"Jinx, you take Taliyah home and help me call Silco up here. I'm going to find Jayce."
After returning to the Twin Cities, on Piltover's Stellar Boulevard, Logan said that to Jinx. Beside them, Kai'Sa still wore the same little-country-bumpkin expression, staring curiously at Piltover's towering buildings. At the same time, a question had risen in her mind about Piltover's people.
Why was it that when these Piltover people looked at her, they did not seem surprised or afraid at all?
That genuinely confused Kai'Sa. Even she thought her current appearance looked frightening. Her entire body was covered in purple carapace lined with spikes, and the skin occasionally twisted and writhed on its own. It looked as strange as strange could get. But here was the problem, Piltover's people would look at her skin for maybe two seconds, then their eyes would drift up to her face and start admiring her features.
Seriously?
They could still work with this?
Wearing a baffled expression, Kai'Sa followed Logan into a building. When she looked up, even with her eyesight, she could not see the top. It had already pierced through the clouds, wrapped in white mist.
How tall had they built this thing?
"Have something to eat first. Kai'Sa, what do you like?"
After they entered a room, Kai'Sa stood off in a corner, feeling completely out of place among everyone there. She did not even dare sit on the beautiful, delicate-looking sofa. Just from the texture alone, she could tell it had cost a fortune.
She was afraid she would dirty it.
Hearing Logan ask her, Kai'Sa quickly answered, "I... I can eat anything."
"Hmm. How about peaches?" Logan asked, testing the waters as he looked at her.
Logan clearly remembered one of Kai'Sa's voice lines, that when she ate a river fruit, there was a chance she would say, Not a peach, but it'll do.
Which meant peaches had to rank at least in her top three.
The moment she heard him say that, Kai'Sa's eyes visibly lit up, and though she did not say anything, she nodded.
"Sit down first. Don't be so tense. Just treat this place like home," Logan said gently, noticing how uncomfortable she was.
Off to the side, the goddess was curled up on the table. Hearing that, she lazily rolled onto her back, belly up, and said, "Logan, I shouldn't have anything else to do after this, right?"
"Oh, you do. Don't rush off just yet." Seeing Janna trying to slip away so she could go sleep in, Logan quickly stopped her. He turned to look at her, walked over to the table, crouched down, and poked the little blue bird's upturned belly with a finger.
The feel of it was... okay, nothing special.
Janna's blue bird form was just the shape she preferred to show people. Her true essence was a wind spirit, and even her human appearance was essentially a created shell. So naturally, in bird form, her little belly did not feel like a real bird's.
It was not fluffy, and it was not warm either. Instead, it felt cool and smooth, with a soft, mellow texture.
"What else do you need?" Life was hard. Janna sighed, pushed herself upright with her wings, and sat up to look at Logan.
"When everyone gets here, I'm also going to have the representatives from Noxus and Demacia come over, along with the leaders and delegates from the other nations. When that happens, I'll need you to show yourself."
Logan withdrew his hand and said with a smile, "A lot of people think the Twin Cities are faking it when we say we have a god. After all, in most people's minds, how could a real god possibly exist in this world? But now I'm going to tell them that real gods do exist."
"Wouldn't you work too? Or Jax?" Janna thought about it, then asked.
"That's different. Your stories and your image have spread across Runeterra. Once they see you in person, they'll fill in the rest themselves. But if Jax and I show them our strength, they'll just assume we're powerful humans, not gods."
"She... she's a god?" Kai'Sa looked at Janna, her face full of curiosity.
The goddess lifted a wing and gave a little chirp before saying, "Yes, I am. Is that surprising?"
Kai'Sa fell silent for a moment, then explained, "You, no, Your Grace, you feel very approachable to me, and... and Jinx treats you like that, and you don't get angry?"
A god...
Shurima had plenty of myths too. When her father was still alive, after returning from his travels, he would often tell the young Kai'Sa stories. But in those stories, gods were always lofty, proud, and impossible to approach casually.
But Janna?
Thinking back to the way Jinx interacted with her, Kai'Sa really had a hard time believing this cute little blue bird in front of her was a god.
"Kai'Sa, Janna is different from other gods," Logan said from the side. He reached out to rub Janna's head, only to get pecked by her beak.
Logan laughed awkwardly and pulled his hand back, then continued, "To us Zaunites, she's less some lofty divine figure and more like our sister, or our mother. She isn't some grand being set up in a shrine for worship. She's family, someone who's always with us."
"That doesn't make me very happy either," Janna said darkly from the side. Then she added, "I'm already exhausted, so hurry it up."
"Why are you rushing me? That's because Silco and the others aren't here yet," Logan said.
