[Family. Kingdom.]
Two words appeared on the page.
Seeing them, Luxanna fell silent.
She didn't fully understand.
But when she saw those two words written in the magic book, she had to admit to herself...
The Crownguards were no different from any other family.
[What do you think of this incident?]
As the words reappeared on the enchanted page, Luxanna thought for a moment before slowly writing her reply:
"This was exactly what Noxus wanted. They orchestrated everything."
"The peace treaty is real, and the return of the Winged Protector is real too. But they've just moved the battle from the open into the shadows."
Her thoughts flowed like water as she continued:
"Demacia fears this kind of war more than a direct invasion. For centuries, we've gathered here in the name of righteousness. But now..."
"Noxus is tearing that apart—sowing distrust among the people and turning nobles against each other over petty gains."
She paused, took a deep breath, and wrote more, pouring everything she felt onto the page.
But deep down, no matter what she believed—even if many Demacians saw the same truth—the outcome seemed inevitable.
Demacia couldn't solve its most fundamental problems, and most citizens knew it.
So instead, their gaze turned inward.
[What do you think is the way forward?]
The magic book asked again, like a patient tutor challenging its student.
Luxanna stared at the words, her face marked with sorrow.
But finally, she wrote two painful words:
"No solution."
Feeling that wasn't enough, she added:
"I understand Aunt Tianna's concerns. At its core, Demacia's defeat feels inevitable."
"Our strength... It's not enough."
"Our mightiest protectors have fallen. We all know that once Noxus regroups, we'll be nothing but lambs to the slaughter."
"Demacia still has the will to fight, but the treaty saps that spirit. And with Noxus constantly provoking us, our kingdom will erode piece by piece."
Her face showed her anguish, but she knew she couldn't change the course of things alone.
Since Kayle's fall, Demacia's decline had felt unstoppable.
Noxus was never a peaceful empire. Conquest was in its blood.
Everyone knew they wouldn't miss the chance to claim Demacia.
And now, Demacia had no means to resist them. The power gap was too great.
People still stood united for now, willing to die for their homeland—but only because the spirit hadn't yet faded.
As Noxus continued to divide them from within, that will would fade.
All it would take is a few border provinces surrendering, enjoying the benefits, and setting an example.
Then others would begin to question.
Everyone had families. Parents. Children.
No one wanted to fight a hopeless war at the cost of everything they loved.
Luxanna felt helpless. Maybe the only thing she could do now was try to lift people's spirits—keep
Demacia from crumbling from the inside.
At the very least, ensure Demacia still has the will to resist.
[If you want to protect Demacia, there are two places you can go.]
Luxanna's heart leapt. She quickly wrote back:
"Which two?"
[The Mage Seeker Dungeons... and Galio the Colossus.]
Magic...
She knew what those two places meant. One was the prison where dangerous mages were locked away.
The other was the massive colossus—Galio—Demacia's silent guardian.
It was said that Galio would awaken after absorbing enough magic, rising to protect Demacia once more.
If the magic book said it could happen... then maybe it was true.
Luxanna nodded, a flicker of hope returning to her eyes.
----------------
Noxus – The Floating Castle
"The mood is good today."
Ryan held a scroll of magical texts, a faint smile on his face as he looked toward Katarina, her long burgundy hair flowing behind her.
She knelt before him, as respectful as ever.
But this time, instead of her usual leathers, she wore a sleek set of black and red armor—refined, sharp, and fitting for a battlefield commander.
The air around her carried the weight of command.
"Your Majesty, I, Katarina du Couteau, bring the loyalty of House Couteau and the Southern Front."
In her hands, she held a magically sealed document—bearing the crest of her family.
This decree had once been handed to Ryan by General du Couteau himself, and now Katarina had brought it back to him, completing a circle of allegiance.
After receiving her orders from the Trifarian Council, Katarina had gone south—to the war-torn regions held by House Couteau—and executed the Council's will with ruthless precision.
Ryan had watched her rise carefully.
Backed by her strength and Trifarian authority, she quickly established dominance in the southern campaigns.
In a matter of months, bolstered by Ryan's doctrine and the founding of the Explorers' Guild, Katarina's forces swept through the fractured city-states of Shurima.
Wherever her banners flew, cities capitulated.
Noxian strongholds rose like iron monuments across the sands.
With minimal resistance, swaths of Shuriman territory were absorbed into the Empire.
Katarina's prowess on the battlefield grew nearly unmatched, and with her power came ambition.
Eventually, she challenged her own father—General du Couteau, commander of the Southern Front.
Before the eyes of every soldier in the southern legions, she bested him and took his place.
Now, returning to the Immortal Bastion, she came not only to report the mission's success, but also to offer the family's charter directly to Ryan—an open declaration of allegiance.
But Ryan didn't reach for the seal marked with the Couteau sigil. He simply said:
"Katarina, you and I… we are both Noxian."
At the sound of her name—spoken plainly—her posture shifted, just slightly.
She knew what that meant.
That was Ryan's approval.
"Your Majesty, I will always be your sharpest blade," she said softly, her head bowed in reverence.
All she had achieved—everything—was because of him.
