Icathian War

Was this still me? Was this still the me who stayed home and didn't interact with people for extended periods? Why did I feel angry? Why did I have a gut full of questions I wanted to ask her?

Ato felt it might be because of the Iceborn, the Iceborn who paid the price for Lissandra's mistakes. For ten thousand years, countless Iceborn had died at the hands of the Watchers, and they had willingly accepted it. He was angry on behalf of the Iceborn.

Lissandra opened her mouth, but couldn't say anything. She dispelled the True Ice magic, sat back in her original position, and looked down at her hands.

After a long silence, she finally spoke, "Yes, is it important? Compared to the Void breaking free from its seal, the truth is just a trivial matter."

"Ten thousand years is too long. I often forget the extreme terror that was transmitted when the Watchers first extended their tentacles from the other side."

"Regret overshadowed everything. My heart was screaming, 'It wasn't me, it wasn't me...'"

"I just wanted to shirk responsibility, I just wanted to help, I just, wanted to lead humanity to prosperity..."

She and Little Jinx definitely had a lot in common.

Though one was confined to a small city-state with limited destructive power, and the other directly brought a great treasure to this world... Ato thought to himself, now that he had calmed down.

"I want to know the details of the war. Those warriors, if they had helped ten thousand years ago, perhaps such a devastating magic wouldn't have been necessary," Lissandra looked back at Ato.

"I apologize for my previous irrationality. Please tell me the details. The scenes from that war were already enough to move me, but I want to know more details."

Is this it? Is it going to work? Ato really wanted to raise an eyebrow, but considering his image, he forcefully suppressed the impulse.

He had been worried that a young man under thirty would be led around by the nose by an old hag who was three to four hundred times his age. He hadn't expected her to become emotional herself after a barrage of questions...

It seems she's suffered greatly over these ten thousand years, and hasn't been without regret.

Through the questioning, Ato also gained a clearer understanding of himself, but now wasn't the time for reflection.

"You tell her," Aatrox, who hadn't spoken much, handed the initiative to Ato.

"I am a warrior. In most situations, I resolve problems with force. But if Archmage Nasus were here, I would have him narrate. Of course, I would supplement the content as needed."

The now-calm parties finally shifted the direction of their discussion back to the war between the Ascended and the Void.

"That event happened ten thousand years ago. It's meaningless to dwell on whose fault it was now. The important thing is to stop the Void," Ato recalled relevant knowledge.

"That's right, the important thing is to stop the Void. Please tell me, I will consider it carefully," Lissandra regained her usual elegance and adopted an attentive posture.

Ato pointed at the Demonic Sword of the Dark and said, "They came from an ancient empire. If the people of the empire achieved outstanding merits, they could undergo a special ritual."

"After the ritual, these individuals with excellent merits would transform into another form, the Celestial Warrior you see, thereby gaining long life and immense power."

"It can be said that those who underwent the ritual could no longer be considered human. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call them gods walking among mortals."

"Ritual?" Lissandra, as a seasoned Mage, raised a question, "I've studied magic for so long, and I've never heard of any ritual that could mass-produce powerful warriors."

"From the dream sequences, the soul of this warrior, at his peak, was comparable to the Demigods of Freljord."

"This ritual is simply mass-producing Demigods! In ancient Freljord, absorbing the most primal, pure energy gave birth to the four Demigods we know of."

"The magma serpent Rhaast already died in his struggle with Volibear. There's no way a ritual magic for mass-producing Demigods can exist in this world."

"That's right, there's no such ritual magic in this world." Ato agreed with Lissandra's view. "But what if the power source of that ritual doesn't belong to this world?"

"Doesn't belong to this world..." Lissandra seemed to have thought of something. She looked up at the sky.

Ato explained, "The ancestors of that empire, through some means, drew energy from that being who doesn't belong to this world and poured it into ordinary people's bodies through the ritual."

"When we met Ornn, he described that being as the sun, and himself as mere faint fireflies."

"Something like that?" Lissandra was greatly shocked.

At this moment, she felt a bit of admiration for the ancestors of that empire. She herself had traded with the Void for power, nearly causing a world-engulfing disaster. Yet, those ancestors seemed to have caused no serious consequences...

"I only found out after I came into contact with the Little Thing," Aatrox added.

"Our Empress only told us that the Ascension Ritual was a gift from the gods, that the ritual bestowed power upon us, and that power made us natural rulers over others. She never mentioned the source of the ritual's power."

"You can imagine how unstoppable the empire's expansion was, possessing an army of Celestial Warriors," Ato continued his narration.

"All resistance was futile. The surrounding nations were quickly incorporated into the empire's territory."

"If Freljord hadn't been too far away, it would likely have been affected too. Their expansion stopped south of Freljord."

"...How fortunate." Lissandra didn't know what to say.

"They were conquerors, but not good administrators. The small nations incorporated into their territory became objects of exploitation. Over time, resistance movements began to develop in secret."

"Foolish. Without Demigods, how could they resist? Such overestimation of their own strength."

"They indeed had no Demigods, but they discovered the Void." Ato finally revealed the key point of the war.

"...What? There were Void rifts there too?" Lissandra could hardly believe it.

"Just like you, the Void promised them the power to defeat the Celestial Warriors."

"And the price was to help the Void continue to expand the rifts, allowing more of the Void to come into contact with the material world. The resistance readily accepted."

"The result was that the small nation was instantly annihilated. The Void created countless Void monsters by devouring, far more severe than your incident ten thousand years ago."

"That small nation was called Icathia, located in the southeastern corner of the empire. The war that swept across the entire empire was called the Icathian War."

"The empire dispatched most of its Celestial Warriors and paid a heavy price to achieve victory."

"Among the losses, the Empress was killed in battle, countless ordinary soldiers died, more than half of the Celestial Warriors were lost, and they were secretly corrupted by the Void."

Lissandra's breathing suddenly hitched. She stared blankly at the giant sword floating beside her.