Blessed Isles—a mystical place once shrouded in sacred mist, even before the Curse of Ruin took hold. Here, an enlightened civilization built a utopian city, embracing a life untouched by the outside world.
After Shurima's empire was buried beneath desert sands, swept away by the relentless tides of history, some scholars of Fuguang Island, with their advanced knowledge of both magic and technology, began investigating the empire's downfall.
The Void, the other side of the cosmos—a realm beyond the concepts of time and space. When the Void descends, it will mark the end of time, space, and all things within the world.
These were the findings of professors and scholars in Fuguang's capital, Helia.
Ryze once ventured to this now-ruined island, engulfed in black mist, and read about this in ancient texts on world runes.
If the ultimate threat to the world is indeed the Void, that isn't an inaccurate conclusion.
Seeing Ryze's expression, Li Lin guessed his thoughts. "You think the threat from the Void is less dangerous than that of the world runes?"
He let out a cold laugh. "I once thought the ancient mage Ryze was wise after living for thousands of years, but it seems you're no different from the fools you scorn."
Ryze, unbothered by the insult, replied, "When the world collapses, no amount of rhetoric will matter."
Li Lin shook his head with a wry smile. "No matter how dangerous world runes are, as long as they are securely contained—just as you are doing now—they pose no threat.
"But the Void? It can consume the entire world, and even the power of the world runes might not be enough to stop its encroachment on our reality."
"The Void has been defeated. The Ascended sealed it away," Ryze responded, though his confidence wavered. "Our greatest threat still lies within humanity itself."
Li Lin sighed inwardly. "Leaving aside the numerous Void creatures still roaming Icathia… who told you the threat from the Void was confined to Icathia?"
He glanced at Zoe, hoping she might add something. But seeing her blank look, he gave up.
This girl had inherited the powers of the Twilight Star Spirit, but not its knowledge. Constantly lost in play, she knew little of such matters.
"You once traveled to Freljord. You must know of the Three Sisters," Li Lin continued, locking eyes with Ryze. "Avarosa, one of the sisters, faced a twisted darkness from beneath the world—the Void. She lost her hearing to unholy whispers.
"Meanwhile, Lissandra fought Volibear and lost her sight to him. During her walks in dreams, she made a pact with those void creatures—the Watchers—promising, in the name of the Three Sisters, to offer the Runeterra to them, thus gaining tremendous power.
"Eventually, the Void broke into the northern world. To hide her collusion with the Watchers, Lissandra chose to sacrifice her sisters and allies, burying them with the Watchers beneath an impenetrable glacier, entombed in True Ice.
"But it was a mere, desperate struggle… Thousands of years have passed, and her seal is weakening. The Watchers will return to this land soon enough.
"When that time comes, it will herald the end of all things."
As Li Lin spoke, Ryze grew increasingly alarmed.
Though he had never heard such tales in Freljord, the story did not seem fabricated. After all, Li Lin had a Twilight Star Spirit who was rather fond of him, and it wouldn't be unusual for her to share such ancient secrets with him.
Yet, Li Lin wasn't finished. "It's not just the Watchers. The Sharkmen beneath the Conqueror's Sea, west of Targon, have been tainted by darkness. Without a new Moonstone, they are unable to suppress the twisted void beneath the abyss.
"But for now, they're holding it back. Let's talk about recent events instead."
Li Lin raised his right hand, covered in nanotech armor, projecting a recording in front of Ryze—a memory of Kai'Sa, whom he'd met in Shurima, during a gene surgery he performed to remove her Void-corrupted skin, only for her to be possessed by the Void Empress.
"Kai'Sa, a young girl I met in Shurima, whose homeland was swallowed by the Void. She alone survived within it, fighting Void creatures for three years."
As he revealed Kai'Sa's story, a projection of her, possessed by the Void Empress and requesting his help in reaching the ruins of Belveth, ended.
Li Lin had intended to explain the recording method to Ryze, but to his surprise, Ryze already understood it, noting it as similar to Blessed Isle's ancient "Memory Magic Crystals."
With the right materials, Ryze could create similar crystals, which he believed could not be falsified.
