"Logan, have you really decided? Damn, I didn't think you'd beat me to it."

Inside Piltover's council building, Jayce, dressed in formal wear, looked at the black-haired man seated on the sofa in front of him. He handed him the cup in his hand, smiling as he spoke, clearly in a very good mood.

Looking at Jayce, Logan smiled and said, "It's something I should've done the moment I got back, but Jinx and I went off on our honeymoon instead. Now that the honeymoon's over, it's naturally time to handle real business."

Then, teasing Jayce a little, Logan added with a grin, "And enough about me, when are you and Mel planning to make it official? If you think about it, Jinx and I have been together for about as long as you and Mel have."

Jayce gave a helpless look at that, shrugged, and sat down beside Logan with one leg crossed over the other.

"It's a little complicated. Mel has talked to me about marriage before, but she still wants Ambessa's blessing. The problem is, no one knows what happened to her. It's like Ambessa just vanished off the face of the world."

After hearing that, Logan took a sip of tea, thought for a moment, then said, "Don't worry too much. Ambessa is strong, and someone as cunning and tough as she is wouldn't be in too much danger even if she really did run into trouble."

"Hopefully." Jayce sighed, then seemed to decide the topic was too much of a mood killer and quickly smiled again. "Compared to that, I'm more curious how you're planning to handle your wedding. Let me think, Demacia, Noxus, Ionia, the Freljord, Bilgewater... hey, what about trying to drag in a few people from Shurima too?"

"That way, your wedding would have people from all over Runeterra."

"Do we even know anyone in Shurima?" Logan said, giving Jayce an exasperated look.

Mr. Talis really did come up with ideas out of nowhere. Bringing people from Shurima to the wedding too? Hah. Why not go all the way and invite someone from Mount Targon while you're at it?

Wouldn't that make it even livelier?

"Speaking of that, Logan, we probably won't have any enemies left in the future, right?" Jayce took a drink, thought for a bit, and then continued. "Once the mess on Valoran is settled, it feels like we've already solved all the world's problems in this stretch of time. So doesn't that mean there's finally real peace now?"

He truly believed that.

Over the past few years, Jayce had watched the Twin Cities go from cooperation, to smashing through Noxus, to marching east into Bilgewater and bringing back Pirate Queen Sarah, to building an alliance with Noxus, then pulling Demacia into it too, and now even the far northern Freljord had become an ally.

Did the Twin Cities still have any real enemies?

No.

So didn't that mean the Twin Cities could finally enter a period of explosive development? And in the future, couldn't they start truly thinking about exploring space?

The thought made Jayce suddenly a little excited.

Come on, every scientist had a grand dream of exploring the cosmos.

After hearing Jayce's words, Logan smiled, then looked out through the glass. From where he stood, he could see the Hexgates constantly in use. Under the flashing blue magical light, airships lined up in the sky, passed into the gates one by one, and vanished in an instant on their way to Bilgewater.

But that wasn't what Logan was really looking at.

The view was nice enough, sure, but his gaze was aimed even higher.

After a long while, Logan set his teacup down. As he stood, he left Jayce with only one sentence.

"This is all only just beginning. Keep working, Jayce."

After saying that, Logan patted Jayce on the shoulder and walked toward the black-and-red greatsword resting on the table.

Jayce stared blankly at Logan's back and asked on instinct, "What do you mean?"

Logan didn't answer.

He picked up the black-and-red greatsword, and then Aatrox's voice rang out.

"Yes, Logan. Everything is only just beginning."

"Mortals are troublesome. You want to get married, fine. Then after you're done with your wedding, we go to Shurima. You promised me. You said you would take me to see Sivir, and that you would climb Mount Targon with me and make trouble for the Celestials."

Logan smiled. Slinging Aatrox onto his back, he watched as thin blood-red lines spread from the black-and-red blade, extending over the sword's surface, touching his back, and then fastening tightly against him.

The longer Aatrox stayed with Logan, the clearer his mind became. For thousands of years, he had never been like this, free from the corrupting voices of the Void, free from drowning in hatred.

