The three turned around and saw that where Yurna had been standing, there was now a woman with two wings, dressed in a flowing violet gown. Her breathtakingly beautiful face remained expressionless, but her eyes were trembling with emotion.
Behind her spread a pair of violet wings burning with magical flames, bound tightly by chains. She looked like an angel who had fallen to the mortal world.
Immense power surged from her body in endless waves. Her wings seemed desperate to spread, and little by little they broke free of their restraints. The chains shattered into fragments and fell to the ground.
Hum!
At last, with a tremendous burst of sound, terrifying power erupted from her. Her wings unfurled completely, unleashing a violent gale as beautiful violet feathers slowly drifted through the air.
Her feet lifted from the ground.
She gave Luke a long, deep look, then beat her wings and rapidly flew away.
Lux stared in shock.
"Was that... a Winged Protector?"
She looked almost identical to every depiction of the Winged Protectors Lux had seen growing up, except for the difference in color.
But when they had uncovered the truth of what happened centuries ago, everyone had learned that there had actually been two Winged Protectors, a pair of sisters.
"Yurna is the Veiled One?"
Lux was still utterly stunned. She stepped forward and picked up one of the feathers from the ground, immediately sensing the distinctive magical power lingering within it.
There could be no doubt now.
At the final moment, Yurna must have been the one who intervened and helped them defeat Fiddlesticks.
Lux turned toward Ryze, who was sitting on the ground catching his breath.
"You already knew?"
She vaguely remembered Ryze shouting something earlier, and it had clearly been directed at Yurna.
"I thought all of you knew."
Ryze took a potion from his pocket and drank it, then answered between heavy breaths, "I recognized her the moment I saw her. I've dealt with the two sisters before, after all. You could search all of Demacia and probably never find another woman whose face resembles hers that closely."
The moment Ryze first saw Yurna, he had already guessed her identity.
He had also noticed that she had sealed away her own power.
But that was her business, and he had no reason to interfere.
Only when the situation became so desperate that even he could no longer handle it had he been forced to call out to her.
Luke crouched down as well and picked up one of the feathers, silently staring at it.
Lux, who still hadn't recovered from the shock, looked at him.
"Why aren't you reacting at all?"
"I don't really know how I'm supposed to react."
Luke raised his head and looked in the direction Yurna had disappeared.
Aside from some surprise, he hadn't actually found the revelation particularly unexpected.
After spending so much time with Yurna, there was no way he hadn't questioned her identity before.
Back when they had fought the Mageseekers and that box containing ancient history had opened on its own, Luke had already begun to suspect something.
Then there was the fact that Yurna had always been willing to stay beside him regardless of how dangerous things became. That alone had always seemed strange.
And the family member she claimed to be having problems with had never appeared even once.
She had arrived suddenly, and now she had left just as suddenly.
Luke had long since prepared himself for the possibility that Yurna could be almost anyone.
Naturally, that included one of Demacia's legendary Winged Protectors, the Veiled One, Morgana.
Even so, actually seeing the truth unfold before his eyes still sent enormous waves crashing through his heart, leaving him unable to calm down for a long time.
What Luke cared about more right now was why Yurna, no, Morgana, had left without saying a single word.
And why had she approached him in the first place?
"Wait a second. You actually knew the Winged Protectors? Just how old are you?"
Lux was practically dumbfounded.
The little blonde's emotions had been on a roller coaster ever since the battle ended.
She stared at Ryze, increasingly convinced that this mage's background was anything but ordinary.
The Winged Protectors were practically gods from the legends of Demacian history.
And this bald purple potato-head had actually known them personally?
"I don't know. I was probably already traveling across Runeterra before your kingdom was even founded."
Ryze no longer saw much reason to hide it from the charming young woman. He smiled and gave her a straightforward answer.
"That long?!" Lux's eyes widened. "No wonder you know so much incredible magic."
"What you've seen isn't even close to everything I know. It would take several days and nights just to memorize all the spells contained in this book. If you want to learn, I can teach you a couple before I leave."
Ryze smiled kindly.
He had taken quite a liking to Lux.
A straightforward and good-hearted young woman with talent as extraordinary as hers would someday travel much farther than people could currently imagine.
He could consider this an early investment.
After all, as a wandering mage who had spent countless years traveling across Runeterra, Ryze had always made a point of making friends wherever he went.
And he hadn't lied about knowing Demacia's Winged Protectors.
When he first met those two sisters, they hadn't even acquired that title yet.
As for why Morgana would willingly remain beside this prince as a maid, Ryze was extremely curious.
