Chapter Summaries

Poppy was captured after mistaking a portal for the road to Bandle City, but Karya recognized Oren’s warhammer and had her released. Karya revealed that Poppy herself was the hero she had been searching for, then urged Lux to study the Monolith shard as Lux began questioning his reasons.

• Poppy damaged Freljord City’s streets while escaping, then was trapped by Spellcasters when the portal she entered was not connected to Bandle City.
• Karya recognized Oren’s warhammer, picked it up, and persuaded Poppy that he was not the peerless hero she sought; he had the spatial restraints removed.
• Poppy agreed to let Karya borrow the warhammer if Freljord helped her find the hero, and Karya promised to search while keeping the truth from her.
• Karya explained to Lux and Yin Nuo that Poppy was the hero she had been looking for, and told Lux to study the Monolith shard inside the hammer.
• Lux challenged Karya over his insistence that she study the Monolith, suggesting it was part of a larger plan and accusing him of hiding something.

Lux deduced that Karya wanted her and Yin Nuo to study the Monolith because Ixtal was using its power, forcing him to prepare a protective rescue. As Demacia became an empire and northern-southern tensions rose, news arrived that a caravan had been devastated on Ningwu Dao.

• Lux questioned Yin Nuo about the Shuriman journey, then deduced that Karya planned to send them to investigate Ixtal and its Monolith legacy.
• Karya concluded that Ixtal was drawing power from its inherited Monoliths and decided to prepare a protective rescue.
• Lux continued managing Freljord’s integration while studying the Monolith in her free time.
• Jarvan IV crowned himself emperor, promoted select nobles, and left Freljord’s lord and most northern lords without advancement.
• A Demacian Shuriman caravan was ambushed on Ningwu Dao, and Taric and a few Fearless Vanguard survivors escaped with the Rangers’ help.

After the caravan ambush, Jarvan IV chose war and accepted the Lakol people’s aid, while Lux and Karya recognized that the Aspects were steering Demacia toward conflict. Eleven years later, Jarvan ordered a general mobilization and demanded Freljord’s private troops, prompting Lux to question his attempt to control her forces.

• Taric urged Jarvan IV to investigate the caravan ambush before seeking revenge, but Jarvan decided war was necessary to defend his authority and Demacia’s interests in Shurima.
• Karya told Lux that Lakol missionaries were on the conscription list, and Lux realized Jarvan had chosen the Lakol people as allies.
• Jarvan welcomed Lakol priests’ request to exchange ideas with the Illuminators and added missionaries to the mobilization list, unaware that the Solar Sect was acting under the Aspects’ instructions.
• The Solar Sect helped identify links between the ambushers, Nazumah, and Harbor Governor Blake Sword, though the real mastermind remained uncertain.
• Eleven years later, Jarvan issued a general mobilization order, and Lux accepted an assignment to build warships for Demacia.
• Jarvan ordered some of Freljord’s private troops to fight under the Fosberons, and Lux laughed at what she saw as his disrespect for the Noble Exemplar.

Lux sent Yin Nuo and the Northern Wanderers’ Plains Walkers to Shurima as an independent flanking force, thwarting Jarvan IV’s attempt to absorb Freljord’s army. The well-equipped unit reached Uzeris and requested local rations and transport animals, leaving the Demacian quartermaster astonished by their desert preparations.

• Jarvan IV expected Sona to command the Northern Wanderers so he could win their soldiers over and bring the army under his control.
• Lux appointed Yin Nuo to lead the Plains Walkers and told Jarvan IV they would operate independently as a flanking force in Shurima.
• Freljord equipped the Plains Walkers with specialized desert gear in less than a month, while Jarvan IV mistakenly assumed they had rushed out unprepared and sent additional supplies.
• Jarvan IV ordered supplies for the Northern Wanderers and arranged for his quartermaster in Uzeris to meet their needs.
• Yin Nuo presented the Plains Walkers’ supply list to the quartermaster in Uzeris and asked for rations, three Skarrash, and more than a thousand camels.

