Su'Rhaal leaned into the clash, both runeblades locked against the jagged saber of the masked commander. Sparks spat from the grinding metal, casting flickering light across their straining faces.
The rebel's strength was unnatural. The weight behind their strikes didn't match their frame. Su could feel it in the tension of the blades—a force that pulsed through the steel like rot spreading through flesh.
The crimson runes along his swords flickered with each vibration.
The enemy's magic was interfering with them.
The masked figure shifted their stance, forcing Su's blades downward. A misstep here would break his guard.
He adjusted. Stepped sideways. Pivoted his hips.
His swords slid free with a metallic rasp.
He brought his right blade across in a diagonal cut. Aiming for the neck.
The figure ducked beneath the strike, unnaturally quick.
Too quick.
This isn't just skill, Su thought. This is something else.
The masked commander lunged in response, the jagged saber driving toward Su's ribs.
He twisted aside, narrowly avoiding the thrust.
The saber's tip grazed the leather beneath his pauldron, leaving behind a thin, blackened line that hissed as though burned by acid.
The enemy retreated three paces, adjusting their grip.
Su noted the slight tremor in their movements. The way her left hand twitched involuntarily after every strike.
He took a measured breath and rolled his shoulders.
Su studied them, eyes narrowing. The breathing was shallow. The steps uneven.
They're running out of time.
The commander raised their blade and charged again.
Su stepped forward to meet them.
The impact was bone-shaking.
Around them, Bel'zhun Harbor writhed in chaos.
---------
Explosions echoed from the southern pier as supply crates detonated, their contents igniting with unstable hextech energy. Flames reflected off the waves, turning the sea into a vast mirror of crimson and gold.
The clash of steel rang from every street. Noxian soldiers and rebel insurgents battled through the labyrinth of docks and alleys.
"Move it! Move it! They're regrouping near the crane!"
Samira sprinted through the smoke, barking commands to a squad of Noxian archers. Her twin pistols were already empty.
She ducked behind a collapsed market stall and holstered one pistol, unsheathing her saber with her free hand.
The rebels swarmed through the side streets—desperate and disorganized, but still dangerous.
"Come on, boys! They're just desert rats with pointy sticks!" she called out. " You are Soldiers. Act like it."
One soldier hesitated near a stack of crates.
Samira saw it.
She didn't hesitate.
She ran toward him, grabbed his collar, and shoved him against the wall.
"You scared?" she hissed.
The soldier opened his mouth, then closed it.
Samira leaned closer. "You hesitate, you die. Understood?!".
The soldier swallowed hard and nodded.
Samira released him.
"Good. Now shoot straight."
She turned back toward the harbor just in time to see Su and the masked commander locked in another furious exchange.
Even from here, she could tell something was wrong.
Su wasn't pressing the advantage. He was reacting.
And Su'Rhaal never just reacts.
----------------
The masked commander swung high. Su blocked the strike, the impact vibrating through his arms.
But his opponent didn't disengage.
Instead, she lunged her left hand forward.
Vines, twisted and sharp as wire, lashed from the palm—aimed directly at Su's chest.
Too close to dodge.
Su released his grip on the left blade and slammed his gauntleted forearm against the vines.
The vines coiled around his wrist.
The moment they touched his skin, the cold pierced straight to the bone.
The flesh beneath his armor burned with frigid pain. his vambrace darkened where the vines coiled.
The masked commander stepped closer, the pressure on Su's arm increasing.
"Do you feel it?" they said, voice muffled beneath the metal. "The decay?"
Su's vision swam.
The cursed magic was draining his stamina. His limbs felt heavier with every second.
"Enough."
Su wrenched his arm free with a roar, tearing through the vines. Black ichor splattered the ground.
The recoil made the masked figure stagger.
Su lunged forward and slashed with his remaining sword.
The blade caught the enemy's mask.
The bronze plating split with a sharp crack.
The top half fell away, clattering to the ground.
---
"You!?"
The woman beneath the mask was a ghost from his past.
Her hair was tangled and slick with sweat. A deep scar stretched from her left eyebrow to her jaw. Her eyes, once filled with fire, now burned with something colder:
Resentment. Hatred. Desperation.
And then there was her left arm.
The limb Su had severed months ago had been replaced by something unnatural.