There was a knock at the door. Logan said, "Come in," and an Enforcer pushed in a cart. On it were many delicate silver trays filled with all kinds of pastries, and a few plates of fruit as well.
Logan gestured for the Enforcer to push the cart over in front of Kai'Sa, then said to her, "Go ahead. Take whatever you like."
Kai'Sa hesitated, then first picked up a pastry from the nearest tray and put it in her mouth. She chewed, and then...
Her expression gradually softened.
Piltover pastries tended to be light in flavor, soft and gently sweet, with the aroma of egg preserved beautifully. After finishing one, Kai'Sa could not help reaching for a second.
Logan watched for a while from the side and realized Kai'Sa's appetite really was not small. One pastry after another vanished into her mouth, and before long she had already wiped out three trays.
And she kept eating.
That skin of hers meant she did not actually need food to obtain energy, but the desire to eat was a human instinct. Had she stopped eating before because she did not want to?
No.
It was because she could not bear to eat what was available.
If someone told Kai'Sa to eat the corpses of Void bugs, she would rather just die. But now that she was out, with a huge pile of real food laid out in front of her, how could she possibly resist?
Her initial restraint vanished completely, and she started eating with both hands.
Then the door suddenly swung open, and the tall Jayce strode in. The moment he entered, he called out loudly, "Logan, what did you need me for?"
As he spoke, he saw a black-haired beauty with cheeks stuffed full, mouth packed with food, and both hands still clutching more food, staring back at him.
Jayce froze for a second, then came back to himself and noticed Logan leaning against the table beside Janna. He looked at Logan curiously and asked, "And where exactly did you abduct this one from?"
"Jayce, what do you mean, abducted?" Logan laughed in disbelief.
"What else am I supposed to call it? You brought back a grand marshal's niece from Demacia, a pirate queen from Bilgewater, a chieftain from the Freljord, and oh, that little Shuriman local you only just found not long ago."
Kai'Sa paused with food still in hand and said quietly, "I'm from Shurima too."
Jayce grinned. "The little local I meant isn't you, it's someone else. She's darker than you. Just going by skin tone, you don't really look Shuriman. Honestly, I'd say you look more Demacian."
Kai'Sa fell silent. She knew of Zaun and Piltover. Her father had often gone to Zaun on his travels. But Demacia? She really did not know what kind of country that was.
After a moment, Kai'Sa asked, "Aren't you curious why I look like this?"
"What?" Jayce did not follow at first.
Kai'Sa explained, "You, and the other people in Piltover too, none of you seem curious about why I look this way. This skin of mine stands out, doesn't it? So why does everyone act like they barely notice it?"
In the end, Kai'Sa still could not hold back that question.
Logan, listening from the side, said, "Uh, because they've seen someone even stranger?"
Jayce immediately understood what Logan meant and burst out laughing, clutching his stomach. "Compared to our friend, what are you supposed to be? Sure, your skin looks a little unusual, but you're beautiful. Him? Hah!" The more Jayce thought about it, the funnier it got.
"If Vander hears that, he's going to punch you twice."
As soon as he said that, a voice came from outside. "What am I hearing?"
The door opened again, and Vander's huge face appeared. Zaun's gray-black uniform did nothing to hide his thick body hair. His collar hung open, and a huge mass of coarse black fur spilled out from it. He was also wearing a hat, which somehow made the whole thing look even stranger.
Silco stood behind Vander, with Vi and Caitlyn beside him. Behind them came Councillor Kiramman, Mel, and the others.
Farther back was Lux, craning her little face forward with a mischievous look. Her cheeks were flushed red, like she had only just gotten angry. Beside her was Fiora, every step measured with perfect precision.
Katarina was there too, hands clasped behind her back as she walked in while blowing at her hair, amusement flickering in her eyes.
She had just been teasing Lux again.
And the moment Kai'Sa saw Vander, she understood everything.
Though saying it felt very rude, she could not help wanting to laugh.
Now she understood why Piltover people and Zaunites alike were not shocked or frightened when they saw her.
Because among Zaun's leaders, there was somebody who looked even scarier.
"All right. Since everyone's here, let's get to the real matter."
Logan clapped his hands, cutting off Vander's question.
Vander still looked puzzled and wanted to ask more, but Jayce straightened and said seriously, "Go on. Is it time to start that?"
Silco also spoke up. "You caught one already?"
Vander opened his huge mouth, then thought better of it and shut it again.
"Yeah, we caught one. And not just that, we got their queen. Janna already brought the corpse back and stored it," Logan said gravely.
Mel's eyes lit up at once. "Can we see it first?"
"Of course."
Logan looked at Janna. The goddess lifted a wing, a breeze swept through the room, and then a purple corpse several meters long appeared inside.