If not for Ryan, she would have died by her father's hand a year ago.
She knew that man well. Without Ryan's guidance, she would have been discarded, forgotten, like her poor sister...
"Don't look so serious," Ryan said with a rare smile, closing the scroll gently.
"You're leaving again tomorrow. Let's see how far you've come."
A dark blue rune shimmered around them.
He knew her well—knew she wanted to show him what she'd become.
After everything she had survived, she still sought his recognition.
In the blink of an eye, both vanished in a swirl of arcane light.
They reappeared in an empty training arena beneath the Floating Castle.
The air there was quiet, expectant.
Even beneath the Floating Castle, the training grounds were brightly lit by arcane light.
Swish!
A blur of red and black streaked across the arena.
Katarina vanished and reappeared behind Ryan, daggers drawn in a lethal cross-cut aimed straight at his back.
She knew she couldn't hurt him—no matter how sharp the blade.
Clang!
Without turning, Ryan reached behind him.
The ring on his right hand shifted, transforming into a sleek, black blade. It intercepted Katarina's strike effortlessly.
"Not bad," he said, a hint of approval in his voice.
"You used to need time to prepare. Now you lead with the technique."
It was a technique Ryan had personally taught her—Shunpo.
Borrowed from ancient Ionian texts, it wasn't traditional magic.
It didn't require innate magical talent but instead channeled movement through pure martial discipline—almost instinctive, swift as a shadow.
The forms varied—blades, steps, shadows—but it was most deadly when paired with edged weapons.
"Your Majesty," Katarina said, appearing several meters away, her voice sharp, "that won't be enough."
This time, she hurled one of her daggers. It arced through the air—then suddenly multiplied.
Dozens of spectral blades split from the original, raining down like a storm aimed directly at Ryan.
His eyes flickered with intrigue.
With fluid motion, he leaned back slightly, then swept his black blade in a precise arc.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Each dagger struck his defense, the collisions ringing out like iron chimes.
Real or not, they all felt real.
One dagger, unnoticed by most, slipped past the flurry and flew behind him.
Flash.
Katarina reappeared mid-air, grabbing the stray dagger mid-spin and slashing toward Ryan's neck.
Clang!
The black blade was there again, unmoving. Her attack halted an inch from his throat.
"No killing intent... you've matured," Ryan remarked.
"Blade discipline has improved. You're dividing your focus now—thirteen simultaneous projections. And the rest?"
He hadn't moved a single step.
Katarina's breathing was steady, her crimson eyes locked on him.
She had grown. Her physical form was well beyond the level of a typical champion.
Her technique? Nearly elite. On par with Darius in raw power, not yet at Swain's level of control.
"Your Majesty—watch closely!"
Her expression tightened. Both daggers in her hands shot forward—then again, and again.
She seemed to summon an endless barrage, flinging them toward Ryan from every angle.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The black blade spun in Ryan's hand like a seamless wall, deflecting every projectile.
But this time was different.
The daggers didn't vanish after impact. They curved mid-air—coming around for a second strike.
Even Ryan couldn't cover every angle at once with a single blade.
A dagger slipped through the gap, brushing the hem of his white robe—
Shhhk.
The blade stopped cold, halted by an unseen force.
Not magic, but something deeper—wards layered into his garments.
It didn't pierce a thread.
Ryan nodded, eyes gleaming.
"Excellent. Even a fully armed elite could fall to that assault."
The daggers were ordinary—no enchantments, no arcane craftsmanship—but what they lacked in quality, Katarina made up for in sheer quantity and precision.
With her current physique, even someone like Darius had to respect the force behind her strikes.
Within moments, Ryan stood in the center of a storm of spinning blades.
Daggers rained in from every angle, encircling him in a deadly dance.
Katarina's expression tightened.
She was clearly struggling to maintain the barrage, but she didn't falter.
A relentless flurry.
Daggers came from all sides, stabbing toward Ryan with no obvious gaps in the assault.
From a distance, it almost looked like the blades were carving away the air itself.
Still, none of them struck true.
A thin, translucent film shimmered over Ryan's body. Like a barrier of flowing water, it absorbed or redirected every blade that dared to reach him.
Katarina narrowed her eyes. She knew, deep down—her assault was fast, overwhelming even.
But not a single dagger could harm him.
"Do you know the difference between a champion and a grandmaster?" Ryan asked calmly.
The moment he spoke, the whirlwind of daggers burst into fragments, fading like illusions.
Ding. Ding.
Two metallic thuds echoed as the only real daggers clattered to the ground at Katarina's feet.
She looked toward Ryan—still motionless—and her heart sank, just a little.
She bent down to retrieve her weapons, using the motion to hide the flicker of disappointment in her expression.
"Your Majesty," she said, her voice quiet but steady, "I don't know what makes a champion. But I know I'm not one yet."
Ryan's voice remained even.
"The difference lies in the concentration of power."
On Runeterra, the division of power was never simple.
There was no rigid scale.
But roughly, anyone who could unleash a single strike with the destructive force of a hundred of Caitlyn's full-powered shots could be considered a grandmaster.
That power could come from strength, magic, technique, artifacts—or all of them combined.
