The Taiwan Server System in the League

Terrifying black magic!

It must be!

Must escape... must escape quickly...!

Startled, Lillia scooped up her branch and scrambled to flee, but in her frantic haste, she tripped on flat ground once again—her movements were truly clumsy. It was fine usually, but the moment she panicked, her four legs would each go their own way.

However, she could no longer spare a thought for the minor aches in her body.

She fled the scene in tears.

"Don't catch Lillia, wah...!"

"Boss, Boss... Boss~~!"

Ahri's calls rang in his ears, accompanied by a series of coquettish shakes.

Chen Ce gradually lifted his eyelids, and the first thing to enter his vision was Ahri's flawless, beautiful face.

Next was the sun, shining right onto his backside.

After a moment of daze, he sat up abruptly.

"I fell asleep? Is it dawn?"

"It seems so..." Ahri nodded. "This Concubine also overslept... I didn't wake up in the latter half of the night..."

After she finished speaking, the two fell into a silence.

And a lingering sense of fear.

"You're alright, aren't you?" Chen Ce scanned her beautiful body slightly, confirming she wasn't injured. "What about the luggage? Did we lose anything?"

"It seems... no," Ahri said. "It felt like nothing happened last night."

"That's good..." Chen Ce breathed a sigh of relief. This was truly a stroke of luck amidst misfortune.

But Ahri remained uneasy.

She felt...

That sensation of being watched from the shadows was still there.

Chapter 66: Is That You, Xiao Yan of the Jungle!

"Ionia is ruined."

A weathered voice sounded, devoid of imposing aura or excessive volume, like an aging man who had long since sheathed his edge, unable to stir even a ripple across this vast land.

"The Noxian invaders have destroyed this place and occupied many provinces... the monks have all fled. Perhaps we should go to Hirana; they should be taking refuge there."

A lean monk scooped up a handful of soil from the ground. The familiar scent allowed him to perceive the presence of the Spirit Realm... that was the thing he owed the most.

He was originally Ionian, yet he had gone into self-imposed exile years ago. Over these years, he had traveled to many places and met like-minded friends. Now, he had returned to this familiar land.

He had returned from the Freljord in the far north, his heart filled with anticipation—he believed his cultivation and changes over these years were sufficient. He thought this beautiful land would accept him once more.

But the reality was... he had changed, and Ionia had changed too.

The cruel and lawless Noxian invaders had invaded this place, the flames of war ruthlessly devouring everything. Every province had been reduced to misery and littered with corpses under the devastation of the Noxian invaders.

It could never return to what it once was.

He had visited many temples, but they were all empty—some said they refused to submit to the might of the Noxian invaders and were all killed; others said some of them had fled to Hirana, where the monastery would protect them—or rather, they were there to defend the sacred Hirana Monastery.

The specific situation remained unknown.

The truth could only be discovered by going to Hirana Monastery in person.

Hirana... Shojin... would the Spirit of the Dragon blame a lost monk?

The lean monk gazed into the distance, the muscles of his bare upper body bulging. His lower body was clad in a pair of loose, old trousers, stained with many smudges that did not belong to this land, like a souvenir witnessing the traveler's journey. His movements were gentle and fluid, yet they revealed a unique sense of power.

The ancient martial arts of the First Lands had bestowed upon him an extraordinary strength.

But unfortunately, the state of mind required to control such power was something he had to earn through blood-stained sins and years of cultivation.

He—Lee Sin, had returned.

He had met the savage Udyr in the Freljord—a man capable of channeling primal spirits. At the time, this Spirit Walker was struggling to control several conflicting forces within his body, which led him to begin doubting whether he could truly control the power of the dragon.

A shared need for spiritual guidance forged a bond between the two.

Upon hearing that Ionia's resistance against Noxus was becoming increasingly difficult, he had invited Udyr to return to his homeland with him without hesitation, hoping to repel the enemy together.

But when he truly arrived in Ionia, he found that many places had already been destroyed... he couldn't even find his old acquaintances, nor could he find those Noxian invaders who had fled quickly after their great slaughter.

He felt utterly hopeless because of this.

"Udyr, perhaps I should have met you sooner, and invited you to return to this... beautiful land with me earlier." Lee Sin shook his head and sighed. "It wasn't like this before... the First Lands used to be so, so beautiful..."

"I can tell." The burly man beside him—that Spirit Walker, nearly two meters tall with muscles several times larger than Lee Sin's—scratched his head with a simple, honest air.

"Even though this place has just gone through a war, it's still far more beautiful than the Freljord—you've seen it there. I know you all call that place the 'barren lands'." He spoke with a heavy northern accent.

"That is the rhetoric of fools and the arrogant," Lee Sin shook his head again, appearing dismissive. "Although I was once one of them."

"Has the life you've lived recently changed your view of the Freljord?" Udyr smiled honestly again.

Lee Sin smiled as well.

"No, it is because of you—my friend."

The moment the words fell, the atmosphere suddenly grew tense.

Udyr looked away, appearing slightly embarrassed. "I still miss her quite a bit..."

"..." Lee Sin realized he had spoken out of turn.

"Ahem... let's get going... we should head to Hirana Monastery first and see what's what..."

The two fell silent and set off on their journey once more.

Udyr kept a quiet distance.

Lee Sin's mood was equally complex.

It was not because of this minor misunderstanding, of course, but rather... because of the Noxian invaders.

He was heading to Hirana Monastery, which meant he would naturally have to protect it, and that would inevitably lead to combat with the Noxian Legion...

As a master of Ionian martial arts, he certainly did not fear battle, but...

He remained worried that he would be unable to control the power of the Spirit of the Dragon.

