Legends of Runeterra

A group of cultists emerged from the prophet's tent complex. Meir followed them into a low valley at the edge of the desert. He wasn't sure if this was the right place. Tonight's sermon would take place on a massive stone platform, and on the other side of that stone was... he couldn't quite put it into words, except to call it a cave, leading deep beneath the Shurima sands, to a stirring, living... nothingness.

All day long, the cultists threw animals into the cave. And people. Sometimes they even jumped in themselves.

And according to what Mayer had heard, the hole would respond by growing larger, allowing more cultists to throw more animals and more people into it, causing it to continue growing. This horrific cycle would continue forever, until the hole became so massive it could hold something even larger. For example, a city.

"For example, Nashirameh," he muttered. Even if the entire Nashirameh, including the port and surrounding areas, were to be flipped over, they would only be able to scrape the edge.

He had glimpsed the hole earlier. It seemed too large to be real, and yet...

No one knew it was here, Mayer thought to himself. He wasn't stupid enough to say that.

He couldn't risk angering these people. However, his definition of "human" was quite loose. Some of these people had eyes that glowed a deep lavender, their faces even covered in winding lavender lines, and they kept muttering about Icathia... and something else, the void.

He couldn't go home. He wasn't even sure his home still existed. He couldn't escape anywhere else, so he kept heading south. To the south, the land was gray, and creatures named after monsters from ancient stories crawled among the gravel and sand.

Meir could only keep running. If he stopped, Noxus would find him and kill him for striking an official.

"Are you here to see the prophet?" one man asked. The crowd drifted into an open area, a bit like a theater stage. Beneath the man's ragged cloak, his skin rippled strangely. Mayel even saw a few of his teeth moving on their own.

"Yes," Mayer answered. He knew that these cultists would not let him pass through unless he participated in one of their missionary works.

The man laughed. "Then you're new here! Your first time in this nameless city, just like so many others. Some seek the Prophet. Some seek nothing. It's all the same." He pointed to his face, which glowed faintly in the night. "Don't worry, my friend. Soon, very soon, you'll understand. The Prophet will show you."

The stars at night were dim and sleepy, somehow seeming closer than ever, coldly watching the simple lanterns in people's hands from the night sky. Beyond the lights was the desert. Beyond the desert was the cave.

And beyond the cave? Freedom. Mayer could almost smell it.

Shurima was being swallowed up from three directions. To the north, Noxus spread like a cancer along the coastline, conquering everything from sprawling city-states to small farms of a few dozen people. In the ancient capital, the long-dead Emperor Azir, now rumored to be alive again, prepared for the inevitable war. And to the southeast...

This is where this group of people is encroaching on the southeast.

There had to be a way out on the other side of the cave. On that lifeless gray coastline, at the southernmost promontory of the Icathia Peninsula, there had to be a smuggler's port, or a dock where Bilgewater's fishing boats could land midway? Meir could catch a boat, start over in the Serpent Isles, and then—

"Don't think about it." The cracked man said threateningly. Mayer looked up and saw a dozen broken eyes, all shining, staring back at him. "You think too much. Be quiet."

The man pointed to a huge rock not far away. It had now become a pulpit, with a thin figure sitting on it.

"Malzahar has arrived."

The prophet was wrapped in a cloak and scarf, scrawled with ancient Icathian symbols. His feet were bare, and his hands were clenched in a rigor mortis, as if trying to ward off some monstrous monster. His face was obscured by a purple turban, and his head...

Meir felt as if a drill had been bored into his head—he hadn't even seen the Prophet's face for half a second when he saw something inside his forehead... moving? Something was wrong. What was this? Malzahar's entire skull was just a thin... web... something horrible inside. A light within a light. Pulsating. Swelling. Spreading. Hungry to feed.

"My children," Malzahar spoke, but his voice was not a voice at all. It was an extension of Mayel's mind, a smooth, clear, and illogical extension of the light that was not light.

Meir had to get out of here, but he couldn't run. The cultists were packed tightly together, and before he could get around the huge hole, they would grab him and throw him down.

"Tonight is the night of confession."

It was too late. Malzahar had already seen Meir. Meir didn't know how, but amidst the hundreds of men, the Prophet's gaze pierced through him, pinning him to the spot. Meir couldn't even muster a groan.

"Ah, newcomer," Malzahar said. "Then I shall awaken you."

Mayil's mind raced through images. A massive figure towered behind the prophet, filling the night sky. Buildings... or rather, structures like them, upside down, claws bared, sunken beneath a vast, alien ocean. Thousands of ravenous creatures swam in swarms, their immense size blocking out even the glare of the sun, stirring up currents in the unnatural waters.

And... a name...

A name, bouncing up and down between the grooves and convolutions of his brain, hanging on the edge of his perception, but he could never grasp it.

"Followers," Malzahar continued, "I have always warned you that the end is inevitable. The Void will descend, cleansing this world and all its suffering. And with it, each of you."

Mayel's mind was tearing apart. Countless thoughts flashed and vanished, and he couldn't even register what he was experiencing. Wings. Spiders as large as wolves. A figure drifted beneath Shurima, fighting against them. He watched as an unimaginable wave of countless monsters engulfed Noxus, the Immortal Bastion cracked open, then capsized in a sea of ​​monsters. The ice shattered, and everything surged and churned.