But clearly, that was no longer his problem.
Lux's eyes immediately lit up.
"Yes! Absolutely!"
By then, the three had returned to the streets of the town.
The sky outside remained dark, but every trace left behind by the scarecrow had disappeared.
The surroundings were utterly quiet, as though nothing had ever happened.
"Fiddlesticks really is sealed now, right?"
As they walked, Lux couldn't help asking uneasily.
The power of that embodiment of fear had been terrifying.
Even with everything they had done, they had nearly failed.
If not for Yurna...
Lux couldn't help thinking about her again.
Not even in her wildest dreams would she have imagined that one of the Winged Protectors was someone she had grown accustomed to seeing every day.
"For now, yes," Ryze said. "There are four separate seals on it. They should be fairly secure."
Lux immediately asked, "Could it still break through them?"
"No one knows. We don't even know whether its power will continue growing while it's sealed. We've done everything within our power. The rest is up to fate."
Ryze sighed softly, exhaustion filling his eyes.
He had seen far too many occasions where people gave everything they had, only to discover in the end that they were still powerless to prevent tragedy.
That was simply the lot of mortals.
All they could do was act on what remained within their reach while there was still time.
"That's true. Besides, maybe by the time it breaks free, I'll already be much stronger. If that happens, I definitely won't let it run wild again."
Lux clenched her small fist, determination filling her face as her fighting spirit surged.
Ryze couldn't help smiling, almost envious of the young woman's optimism.
"That's a good way to look at it."
"Are you still thinking about Yurna?"
Lux noticed that Luke was much quieter than usual and said, "Maybe she went back to the capital ahead of us."
"Maybe."
Luke decided to stop thinking about it for the moment, though he didn't place much hope in Lux's suggestion.
"Ah!"
Lux suddenly cried out and stopped dead in her tracks.
Luke and Ryze both turned toward her in confusion.
"If Yurna really is a Winged Protector, doesn't that mean she heard me calling her some Z-list minor goddess?"
Lux, somewhat slow on the uptake, had only just remembered that particular detail.
She immediately felt terrible.
Never in a million years had she expected the actual person to be standing right there while she'd said all those things about her.
Luke chuckled and patted her shoulder.
"You'd better start praying she isn't the type to hold a grudge."
Lux fell silent.
A faint sense of dread suddenly crept over her.
Ryze reassured her, "Don't worry. She's not that petty. The worst I've ever seen her do was tear someone who offended her into eight pieces."
Lux fell silent again.
Her entire mood collapsed. Her small body even trembled slightly, and she felt as though something inside her had cracked.
By then, the three had returned to the plaza.
The light formation Lux had set up was still intact, although there were clear signs that it had been attacked. Fortunately, everyone inside remained safe and unharmed.
The mayor approached and explained what had happened.
Not long after Luke and the others left, monsters had attacked the formation. The townspeople had been forced to remain huddled inside it for protection.
Luke informed them that the demon had been sealed.
A collective sigh of relief immediately swept through the crowd, and the townspeople looked at the three with reverence.
It was already extremely late, but neither Luke nor Lux had any desire to remain there overnight.
Both were eager to return home.
So while it was still dark, they left the town alongside Ryze, who happened to be traveling in the same direction.
During the journey, they learned that Ryze had come to Demacia this time to inspect the condition of an underground vault.
Luke immediately thought of the vault where he had found the Snowglance Blade and told Ryze about it.
When Ryze learned that the Darkin weapon had been secured inside a petricite prison, and especially that Luke understood how dangerous the Darkin were, he felt considerably more at ease.
Only then did Luke realize that the seal inside that underground vault had originally been placed there by Ryze.
He had to admit that the purple potato-head had sacrificed an incredible amount for Runeterra over the years.
There weren't many people Luke genuinely respected, but Ryze was unquestionably one of them.
Thinking about the three runes within his own body, Luke decided there was no need to tell Ryze about them yet.
He could wait until the time was right.
"Since there's nothing wrong with that vault, I'll continue my journey the day after tomorrow," Ryze said.
He could have left immediately and headed straight toward his next destination.
However, he had just promised the blonde girl that he would teach her a couple of spells.
Naturally, he couldn't simply disappear after making that promise, so he postponed his departure by one day.
His mission was to gather the World Runes.
And there were far more than just a handful of World Runes.
Many of them existed as fragments scattered across the world. During the Rune Wars, numerous complete runes had been shattered, their pieces spreading to every corner of Runeterra.
Some remained hidden.
Others had been discovered and claimed.
