds and carriages made of metal circling me, throwing explosive stuff at me.
I swatted the birds down and stomped on the carriages. That seemed to get the message across as the few remaining ones kept their distance and didn’t dare throw stuff anymore.
As I walked around, I realized that this world was nothing like the one I left behind. Curiosity got the better of me quite quickly, and I wanted to explore. However, doing so with my own body would be difficult.
I had a couple of experiments I wanted to perform, and for that, I needed test subjects. I looked around for a bit before finding some suitable children. I captured one with extreme care and put it in my cheek for safekeeping. There was another child who wasn''t happy with what I did, but he wasn''t qualified to even be seen by me.
I picked up a couple of children and put them all next to the first one. After that was done, I went back into the deep oceans. There were a couple humans that came after me, and they did strange things. One of them tried to punch me, and I could almost feel it. Another threw a strange beam at me, and it felt cold. They were annoying so I blasted them with a fire breath that burned everything in front of me to ashes.
The world had changed, that’s for sure. This was the first time that anything not my size had actually stood up to me instead of running away screaming. However, it didn’t matter. I had changed as well since times past.
~~~
Reporters all around the world went crazy as basically every news channel reported on the attack on New York. The news quickly went viral, because of course it would.
“A titan has emerged from the sea and laid waste to New York! Several mutants and superheroes tried to stand up to it, but were all squashed.” A TV streamed as they showed footage of a gigantic being walking, every footstep crushing everything and everyone underneath. Each footstep also caused massive quakes, causing buildings to fall even if they weren’t hit directly.
An hour after the titan left, the Hero League showed on TV and promised to avenge the fallen and bring justice to the monster. Meanwhile, crime organizations and crazy scientists all around the world all also took notice, as the titan had simply caused too much commotion to go unnoticed.
A man sat in a comfortable chair as he inhaled a cloud of smoke from a cigarette. The TV in front of him showed too showed the great titan, however, unlike everyone the man had a smirk on his face.
“This is perfect… Iron Will, the Goodman and Hornet Woman were all killed in one stroke. I need to get that Titan, no matter the cost…” He laughed as he ordered an assembly of his criminal underlings and villain gangs.
He wasn’t the only one to do so. Soon, a massive search was organized by several parties, some good, some evil.
However, no matter where they looked, nobody could find the massive titan. After a month of searching, most gave up and instead prepared defenses in case it came back, but others insisted on their searches.