Arcane: The Gods Want Me to Pick a Route-Chapter 177: The Seer Makes a Move—And Peace Returns

Janna's sustained combat ability wasn't weak at all—this was one of the advantages of being a faith-born god compared to a primordial one.

A faith-born god might suffer an instant drop in power if believers suddenly vanished, but at the same time, if the believers were numerous enough, then among demigods of similar strength, a faith-born god could last longer and fight harder.

Because the steady flow of faith would continuously replenish their power.

So even though Janna kept pouring out her divinity against Nagakabouros—wind shields, wind blades, and occasionally slapping Logan with attack buffs and movement speed buffs—she still held around forty percent of her power in reserve. That forty percent wouldn't truly be exhausted.

And Logan?

His situation was similar. With Lamb's Respite in his pocket, his recovery was absurdly strong. Add in Janna's healing, and Logan actually managed to keep pushing in—again and again—closing the distance to Nagakabouros and repeatedly striking at Illaoi.

But it didn't work.

All it did was ignite Nagakabouros's fury.

"No one… escapes… this!"

With a hoarse, low roar, the many-eyed projection behind Illaoi grew more and more real.

"Logan, no—she's going to descend!" Janna's face tightened, urgency flashing through her.

Logan took a deep breath, raised his right hand, and shouted, "It's fine, Janna. I can handle it."

Janna blinked, understanding immediately.

[You're going to call her out to help, aren't you? But… can you withstand the price of summoning her right now?]

After traveling to Ionia and meeting Ahri, Janna understood what Logan's "backer" truly was.

A god from another world.

That was why Logan's soul could suddenly leave Runeterra's material realm—vanishing for a heartbeat—because he had gone somewhere else.

Janna didn't know how he did it, but the world was full of strange people and stranger miracles. She didn't get stuck on that.

Her only concern was the cost.

If Logan summoned Ahri, he would have to bear the weight of Ahri's demigod divinity—using himself as an anchor to pull her into the material realm.

That could crush him.

Because Ahri was stronger than many gods Janna had ever encountered. Even Nagakabouros's true body, compared to Ahri… felt like a sixty–forty split.

Thinking that, Janna reached out and curled her fingers gently.

Logan appeared at her side.

Floating behind him, she watched with worry—her eyes also carrying a complicated, helpless frustration.

[Are you sure, Logan?]

If only she were stronger. If only she could truly help him.

"It's fine," Logan said. "I can hold it for over ten seconds now."

At the same time, the sky above Bilgewater changed again.

It had already been twisted into a bizarre spectacle by Janna and Nagakabouros's battle, but now it became even more extreme.

The swirling winds were forced aside by some unseen power. A massive, black, oppressive shadow spread over several miles of sky above Bilgewater. Within those ink-dark storm clouds, it looked as if a gigantic creature was swimming—at a glance, the air above Bilgewater had become the deep sea.

Everything moved.

The clouds moved. The rain moved. Even the space itself rippled, as though reality were water.

Logan frowned, confused as he watched Nagakabouros's many eyes become increasingly real.

"Shouldn't it be coming out of the ocean?"

[Every human who knows Nagakabouros instinctively thinks It's a demigod of the sea, a sea creature. But in truth… It is everywhere.] Janna's voice slid into Logan's mind.

[To appear, It must pay a price—because It turns the place of Its manifestation into an ocean. That greatly provokes the local spirits of nature and Runeterra's core itself. But… It still came.]

[Looks like, Logan… It's determined to have you.]

"I sure as hell don't want to go with it," Logan said instantly, shuddering.

The more he stared at Nagakabouros, the more sickened he felt.

Runeterra's gods weren't neatly divided into "evil gods" and "good gods." A god was a god. The Ascended were gods. The Darkin were gods. Their rules were whatever they felt like. They were fundamentally uncontrollable.

Put bluntly, a demigod in Runeterra was just a stronger kind of creature—maybe because Riot's worldbuilding wasn't fully unified when the setting was first created.

Or maybe because players loved sorting power into tiers, and over time that pushed the lore into this shape—maybe Riot's universe designers never even planned it like this, and simply adopted parts of the fandom's imagination.

League of Legends was a MOBA. Its lore was handled by different writers, each character's story unfolding in a different place. Many characters still hadn't even met in-canon; many stories had never intersected.

It wasn't like Warcraft, where the background narrative was tightly chained together. Players might complain that Warcraft's story got worse over time, that it wasn't as good as before—but even so, it stayed connected. And its retcons were never as severe as League's.

So gods didn't follow clean rules. Nagakabouros wasn't necessarily an "evil god." Illaoi wasn't necessarily a "bad person." It was a matter of perspective.

But to make Logan serve that ugly freak?

Not happening.

Logan would die before he ever believed in Nagakabouros.

———————

Noxus. In a hidden alley near the Immortal Bastion, a gray-haired man pushed open a door and emerged from a cellar.

He was missing an arm. He walked with an uneven limp—one leg clearly crippled. With his remaining hand, he leaned on a cane and struggled out of the concealed doorway.

But as he took step after step, visible threads of blood began to appear along his severed shoulder.

His stride grew steadier.

His face remained calm.

And by the time he reached the street, the blood threads had woven themselves into something unmistakable beneath the black cloak—forming a red, partial limb.

This alley rarely saw visitors—especially lately.

Boram Darkwill had completely lost his mind, declaring he would throw the entire nation into a second invasion of Ionia, launching another Noxian–Ionian War to hunt for an elixir of immortality.

Noxus had been shaken to its core.

"It's… beyond saving," Swain said coldly.

Then he strode toward the mouth of the alley—faster and faster, until, when he stepped out, he was moving quicker than the walking pace of an ordinary man.

