Chapter 274
Even more interesting is...
After Azir came of age, his father had no more children.
Even his own princes perished in one accident after another.
Perhaps Azir sensed something during this process... perhaps some terrifying Black Mage. But he chose to remain silent, which meant he chose to condone it.
Because he is the biggest beneficiary of this dark struggle.
In a moment of carelessness, Xerath, in an attempt to kill a new prince who had failed to prevent his birth, went so far as to brutally kill the newborn prince and the queen who was holding him in her arms with lightning magic.
The emperor rushed over and found Xerath, radiating arcane energy, in the dilapidated palace.
And so... on that bloody night, the Emperor of Shurima died, and his entire guard perished under the raging thunder.
The skeletons of those corpses were naturally attributed by Xerath to a group of mages in a region that had submitted to him— Azir's first act after ascending the throne was to lead his army in a bloody reprisal against the people of that region.
Since then, Azir has been invincible.
The vast Shuriman Empire belonged entirely to him.
Later, driven to extremes by Xerath's vanity Azir made a decision that defied tradition—he threatened the Sun Priests to ascend for him beneath the Sun Disc.
That's exactly what Xerath wanted.
On the day of his ascension, Azir strode towards the altar, Xerath still by his side. Nasus and Renekton were not present, as Xerath had arranged for them to be sent away beforehand.
Xerath weakened the seal on a magical sarcophagus, turning the fire spirit beast sealed within into a time bomb. When it finally broke free, only Renekton and Nasus were capable of defeating it. As a result, Azir lost his only two protectors.
And the final result was...
Just before Azir was about to receive the Ascension energy, he was pushed off the Sun Disc by Xerath, who had betrayed him.
Azir was reduced to ashes by the sun's scorching energy, while Xerath gained power that was not rightfully his.
This betrayal led to an irreparable disaster.
Xerath took Azir's place, and the sun's light poured into him, reshaping his flesh and blood into the body of Ascended. However, the energy of this ritual did not belong to him, and the released solar power destroyed Shurima.
The temple collapsed and crumbled, the city was razed to the ground. Azir's people were also swallowed up by a sudden disaster, the desert roared and devoured the entire city.
The Sun Disc fell, and the empire built by generations of emperors vanished in a single day.
Unable to control his berserk power, Xerath was suppressed by Nasus and Renekton, who arrived later, using a magical sarcophagus—ultimately, Renekton sacrificed himself and was sealed inside the sarcophagus along with Xerath.
And so it has continued for thousands of years.
Xerath grew increasingly morbid amidst endless darkness, pain, and torment.
And he was destined to unleash the resentment in his heart the moment he saw the light of day again.
The moment the blood of the sun's blood splattered onto the stone coffin.
That unparalleled divine power was unleashed at this moment!
"I am transcendent of this mundane world!"
Another earthquake.
It has been less than a day since the last "earthquake".
Without hesitation, Chen Ce used his demonic power to expand his vision back to the location of the previous Void creature's lair.
But... things were calm there.
The tremor didn't come from that side.
There was also no longer that eerie, dark purple energy fluctuation.
That is...
Chen Ce turned his head and looked in the opposite direction from Uzeris —to another town.
That was the direction Sivir had originally planned to go.
That violent magical aura... also fits the feeling of a certain ancient wizard.
"The Emperor of Shurima is returning..."
Chapter 118 Uncle Farmer Nasus
When Cassiopeia opened her eyes again, the Shimmer of the rising sun were already appearing on the horizon.
She felt her body being jolted a little... She turned her head and saw that she was lying behind a carriage. Her guard was driving it.
She felt a splitting headache... A jumble of chaotic memories flashed through her mind, like poisoned daggers slicing through her cerebral cortex.
After a while, she calmed down.
She remembered everything that had happened before—in
In that mysterious underground tomb.
She was attacked by a stone statue that suddenly sprang up... and then lost consciousness. But what about the things there? She seemed to see the sarcophagus explode in a terrifying magical power...
"What's the situation inside the tomb...?"
"I can't speak," Cassiopeia asked weakly. The guard, who was focused on driving, immediately turned around.
"The tomb collapsed," the guard replied. "Terrible magical energy annihilated everything there... We lost many soldiers and barely escaped from the ruins."
"Escape..." Upon hearing this word, Cassiopeia immediately frowned. "Did you get the things there...?"
"I'm sorry, we don't know what you've been searching for." The guard shook his head, his gaze returning to the rugged road. A barely perceptible fear lingered in his eyes. "Besides, given the circumstances, we simply couldn't have re-entered the tomb... We're lucky to have escaped."
"Fool...!" Cassiopeia cursed, furious at her inevitable defeat—furious and humiliated.
At this point, she no longer cared about maintaining a ladylike image, and angrily berated her subordinates, ordering them to turn around and return to the collapsed tomb to search for what she wanted.
But her subordinates ignored her.
Not even... did anyone turn around to look at her.