The Plains Walkers reached the desert and planned how to block possible reinforcements south of Nazumah. Yin Nuo chose to establish a hidden command post among the oases and scout the surrounding routes before building defensive lines.

• The Plains Walkers left Uzeris with hundreds of camels, three Skarrashes, and eight guides, while the quartermaster struggled to explain their rapid procurement to Jarvan IV.
• Karya briefed the command staff on the terrain, trade routes, oases, and mountain barriers between Nazumah, Bumang, and Zurita.
• The commanders rejected defending the shifting oases directly and debated whether to focus on Bumang, Zurita, or the area between them.
• Yin Nuo ordered the brigade east to the densest oasis region, where it would establish a command post and resupply.
• Yin Nuo sent the First Regiment's reconnaissance company east with mages to establish a concealed supply point and scout between Bumang and Zurita.
• Yin Nuo ordered the First and Second Regiments to form defensive lines north and south of the command post after confirming there were no enemies, while avoiding Bumang.

Yin Nuo kept the Plains Walkers’ mission focused on safe flank operations, while desert accidents showed why her cautious plan was necessary. Jarvan IV’s forces eventually advanced with the Rah-Hok allies and faced Nazumah’s defenses, beginning the war.

• Yin Nuo rejected riskier proposals and persuaded the Plains Walkers’ commanders to prioritize training, flank security, and delaying larger enemy forces.
• Desert mishaps forced more than twenty Plains Walkers out of the ranks, confirming the need for cautious operations.
• Jarvan IV’s vanguard suffered heavy noncombat casualties near Uzeris, then adapted through training led by Rah-Hok instructors.
• Blake Sward shut down Solar Sect temples, rallied Nazumah’s residents, and organized its city defenses and militia.
• Jarvan IV’s Demacian vanguard and the Rah-Hok allied forces reached the western side of Nazumah and faced its defenders across marshland.

Demacia’s Dragon Riders mapped Nashramae’s defenses, but Nashramae’s Elemental Drakes later ambushed them and forced their reconnaissance to stop. Jarvan IV remained calm after the costly setback because Taric had found a secret passage beneath the city.

• Demacia sent five Dragon Riders over Nashramae, and they mapped its barracks, warehouses, and suspected command centers before delivering the map to Jarvan IV.
• Jarvan IV withdrew his troops and continued the reconnaissance routine for five days, while Blake kept Nashramae’s forces behind the walls and waited for reinforcements.
• On the sixth day, Jarvan IV handed the Vanguard Army to Garen and moved the main force to a camp south of Nashramae.
• On the seventh day, three Elemental Drakes attacked the Dragon Riders, pursued them to their transport ship, and set it ablaze.
• The Dragon Riders drove off the Elemental Drakes, but one Dragon and rider died, three Dragons were badly injured, and the damaged ship returned to Uzeris.
• After the reconnaissance ended and Nashramae began relocating military installations, Jarvan IV learned that Taric had found a secret passage beneath the city.

Jarvan IV sought a way to take Nazumah without a direct assault, while Taric explored an ancient Shuriman water-testing station found near the city. Taric discovered its hidden passage led toward Nazumah’s sewers, giving Jarvan IV a potential route for a surprise attack.

• After seven days of digging, Taric found a buried structure near the oasis south of Nazumah and reported it to Jarvan IV.
• Jarvan IV ordered Taric to scout the passage and asked the Solar elder whether the Rah-Hok could support an attack from inside Nazumah.
• The Solar elder gave Jarvan IV a detailed register of the Solar Sect’s followers in Nazumah and promised they would aid his army if it entered the city.
• Taric led Fearless Vanguard soldiers into the abandoned water-testing station, where they found no way forward in the main hall.
• Taric sensed a trapdoor beneath the dust, and the soldiers cleared it so he could force it open.
• The foul smell from below drove the group outside, and Taric realized the passage connected to Nazumah’s sewers.