A twisted hand of black vines and thorns writhed as though alive. The veins pulsed with a dim red light. The bark-like texture cracked when she flexed her fingers, releasing dark ichor that hissed as it hit the ground.
Su felt the magic radiating from the hand. Familiar and wrong.
"Dark Magic," he muttered.
Kahlira's lips twisted into a smile. "Made specially for you, Demon."
She raised the corrupted hand, palm outward.
The core of the limb glowed brighter.
---
Vines shot from her palm like snakes loosed from a pit.
Su dove aside as black tendrils lashed across the street, carving deep furrows into stone.
One vine snagged his ankle.
He slashed downward, severing it with a hiss. The severed piece coiled like a dying serpent before crumbling into ash.
The moment his skin touched the corrupted magic, his muscles tensed painfully.
His healing faltered.
Kahlira advanced with predatory determination. Each step was labored—the cursed magic exacted its toll—but she kept coming.
Her obsession overrode her agony.
"You will pay for what you've done," she snarled, lashing out again. "My people. My body."
Su parried the next strike and countered, aiming for her abdomen.
The corrupted vines caught his blade mid-swing.
The grip was like ice.
The vines coiled around the sword and drank the warmth from the steel. Su felt the energy drain from the runeblade.
Kahlira's smile was vicious.
---
Elsewhere on the Battlefield
Across the street, Zanaiya fought toward Su's position.
She moved with relentless precision, carving through the insurgents who swarmed her. Her armor was dented, and blood stained her tunic, but she pressed on.
Su was fighting alone.
She saw Kahlira now—recognized the woman who had led the insurgency for so long.
But the power she wielded was new. Wrong.
---
"Titus!" Zanaiya barked.
Sergeant Titus turned from his line of fighters, his face streaked with ash.
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Hold the flank. I'm going to get our Captain."
"Understood."
Zanaiya sprinted across the burning street, leaving Titus to bellow commands at the defensive line.
---
Su and Kahlira's duel tore through the harbor.
They smashed into market stalls, cracked stone pillars, and left splintered wood in their wake.
Su struck high. Kahlira parried and countered with a blast of dark energy from her cursed hand. Su barely dodged, feeling the sting of its passing.
His body grew heavier with each exchange.
The cursed magic sapped his strength like water draining through cracked stone.
Vines shot upward, tearing through the stone.
One wrapped around his ankle. Another coiled around his waist.
He slashed the nearest tendril. The runeblade cut through it, but not cleanly—the vine hissed and retracted, dripping dark ichor.
His vision blurred as the magic radiating from the vines seeped into his limbs.
"You're slowing, Su'Rhaal," Kahlira said softly.
"Captain!"
Su twisted toward the voice.
Zanaiya.
She fought her way through the rebel line, trying to reach him.
"I'm coming!" she called.
"No!" Su shouted. "Stay with the—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
The air shifted.
---
From the shadows of a burning warehouse, a massive figure slithered forward.
The sound of scales dragging across stone pierced the din of battle.
A figure emerged from the smoke, her serpentine tail coiling around a collapsed pillar.
She wore only a Shuriman headdress, bra and armbands on her elbows.
After being transformed by her curse, her legs turned into a long green snake tail merged into her
Her glowing eyes—predatory and cold—locked onto Zanaiya.
"You're an obstacle," she said. "And obstacles... are removed."
---
Her tail lashed out with terrifying speed.
Zanaiya raised her Spear, but the force of the impact was immense.
The tail struck her midsection, hurling her backward.
She crashed through one building.
Then another.
Stone shattered. Wood splintered.
She finally slammed into the third building with a sickening crunch, and the wall collapsed on top of her.
"Zanaiya!" Su roared.
The rage ignited deep in his chest, boiling away the haze of the corrupted magic.
The pain. The exhaustion. The calculations.
All of it vanished beneath the surge of pure fury.
His vision narrowed to the two women standing before him.
Cassiopeia, coiled like a serpent ready to strike.
Kahlira, magic coursing through her stolen limb.
Enemies.
Obstacles.
Su tightened his grip on his blades. The runes flared blood-red.
He inhaled deeply—the Sang'Kalla battle-ritual that sharpened body and mind.
And then—he roared:
"VENGEANCE!"
He charged.