This was the precise opposite of what Morgana had expected. She dissolved into a swirl of mystic violet just as a black crescent of negation tore through the space she had occupied.
She reformed several paces away, hovering lightly above the churned earth. Her gaze drifted to the devastation behind her, an entire swath of ground reduced to fractured shards. Even the debris was troublesome, cascading outward in a storm of jagged stone that she had to slip past with irritating care.
In response, she summoned a full ring of chains, three dozen in number, unfurling them in a perfect circle around the mage. They shot forward with enough speed to rival a silverwing in its prime, each link a streak of midnight iron.
Asta moved as though time itself whispered warnings to him. Without so much as turning his head, he swept his blade in clean, decisive arcs, cutting down more than half of the chains as though they were reeds before a scythe.
The remaining chains he tracked with deliberate, measured care. A slight tilt of his shoulders, a subtle shift of weight, a half-step, each motion perfectly timed to let the chains whistle harmlessly past him.
Of course, Morgana had not survived centuries by relying on brute force alone.
She was a master of illusions, no, she corrected herself with a quiet flicker of pride, the master of illusions. Few in all of Runeterra could rival her command of what was seen, unseen, or merely believed.
She had hidden another dozen chains from the sight of mortals and gods alike, their existence veiled and their speed deliberately slowed. They crept toward him with patient inevitability. And beyond those, woven deep into the earth like roots of judgment, lay two more dozens waiting to strike.
It did not surprise her that he avoided even the invisible ones. His instincts were unnervingly sharp, almost unnatural in their precision.
But that was the beauty of her design.
Distract him with the unseen. Blind him with the overwhelm of the seen. The moment his attention split, his footwork faltered by a fraction.
The ground erupted beneath him as her buried chains shot upward, twisting and weaving in a deadly spiral. One wrapped around his ankle before he severed it, another grazed his wrist, a third forced him into a backward leap that broke his defensive rhythm.
And Morgana allowed herself a small, regal smile of satisfaction as her trap sprung at last.
A rare thing indeed, to catch him even for a heartbeat.
Asta found himself ensnared, celestial chains clasping around every limb. His wrists were bound, his ankles locked, and one luminous shackle even coiled around his throat like a noose wrought from starlit judgment.
The sight tugged at a distant memory within Morgana's mind, unbidden, unwelcome, yet undeniable. She was not quite sure why it surfaced now. Perhaps it was the way he strained against the bindings, or the way the chains sang with resistance. It reminded her of that day, long ago, when she had bound another creature of ruin.
She had done something very similar to Aatrox.
But Asta was not Aatrox. His power, dreadful as it was, had not yet reached the world-ending magnitude of the Darkin. And so, she felt no fear when she pulled downward, commanding her chains to drag him into the earth as she had once dragged the corrupted titan.
It was, however… unexpectedly difficult.
It felt as though she were trying to topple a mountain. Her chains strained, drew taut, and yet Asta scarcely moved. Muscle resisted her pull, his entire being braced as though refusal itself were a kind of armor.
Cracks crept across her chains.
Morgana blinked once, a quiet, almost weary thought brushing against her mind.
'Oh dear. He truly is beginning to remind me too much of Aatrox.'
He was physically overpowering her celestial bindings. This was not fair.
With a sweeping gesture, Morgana unleashed another wave. Dozens of chains erupted from the ground like serpents of moonlit iron, wrapping around him, layering binding upon binding. This time, she dragged with the full fluency of her magic, centuries of mastery flowing through her fingertips.
She wondered, briefly, what this spectacle must look like to the young girl Asta had brought with him.
Mira, yes, that was her name.
Asta had deposited her gently atop a sturdy tree limb, one of his strange swords wedged beside her to anchor her in place. Then he had turned back to the ground, readying himself for battle… as though fighting an immortal creature beneath the feet of a frightened child was perfectly ordinary.
Morgana was certain the girl was watching now, witness to shadows, starlight, and unmaking colliding beneath her.
A curious thought drifted across Morgana's mind.
'I wonder what she thinks of all this. What would she take out of this experience. Would she be inspired?'
Her musings were cut short when she felt Asta brace himself. Then, with a low, controlled breath, he pulled.
Her chains snapped.
Not all at once, but link by link, the shattering echo like glass cracking beneath the weight of fate itself. Starlit fragments scattered, dissolving into motes of violet as the bindings fell away from Asta's limbs.
He straightened, rolling his shoulder once, expression steady, almost bored, yet respectful in its own strange way.
"I was wondering," he said, voice calm despite the force he had just exerted, "how long you were going to hold me like that."
Morgana's brows lifted with dignified amusement.
"I confess," she replied, "I expected longer."
A faint snort escaped him, not quite laughter, but something close. His blade twitched in his hand, its surface humming with that dreadful negation that grated against the very fabric of her magic.
No sooner had he stabilized his footing than he vanished.
The only warning she received was a whisper of displaced air.
He appeared above her.
His sword cleaved downward in a black arc, and Morgana lifted her hand.