However, Ryze found it hard to accept that, despite his millennia of effort, humanity seemed doomed to face the threat of extinction.
Li Lin observed his frail figure, speaking a name that made him shudder, "Oh, by the way, your apprentice, Kegan Rodhe—or rather, Brand, now. How is he?"
"…How do you know…?!"
Ryze's eyes widened in rare alarm.
It had been centuries since Kegan Rodhe became the vengeful spirit, Brand. Even when Ryze last traveled to Shurima to seek world runes, joining a warrior who wished to die in battle rather than age in exile, he had only briefly encountered Brand in the Garden City.
Decades had passed since then.
And he had never told that warrior about his apprentice!
Moreover, she had long since passed away—Li Lin should not know any of this.
"What's your connection to Kara?" Ryze demanded.
"Kara? I don't know her."
Li Lin's answer only deepened Ryze's confusion.
Indeed, Kara from Shurima had passed away some twenty or thirty years ago. Li Lin, evidently an Ionian, could have had no connection to her.
"How do I know this, right?" Noticing the rare trace of fear and confusion on Ryze's face, Li Lin added, "I think Zoe already explained that quite clearly."
A Guardian of the World…
Under the quiet moonlight, with a gentle sea breeze and rolling waves, Ryze stood silent for a long while before finally letting out a deep sigh. "Alright… alright, you've managed to make me question everything about you."
The exhaustion on his face was unmistakable, and even his voice sounded aged and weary. "Everything you just said… is it true?"
In reality, he was almost certain Li Lin wasn't lying. The question was more a desperate hope than anything else.
"Would I have any reason to deceive you?" Li Lin replied with a rhetorical question.
"I thought, perhaps, all of this was just…" Ryze trailed off, but Li Lin still understood his implication.
"As I've said many times, my goal isn't the World Runes. That's just what you've insisted on believing."
Ryze collapsed to his knees, spilling what was left of his beer on the sand. "I still remember when all I had to carry was a single world…"
Li Lin took two fresh bottles of beer from the morning light, easily popping the cap off each with his thumb. He walked over and sat cross-legged beside Ryze, offering him one of the bottles.
"We share a common goal—to protect this world."
"Yes… to protect the world."
Ryze took a deep breath and, accepting the bottle, downed it in one go.
Seeing this, Li Lin smiled slightly and finished his own drink.
"So… you're saying the Void's arrival is in a year?"
Ryze had mistaken Bel'Veth's desire to meet with Li Lin and Kai'Sa as a harbinger of the end of the world.
"To be precise, while Bel'Veth exceeded my expectations, I don't consider it the ultimate threat."
"The Twilight Star Spirit called you the world's chosen. Isn't that Void creature trying to erase you?"
"Even if it has such intentions, what difference does it make?" Li Lin spoke with an air of indifference. "It gave me a year—that's its mistake."
"Ambition must be tempered by reality," Ryze's gaze turned distant, as if recalling something, his tone a notch graver. "Otherwise, we'll eventually be consumed by our own arrogance and pride."
Li Lin chuckled, though not out of disrespect. "So, arrogance and pride… that's how you see me?"
"I'm just offering you some advice from someone who's been there." Ryze watched as Li Lin stood up and moved to an open space nearby, uncertain of what he intended to do. "After all, I've met plenty of people with a personality like yours."
Li Lin didn't reply; instead, he summoned his nanotech armor to cover his entire body.
As countless glowing circles appeared mid-air and on the ground, Ryze, stunned, scrambled to his feet, sharply inhaling.
These were Arcane Teleportation arrays!
A blink later, Ryze's breath hitched.
Above them, the dark sky was filled with mechanical constructs glowing blue and red, while the ground was crowded with colossal mechs of every shape and size.
An endless mechanical army!
Behind Li Lin stood a giant, towering at least dozens of meters high, resonating with Ryze's arcane energies.
That… that was the power of the sun.
Li Lin retracted his helmet and turned back, grinning as he looked at the "shaken to the core" Ryze.
"With all of this, do you still think I'm arrogant?"
(End of Chapter)
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