"Those who run from death..... stand still in life." Kindred, The Eternal Hunters
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This chapter is a continuation of Chapter 186-187. Read that for a recap.
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Talon stepped out of the shadows and into a large tunnel system. His eyes instantly adjusting to the pitch black darkness of the environment.
He took step after step in the direction he was facing.
His observations revealed one thing. Unlike the tunnels and caverns underneath Noxus. These ones weren't natural.
Nor where they man-made.
The tunnel was smooth. Floors, walls and the ceiling. All smooth. The floor were a little bit worse for wear compared to the other s but that was to be expected. There were people travelling them.
But what was odd was the smoothness itself.
He had seem something similar but not this clean or smooth. Running a hand across the wall, he compared the two. Near the areas of a volcano, one could often find objects that were extremely smooth.
So smooth in fact, that it was highly sought after.
But they were brittle. And it was incredibly rare to find stone without any cracks in it.
Now was this surface also glass like?
That he couldn't say. It was completely dark after all. And vision in the dark was more of a outline of everything rather than crystal clear vision. But that alone gave him a massive advantage over anybody else.
CLACK
CLACK
CLACK
CLACK
He paused as his foot made contact with something on the ground sending it bouncing. Talon crouched spotting the outline of the object.
A small stone.
A single stone that shouldn't be this far underground. He looked up, searching for something on the ceiling that could indicate the stone's presence.
He leapt up and slid his hand into the darkness, holding himself up on the ceiling. He used his other hand to feel the walls. But it was completely smooth.
Dropping to the ground, he inspected that stone once more. He ran a thumb over the stone, immediately feeling some kind of indents on the surface of the stone.
Talon pocketed the stone and then continued exploring the tunnels. Turn after turn, he continued.
Without stopping.
It did not matter if he got lost.
He could just jump into the darkness and appear above ground.
Getting lost was good. Most people often found the most valuable things when they were lost. This would be no exception.
Even if he did not find anything in his little trip... it did not matter. He did not lose anything.
The intrigue he had from looking over the citizens of this town..... that had already been sated.
The townspeople... though not all.... were being forced to sacrifice people on the orders of someone.
Or worse.
Something.
The desire to know who or what had led him here.
The tunnels were already a great discovery. Secret lairs were always welcome. It was the Noxian way.
And Nerimazeth seemed to be a gold mine.
However, if he really wanted this to himself..... he would need to find and..... take care of its previous resident.
The walk in the darkness continued for a while longer until a small light flickered in the distance. He stepped to the side and right into the darkness, continuing to move forward.
The light grew closer, until it opened into a large, wide open room with a broken coffin on the far wall. Blue light seeped out of the cracks in the coffin.
Near the center were four cloaked people with a cart behind them.
They began to unload the cart and pull out bodies.
Bodies that were still breathing.
"My lord!" One of the men fell to their knees, "We were able to find only one with true magic in them. The rest are travelers that have come to Nerimazeth."
The coffin glowed brighter, light erupting from the eyes of the coffin, "IT DOES NOT MATTER TO ME! PUT THEM ON THE PEDESTAL!"
Talon frowned as he focused on the one ordering the men.
The coffin.
He frowned as he felt a vague memory appeared in his mind. He had seen this coffin before. Or something similar.
But where?
The people moved in a hurry placing all the bodies onto the pedestal in the very center. Men, women, children. Regardless of age or sex, they were placed onto the pedestal.
"GOOD." The voice echoed through the chamber.
The men scrambled away from the center.
The coffin began to glow an immense blue, lighting up every inch of the room.
Talon slid into the shadows being cast by the men and watched as the bodies on the pedestals began to glow a soft white, contrasting the sharp blue.
Slowly, the white began to separate from the bodies and float toward the coffin.
The coffin then began to inhale as the white flowed into the cracks.
After all the white disappeared, the glow began to recede.
He glanced at the bodies. Now gray, as if the life had been pulled out of them.
"CLEAN THIS MESS!" The order came from the coffin.
The four rushed toward the pedestal with brooms. The moment the broom came in contact with a bodies, the bodies broke apart into dust.
The cloaked men swept them back into the cart and then began to move out.
Talon looked back at the coffin before deciding to follow the men toward an exit.
"WHO ALLOWED YOU TO LEAVE?"
The men turned around, "My lord!" They began prostrating themselves on the ground.
A blue glow erupted in front of the coffin, forming a sphere above the coffin.
"I DO NOT MEAN YOU!" The coffin thundered, "I'M TALKING ABOUT THE RAT THAT WAS WANDERED IN!"
"My lord?" One of then asked confusedly.
The glowing sphere shrunk, its core taking on a darker blue shade.
Talon sighed as he stepped out of the shadow, his hood covering his face, "Hmm.... You got me."
"DIE." Came a calm reply.
ZWOOOM
The sphere hurtled toward Talon, its glow lighting up the area.
To Talon it was as if time itself had slowed down as he calmly assessed his situation. And then it hit him.