Voices rang out nearby.

"Grab those thieves!"

"Move—cut them off up ahead!"

Swain turned his head. He saw fully armed soldiers chasing several children through the street, short crossbows and spears in hand.

Swain knew what would happen if those children were caught.

Two endings.

Either the soldiers beat them to death on the spot—

Or they were forcibly dragged to a war camp, shoved onto a battlefield as cannon fodder.

It was Boram Darkwill's favorite and most common method.

In Noxus, everyone could contribute. Everyone could earn glory and status through sacrifice.

Under Darkwill's tyranny, it was true—many capable Noxians had gained room to rise, climbing from refugee to soldier to general to commander.

But at the same time, countless others were left with no space to live.

Born frail. Weak bodies. Minds not sharp enough.

Unable to "add bricks to the great cause of Noxus."

So they became expendable bodies, traded for a payout to their families.

Or they turned to crime.

But that wasn't their fault.

Swain's gaze grew colder.

A child ran past him—skinny and yellowed with hunger, panic carved into a filthy face. In the chilly weather, the boy was bare-chested, ribs jutting so sharply they looked ready to pierce skin—yet his belly was swollen.

Seeing that, Swain tapped his cane forward once and walked to the center of the street.

More and more blood threads gathered beneath the black robe. Along the stump where his arm had been, a red remnant formed—clear as day.

The soldiers were running—until they noticed Swain.

They stopped.

They recognized him.

They nodded respectfully, then tried to walk around him to continue the chase.

"Stop." Swain raised his cane horizontally, blocking their path.

"Mr. Swain?" One soldier froze, confused.

"What are you doing?" Swain asked.

"Those kids stole food from the granary. We're arresting them," the soldier said quietly. "Is there a problem?"

"They only stole food?" Swain asked calmly.

Once, he had believed in Darkwill completely. Even when he suspected some decisions were wrong, he still carried them out.

But in the time since returning to Noxus, Swain's thinking had changed.

Darkwill was wrong.

Noxus was walking toward ruin.

Because if a nation's people could no longer live—if they couldn't even solve the most basic problem of hunger, and were forced into crime—

Then the one at fault wasn't the person.

It was the nation.

"Yes. Just food," the soldier answered, still not understanding.

Swain said evenly, "Then don't pursue them. This isn't their problem."

"But they committed a crime! Those are the rules, Mr. Swain. You used to—" the soldier blurted.

He could stop chasing. He could go back and tell his superior they'd killed the children and dumped the bodies in the slums. Nobody would check too closely.

Because this happened every day in Noxus.

But he couldn't understand Swain's stance.

"So I was wrong too," Swain said.

"Go back."

"But it's the law," another soldier said after a moment. "If our superiors find out we did nothing, we'll be punished."

He was trying to force Swain to step aside.

Because if they caught those kids, whatever the kids had on them would become theirs.

Swain looked at the soldier—expression still, eyes flat.

But after only three seconds of eye contact, the soldier lowered his head, unable to meet Swain's gaze.

Then Swain suddenly looked to the distant sky.

A pitch-black raven appeared on his shoulder.

The many-eyed raven cawed once, then beat its wings and flew upward.

Through a special power, Swain saw what was happening over Bilgewater.

He saw the woman who had tried to spy on Noxus—whose divine sense he had severed—now in the sky above Bilgewater, fighting a local god and preventing Its descent.

He also saw Janna—the one the Zaunites spoke of.

He saw Logan.

Swain recognized the young man immediately.

So young… yet he had changed Zaun and Piltover.

Zaun's ruler.

Swain knew secrets most never touched. Of course he could recognize Logan's clean-cut face.

And that only hardened Swain's resolve.

Zaun was changing.

Piltover was changing.

Even Ionia had changed after the war.

And now—even Bilgewater was changing.

Only Noxus had not changed.

Only Noxus kept marching toward destruction.

Swain said nothing, looking up.

The soldiers didn't dare move.

One, they respected Swain.

Two, even as an outcast—stripped of rank—Swain's prestige in the military was unmatched.

Many within the army were willing to help him.

For example… Darius's younger brother—the executioner who always wore a wild grin, arrogant beyond measure.

That was why Swain could act freely inside the Immortal Bastion as a "civilian." No one wanted to stir the military by reporting Swain's movements to Darkwill—because they were all hiding things from Darkwill already, doing things Darkwill could never be allowed to know.

In the next moment, Swain withdrew his gaze.

It was over.

Bilgewater's battle—ended.

The Ionian seer had stopped Bilgewater's god from descending, and used divine power to mend the sea and Bilgewater itself. From here, what path Bilgewater would take… Swain could not foresee.

Then the soldiers also lifted their heads, feeling a cool breeze pass through them—strange, sudden.

They didn't know that this comfortable wind had risen from Bilgewater and now swept across Runeterra.

"Go back," Swain said.

"But the law—"

"That was only the old law," Swain cut him off calmly.

He raised his left hand—

A blood-red left hand.

Bloodlines twisted into talons as he continued, voice steady:

"From this day forward, Noxus's law no longer belongs to Darkwill."

"It belongs to the people."

"Noxus's sons and daughters will no longer be bullied."

The soldiers stared at Swain's crimson arm.

But in the next instant, the arm vanished—

And so did Swain.

The soldiers looked at each other, stunned.

"What?"

"Was that… a hand?"

"It was an arm—and I swear I saw black wings…"

"Gods… was that really Mr. Swain? Could he be a demon?"

One of the soldiers, a bit shorter than the others, pulled off his helmet, revealing a young face. His lips were crusted with dead skin, but his eyes were shining with excitement.

"No," he said firmly. "That was Swain. Because only General Swain would ever say something like that."

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