"We'll see, Aatrox. You'll witness it with your own eyes."

"I will be watching," the Darkin Blade murmured softly.

If one were to speak of the highest place in all of Runeterra, it could only be Mount Targon. Its elevation reached straight into the heavens, with part of its summit even stretching beyond the limits of Runeterra's own grasp.

And because of that, the people who dwelled upon Mount Targon, after climbing it, had a chance to commune with celestial beings and receive their blessings and power.

But at this moment, in broad daylight, Mount Targon wore a strange and otherworldly look.

A sea of clouds churned around its narrow waist, and above that sea of clouds, the peak jutted upward, piercing out beyond Runeterra itself.

At the summit, it was night.

Starlight rippled across the sky like water, dotted and shimmering. Under that liquid starlight, the space above Targon's peak seemed empty, filled only with flowing iridescence.

Then a voice sounded over Mount Targon.

It was distant and hollow, tinged with worry.

"Runeterra is already beginning to slip... out of our control. If this continues, will it bring trouble upon us?"

The voice seemed to come from some unimaginably distant corner of the universe. After a long pause, another voice answered, low and calm, edged with a crackling electronic tone.

"Not likely. Human lifespans are short, and in my view, humanity is a species addicted to infighting.

"For thousands of years, haven't humans always continued the same way, dividing and rejoining, over and over? Klei, you worry too much, and you think too highly of humankind."

"The events in the Freljord were impossible for any of you to have missed. That human called Logan possesses a kind of power even we cannot see through. I believe it is only a matter of time before he catches up to us," said the one called Klei.

The stars flickered, then arranged themselves in the darkness to form a face, one with a fish-like shape and fins along its cheeks. It continued, "The demigods are not to be underestimated. Their power is no weaker than ours, especially the Three Demigods."

"So what?" another face emerged, this one wearing a deathly pale mask with the image of a small tree upon its brow.

The electronic voice sounded again. "Verdance is right. Those creatures fight among themselves all the time. Didn't an ancient demigod die in the Freljord incident?"

"What's more, that human called Logan hasn't even fully unified humanity yet. Every nation is still full of competing private interests, and that's just within a single country, never mind an alliance made of several nations large and small. In my view, that alliance will shatter at the slightest touch," the electronic voice said with contempt.

But after hearing that, Klei did not relax. If anything, he took the matter of Runeterra even more seriously.

"You are always talking about how humans are locked in endless conflict, each hiding their own agendas, but is our own celestial kind any better right now?

"The Celestial Realm itself is fractured, split apart, and even now several Celestials have already been lured by It in secret. They are trying by every means possible to release It.

"Hah. If It truly breaks free, every last one of us will be finished! The way you keep dismissing what is happening on Runeterra only gives them more room to act. Myisha cast aside her divinity and descended to seal the Darkin so that Runeterra could know peace. She did not do that so you could sit above it now and watch from on high!"

Klei's voice rose, anger appearing on the fish-like face outlined in starlight.

Everything here was isolated by the power around Targon's summit, making it impossible for Runeterra's gods to sense what was happening.

But the humans living on the mountain's slopes could still feel the strange phenomenon.

After all, the sky had suddenly darkened, and then fierce wind and snow had erupted without warning.

Yet the other two Celestials Klei was speaking to paid his words little mind. Verdance, the masked one, even let his image begin to fade.

Seeing that, Klei's anger deepened, and in a low voice he said, "Now I understand why Soraka abandoned the Celestial Realm, descended into mortal flesh, and chose to endure the burning pain of that form rather than remain among you! Since when did our celestial kind become like this? The Celestial Realm is split north and south, with factions big and small everywhere!

"Say it plainly, Verdance, Thunderlash, have the two of you already joined the northern Celestials? Otherwise I truly cannot understand it. You both know exactly what I'm saying, yet just to create trouble for another faction, you would rather watch a crisis grow than take action yourselves. Give me a reason!"

"Enough! Klei, if you say such things, should I take it as a challenge?" Verdance suddenly roared, his tone no longer calm in the slightest.