He realized where he had seen this coffin before.
His sister's expedition.
Talon had seen the coffin float away followed by a large reptilian creature.
Just before the the sphere made contact with him, Talon flicked his wrist forward sending a blade upward.
The blade flew upward, right in the path of the sphere.
The glow from the sphere hit the blade, casting a shadow behind it. Talon leaned into it, disappearing into the shadow.
BOOOOM
The entire cavern rumbled.
CLACK
CLACK
Talon walked out of the shadows beside the coffin, "So that's how the tunnels were made." He noted.
The impact from the attack had created a hole in the ground, leaving behind a smooth glass like surface. The four cloaked men were gone, the only proof of their existence were the legs of one of the men, that did not get erased from the explosion.
The coffin's eyes moved toward him lazily, "YOU LIVE."
"Unfortunately... I am quite hard to kill." Talon calmly replied, "What are you called?"
"YOU DON'T DESERVE TO KNOW."
Talon frowned, leaning back on the wall, "I think I ought to know. Considering the fact that my sister is the one who got your out of that prison of yours."
The coffin moved out of its position and floated in front of him, "WHAT?"
"You know.... the girl who got cursed by your prison? That one." Talon explained cheekily.
The coffin stared at him for a while before eventually replying, "YOUR PRIMITIVE MAGIC GIVES YOU CONFIDENCE THE LIKES OF WHICH I HAVE NOT SEEN IN A MILENNIA."
"Well. Since you are not giving me an answer... I guess it is time to leave." Talon began walking toward the entrance of the room.
"SUCH INSOLENCE!"
ZWOOOOM
"Tch." Talon clicked his tongue as he let himself fall forward, sinking into the darkness and walking out just as the explosion ran once more.
He turned to look at the coffin, "Listen coffin. You are no where near strong enough to kill me. Forget that. You don't even know how to begin the process of killing me. Give up. This is not something a creature of your caliber can do." He walked toward the exit without turning about.
"SUCH DISRESPECT TOWARD AN ASCENDED! THE ONLY TRUE ASCENDED! FALL TO THE MIGHT OF XERATH!"
ZWOOOM
ZWOOOM
FSSHHHHH
Two sphere materialized beside him coming close in order to sandwich him and from above, a bolt of magic, almost like lighting, rushed toward his head.
Talon flicked three blades and slipped into the large shadow produced on the ground. "All that power and not enough mental ability to back it up. Truly a sad ordeal." He disappeared leaving behind those mocking words.
Xerath's sarcophagus began to crack more in response to those words and let out a blinding blue light.
"YOU CANNOT RUN!" He bellowed.
Talon walked out of the shadows being cast on a wall and continued walking through Nerimazeth.
His plan had succeeded. He had gotten the creature to name itself. And he also noted how quick to anger it was. There was one other thing he needed to look into now.
Ascended.
His sister had been looking into it. The search for Ascension was what had gotten Cassiopeia cursed. Then the other creature he had seen bolt out of the prison could only be assumed to be another one of these Ascended.
All of this formed one explanation of what happened to his sister.
The curse that transformed her wasn't a simple one. It probably started a process of Ascension but was left incomplete. Or at least deeply flawed. A difficult situation but he had seen her start to actively participate in things. She had began to get over her hate for her current physical state and start to explore the abilities that came with her new body. Abilities that impressed Talon.
Spit that melted through walls.
Bottom half of a snake that let her slither at incredible speeds.
And above all, a scream that petrified all those that looked at her.
She had lost her human features but had also gained something that put her leagues above most humans.
A loss for a gain.
But the truly good thing was the hit to her ego. Cassiopeia had begun to consider herself untouchable. She had begun to consider herself supreme. It had now been hammered into her that she was, in fact, just as mortal as everyone else.
ZWOOOM
Talon's eyes widened as he immediately slipped into a nearby shadow.
BOOOOOM
He walked out of another shadow and noticed the house he had been walking next to, completely destroyed. The ground gaining that same glassy smooth texture as it began to cool.
ZWOOOOM
He slipped into the shadow once again and appeared on the other side of the town.
"Quite persistent." He muttered as he began to walk away from the town.
ZWOOOM
Frowning, he slid into the shadows once more.
"I'm being tracked." He wondered aloud. "How?"
He stepped out once more and immediately, another sphere raced toward him. A smile sprouted on his face as he reached into his cloak and pulled out the stone he had pocketed earlier.
The cracks in the coffin.
The presence of a stone in the otherwise clean and clear tunnel.
This wasn't an ordinary stone. It was a part of the coffin itself. Probably broken off during movement. He slipped back into the shadow and flicked the stone out in a different location.
A second later he popped out at a different spot a watched as the area around where he had thrown out the stone be bombarded with magical spheres.
"Again. All that power but nowhere near smart enough to use it properly. It is sad how power is given to those who have no way to use it properly." Talon said as he chuckled to himself, walking out of the town that had just faced the wrath of an Ascended holding it hostage.