The First Sound of the Night

"What could be happening? It's not like they'd start fighting among themselves."

Sevika couldn't see that far, but she stopped rowing as well, hesitating over whether to move forward.

Jinx gave her a surprised look. Instead of mocking her, she seemed somewhat bored.

"A few robots with blue light glowing from their bodies showed up. In a few quick moves, they killed everyone defending the gun emplacements."

"They must be here to meet us. Robots? It should be Butler."

Sevika grinned and resumed rowing, guiding the boat beneath Piltover's towering outer wall.

The two jumped from the boat onto the rocks below the wall. Sevika turned to Jinx and couldn't help asking,

"Do you have a way up on your own?"

"A wall like this? I can handle it!"

Feeling Sevika's gaze, Jinx immediately hid the hesitation on her face. Her brows rose slightly, and confidence appeared on her face.

She took a deep breath and pushed off hard with both legs, leaping three meters into the air. Her hand caught a corroded gap in the wall. She reached up with her other hand, tightly gripping another indentation before pulling herself upward. Her feet did not even search for footholds; she climbed entirely with her hands, looking thoroughly unprofessional.

Watching Jinx's unconventional climbing posture, Sevika frowned slightly but said nothing. She leaped high as well.

Bang!

Her mechanical left arm slammed viciously into the wall. Then her right hand took over its position, while her feet coordinated beneath her, finding solid footholds to push from before she continued chiseling her way upward with her mechanical arm.

As they climbed higher, Jinx found herself growing increasingly strained.

She still had some stamina left, but she discovered there were no more footholds above.

She had been stuck in one depression for a long time, yet she still couldn't find anywhere to place her next hand.

By now, Sevika, who had been advancing steadily one step at a time, was nearly catching up. Her light voice drifted up from below.

"If you can't keep going, let me carry you. If climbing like this could get us up there, Zaun would've occupied Piltover long ago."

Jinx snorted. She had thought Sevika was about to ramble on with more condescending remarks, but Sevika unexpectedly explained,

"Butler sent me so you could get up there. This wall was built to stop people like us from sneaking across or launching surprise attacks. Beneath it lie mountains of corpses and bones piled up by countless predecessors."

Jinx tightened her grip on the rock in her hand, pressed her lips together, and stubbornly said,

"I can do it myself. I don't need your help!"

Looking up at the summit less than ten meters away, she drew a deep breath, her eyes filled with unprecedented resolve.

She would never let anyone look down on her again. She would never again be that person who couldn't accomplish anything!

Gritting her teeth, she exerted force with her left hand and pulled herself upward. The index finger of her right hand jammed into a crack barely wide enough for a finger, her skin scraped raw without her noticing.

Jinx's gaze darted from side to side as she desperately searched for her next foothold.

But before she could make another move, her fingers slipped, and her entire body began falling.

Panic flashed across her face as she tried desperately to adjust her landing posture. Yet before she had dropped far, someone seized her ankle. Her body was yanked into the air, leaving her hanging upside down in midair.

"Hold on tight. It's over twenty meters down. Are you trying to prove you can survive the fall?"

Sevika forcibly pulled Jinx up and let her lie across her back.

"Don't try so hard to show off. Can you stop acting like a child?"

"I'm not a child!"

Jinx clutched Sevika's shoulders to keep herself from falling and gritted out her retort.

"Tch. Still saying you're not a child. After all these years, when have you ever done anything without letting your emotions lead you?"

With Jinx's weight on her back, Sevika climbed more slowly, but she continued upward steadily.

"When boss took me in, I was just like you. I always thought I could do anything. But reality told me that, in his eyes, I couldn't do anything right."

Jinx wanted to throw out a few mocking remarks, but the words reached her lips and were swallowed back down.

"Except that one time. I don't know what came over me, but I risked my life to shield him from an explosion. My left arm was completely severed. Back then, I suddenly felt like I could do something right in his eyes."

