Kai'Sa and Caleb ran flat out across the desert.
Behind them, Renekton's massive frame towered at a full ten to thirteen feet tall.
The dunes the three of them had to climb and cross, Renekton simply spun through them and burst straight out of the sand.
That was why Caleb's group still hadn't been able to widen the gap.
Thankfully, Yuumi was with them. If things truly went bad, she could still portal them somewhere else.
Worst case, Yuumi could send them away for half a day.
Then, once Renekton had left this area, she could bring them back to where they had started and they could resume the journey.
The problem was that Renekton's roaming territory was obviously somewhere around here.
At that point, it would just become a game of luck.
As a former god-warrior, Renekton's ferocity spoke for itself.
Neither Kai'Sa nor Caleb could withstand his enraged attacks.
Ever since taking that blow, Caleb had been sprinting through sheer pain.
If the two of them hadn't brought Yuumi along, Caleb would have had to tell Kai'Sa to retreat on her own by now.
Sometimes having a secret weapon wasn't exactly a good thing.
You might end up like Caleb, forced every day to think about whether or not to use a weapon that might steal your soul.
Except there wasn't really a choice.
If you didn't use it, you died.
Fortunately, with Yuumi empowering them, and with Caleb and Kai'Sa able to harass Renekton from a distance, they were still holding on.
Kai'Sa had survived in the Void for so long that a desperate death march like this was something she could adapt to naturally.
Caleb wasn't used to it, but with Yuumi's support, he could still grit his teeth and keep going.
Neither of them was weighed down by a bulky frame, so while they were losing out in pure stride length, the distant Sun Disc was still becoming clearer and clearer.
"We're almost there!"
Compared to the exhaustion in their bodies, the mental strain was even worse.
A long-distance sprint at this intensity, even with Yuumi constantly replenishing their stamina with magic, could not keep mental fatigue from building up.
Kai'Sa was doing fairly well. In the Void, she had faced even worse situations than this.
Caleb, on the other hand, looked terrible.
Unlike Kai'Sa, whose Void skin came with its own built-in powers, the arcane energy surging through Caleb's body was still something he hadn't fully mastered.
Each time he used a skill to disrupt Renekton's pursuit, the burden on his mind grew a little heavier.
And against a god-warrior, against the former Ascended Renekton, those attacks were little more than pinpricks to begin with.
The only reason they worked at all was because most of their shots were aimed at Renekton's weak points.
His eyes. His armpits. His throat. His joints.
Renekton had no choice but to raise an arm and defend against those attacks.
And the moment he absorbed that impact, the two figures ahead of him would already be gone again.
"Aaaagh!"
Renekton's fury only grew stronger. If he didn't catch these two, he would never accept it.
"We're almost there!"
Caleb had already reached his limit mentally. All the physical energy filling his body brought him no comfort at all.
He felt like he could collapse into the sand at any second.
Every breath felt as though fire were boring straight into his lungs.
Yuumi and Kai'Sa's replies were starting to sound distant, and Caleb didn't even know what he was saying anymore.
Maybe he was just repeating the lines he had prepared in his head long ago.
He didn't even need to look back to feel Renekton's overwhelming presence.
That spinning slash Renekton had swung at him, was that his healing strike?
Caleb's head grew heavier and heavier, even though he had already bitten the tip of his tongue hard enough to draw blood.
Kai'Sa seemed panicked, as though she were trying to warn him about something.
Caleb turned his head numbly and saw a wall of shields charging straight at him.
...
Caleb stood frozen in place, looking around in confusion.
The soldiers who had just rushed him seemed to have bodies made of yellow sand.
"Soldiers, advance!"
The commanding voice sounded as though it had traveled all the way from an ancient age, and several spear-wielding figures were already charging forward.
Caleb raised his arms again, bracing himself for the impact that might come.
Kai'Sa responded by immediately unleashing Icathian Rain.
Once the soldiers disappeared into the smoke and dust of the explosions, Caleb finally snapped out of his dazed state.
The spear-bearing soldiers reappeared behind the two of them, their bodies gathering again from drifting sand.
The shield-bearing soldiers who had rushed past Caleb a moment ago were now surrounding Renekton on all sides.
Renekton's massive blade flashed wildly. While chasing Caleb earlier, he had actually held back a little just for the fun of it.
Now that he was facing sand soldiers closing in around him from every direction, he had finally found an outlet for his violence.
Under his brutal swings, the soldiers broke apart into clouds of yellow sand.
A few seconds later, they gathered themselves again.
"Renekton, once a noble warrior, now nothing more than a rabid beast."
There was regret in the voice, but its authority remained absolute.
A shadow fell across Caleb. Looking up, he saw a tall figure standing beneath the blazing sun.
He wore extravagant golden regalia across his entire body, and in his hand was a massive scepter.
"And who are you?" Azir narrowed his eyes and asked.
There was nothing unusual about the man in front of him, nor about the cat carrying the scent of the yordles.
But the moment his gaze landed on the woman with purple skin covering her body, Azir felt unease rise from deep within him.
"Travelers."
Caleb silently stepped half a pace to the left, putting himself in front of Kai'Sa.
Azir was the emperor of Shurima. Naturally, he could sense the aura of the Void.
"The one beside me is an Icathian."
"Her mind is clear," Caleb stressed.
If Azir refused to let go of that trace of Void aura, then all they could do was have Yuumi send them away again.
Caleb quietly nudged Yuumi, and she hopped over to Kai'Sa's side.
Yuumi wasn't stupid.
That giant crocodile chasing them just now, and the imposing emperor now standing before them, both made Yuumi feel deeply uncomfortable on an instinctive level.
Yordles lived for an incredibly long time. Under ordinary circumstances, as long as they didn't provoke the desperate killers of Bilgewater, they could live quite comfortably in all the major cities.
And if they ever grew weary of the coldness and hardships of the world, they could return to Bandle City, heal up, and start a new life again.
The only times yordles had suffered catastrophic losses, so severe that they hadn't even been able to retreat back to Bandle City in time, were in only a handful of wars, including the Rune Wars, the Ascended Host's war against the Void, and the Darkin War.
Those wars were simply too vast in scale. The destruction spread so quickly that even the yordles had no time to open their portals.
Back when Yuumi had traveled with Norra, having the Book of Thresholds meant they had lived without a care in the world.
But as one friend after another died, Yuumi had come to understand what death looked like.
That was why, when she saw beings this powerful, she felt instinctively unsettled.
The moment Renekton had appeared, she had almost called Book over and prepared to portal everyone away again.
After all, life was long. There would still be plenty of chances to look for Norra later.
Thankfully, these two were actually pretty capable. Someone had really shown up to help them.
Thin streams of steam rose from Caleb's whole body. After a flight like that, his body temperature had long since exceeded what a normal person could endure.
In the distance, Renekton was still entangled in battle with the sand soldiers.
Shield and spear worked together flawlessly. Their ability to wound him was limited, but they were still managing to deal some damage.
As the blood-red light faded from Renekton's eyes, he looked blankly at the soldiers surrounding him, then jerked his head around in confusion.
The glory of his homeland was gone, and all that remained was a ghost he couldn't leave behind.
He should remember... remember what had happened.
"He still remembers?" Caleb narrowed his eyes as he watched Renekton turn and flee at full speed.
"Only sometimes," Azir said.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810