She became even angrier and struggled to get up from her seat.
Then she fell to the ground.
The feeling of weakness in her body made her irritable, but what puzzled her was...
Why did I fall to the ground before I even felt my legs give way?
She looked at her legs in confusion.
Then, she let out a piercing scream.
The guards still didn't turn to look at her, as if they had expected all of this—or perhaps out of fear of some kind of monster.
The carriage continued on its way, while Cassiopeia pounded her lower body—not her legs—as if possessed.
Instead... it's a snake's tail.
Yes, her legs turned into a snake's tail.
To be precise, her entire lower body transformed into the shape of a snake.
"What is this... what is this... what is this?!?!"
Cassiopeia screamed incessantly, her inexplicably sharpened nails scratching wildly at her body until the floor of the carriage was covered in blood.
She gradually calmed down and picked up a mirror again.
She finally saw her current appearance clearly.
She is no longer that beautiful young girl...
Instead... a deformed, twisted monster...
Its upper body is human, but its lower body is a snake... Its amber eyes contain pupils that contract to needle-like sizes, just like a snake's...
She stuck out her tongue, trembling.
One...
Snake tongue...
"I've become... a monster..."
Azir's mortal body was punished by the Sun Disc thousands of years ago.
After being betrayed by the person he trusted most, his fragile body was engulfed by the flames of the Sun Disc, and he was eventually reduced to countless dust particles... His consciousness completely ceased at that moment, and neither tangible objects nor intangible time mattered to him anymore.
He was lost in oblivion, unaware of the passage of time, until thousands of years after the destruction of Shurima, when the blood of his last offspring was spilled on the ruins of the temple, bringing him back to life.
Azir was reborn, but not whole; his body was nothing more than moving, tangible dust, held together by his last shred of indomitable will.
He looked around at the collapsed tomb before him, everything felt utterly unfamiliar... and disgusting—a wisp of lingering magical energy drifted in the air, corroding his broken body.
He sensed it... Yes, it was the energy aura of an "old friend"...
Evil black magic... immense destructive power... and the sinister cunning hidden beneath the smile...
This magical aura was mixed with some kind of sacred energy... the energy of the Sun Disc... the energy that should have belonged to him...
Xerath... Xerath...!
Like dust stirred up by a gentle breeze, Azir's battered "body" staggered through the ruins.
He followed the trail of blood and finally found a corpse in front of a broken stone door.
She was a very young girl... with a vicious knife wound on her back. He didn't recognize her, but he could see that her appearance had his bloodline characteristics.
In that hazy moment, Azir cast aside all thoughts of empire and power and struggled to lift Shurima's daughter.
Then, following his memories from thousands of years ago, he walked out of the collapsed ruins and walked firmly in one direction.
His body was gradually recovering, but it was still incomplete. He took the girl's corpse to a place he remembered.
Once Dawn Oasis.
The oasis had long since dried up, but with each step Azir took closer, clear fresh water gushed forth, filling the basin made of stones. Azir immersed the girl's body in the oasis's healing water; the bloodstains disappeared, and the fatal knife wound left only a shallow scar.
The bloodline of Shurima is about to be resurrected in this sacred spring.
Azir watched quietly from the side, and a sense of unparalleled peace settled in his heart—as he watched the girl before him gradually regain her vitality, the anger that had been dormant for thousands of years miraculously subsided.
The next moment, a dazzling light burst forth from the yellow sand beneath his feet.
It is... the ancient magic of Shurima.
Shurima recognized him once again.
The yellow sand began to melt, and scorching heat swept in along with the sacred pillar of fire. Azir first felt pain—his broken body was once again being burned by this terrible solar energy. But soon, he felt an incomparably comfortable warmth.
A pillar of fire lifted him into the air, Shurima's magic gave him a new lease on life, reshaping his body into the form befitting Ascended. The sun's immortal radiance poured into his body, forging his magnificent eagle-armored appearance.
At the same time, he also sensed a powerful force emerging within his repaired body—an unprecedentedly powerful force.
Thousands of years ago, he had also learned many powerful spells, but in the face of this power... the spells that those great magicians had painstakingly studied were simply child's play!
"This is... the power that should have been mine..."
Azir's voice was still hoarse, but the majesty he exuded already gave him the aura of an emperor.
His voice was like a throat full of yellow sand, yet his power could manipulate that sand.
He raised his hands.
The powerful Ascended Power is now integrated with the former Shuriman Empire.
Rumble... An earthquake struck, and yellow sand poured down like a waterfall, while the ruins of the city buried in the sand slowly reappeared under the summoning of the gods.
The entire ruined city shook off the dust that had covered it for hundreds of years and rose back to the ground.
Such a feat is something even a true god might not be able to accomplish easily.
Azir stood at the very top of the ruined city.
He held his scepter high, the scorching sun shining directly on his golden eagle armor.
"Shurima... Your Emperor has returned!"