In the past, because he could not control his own emotions and desires, he had unleashed the Dragon's Rage without restraint. A single kick had left his erudite mentor crippled and paralyzed, and he had been expelled from the monastery for his arrogance, eventually choosing self-imposed exile to atone for his sins...

Years had passed, yet he still lacked the confidence to control the Spirit of the Dragon.

He did not fear the fight; he feared the Dragon Spirit Power that would be unleashed during it.

He worried that he would repeat his past mistakes and destroy everything...

Ahri was becoming increasingly paranoid.

She kept feeling as though someone was following her—she said that sensation of being watched was constant, like a lingering haze or a restless ghost that refused to be shaken off.

At first, Chen Ce had been somewhat nervous; after all, no one likes the feeling of being stalked, especially when one knows nothing about the other party.

But as time went on, he had grown somewhat indifferent.

The so-called "watcher" had taken no action and shown no signs of presence; they hadn't even suffered any losses when they had accidentally fallen asleep together earlier.

Never mind whether the person was hostile—it was questionable whether they even existed at all.

After all, Chen Ce had truly sensed nothing.

The claim that someone was following them had always been Ahri's word alone.

Perhaps... she was just hallucinating due to extreme fatigue? Or maybe she had suffered some psychological trauma while "possessed by the Imero Stone," causing her perception to skew?

It was hard to say, truly hard to say.

In any case, as long as there were no losses and no trouble, it was fine.

Even if the so-called "watcher" really existed, perhaps he or she was simply curious? After all, even Ahri had admitted that the "emotion" she sensed was "curiosity."

Caution was necessary, but there was no need to scare oneself.

Holding this mindset, Chen Ce soon crossed the strait east of the Placidium Plains and officially stepped into the territory of Lalin.

However, the "road" ahead would not be easy.

The situation before them was not optimistic.

For one, the winding mountain paths of Lalin were exhausting and time-consuming, and for another...

The Noxians were also coveting this sacred land, known as the "Ionian treasury of knowledge."

They hadn't seen many traces of the Noxian Legion while coming from the Placidium Plains, but now, upon landing, they immediately saw several village ruins burned to the ground.

"The Noxians have laid their hands on this place after all... Lalin is an isolated island, and since the residents are mostly monks, it is truly difficult to cultivate a Resistance Army here."

As Chen Ce walked toward Hirana Monastery behind the mountain range, he looked down at the island, which had been ravaged by the Noxians.

The deeper they went into Lalin, the more frequent the burned-out villages became, and many of them appeared to have been destroyed only recently—some fires had just gone out, with wisps of smoke still drifting from charred walls and charcoal.

It was difficult to foster a local Resistance force here, and because of the remote terrain, it was hard to bring in outside forces. In the eyes of those Noxian invaders, this place was indeed a "soft target."

That it had lasted until now before being fully assaulted was thanks to the fact that the Placidium Plains and Navori Province had held the main battlefronts.

Now that a fierce battle had just concluded in Navori and the Placidium Plains, and the Ionians had barely managed to repel a massive Noxian offensive, the latter naturally had only two choices—first, to cease operations; second, to shift targets.

Ceasing operations was actually the wiser choice for them—strategists like Swain who truly cared for the nation thought so too—but unfortunately, they could not withstand the madness of Grand General Braum Darkwill.

Or rather, they could not withstand the Black Rose's control over the Noxian Empire.

The puppet masters of the Black Rose used some despicable means to drive the Grand General into a frenzy, convincing him that he could obtain the elixir of immortality if he completely conquered Ionia. For this, he was willing to pay any price to invade Ionia.

Therefore, even though the Noxian front lines had just suffered losses in Navori Province and the Placidium Plains, he would never order a ceasefire, let alone a withdrawal.

He would only order his subordinates to shift targets and continue the attack.

And their target this time was clearly Lalin.

This isolated island, which had almost no Resistance forces, was guarded only by a few monks.

As for the significance of taking it... the strategic value might be low, perhaps even negligible, but it offered the benefit of capturing many books on Ionian tradition, which could prove highly useful if the war truly turned into a war of attrition.

For Braum Darkwill, the sacrifices required to attack Lalin were negligible anyway; since he had nothing better to do, he might as well take it while he was at it.

This madman of a Grand General took great pleasure in displaying his cruelty and power to the outside world.

Must end this meaningless war as soon as possible...

Chen Ce and Ahri spent nearly two full days trekking along the winding, rugged mountain paths of Lalin.

It wasn't until late in the night of the second day that they finally spotted a dazzling flicker of fire on a distant mountainside.

As they pressed forward, the fires grew more numerous, accompanied by faint cries—though the sounds themselves were not actually faint, they only seemed so due to the great distance.

Without a doubt, it was that Noxian Legion attacking Lalin.

Ever since Chen Ce had arrived on the island, he had seen the wreckage they left in their wake, yet he had never managed to catch up to them.

Now, he had finally cornered them.

If things went as expected, the battlefield over there must be the location of the Hirana Monastery.

"Time to work, Ahri."

Chen Ce drew his weapon, confirmed the exact coordinates once more, and sprinted at full speed toward the source of the commotion.

Over the long period, he had learned many skills, and these were not "mere techniques" but abilities that granted corresponding enhancements to his physical constitution.

At this moment, his physical prowess far exceeded that of an ordinary person—while not the strongest on the surface, he was at least at a Tier 1 level.

To go any higher would mean reaching the ceiling of human martial arts, the realm of people like Shen, Kennen, Master Yi, and Jax.

That level of physical perfection was something he could only look up to, yet remained out of reach.