Her middle wings unfurled fully for the first time, their span blotting out the fractured light as if night itself descended at her command. Feathers of shadow and luminescence swept forward, forming a radiant shield of twilight.
The sword easily sliced through the radiant shield like butter, popping it like a bubble.
The sword continued on, straight into her hand where she caught the strike.
The force reverberated up her arm, sharp and stinging, and she felt the slightest buckle in her posture. As an immortal aspect, she also had the benefit of a near invincible body. She was really thankful for that right now, else she would have crumpled from the force.
Asta rotated midair, landed lightly, and shot toward her again.
He was relentless.
Morgana moved with fluid grace, gliding backward, her wings propelling her. Chains erupted between them, a forest of gleaming binds meant to slow his approach.
He severed them.
Every chain that dared touch his blade dissolved into drifting motes of silver and violet.
'He cuts concepts,' she realized. 'He cuts what I intend.'
A rare thrill brushed her thoughts. 'How about this then?'
Asta closed the distance again, swinging in a clean, ruthless arc.
Morgana's form flickered, her body splitting into a dozen illusory selves, each drifting in elegant, spectral motion. Asta's blade passed through two phantoms before he pivoted sharply, striking the real Morgana with pinpoint intuition.
His blade grazed her ribs.
Only grazed, but enough to tear a thin line of agony across her side, a wound that rippled with silent unmaking.
Morgana winced, more shocked than hurt.
"You have no right," she murmured, "to wield such power with so little sin upon your soul."
He really didn't.
What did that say about every other man who had gotten their hands on lesser powers?
Morgana drifted backward, her wings curling protectively around her like a cloak of twilight. The ache along her ribs pulsed, a reminder not of weakness, but of the sheer absurdity of the youth charging at her with the fury of an avalanche and the conscience of a monk.
In all her centuries, she had watched countless mortals touched by power. A taste, a spark, a mere glimmer of it, and they crumbled. Some fell to greed, others to vanity, others still to fear. Power twisted men into tyrants long before it ever forged them into legends.
Yet here he was.
A boy, really. No older than the youthful mages the MageSeekers dragged screaming into chains. And he wielded a force of erasure, merciless and absolute, without letting even a single drop of corruption seep into his heart.
It was unnatural.
It was impossible.
It was… beautiful.
Asta swung at her again, his movements sharp, disciplined, almost irritatingly earnest. Each strike was lethal, but only if she chose foolishly to stand still.
Morgana felt something strange stir in her chest, something cold, something warm, something hollowed and half-remembered. Once, long ago, she too had seen mortals who held their convictions tighter than their fears.
But they had all broken eventually.
Asta did not look as though he could break. She could just tell, as if the world itself was declaring that such a thing could never happen.
Her chains spiraled outward, hundreds now, forming spirals, lattices, illusions layered upon illusions. They swept toward him like a blooming storm. He cut through them all, negation unraveling not merely the metal but the intent behind the spell.
'Men kill for less,' she thought.
'Kings burn kingdoms for less.'
'My sister nearly destroyed me for far less.'
And yet this boy, this impossible anomaly, wielded annihilation as though it were a simple sword, and bore no darkness for it. Without a swelling ego. With no creeping cruelty. No shadow of corruption staining the soul she had glimpsed.
It defied everything she knew. Everything she had mourned. Everything she had condemned.
What did this say about others?
The question dug deep, like a thorn into an old wound.
What of the sorcerers who had declared themselves gods on the basis of half his strength?
What of the warlords who had raised armies from the soil with powers a fraction as dangerous?
What of the mages who had shattered empires, destroyed peoples, or drowned cities because they lacked his restraint?
What of her sister?
Kayle, who had once possessed justice so pure the heavens wept for her, yet fell to judgment so absolute that she had become a blade without mercy. A soldier of righteousness who lost sight of righteousness itself.
If Kayle had been given Asta's power…
The world would be ash.
Morgana felt her breath tremble, only slightly, like a harp string plucked in a quiet hall.
She had always believed mortals were fragile things, too brittle for power, too flawed to wield it without staining the world around them. She had condemned them for it. Pitied them for it. Forgiven them for it.
But this one…
He shattered her expectations with the same clean ease he shattered her chains.
Asta reappeared in front of her, blade arcing toward her neck. Morgana raised her arm, catching his strike with a flare of celestial fire. The clash rippled out in a burst of violet and gold, the force shaking the branches where Mira clung.
And in that raw collision of power and will, Morgana felt clarity blossom like a wound.
"Do you even understand," she murmured as she pushed him back, "what you are?"
Asta blinked, confused and annoyed in equal measure, stepping lightly across a suspended chunk of stone.
"You've ruined men for me!" Morgana declared, her voice rising in a sharp, indignant cry that echoed through the shattered clearing.
Asta actually blinked, blinked, caught so utterly off guard by the accusation that he failed to evade one of her chains. It snapped around his left leg with a decisive metallic crack.
"What are you even talking about?" he demanded, baffled, just as Morgana yanked.
