"What happened?"
At that moment, it wasn't just Kai'Sa and the others in the distance. Even Azir and Xerath had no idea what had just happened.
By instinct, Xerath fired a lightning bolt formed of arcane energy.
When the dust finally cleared, all he saw was a pair of crimson eyes.
"What?"
Xerath had been here for a while now, but this was the first time he had ever seen something like this.
"Give me..."
The sand began gathering around that figure on its own, forming a suit of armor.
The shadow seemed to be whispering something, and that long-buried feeling of fear found Xerath once again.
The last time he had felt it was when he had first been caught reading forbidden books and Azir had discovered him.
Back then, he had almost thought he was already dead, with everything depending on the mood of Azir, that young royal.
And now, after thousands of years, that same feeling returned, as if a hand had closed around his heart.
"Die!"
The figure burst through the rolling walls of sand in an instant, so fast that the shockwave of breaking the sound barrier was visible for a fleeting moment.
Sand exploded upward, and the violent force kicked up a gale so fierce that people could barely keep their eyes open.
Still frozen in shock, Xerath suddenly realized that a massive hole had been torn straight through where his heart should have been.
Azir was stunned for a brief moment as well, but he quickly recovered and commanded the sand soldiers to charge again.
...
"Lord Nasus, what happened to him?"
Sivir's eyes were full of worry as she turned to Nasus beside her.
"Nothing's going to happen to him, right?" Kai'Sa asked anxiously as well.
Was that the trump card Caleb had been hiding all this time?
"In truth, something has already happened," Nasus said, gently shaking his head. The moment Caleb had asked him about the Darkin, he had already guessed most of it.
But what could a scholar like him do to interfere?
All he could do was protect the two women and the cat from the damage of the battle.
"You saw the sonic boom just now. With his current physical condition, there's no way his body can withstand that kind of impact."
At the moment, though, Xerath had no spare attention to probe the others anymore.
In that split second, his heart had been pierced clean through.
Fortunately, he was now in a state of pure arcane energy. Otherwise, the outcome would have been disastrous.
"Who are you?!"
Xerath was shocked and furious. He had tested Caleb's strength at the start. There was no way Caleb was that powerful.
Countless mighty beings wandered Runeterra, but had he really happened to run into one today?
Impossible. They didn't even understand the situation, so why would some outsider suddenly interfere?
"A skulking coward? You don't even dare give your name?"
Xerath let out a cold snort.
He had studied black magic extensively, and naturally knew there were methods that let someone sacrifice themselves in exchange for immense power.
There was even a kind of god-invocation art that could call down a powerful being which attacked everything indiscriminately.
But both of those shared one trait, they never lasted long.
Which meant that if he could endure this stretch of time, then he would be the one to win in the end.
For the first time, Xerath used defensive magic, wrapping himself in a black shield to guard against the next strike from that unknown direction.
"Yanogel! Remember the name!"
In the next second, a grotesquely twisted face appeared directly before Xerath.
One could still faintly make out traces of Caleb's original features, but they were already barely connected to what he had become.
"Caleb's" body was wrapped in endless strands of blood-red flesh, and it was those very masses that had dramatically strengthened this body.
Blood magic was one of the Darkin's greatest specialties.
Another thrust of the spear was already there.
In an instant, the entire black shield condensed in front of Xerath.
And then, in the very next moment, it shattered like an exquisite piece of porcelain dropped onto stone.
Cracks spread across it almost instantly, and then Xerath's head vanished.
"Damn it!"
Xerath was caught between enemies. The sand soldiers had already stabbed him dozens of times from behind.
But the one dealing the heaviest damage was Yanogel, possessing Caleb's body. Just two strikes from that spear had done far more than anyone could have imagined.
Naturally, Xerath concentrated more energy into recreating vital parts of himself.
But the parts that had been destroyed did not return to him as they should have. Instead, they vanished without a trace.
As a being of energy, Xerath could only condense another head and heart.
At the same time, the relentless spear thrusts from the sand soldiers cost him even more of his strength.
Xerath's power was not truly infinite. It was simply an unimaginably enormous amount.
If he had only been fighting Azir, then that endlessly regenerating arcane energy would have been enough for him to endure for years.
But now, the energy wasn't returning to him. It was simply disappearing into nothingness.
That left Xerath deeply confused, but the pressure of the battle gave him no room to think about it.
Arcs of lightning, rings of force, sandstorms, electric blasts, even wide-area sealing spells, none of them could reach that figure.
And whenever Yanogel's attacks stopped, Xerath could not find a trace of him no matter how hard he searched.
Azir had no idea what was going on, but this situation favored him, so he chose to defeat Xerath first and worry about the newly appeared force later.
"AAAAAAH!"
Unable to touch Yanogel at all, Xerath roared in helpless fury.
If Caleb's consciousness had still been there, he probably would have made a joke right then.
"Honestly, Infinity Edge and Bloodthirster aren't even that expensive."
Yanogel went a step further and appeared directly in front of Xerath.
He bent his knees slightly, gripping the long spear with the beating heart in his hand, a mocking smile on his face.
Seeing that, Xerath felt his anger surge again.
He was giving up his advantage and refusing to keep skirmishing and wearing him down?
Xerath could admit that the other man was stronger than he was, but he could not accept being looked down on like this.
His former self may have been a slave, but that generation of the Shuriman Empire had flourished largely because of his efforts.
All of his arcane energy gathered into his palm, and the force it generated shattered even the nearby sand soldiers.
"Die!"
Xerath had completely lost his composure. The certainty of victory he had felt just minutes ago had already vanished without a trace.
"Fool!"
Yanogel thrust the spear forward and released a burst of blue light.
This is...?
If Xerath still had a heart, he would have heard it pounding like a war drum.
But by then, it was already too late to pull back. Two powers of the same origin collided head-on.
Fragments of a stone sarcophagus and chains pressed Xerath's form into something smaller and more compact.
With his magic nearly exhausted, the worst part was yet to come.
The clash between those two energies of the same source caused the energy inside Xerath's own body to begin colliding against itself.
That was the tragedy of life as a being of pure energy, he could never control every ounce of power within every part of his body with perfect precision.
And the spear tip was already rushing toward him.
All around him, sand soldiers had formed once more, and their spears were already driving into his body.
This time, the spear that struck while he was exposed tore away a massive chunk of his power.
"No!"
In the end, the sealing magic of the stone coffin and chains took effect.
Xerath had lost the life force that would have let him forcibly break open the anti-magic sarcophagus.
The power of Ascension poured continuously out of the huge hole that had been ripped open in him.
And the stone coffin slowly began to close again, leaving behind only Xerath's desperate howls.
"Seal!"
Azir slammed his staff down against the sand, and in the distance, the Sun Disc drew all of that Ascended power into itself.
His brother, the slave who had once saved his life, the slave to whom he had given a name.
As the stone coffin was fully restored, Xerath was sealed away into endless darkness.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810