"Looks like we're not leaving anytime soon."
Duke stared down at the tide of Void creatures surging beneath them — the countless Xer'Sai flooding the canyon like a living sea. A faint crease formed between his brows.
"With that many down there, if we leave them unchecked, the Void might erupt out of control," he muttered.
"These things might just dig through the barrier between reality and the Void itself."
As the swarm poured out from the earth, the Xer'Sai clawed at everything in their path, their massive forelimbs shattering rock and stone with ease. The fins on their backs pulsed with the energy of the Void, waves of violet distortion coalescing as if drawn by some unseen will.
Duke made a quick calculation. It had only been a dozen seconds since the first one emerged, yet the entire canyon below was already filled to the brim — their numbers easily exceeded ten thousand.
And with such overwhelming quantity came the threat of a catastrophic qualitative change.
"No... something's wrong."
Duke's face darkened. Peering deeper into the ground with his divine eye, his expression turned grave. "They're trying to dig through the barrier!"
The Xer'Sai's purpose — the mission of the Void Burrowers.
To consume. To erode all existence. To bring ruin to Runeterra?
That was only part of it.
The true mission now revealed itself before Duke's eyes.
Through the Eye of God, he saw the horrifying truth buried beneath the sands.
The so-called Xer'Sai hive was not merely a nest — it was an unfinished tunnel. A colossal passageway twisting the very laws of time and space, bending the rules of reality itself.
It was shaped like a perfect circle, and within it flowed a strange, pitch-black liquid — dense, viscous, and alive.
From within that eerie matrix, reality itself warped and stretched, as though another dimension were straining to break into their world.
The Xer'Sai, led by their queen Rek'Sai, were attempting to pierce the veil separating the material realm from the Void.
That was the hidden truth of the Void Burrowers.
Had the swarm not erupted from underground, Duke might never have discovered the existence of this deeply buried tunnel — nor the countless Xer'Sai still tunneling endlessly within it.
The Void energy gathered like storm clouds, warping the air as it pressed against the invisible boundary that separated two worlds — the barrier holding reality and the Void apart.
The disturbance they'd caused earlier had only drawn the attention of the queen's royal guard. It was only because Taliyah sensed the residual echo within the stones that Rek'Sai herself had emerged.
And Rek'Sai's final roar before her capture — that wasn't a scream of defeat. It was an order.
A command to stop Duke and his team at all costs.
"Dig through what, exactly?"
Sivir frowned, struggling to grasp the meaning behind Duke's words. "What is this 'barrier' you're talking about? And if they break through it, what happens?"
"The consequences?" Duke arched a brow, then gave a casual shrug. "Oh, nothing too serious."
"At worst, the entire Shuriman continent sinks, and Runeterra collapses."
"That's not a big problem?!"
Taliyah's voice shot up several octaves, her face pale with disbelief. It was the first time she'd ever shown such emotion toward Duke.
"To me, it's not."
His eyes gleamed coldly as he looked down at the unending sea of Xer'Sai.
"But that doesn't mean I'll just ignore it."
"So what will you do?"
Kai'Sa's tone carried both concern and curiosity. Duke stroked his chin, opened his inventory, and deployed a swarm of drones into the sky.
"Let's calculate first."
He pulled up a translucent blue holographic screen, his fingers flying across the data streams. Though he had access to several weapons of mass destruction, conventional methods were useless in this situation.
That left only his newest creation.
The drones scattered across the air, releasing scanning beams as they mapped the terrain, the swarm, and the energy readings.
Data flooded into Duke's display. The deeper he analyzed, the tighter his brow furrowed.
"This is... problematic."
"What's wrong?"
Taliyah's voice trembled slightly. Below, the Xer'Sai had already surpassed one hundred thousand in number, still multiplying as the Void energy pulsed violently, fracturing and consuming everything nearby.
"The Xer'Sai have tunneled through a radius of over two hundred kilometers," Duke replied grimly. "The land here is hollow."
"So what are you going to do?"
Sivir gripped her crossblade, Chalicar, glancing down at the writhing swarm below. Her scalp tingled at the sight.
"With that many, it'd take an army of hundreds of thousands to wipe them out. Can you handle that?"
