In the depths of the Valley of Songs, within a labyrinth of dark tunnels, four massive ethereal beings cautiously crawled along the walls.
Each of them had three eyes emitting a flickering yellow glow, seemingly searching for something.
Suddenly, two streams of dark purple energy, similar in color to the Void, shot from a distance, illuminating the space and accurately hitting the foremost ethereal being.
The corrosive plasma effortlessly shattered its chitinous shell, hitting its pulsating core hidden beneath.
The leading ethereal being instantly perished, while the remaining three extended their tooth-filled throats, emitting a hissing, ear-piercing scream, all looking towards the depths of the passage with an air of facing a formidable enemy.
Shortly after, a petite humanoid figure covered in purplish-black skin, with two large cheek sacs emitting a purple glow, almost indistinguishable from Void creatures, emerged from the darkness.
"One down!" A somewhat muffled voice emanated from beneath the mask.
Her hands clenched into fists as she aimed at one of the ethereal beings, and the floating purple crystalline spikes in front of her fired several scorching purple energy blasts.
The initial energy blasts failed to instantly shatter the ethereal being's chitinous shell, but as the remaining blasts accumulated hits, the residual energy plasma was replenished and activated, exploding instantly and silencing it.
"Two down!"
The girl's actions angered the remaining two ethereal beings, larger in size than her.
They emitted roars resembling "anger," their four chitinous legs kicking off the wall, swiftly lunging towards the girl.
However, the ethereal beings played right into the girl's hands.
As her purplish-black skin writhed, she felt a sharp pain throughout her body.
But in less than a heartbeat, her body was filled with strength.
With a swift slide under the two ethereal beings pouncing towards her, the crystalline formations hovering in front of her hands fired several energy blasts much faster than before.
After exchanging positions with the two ethereal beings, the girl quickly rose, the scales on her shoulders contracting, scattering a hot purple light from the crystals.
Before the ethereal beings could react, several surging plasma projectiles were launched from the increasingly heated crystals, spinning and hovering in the air. Upon contact, the resulting explosions melted away most of their bodies.
The girl looked at the four ethereal beings lying dead on the ground, and half-lowered the cheek sacs on her shoulders, unable to help but bend over, supporting her knees, panting heavily.
To hunt down these isolated beings, she had spent three full days planning.
From luring them with human blood to predicting their movement paths, and finally ambushing them for the kill.
There were no backup plans, no retreats.
Once the hunt failed, death was the only fate awaiting her.
Because in these three days, she hadn't ingested a single bit of energy to nourish the active skin on her body.
The craving of her second skin to devour had begun to affect her thinking and even started to devour her body.
Fortunately, the plan went smoothly.
The girl couldn't bear the burning pain in her body any longer. She immediately withdrew the energy crystals on her fists and staggered towards the nearest ethereal being's corpse.
She brazenly reached into the sticky and corrosive chitinous shell of the worm and quickly pulled out a core almost as big as her head, still pulsating.
These creatures barely deserved the title of "biological," as they lacked their own intelligence, so she felt no psychological burden.
All for the sake of survival...
The girl took a deep breath, and as her second skin began to wriggle, the core she held in her hands rapidly shrank, being devoured by the Void epidermis symbiotically coexisting with her.
With a large amount of energy injected into her body, she couldn't help but let out a refreshing hum.
For the girl, about two of these ethereal beings could sustain her for roughly a week, provided she didn't use the living weapons evolved from her own body.
The consumption capacity of the living skin was limited, and the energy from the two ethereal cores was currently her absorption limit.
As for the remaining two ethereal cores, the girl planned to keep them as backups.
After all, in such an environment, their energy dissipation rate was extremely slow, taking at least two weeks to be completely depleted.
The girl quickly devoured the core of another ethereal being and dug out the core of the ethereal being next to it.
As she approached the first ethereal being she had killed to check the situation, the good mood of reaping the rewards of her kill was instantly shattered.