Janna said, "Rek'Sai's body won't fit in here. This room's too small."
Jayce's mouth twitched. "Wait, even this room's too small? Just how huge is that thing called Rek'Sai?"
Lux had already stepped out from the group and was now examining the Xer'Sai corpse. Katarina did the same, her gaze lingering on the creature's claws before dropping to her own daggers.
A while later, she gave up on the idea of cutting off the Xer'Sai's talons.
Her daggers were engraved with runes, the kind that were difficult to inscribe and only she could use. She had already gone her separate way from House Du Couteau, and though Swain was the Grand General, he was also, in practical terms, dirt poor. She did not have the money to replace a pair of fine weapons.
"Rek'Sai is much larger than the rest of her brood," Logan summarized. "She's at least four meters tall and around thirty meters long. From the front, just her head is about the size of a house. So yeah, she definitely won't fit in this room."
"You went to Shurima and killed something that huge?" Vander said, stunned.
"There's an even bigger one," Logan clicked his tongue. He was still annoyed that they had not managed to trap Bel'Veth.
Don't bother talking to him about how Bel'Veth was also fighting the Void and might be useful alive. When it came to Void creatures, aside from Kassadin and Kai'Sa, this father-daughter pair, the rule was simple, kill every last one you see and you won't go wrong.
Damn those blasted Aspects for causing all this.
Silco walked over to the Xer'Sai body and reached out to touch it. Some of its blood stained his fingertips. He rubbed the blood between them, then looked up at Logan.
"You killed their queen, so I have a question, Logan. Are you certain they really pose a threat to Runeterra? Normally, once the queen dies, the whole species should fall into chaos and disappear."
He looked at Logan seriously.
"If we go through with this, the scale will be enormous. And if the enemy we're rallying everyone against turns out not to be as powerful as you say, then everything we do may end up becoming a joke."
Once they made this move, the Twin Cities would effectively bind Runeterra together by force. Aside from Shurima, which was still in chaos, every other place would be drawn into the Twin Cities' orbit, joining together to fight the Void.
"The Xer'Sai don't represent the Void. They're just one of its byproducts," Logan said, shaking his head.
"And as for this idea that if the queen dies, the species dies with her..." Logan looked at Silco and said, "I can only say you're overthinking it."
Then he turned to Kai'Sa.
"Kai'Sa, you know this best. Can you explain it?"
Everyone in the room turned to look at Kai'Sa. She had kept eating even while everyone was talking, and now, under all those gazes, her face flushed red and she nearly choked. She swallowed what was in her mouth and patted her chest.
"Void creatures are different from creatures of Runeterra. They aren't reproduced through breeding. They are monsters directly created by the power of the Void."
Kai'Sa straightened up and said loudly, "I fought them in the underground world beneath Shurima. And there's only one way I can describe their numbers."
"They are endless."
"When Void creatures die, they're devoured by other Void creatures, which then evolve. And the Void creatures that aren't eaten are broken down by the Void itself and turned into raw material to create even more monsters."
"Because of that, I suspect there are already millions of these creatures beneath Shurima."
Silco looked back at Logan after hearing Kai'Sa's explanation.
Millions of monsters like these.
If what this girl was saying was true, then the Void really was Runeterra's mortal enemy.
When Logan saw Silco look over, he shrugged first, then straightened up. His gaze swept across the national representatives in the room, and then he said with complete seriousness,
"There isn't time to wait."
"Runeterra needs to unite."
The representatives who had been called here, Fiora, Katarina, and the rest, all looked at him with careful scrutiny.
Runeterra.
United?
But then the question came.
Was the kind of thing Logan was talking about really even possible?
Human hearts were complicated. Interests came first. Even with the Twin Cities linking the world together and allowing every nation to send representatives for discussion, true unity?
That was far too difficult.
Unless...
Katarina looked at Logan's face, and a thought rose in her mind.
Unless they used force to suppress everyone.
Unless the Twin Cities became Runeterra's hegemon.
Only then could "unity" truly happen.
And what came next was exactly what Katarina had imagined.
The Twin Cities' leaders all stepped forward, one by one, until they stood beside Logan.
In contrast, the representatives from the other nations gathered together, standing opposite the Twin Cities group.
Logan's eyes settled on them. He folded his hands together, his warm, approachable aura vanishing completely. The comforting presence that usually made people feel at ease was gone.
Instead, he looked at them with a cold, expressionless face and said,
"I forgot to tell you something."
"Right now, I'm not asking any of you to join the Twin Cities and oppose the Void together."
"I'm ordering everyone here to join the Twin Cities."
"So. I've said my piece."
"Who objects?"
//Check out my P@tre0n for 10 extra free chapters //[email protected]/Razeil0810