She wasted no time.
With a graceful flick of her wrist, she hauled him skyward, his body arcing like a stone thrown by some ancient titan, then she slammed him into the earth with all the force of her immortal annoyance.
The ground shuddered.
She did it again.
And again.
And again, each impact sending out small plumes of dust and fractured stone, her expression growing ever so slightly more irritated with every slam.
At last, Asta managed to sever the chain in a single clean swipe of his blade. He landed on his feet, steady despite the abuse, but his expression was… puzzled.
Simply confused.
Morgana almost hated that it suited him.
He rose fully upright, sword loose at his side, that steady perceptive gaze sweeping over her.
"You seem different now," he said.
Of course he would notice. She should have been prepared for that. His instincts were far too sharp.
Morgana fought the urge, the very mortal urge, to cross her arms and huff like an offended noblewoman. Instead, she lifted her chin with restrained dignity.
"I have already confirmed all that I needed," she declared, though the regal tone she aimed for came out a touch brittle around the edges. "So I shall be taking my leave."
She did not elaborate. She did not feel the need to sound ancient or divine. She simply wanted to be away from this boy and the unsettling clarity of his soul.
Asta blinked again. "You're not going back to the city?"
Morgana's veil fluttered behind her like the sigh of a weary dusk.
"No," she said, each word clipped with queenly finality.
Morgana let out a soft, weary chuckle. "No, I will not be doing that," she said, her tone edged with an exasperated grace. "The rebels will continue without their Veiled Lady. It matters little in the grand design, does it not?"
Asta slid his sword back into the grimoire that hovered loyally at his side. Morgana's eyes narrowed slightly with fascination, as the book's pages fluttered of their own accord, flipping rapidly through sigils and script she did not recognize. The runes were foreign, unfamiliar, almost otherworldly. Even with centuries of arcane knowledge behind her, she could not decipher a single word.
Her curiosity lingered only a moment before her expression settled into something more solemn.
"What will you do about the mage rebels?" Morgana asked quietly. "Even if Sylas is stopped, the others will continue. Their suffering did not begin with him, nor will it end with him. They have reason to fight, reason to fear."
Asta exhaled, the breath heavy with a mixture of responsibility and frustration.
"I know," he murmured. "I'm not blind to what's happening here." His gaze drifted toward the distant city walls, where smoke and shouts still lingered like ghosts. "I've been trying to… hold back, I guess. Reduce the damage I cause, because I'm new here and I didn't want to overstep."
He shook his head, jaw tightening with the weight of an unspoken truth finally voiced.
"But honestly? I've just been making excuses." His eyes rose to hers, steady, clear, unflinching. "Mages need to feel safe and protected too. They're all Demacians at the end of the day. People, just like everyone else."
There was sincerity in his tone, the kind that could not be feigned. A conviction shaped not by ego or ambition, but compassion, a trait so rarely seen in men who held far lesser power than he did.
For a heartbeat, Morgana simply watched him, the wind stirring her dark hair like a whisper of night. She could not deny the quiet respect curling in her chest.
At last, she inclined her head, regal even in her fatigue. "Spoken like one who carries more grace than he knows."
With that she vanished, leaving Asta standing alone under the trees.
Asta stood in silence for a moment longer before looking up. "So, what do you think? Still wanna join the Black Bulls?"
Mira nodded her head enthusiastically, her mouth still gaping. "You guys were amazing!"
Asta chuckled. "C'mon let's get back. Tell me what you observed during our fight on the way."
"Uhm, how am I supposed to answer that?"it's asked nervously.
"That's your assignment kid." Asta shrugged.
---
"Eldred! Your guards are gone. Your followers have fled. You have nowhere left to hide!" Sylas snarled as he advanced into the chamber of the Head of the Mageseekers, Eldred Crownguard.
Eldred regarded him with a thin, condescending smile. "You may think cutting me down will end this conflict," he said calmly. "I once believed the same of you. We were both mistaken."
Sylas stepped past the grand oak desk, chains scraping against the stone as they coiled and tightened. With a flick of his wrist, the links ignited with a golden hue, humming with stolen power.
"Remove a single piece," Eldred continued, "and the machine still turns."
"You're bluffing," Sylas hissed, drawing his chains back like a predator preparing the strike. "I can smell your fear." His grin widened. "It's delicious."
"I've waited for this moment for years," Sylas growled. "You took everything from me long ago, and now even Killan is gone, thanks to Hesbeth."
"This is all… personal revenge?" Eldred asked, genuine surprise flickering across his features. "What a shame. I thought you were waging a proper rebellion."
He exhaled slowly. "My death will accomplish nothing. You may as well kill the next..."
"Do not worry," Sylas cut in coldly. "Your death still means something… to me."
He raised his chain high, the executioner of his own long-delayed justice, and brought it down with brutal finality.
---
Sorry guys. I've been in bad shape the past week and only recently got better. No clue when the next chapter is dropping though so no promises there.
Remember to comment. Might help with the process.