Struck by the most powerful Void resonance emitted from her cheek sacs, it directly damaged the core of this ethereal being, causing severe damage, rendering it almost valueless to devour.
"Damn it! I shouldn't have used 'Void Seeker.' Now, I have to consider the next hunt as soon as possible."
Void Seeker was the name the girl gave to her newly evolved ability to emit two Void resonance plasma waves from her cheek sacs.
Its range was extremely long, and its power was immense, almost shattering the chitinous shells of ethereal beings with a single blow.
The girl sighed slightly, feeling a bit discouraged. "It's okay, Kai'Sa. After all, hunting is always necessary..."
She comforted herself in a soft murmur.
In this environment where there were no living companions, only terrifying twisted monsters accompanying her, Kai'Sa had long developed this habit of self-comfort and maintaining an optimistic attitude.
Otherwise, just the narrow, dark, lightless underground environment alone could drive her to madness.
Kai'Sa carried the purple Void core in her hand, resembling a beating heart, and stepped over the worm corpses oozing corrosive liquid, corroding the ground, heading towards her temporary base.
"How long has it been since I was consumed by the Void...?" She couldn't help but look up at the low earthen wall above her and continued to murmur softly, "It should be the third year now, right? It's been three years since I last saw the sun..."
As a hunter of Void creatures, or perhaps at some point in the future, becoming prey to swarms of Void monsters...
How much longer would such days need to be endured?
"Mom, Dad, I miss you..."
...
...
Meanwhile, on the surface.
Kassadin held the shimmering Void Stone aloft, leading the way ahead, the Void Blade of his right wrist already unsheathed.
He led Li Lin and Sivir through the torn earth, from twisted pillars extending from the underground, without any pause.
"Where are we going?" Sivir couldn't help but lower her voice and ask.
"To the valley to the south, where there's a rift leading underground," Kassadin replied without looking back.
"But I remember, your family..."
Before Sivir could finish her sentence, she was pulled back by Li Lin beside her.
Realizing she had misspoken, Sivir immediately closed her mouth, but her words had already stirred up painful memories deep within Kassadin's heart.
His beloved wife...
And their "precious," his daughter—Kai'Sa.
They had long been buried in the belly of the Void...
Sivir's voice was somewhat melancholy as she also recalled her own parents.
If it had been her who was killed by the Shurimans back then, they would probably be as determined and crazy as Kassadin...
"Sorry, I didn't mean to mention your sorrow." She apologized, her voice slightly hoarse.
Kassadin knew what Sivir wanted to ask and responded, "It's okay, it's been a long time."
After a long silence, he added, "I didn't make a tombstone for them. When I was dying in confusion, friends from the caravan found me and dragged me back to Shurima."
"So, today, we just go straight underground, without going back to my former home... There's nothing left there, completely swallowed by the desert sands."
He said in an indifferent tone.
However, beneath the mask, Kassadin's eyes were already red, but he struggled to suppress the tears swirling in his eye sockets, not letting them fall.
As Kassadin's words fell, except for the faint sound of the power armor's mechanical gears and the energy core powering it, the engine of the storm robot, and the footsteps contacting the metal and sand, they didn't speak again.
The three of them walked in silence for more than 20 minutes until they reached a narrow and deep "cliff" in front of the mountain, where the bottom couldn't be seen at a glance.
From here, descending directly would bring them into contact with the corrupting evil beneath this land, the enemy of all things, the twisted presence that sought to devour the entire Runeterra—the place where the Void rift opened.
Li Lin, Kassadin, and Sivir stood before this ravaged scar on the earth.
Sivir gasped, "So high, how do we go down?"
"The slope isn't too steep. With powered armor, we can slide down along the cliff..."
As he was speaking, Li Lin had a thought, and the storm robot he had newly made in the Marrowmark Market slowly floated down behind him.
"But don't worry, we can let my storm robot go down first and check the situation."
(End of this chapter)
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