In Katarina's case, her options were limited.
"Your physical potential isn't on par with Darius, and your magical aptitude is negligible," Ryan continued.
"So, you either undergo transformation—or you learn to condense your power."
"Condense my power?" Katarina echoed, her brows furrowed.
She could tell he was offering her a path forward. Her usual defiance gave way to sharp attention.
Ryan gestured toward a training dummy standing nearby.
"That's one of Orianna's advanced test dummies. Watch."
He summoned a simple spell—Water Blade.
Two soft-blue runes spun together before forming a shimmering crescent of water.
"At base power, this spell won't even register a response."
Swish!
The blade flew forward and splashed harmlessly against the dummy's chest.
"By default, Water Blade hits at roughly three times the force of Caitlyn's swing," Ryan explained. "Still not enough to trigger the dummy's defense response."
Katarina had used these dummies before—every soldier had. She knew how difficult they were to affect without true mastery.
"Your raw strength is respectable, but not exceptional. Magic is nearly out of reach for you. That means you must push beyond your limits another way."
A second Water Blade formed, but this one was different—smaller, denser, darker in hue.
"This is power condensed. Same spell. Same runes. Different result."
Swish!
The blade cut through the air and slammed into the dummy.
Katarina's eyes widened. The blade pierced through the rune-steel plating, carving a visible gash in the dummy's chestplate.
An electronic voice rang out:
"Attack strength: Strong."
Katarina stood frozen. She'd never seen that rating before.
Even when she pushed her body to its limits, pouring everything into her strikes, the most she'd ever gotten was "Weak."
Now, she understood.
The path forward wasn't just brute force or speed—it was control. Precision.
The kind of focus that made every strike matter.
And to think—"Strong" was just the result of a casual Water Blade from Ryan.
"What should I do?" Katarina asked, her voice low but earnest.
Ryan turned his eyes to her, his tone calm:
"Mages rely on their understanding of runes. Warriors rely on their bodies. But assassins..."
He tapped the black blade lightly against the ground.
"Assassins must learn how to cut through everything—with nothing more than the blade in their hands."
"Cut through... everything..."
Katarina frowned. The concept sounded like something out of a fable.
In the old Ionian texts—like Assassin's Creed—there were tales of warriors cleaving steel with wooden swords. She had dismissed them as nonsense.
Why swing wood when you can swing steel?
Her old way of thinking came rushing back: Train harder. Get stronger. Use better weapons.
The idea of "condensing strength" had always seemed meaningless.
But now, Ryan...
Seeing the uncertainty on her face, Ryan smiled faintly.
"That's the path ordinary assassins pursue. You, however... You can choose a different one. One more suitable to your will."
He wasn't trying to force her. Even if she eventually opted for mechanical transformation, he wouldn't stop her.
He would only ensure she had the best possible resources.
"Your Majesty," she said suddenly, her eyes sharp with determination, "I want a weapon that can pierce all defenses."
Ryan raised a brow, intrigued.
She didn't believe she could condense strength like that.
Compared to those born gifted, her talents were average at best.
But she knew her role—loyal, relentless, sharpened like a dagger in the dark.
If her body fell behind, she would accept any transformation necessary—so long as it meant she could continue to follow Ryan.
"A surprising idea," Ryan murmured, clearly pleased.
"It just so happens I have two such weapons. But they're tied to two missions. Are you interested?"
This was Noxus. Nothing was free.
And one of the missions—Ryan knew—was incredibly dangerous.
"I'm ready to help." Katarina dropped to one knee without hesitation.
Even if he hadn't offered the weapon, she would have accepted any task he asked of her. All she needed was direction.
"Do you remember the mission the commander gave?" Ryan asked.
"Guard the tomb of Akzam. Kill any who approach," she answered without pause.
Ryan nodded.
"Your new task is to enter that tomb. Follow Ezreal. Recover one of the objects hidden inside."
Katarina didn't flinch, though her eyes narrowed slightly in focus.
He and Syndra were nearly certain: one of the World Runes rested within that ancient tomb.
But the barriers left behind by the Ascended were far too strong.
Even if Morgana and Syndra joined him, they couldn't force their way in.
If the Ascended's traps were triggered, the entire mausoleum—and everything around it—would be erased from existence.
And the World Rune likely wouldn't survive.
But Katarina? Ezreal? Their power levels were negligible in the eyes of a god. They could slip through unnoticed.
"What exactly am I retrieving?" Katarina asked, voice like steel.
Even if it meant her death, she would bring it back.
Ryan extended his hand.
Five colored phantoms shimmered into the air—yellow, red, green, blue, and a second, darker blue.
"I don't know what form it will take," he said, "but it will glow in one of these colors. You'll feel the magic radiating from it as you approach."
He reached into his robes and drew a necklace with a dark blue gemstone.
"If something happens... or if you find the Rune... crush this."
Katarina accepted it silently. Through the gem's translucent surface, she could see intricate runes etched in overlapping circles—wards, protections, failsafes.
"I will bring it back," she said firmly, fastening the necklace around her pale neck with both hands.
Her fingers trembled only slightly—not from fear, but purpose.
This time, she would not fail.