Duke clicked his tongue. "You can underestimate me, but never underestimate science."
"The purpose of science," he said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips, "is to make the impossible possible."
"Then I'd love to see how you pull that off," Sivir shot back, folding her arms, clearly skeptical.
Duke finished his calculations and exhaled. "To completely eradicate them, I'll need to blast an area of roughly five hundred and sixty square kilometers."
Sivir blinked. "That's... an entire district of a city!"
"Exactly," Duke said. "But it's the only way to ensure the Void doesn't spread further."
He turned toward her, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Now then, let's make it official."
Sivir immediately grew wary. "What are you planning?"
"You, my dear, carry Ascended blood. Legally speaking, that makes you Shurima's rightful heir."
"And?" Sivir narrowed her eyes.
"That's very important," Duke said cheerfully. "I could just destroy everything here myself, but I'd rather have authorization. Makes things... cleaner."
He chuckled. "I don't fear trouble — but I do prefer to preempt it."
"What do you want me to do?" she asked suspiciously.
"Nothing major. Just read a short statement I wrote — into the camera."
As Duke typed out a speech, he simultaneously began assembling a strange, ominous-looking device from his inventory.
The Reality Annihilation Bomb.
A weapon built using Pym Particle theory — the principle that matter could be shrunk to subatomic scale. But the weapon's design had one fatal side effect: once the shrinking process began, it would continue indefinitely, collapsing until it crossed into another reality altogether.
And everything caught within that collapse would simply... cease to exist.
It was the same fate that had befallen Darren Cross — the Yellowjacket — when his suit malfunctioned and caused his body to shrink uncontrollably.
By harnessing this principle, Duke had created the ultimate weapon of dimensional reduction.
"So, what are you scheming this time?"
Sivir grumbled but stepped in front of the camera nonetheless. With the situation as dire as it was, there was no time for bickering. She read from the script Duke had prepared.
"I, Sivir, descendant of Azir the Hawk Emperor, last bearer of the Solar Bloodline, hereby authorize Duke Sanchez to act as he sees fit in order to protect Shurima and safeguard Runeterra."
"Perfect," Duke said with a grin, saving the recording. "This'll come in handy next time Azir tries to give me trouble."
"Is that it?"
"Almost. Now watch closely."
With a few final clicks, Duke completed the assembly and linked the bomb's targeting array to the drone network.
"Edith, gain altitude."
"Understood, boss."
The floating platform ascended rapidly as Duke armed the Reality Annihilation Bomb.
The weapon detached from the platform, its surface shimmering with motes of light. Thousands of microscopic projectiles detached from its core and rained down like glittering ash.
In an instant, the desert below was blanketed in a storm of glowing capsules.
Each capsule — semi-transparent, reinforced glass — contained a swirling mass of unstable Pym Particles.
Once they hit the ground, they stabilized, locked onto the signal network, and activated.
"All bombs deployed," Edith reported.
"Excellent."
Duke lifted a universal detonator, linking it to the bombs. Turning to Sivir, Kai'Sa, and Taliyah, he smiled. "Now, ladies — behold the miracle of science."
"Just get it over with, scientist," Sivir huffed.
Duke grinned, pressing the trigger.
Click.
At once, every capsule flared red.
BOOM–BOOM–BOOM!
The explosions came in waves, like popcorn bursting in sequence. From afar, the air shimmered, the earth twisting as though reality itself were bending.
A silent light bloomed across the canyon — then everything warped.
The core bomb plunged straight into the ravine, vanishing into the swarm below.
And then—
Everything disappeared.
Gone without a trace.
The Xer'Sai. The stone. The sand. The corpses. Everything.
In the blink of an eye, all that remained was a massive crater — a void gouged deep into the earth.
If Shurima had been a flatbread, this was the hole torn straight through its center.
"Everything..."
Taliyah collapsed to the ground, her voice shaking. "It's all... gone."
Sivir and Kai'Sa were equally pale, their eyes wide with shock as they stared at Duke — half in awe, half in fear.
"That's right."
Duke uncorked a bottle, took a swig, and exhaled with a grin.
"Everything's gone."
End of chapter....
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