In any case, even after all this time, Ryze still had not gathered every rune.
He also knew that accomplishing such a task would inevitably require an extraordinarily long time.
He wasn't in a hurry anymore.
After all, several centuries had already passed.
Considering how many runes he had already secured, he was no longer particularly worried about another war powerful enough to destroy Runeterra breaking out.
Over the years, as he traveled throughout Runeterra, more of his time had instead been spent stopping all sorts of dangers and disasters that happened to cross his path.
Ryze had finally accepted that he was apparently destined to spend his life cleaning up everyone else's catastrophes.
He had no intention of resisting that fate anymore.
It was the reason he remained alive.
Luke thought for a moment before asking, "Mage, you know about the Shadow Isles, right?"
"The Shadow Isles?"
Of course Ryze knew them.
In fact, he was intimately familiar with that place.
The name alone filled him with both nostalgia and sorrow.
The Shadow Isles had once been known as the Blessed Isles, the homeland of both Ryze and his master, Tyrus.
It was there that Ryze had learned arcane magic, and it was during that period that his mission to collect the World Runes had begun.
Many years had passed since then.
Because of a man-made catastrophe, the Blessed Isles had become the Shadow Isles.
Nothing there remained as it once had been.
Luke then told Ryze what he knew about the situation on the Shadow Isles.
After listening, Ryze pondered for a moment.
"The last time I went to inspect the Shadow Isles was about sixty years ago. I didn't expect the Black Mist's influence to have spread so far since then."
He knew the Black Mist well.
It was essentially the source of every disaster that had befallen the Blessed Isles.
After becoming stronger, Ryze had returned to the Shadow Isles several times, but he had never managed to find a way to eliminate the Black Mist.
Eventually, he had established several magical formations across the islands to prevent the Black Mist from spreading into the rest of Runeterra, after which he would occasionally return whenever circumstances allowed.
There was never any fixed schedule.
Sometimes he returned after only a few years, sometimes after several decades, though he had never allowed a full century to pass.
He simply hadn't expected those formations to have already failed.
One moment of inattention, and the threat posed by the Black Mist had already spread this far.
"You're saying the Sentinel of Light believes something much larger will happen on the Shadow Isles this year?"
Ryze looked toward Luke.
Luke nodded slightly.
"The Black Mist's behavior these past few years has been abnormal enough to raise serious concerns. He believes it'll erupt completely this year."
"I see."
Ryze fell into thought.
The Sentinels of Light were old acquaintances of his as well.
Both he and the order carried legacies originating from the Blessed Isles, and the Sentinels were one of the main reasons Ryze had never devoted too much attention to the Shadow Isles himself.
After they escaped the Shadow Isles long ago, the primary responsibility for fighting the Black Mist had fallen to the Sentinels of Light.
But now the Sentinels had declined while the Black Mist had surged in strength.
Had things truly deteriorated to the point that even they could barely resist it anymore?
"In that case, when the Shadow Isles reveal themselves, I'll go there as well."
Ryze didn't spend long considering the matter before making his decision.
No matter what, dealing with the Shadow Isles was also one of his responsibilities.
In fact, it was something he absolutely had to do.
Back then, Ryze and his master had happened to be away from the Blessed Isles, traveling through other parts of Runeterra in search of knowledge.
That coincidence had allowed them to escape the catastrophe.
By the time they returned, the Blessed Isles had already been swallowed by the Black Mist.
Anyone consumed by the Mist was transformed from a living person into a wraith, trapped in a state somewhere between life and death.
Even after entering the islands several times in later years, Ryze had never managed to uncover exactly what had happened there.
Nor had any of the Sentinels of Light who escaped the islands known the complete truth.
All they knew was that the Black Mist could easily steal a person's life.
Now that the Shadow Isles were behaving so abnormally, Ryze had to return once again.
This time, he wanted to save what he had failed to save back then.
"That's great."
Luke couldn't help smiling.
With Ryze joining them, their chances of overcoming the coming crisis on the Shadow Isles had increased once again.
There wasn't much time left.
Before then, Luke needed to make as many preparations as possible.
By the time the three returned to the capital, it was already close to dawn.
Seeing how drastically the city had changed, even Ryze couldn't help marveling at Luke's accomplishments.
He had to admit that in what felt like the blink of an eye, Demacia had undergone astonishing changes.
But when they finally returned to Luke's estate, Morgana was nowhere to be seen.
They couldn't even find the slightest trace that she had ever returned.
At that point, even Lux realized the truth.
Perhaps Yurna... wasn't coming back.
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