Demacia sent a special assault team into Nazumah’s sewers while the Sun God Cult prepared a separate attack on the Rah-Hok camp. Xu Yuyan and Varus planned to exploit the battle to expose the Solar Sect’s divisions and expand the Sun God Cult’s influence in Nazumah.

• Jarvan IV ordered a Demacian assault team to enter Nazumah through the sewers using Golden Wheel Stone signal devices.
• Xu Yuyan led the Sun God Cult’s Kayaweiya force toward the Rah-Hok camp, targeting the Laquor people who served the Aspect.
• Varus and Xu Yuyan decided to exploit Demacia’s alliance with the Solar Sect by staging a schism and making the Demacians see the sect as dangerous and divided.
• The Kayaweiya assembled near Bumang and reached the Barren Hills Mountains without being stopped by Yin Nuo’s flanking forces.
• Varus returned to camp after contacting Sun God Cult and Solar Sect faithful inside Nazumah and reaching agreements with Harbor Governor Blake.
• Xu Yuyan was set to strike the Rah-Hok or Demacian camp while Varus persuaded the city’s Solar Sect faithful to join the Sun God Cult and defend Nazumah.

The chapter described the meals and routines of New Freljord Port’s dock porters, from the early-shift breakfast stalls to the late-shift supper tables. It left the workers carrying on with their labor and supporting Countess Luxanna because they trusted her to make their lives better.

• Before dawn, dock porters gathered by crew and headed to their assigned docks after the District Eight bell rang.
• The early-shift workers ate thick soup, bread, dairy, fish, and pickled vegetables at stalls outside the harbor before beginning their work.
• After their shifts, late-shift porters shared cheap liquor and salty or spicy food while talking about romance, families, school exams, and their children’s futures.
• Porters from different northern communities mingled at supper, and bards began gathering stories and inspiration from their conversations and performances.
• The workers judged Freljord’s progress by their pay, families, and improving lives, and they trusted Countess Luxanna to keep making the region better.

Taric returned from Nazumah with little to show for his infiltration, while Demacia began a frontal assault under Jarvan IV and exposed the weakness of Nazumah’s poorly trained defenders. By dusk, Demacia still had not captured the walls, but its repeated attacks had secured footholds and put the defenders under growing pressure.

• Taric discovered that the Solar Sect’s followers had been relocated and that some had joined Nazumah’s forces, then learned the Rah-Hok camp had been ambushed while he was away.
• Taric confirmed that the Sun God Cult and the Solar Sect were not the same, and Jarvan IV prepared to attack Nazumah’s walls directly.
• Jarvan IV sent staggered assault waves against the southeastern walls, where Nazumah’s defenders fired chaotically and struggled to respond.
• Demacian soldiers dug footholds and used grappling hooks to climb, briefly reaching the wall before Nazumah’s veterans forced them back.
• Blake’s poor command left Nazumah’s defenses in disarray as Demacia launched repeated attacks throughout the day.
• By dusk, Demacia had not captured a section of wall, but more shield squads had reached the ramparts and Jarvan IV believed victory was assured.

As Demacia battered Nazumah, Blake relied on diplomatic promises until Mulhergra offered reinforcements, while the Sun God Cult waited for him to ask for help. Mulhergra sent a Moon-worshiping army armed with powerful moonstone weapons toward Nazumah, though the chapter left their true intentions uncertain.

• After three days of Demacian attacks, Nazumah's militia grew demoralized, but Blake still did not ask Varus and Xu Yuyan for the Sun God Cult's help.
• Blake's neighboring allies evaded their promises of military support until Mulhergra's envoy announced an army supposedly numbering more than thirty thousand.
• The chapter explained that Mulhergra's Moon worshipers had gained Aspect-guided moonstone weapons and formed an army of ten thousand, including more than eight hundred Lunar Warriors.
• The Mulhergra army set out for Nazumah, but the envoy had exaggerated its numbers and the chapter hinted that the force might not truly be coming to help Blake.

Karya and Yin Nuo recognized that the Moon Sect’s supposed reinforcements were part of an Aspect scheme and arranged to use the Sun God Cult to stop them. After Varus and Xu Yuyan learned of the force, Xu Yuyan suspected Yin Nuo was deliberately pretending to misunderstand the situation.