Thunderlash, who had been so talkative before with that crackling electronic voice, said nothing now. Instead, another face appeared in the night sky, that of a great beast like a lion, but with two massive horns.

Klei let out a cold laugh. "If you want a fight, I'll oblige!"

"I will report this matter to our people. The affairs of Runeterra must be dealt with. That human called Logan is no harmless figure. If he is allowed to keep growing like this, one day he will trample all over us! Look at him, he already controls Aatrox, that Aatrox!

"When Aatrox was still one of the Ascended, the three of us together still would not have been able to defeat him. Three against one, and the best outcome would have been one of us dead and the other two fleeing with heavy injuries!

"And the only reason he still endures as a sword, trapped in pain, is because he has only two desires, destroy the world and kill the Celestials. Now that he has become Logan's weapon, is it really so hard to understand what he wants?"

"Heh heh." No matter how Klei raged, with thunder surging and snow whipping through the sky, Thunderlash only let out two cold laughs.

And Verdance merely snorted with indifference before preparing to vanish. In truth, just as Klei had said, he and Thunderlash were no longer aligned with Klei.

There were problems within the celestial kind, but that was hardly surprising. A race of powerful beings that had existed since the birth of the universe was naturally going to develop all kinds of differences over time.

And the thing that had made those differences so glaring now was Soraka.

That one, the mighty Child of the Stars, had once been among the strongest within the celestial kind. Her departure had shattered their unity. Her power alone ranked her comfortably among the top ten of their kind, a being comparable in strength to Ornn himself on Runeterra.

But just as Verdance was about to disappear, his aura suddenly faltered. The little sapling on his mask changed from green to red, and he roared in fury, "How dare you! To spy upon the Celestial Realm without permission!"

At Verdance's angry shout, Klei and Thunderlash, who had been at odds just moments before, attacked at the same time.

Lightning crashed, water rippled outward, and two overwhelmingly powerful forces swept across the summit of Mount Targon. Then, beneath a single croaking cry that echoed across the stars, a black feather was blasted into dust.

At the sight of that, all three Celestials showed shock on their faces and spoke at once.

"A demon of secrets..."

At the same time, within the Noxian stronghold.

The white-haired man sitting behind the desk with his eyes closed suddenly let out a muffled grunt. He reached for the cloth at his side and pressed it to his lips.

When he pulled it away, it was stained with blood.

Then he opened his eyes.

The whites were webbed with blood vessels, and his crimson pupils looked for a moment like those of a beast, before settling back into normal.

Swain coughed, feeling a scorching pain in his lungs and chest.

"You actually got hurt? Ever since you gained that power, I almost stopped recognizing you. Go on, tell me, who could have managed to injure you?"

A voice came from the side. Swain looked over and saw Draven.

That man, under the excuse that the two of them were close enough for it, wandered in and out of Swain's study whenever he pleased. At the moment, he was sitting cross-legged on the desk with an unusually serious expression, staring at Swain as he asked the question.

"There are plenty of things capable of hurting me," Swain said calmly.

Draven pressed, "Who?"

"A group that does not belong to Runeterra."

"...Oh. Yeah, okay, then I've got nothing for that."

Swain laughed after hearing Draven's answer and waved a hand. "I wasn't expecting you to have a solution."

After saying that, Swain continued, "And why are you here?"

"Isn't Logan getting married? You value him that much, so I came to ask what kind of gift we ought to send."

"Send over the core secrets of our rune-craft," Swain said after thinking for a moment.

Draven narrowed his eyes. "That stuff is the foundation of Noxus. It's what lets us go toe to toe with Demacia. Without it, against their petricite and those freakish physiques of theirs, we would've lost a long damn time ago. You really want to hand that over to Logan?"

Before Swain could answer, Draven continued first. "I've started finding all of this a little strange. Ever since you got to know Logan and Noxus became friendly with Zaun, it feels like you've thrown something away. No, not just you, all of us have."

"What have we thrown away?"

"Glory," Draven spat out. "Since when did Noxus become an empire that lets others take whatever they want from us? I admit that after becoming friendly with the Twin Cities, we gained a lot.