"That day..." Sorrow appeared on Jinx's face.

"Yes, the day Vander died. The day your sister abandoned you and you cried your eyes out." Reminiscence filled Sevika's eyes, but her hands and feet never stopped moving.

"I don't have a sister!" Anger filled Jinx's face as her hands gripped Sevika's shoulders tightly.

"There it is again. Angry like a child, with every emotion written on your face. Your experience with boss is similar, but do you know where you differ from him?" Sevika asked with a grin.

"Where? I don't have his methods?" Jinx looked unconvinced.

She felt her management skills were inferior to Silco's, but in terms of strength, she was definitely stronger than him.

"The difference is that you don't dare face your past. You call yourself Jinx now, and you've always known where that name came from. Your sister calling you 'jinx'—a disaster—over and over made you what you are. Boss is much better than you. He always dares to tell you his own story."

"He was nearly drowned by Vander. He's told that story eight hundred times already." Jinx made a face, boredom clear in her eyes.

"Exactly. He dares to tell it eight hundred times. Do you dare tell yours once? To anyone, even yourself?"

"Of course I do. Hahaha."

As she spoke, Jinx's expression changed strangely.

From initial pride, to later indifference, to a complicated laugh in the end.

"Alright, emotional sharing time is over. We're here."

"Remember this, kid. Every one of us has our own value. My value is carrying out every order boss gives. As for your value, you need to find it yourself."

"That day, because you blew up the airship, he pointed at my nose and chewed me out. Later, after I met the mage and Butler, I figured it out too. I was born insignificant. In their eyes, no matter what I did, if it wasn't good enough, it wasn't good enough. But you're different. Silco believes in you, so I'll believe in you too, even if you really are useless!"

Sevika adjusted her angle, then drove her mechanical arm down hard and hurled herself upward, just enough for her right hand to reach the edge of the wall.

Finally, she used the leverage to pull herself and Jinx onto Piltover, where they hid behind a Coastal Defense Cannon.

"They were all dealt with easily, but they should have reacted by now. We don't have much time."

Sevika looked at the Enforcer corpses scattered across the ground. Every one had suffered fatal wounds, and some bodies even had large sections caved in.

"That was violent. I remember we're supposed to set off the explosion here. From here to the designated location..."

She walked to the other side of the wall. Her gaze passed through bustling Piltover and settled on a tall tower within the city. Her expression darkened.

"Are you kidding me? That tower is at least a kilometer away."

"I can do it!"

Jinx wore a cold expression as she carried a rocket launcher to Sevika's side.

"You're sure? We only get one chance." Doubt showed on Sevika's face.

"Being a bodyguard is your strength. Blowing things up is mine!"

Jinx pointed at herself with her free hand. An indescribable light filled her eyes—like understanding, relief, and liberation. Her finger moved, and she pulled the trigger hard.

Boom!!!

The Hex Gemstone-enhanced rocket trailed thick smoke behind it as it streaked across the sky in an instant, too fast to be caught off guard.

The distance of one kilometer vanished in the blink of an eye.

The rocket collided with the tower, detonating the explosives inside. A massive fireball engulfed the tower, and an earth-shaking blast rang through all of Piltover.

That sound was the first sound of the night.

Thanks to "One Page Lost" for the 500 tip.

The book is currently in its new release period, with two stable updates every day, at noon and at 7 PM. I'm building up a backlog and sorting out the outline at the same time. The Twin Cities arc will probably run to around 200,000 words. After that, the story will center on Noxus and spread into other regions. Right now, I mainly need to spend a great deal of time establishing the backgrounds and timelines of each champion. Most characters in this book are set in the same era, though their ages differ. Ryan will serve as the main viewpoint character, through whom their individual stories will unfold. I'll do my best to preserve every character's original flavor, though my writing may fall short in some places. Those parts will need time to refine, as well as corrections from readers.

Thank you all for following along! Thank you for your support!