• Yin Nuo’s scouts spotted Moon Sect warriors in Bumang wearing Solar Sect insignia, and Karya realized the Aspects were staging a reconciliation to spread their faith in Demacia.
• Karya convinced Yin Nuo to block the force, and they decided to enlist the Sun God Cult rather than rely on their own troops.
• Yin Nuo contacted the Sun God Cult, whose envoy carried news of the approaching Moon Sect force to Varus and Xu Yuyan in Nazumah.
• Varus argued that they should ambush the force without involving the Demacians, while Xu Yuyan suggested Yin Nuo was knowingly playing dumb.

Xu Yuyan and Varus confirmed that the Lunar Legion was approaching Nazumah and coordinated an unspoken plan with the Demacian flanking force to delay it. As the Plains Walkers drew the Legion out across the oasis belt, Varus led an elite Sun God Cult force in an ambush, but encountered Aphelios at the second target oasis.

• Varus confirmed that the Mulhgra carried moonstone weapons and documents from the Solar Sect, validating the Demacian flanking force's warning.
• Xu Yuyan and Varus agreed to cooperate with the Demacian force without direct contact, with each side attacking the Lunar Legion from a different flank.
• Yin Nuo refused to let the Moon Sect elders pass through the Demacian lines, and their negotiations broke down into skirmishes between the Lunar Warriors and Plains Walkers.
• The Plains Walkers used elastic defenses across the oasis belt, drawing the Lunar Legion into scattered, exhausting battles.
• Varus led an elite Sun God Cult force to capture the first target oasis by surprise, killing more than seven hundred Lunar Legion soldiers and thirty Lunar Warriors.
• Varus's force ambushed the second target oasis, where he found Aphelios and could not repeat his earlier success.

Aphelios unleashed a moonstone cannon at Varus, but the blast exhausted him and sent Varus into an uncontrollable rampage that destroyed the oasis and drove him underground. Aphelios survived and wrote an account of the slaughter, prompting a Moon Sect elder to report Varus to the Aspects.

• Aphelios assembled the fallen Lunar Legion's moonstone weapons into a cannon and fired at Varus, but the moonlight exploded before it reached him.
• Varus approached the outpost seeking a worthy fight, but found Aphelios too exhausted to fight and went berserk when moonlight shielded him from a killing blow.
• Varus attacked allies and enemies indiscriminately, devastated the oasis, and plunged into the crater to hunt creatures in the caverns below.
• Aphelios lost consciousness and later awoke to a Moon Sect elder demanding to know what had happened at the outpost.
• Unable to speak, Aphelios wrote down what he had witnessed, and the elder recognized Varus as a Darkin and hurried to report the danger to the Aspects.
• Aphelios thanked Laruun after the elder left.

Diana exploited rumors linking the Sun God Cult to the Darkin, while Varus’s disappearance weakened the cult’s position during the siege of Nazumah. Karya left Yin Nuo’s camp to search for Varus and found him in an underground chamber beneath a ruined oasis.

• Diana decided to spread the claim that the Sun God Cult worshipped the Darkin, and the Rah-Hok warriors carried the rumor to Nazumah’s defenders.
• Blake asked Xu Yuyan about the Darkin rumors, but Xu Yuyan could not account for the missing Varus or the Karya fighters who had joined his raid.
• The Moon Sect and Sun Sect announced they would unite against the Darkin, and Jarvan IV’s envoy ordered Yin Nuo to clear a route for the Lunar Legion to attend a summit.
• Karya told Yin Nuo to secure the camp, then rode to the oasis where Varus had disappeared.
• Karya uncovered the ruined outpost, found crushed moonstone and traces of the Crescent Glaive, and followed a buried fissure underground.
• Karya entered an underground chamber and found many Voidlings crushed together, confirming that Varus had been there.