"Now our barren land can grow crops, and our abandoned mines are being worked again. But... this isn't the Noxus I imagined, Swain."

"Everything we want, shouldn't we win it with the blades in our hands? Why are we now reduced to bowing and scraping and asking others for it?"

Draven's tone grew heavier.

That really was how he felt.

Before making peace with Zaun, Noxus had always been at war with the outside world.

Even after Swain rose to power and, under the banner of recovery, halted the Ionian war, the wars against Demacia, the surrounding smaller nations, the Freljord, and Shurima had never truly stopped.

But what about now?

Aside from the Shuriman continent, Valoran, the Freljord, and Ionia had all become unexpectedly peaceful.

Without Noxus there to stir the pot, the storms really had calmed.

But that wasn't what a warrior wanted.

After hearing Draven's words, Swain fell silent.

He remained silent for a very long time, so long that even Draven was starting to get impatient, before the Grand General of the empire finally said in a calm voice, "Draven, you cannot see the future. You only see what is in front of you, which means you do not know who our true enemy really is. Our enemies were never Demacia, nor the Pale Woman. They are things far stronger, hidden far deeper, waiting for the chance to come out and swallow us whole."

Swain's eyes were not on Draven, but fixed ahead as he continued in a low voice.

"Do you know what true glory is? It was never something meant to be shouted from the mouth."

"Don't listen to what I say. Watch what I do."

"Wait a little longer. Just wait a little longer, and you will understand everything."

Mordekaiser. The ancient gods. The Celestials. The Void. Demons.

Humanity had far more enemies than anyone imagined, and yet they never stopped tearing at themselves. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Sometimes, he couldn't even blame those lofty beings for looking down on humans. Even Swain, at times, felt that the fact humanity had survived to this day, surrounded by beings so much more powerful than themselves, was itself a miracle.

But in the end, in every age, there were always heroes who fought those mighty beings and protected mankind.

Nine thousand years ago, the heroes were the Three Sisters of the north.

And nine thousand years later, the hero was him.

At the beginning of the year 989 by the Noxian calendar, the Twin Cities sent invitations to the entire world. Thanks to transportation far beyond its age, the invitations reached nation after nation.

The ruler of Zaun formally invited the nations of the world to attend his wedding.

On that day, humans, non-humans, and beings beyond mortality all learned of it.

Ionia.

A wandering swordsman with a flute at his waist and a blade at his side stared silently at the scrap of paper he had picked up.

It was written in many languages. Looking west, his expression turned solemn, as though he had just remembered something.

He drew his sword.

A gale howled out, slicing the paper in two, and then he began walking west.

At last, the wandering swordsman seeking redemption had found a clue.

Another damned man... one who also used the wind.

Demacia.

The man sitting on a bridgehead suddenly looked up at the woman who had just dismounted in front of him. The corner of his mouth curved upward, and he called out loudly, "Good, very good! At last, an opponent worth fighting! Come on, challenger, state your name!"

"Fiora Laurent." The woman held a steel military saber, dusty from travel. Her eyes were as sharp as an eagle's, her posture perfectly straight. "Come on. Once I'm done with you, I still have to head to Zaun."

"And you, state your name."

With her sword raised before her, she spoke coldly.

"Hahahahaha!"

"Jax!"

Noxus. Shurima. Bilgewater. Even the Shadow Isles.

Hell, if Logan had known, he would've started cursing.

What the hell kind of invitation was the Shadow Isles supposed to get?

Were they inviting the undead to the wedding?

Wasn't that insane?

And yet that was exactly what happened. An Enforcer, passing over the Shadow Isles in an airship, had dropped an invitation down onto the island. The Black Mist was terrifying, sure, but from that height, and that far from shore, the Enforcers in the sky weren't affected by it.

Honestly, if Lord Logan hadn't specifically forbidden them from going to Mount Targon, there definitely would've been some bold idiot among the Enforcers who tried to fly an airship all the way to the summit just to deliver an invitation there too.

Noxian calendar, year 989, January 3.

The Twin Cities opened their gates.

And the wedding of Zaun's ruler Logan was set for four days later.

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