The Sorrow of the Desert
The sunset was melancholic; the sands of Shurima chilly in the cold wind. Merchants in the desert had already pitched their tents, awaiting dawn. ••¤(`×[¤ ¤]×´)¤••
Renekton carried Nasus and hurried towards Sun City. I couldn't bear to tell him that Nasus had already lost all life.
He was able to wake up entirely thanks to Ivern's Wood Power; now that he's away from Ionia, he naturally can't hold on any longer.
Azir hadn't rested yet. Seeing our panicked state, he knew something bad had happened, but upon hearing of Nasus's death, he was inevitably shocked.
Since the Void War, there had never been a case of Ascended falling, and at this moment, he, like Renekton, refused to believe it:
"We cannot yet conclude that Lord Nasus is dead. We will hold his Ascension Ritual tomorrow at noon!"
"Good."
I didn't say much. At this moment, besides feeling guilty, I could only hope that a miracle would happen during tomorrow's Ascension Ritual.
As soon as it got light, Azir made preparations, and the ceremony officially began when the sun was halfway up the sky.
Many years ago, Nasus also performed his Ascension Ritual when he was on the verge of death. At that time, Renekton rushed to the bottom of the Sun Disc without hesitation, and the two brothers ascended together.
He still wants to help Nasus, but I stopped him. Since Azir can control everything, there's no need to take the risk.
Soon the sunbeams fell, pouring directly into Nasus and blasting away all the surrounding sand soldiers. But when the dust settled, everything disappeared, including Nasus.
He was destroyed by the Solar Energy and vanished into the Shurima.
Born of the sun, and destroyed by the sun, perhaps this is the best destiny for those Ascended.
Renekton burst into tears, his grief echoing like thunder. Azir collapsed to the ground, staring blankly at the Sun Disc, unable to accept this reality.
It wasn't until sunset that I managed to persuade Azir to return to the palace, but Renekton still refused to leave, standing like a statue beneath the Sun Disc.
The dead are gone, the living must go on. The crisis on the Shadow Isles is not yet resolved, and we cannot remain immersed in grief. I do not intend to linger any longer, so I bid farewell to Azir and left.
He wanted to come with me, but I couldn't bear to leave Renekton alone here, so I declined Azir's request. With the Emperor around, he might feel better.
Because of Nasus's last words to me, I paid special attention to Azir when I saw him this time, but I didn't find anything wrong with him.
His sadness was genuine, and his desire to help me was also genuine.
However, since Nasus said that, we should keep a close eye on things in the future.
When I returned to the Shadow Isles, I told Varus and the others about it. They were all very sad, but they also understood that casualties were inevitable in this battle, even among the powerful Ascended!
After a few days of rest, everyone has recovered quite well and is starting to prepare for the next battle.
Now that most of the Shadow Isles have been purified, only the summit defended by Vladimir and Mordekaiser remains, and we can gather all our forces to head there.
Darius and Gangplank arrived from the third team, and Swain had arrived two days earlier. They joined the first team, which supplemented the fighting strength of Nasus and Renekton.
And so, all forty-odd experts of ours went together to the summit!
I've already experienced Vladimir's power firsthand; if it weren't for LeBlanc's intervention back in Noxus, we would all be in trouble.
Although he now has many more helpers, he has returned to Mordekaiser's side and is certainly much more powerful than before.
Vladimir was also stationed in a gloomy old castle. This time, I didn't let everyone approach rashly. We advanced cautiously, scouting little by little, and finally stopped a hundred meters away.
Besides the dense aura of death, there was also an extremely powerful magical aura here. Swain replaced Nasus as the most skilled in magic here, and the important task of researching magic fell on his shoulders.
He summoned a large flock of Black Ravens and spent an entire day carefully studying the area around the castle, finally discovering that the outer perimeter was a three-dimensional magic circle!
The double magic array we encountered at the Ironhold Castle was already quite troublesome, but the three-dimensional magic array, which is composed of many intersecting ordinary magic arrays, is several times more powerful!
This magic array has many key points; only by suppressing all the key points simultaneously can its power be reduced. In other words, we humans must spread out.
Actually, it doesn't matter. Anyway, we can't have more than forty people attacking Vladimir at the same time. It's better to just pick a few who are more capable of taking action and that will be more beneficial in the battle.
Finally, I decided to form an offensive team with Udyr and Lee Sin. The three of us are good at both offense and defense, and can withstand sudden damage.
Huo Su, Alistar, Djis, and Oken form a control team to restrict Vladimir's movements on our perimeter.
Ashe and Varus, two Marksman, will provide support; their strength and accuracy will greatly assist us.
However, before that, we all followed Swain's instructions to seize the key positions of the formation and weaken its power.
Everyone moved about in an orderly fashion: Darius, Garen, Fiora, Sejuani, Olaf, Sword Saint, Wukong...
They were all assigned positions one by one. In the end, apart from the few people I had reserved, there were two positions left unguarded. Swain decided to suppress both of these key positions himself.
In addition to breaking the magic array here, he also set up a sealing array around it to deal with Vladimir's blood pool state and prevent him from escaping later.
This sealing array was completed under the guidance of the female vampire Rovvi. As Vladimir's former confidante, Rovvi knew his weaknesses very well.
With everything arranged, we entered the castle. With so many powerful friends behind us, there was nothing to worry about!
Vladimir was already waiting for us there. He sat casually in a chair, propping his head up with his right hand and looking at us with a calm expression.
If you didn't know that Mordekaiser was behind him, you'd really think he was the final boss.
"You can forget about the few grunts on the perimeter, but you even managed to kill Karthus? You guys are something else."
"Any evil spirit that dwells on the Shadow Isles, no matter who it is, will inevitably meet the same fate: disappearance."
"Hahaha... Do you think this is Noxus? Do you think I'm still that weak Duke Aivor?"
"You may be more powerful than Duke Aivor, but our strength is beyond your imagination!"
"Aside from Lord Mordekaiser, I haven't witnessed any unimaginable power. Didn't that traitor LeBlanc come?"
"She might be right behind you!"