Karya found Varus in an underground cavern and offered to take him to Aatrox in the Land of the Undead. Meanwhile, Demacia took control of Nazumah and celebrated its victories, but growing hardship among commoners and Blake’s new price war threatened to unsettle the Empire.

• Karya found Varus after he had regained some clarity, joked with him, and offered to take him to Aatrox instead of helping him shed his immortality.
• The Sun and Moon sects reconciled as Nazumah fell to the Lunar Warriors and Demacian Army, forcing Xu Yuyan to retreat with the Kayaweiya troops into the Barren Hills Mountains.
• Jarvan IV established Demacian control over Nazumah, kept it nominally independent, and accepted the title of Lord of Twilight after the sects praised him.
• Jarvan IV returned to Demacia amid capital celebrations, while ordinary people grew resentful over rising prices, restricted military recruitment, and rents.
• Blake persuaded Karduja’s Harbor Governor to begin a price war with Demacia over bulk goods, led by grain exports.

Demacia’s grain exports to Shurima faced a devastating price war after Blake persuaded Karduja and Kumongra to cut prices, leaving Demacian shipments and nobles’ stockpiles unsold. As Jarvan IV’s advisers struggled to find a response, Lanfu proposed that the royal family buy the nobles’ grain cheaply, and Jarvan hinted that someone else might bear the risk.

• Blake persuaded Karduja’s Harbor Governor to join Kumongra in a price war against Demacian grain, invoking Shuriman unity and the threat posed by Demacia’s supply lines.
• Karduja and Kumongra slashed grain prices across Northern Shurima, leaving more than twenty Demacian ships carrying nearly thirty million pounds of grain unsold in Nazumah.
• Uzeris lowered the prices it paid for Demacian grain, while nobles who had bought grain at high prices panicked as their stockpiles lost value.
• Jarvan IV and Barrett discussed the crisis, and Barrett recommended that Taric investigate Karduja and Kumongra before Demacia decided whether to fight them.
• Jarvan IV heard competing proposals at the Noble Council, then summoned Barrett, Garen, and Lanfu for a private discussion.
• Lanfu asked whether the royal family should buy the nobles’ grain cheaply, and Jarvan IV said the royal family might have someone else take on the entire risk.

Jarvan IV considered using the royal family’s surplus grain to draw the Northern lords into surrendering their private armies, while Lux assessed the Plains Walkers’ performance and the moral strain of the Nazumah Campaign. The chapter ended with Lux reading Jarvan IV’s letter, which offered grain for Northern Trade in exchange for control of the Northern Wanderers.

• Jarvan IV weighed the nobles’ grain losses and considered asking the wealthy Northern People to buy their surplus.
• Jarvan IV planned to trade royal grain support for the North’s private armies while setting out Demacia’s next policies for Shurima, religion, and eastern exports.
• Lux reviewed the Plains Walkers’ successes and shortcomings, including their poor coordination with Hextech forces and limited ability to break enemy defenses.
• Lux recognized that many Plains Walkers felt troubled by fighting in an unjust war and planned to address their concerns by placing responsibility on Demacia City.
• Lux received Jarvan IV’s long personal letter, which offered royal grain to support Northern Trade and the Northern Wanderers in return for surrendering their military power.

Lux rejected Jarvan IV’s offer to surrender her military power, using a carefully worded letter to criticize his campaign and defend the Northern Wanderers. Jarvan summoned Garen and sent him to Freljord to talk to Lux, while Garen vowed to bring her back to apologize.

• Lux decided that Jarvan IV’s offer would not serve her ideals and wrote that she could not leave Freljord because its soldiers needed her support.
• Lux’s reply criticized the Nashramae Campaign and rejected Jarvan IV’s effort to disband the Northern Wanderers, though she framed her arguments in polite language.
• Jarvan IV read Lux’s letter, grew furious, and decided to make one final attempt to persuade her to disband her army.
• Jarvan summoned Garen and showed him Lux’s letter, leaving him stunned by its sarcasm.
• Jarvan ordered Garen to go to Freljord and speak with Lux, and Garen promised to bring her back to apologize.