Under Zach’s pull, giant stone spikes several meters across shot upward toward Nautilus.
Although Nautilus’s body was rising rapidly, those stone spikes were rising even faster.
Just as Nautilus’s large hand was about to grab Zach’s legs, the stone spikes that had risen from all over the seabed arrived in front of Nautilus.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
A series of muffled impacts rang out.
The gray-white film of light over Nautilus’s body was instantly pierced through, and the stone spikes pinned him firmly in the middle of the seawater.
Zach glanced back at Nautilus below, then quickly floated upward, swimming toward a piece of wreckage from his little boat.
Once he surfaced, Zach held nothing back.
Hugging a large piece of the broken hull, he paddled forward with all his strength.
Before leaving, Zach did not forget to search himself from head to toe.
After feeling around for a while, he found half a piece of leftover jerky in his clothes and threw it into the sea.
“I don’t have any gold coins, so have some jerky instead.”
The moment Zach recognized Nautilus, he had already understood why he had been dragged to the bottom of the sea.
Now that he had finally escaped back to the surface, he naturally had to make up the tithe he owed.
However, Zach definitely did not have any golden kraken coins, so he could only use that half piece of jerky as a substitute.
Zach still knew a fair bit about Nautilus’s past.
Nautilus had once been the most outstanding salvage diver in Bilgewater, always able to dredge up countless treasures from the deep waters around the city.
Until one day, an outsider captain hired Nautilus to head to a certain stretch of sea and salvage treasure for him.
To make the operation go smoothly, the captain even prepared an extremely heavy and sturdy diving suit for him.
But just as Nautilus put on the diving suit and his companions slowly lowered him beneath the surface with chains, he discovered in horror that this outsider captain had not paid the tithe to the sea before setting sail!
And so, just as Nautilus was lowered into the deep sea, green tentacles wrapped around his body, seemingly trying to drag him down into the abyss below.
Nautilus struggled violently and gripped the chain in his hand with everything he had, because that was his only connection to the surface.
But just when Nautilus was only a little away from breaking free of those tentacles, the chain in his hand snapped.
To avoid being dragged in with him, his companions had cut off his only hope of survival.
Wearing that heavy armor, he could only be pulled little by little into the depths by those tentacles, watching as the shadow of the ship slowly disappeared from his sight.
From then on, Bilgewater’s docks lost an ace salvage diver named Nautilus, and the deep waters of Bilgewater gained a terrifying legend named Nautilus.
The shadow Nautilus had become would use the enormous anchor in his hand to punish everyone who went out to sea without paying the tithe.
This saying had practically become common knowledge in the heart of every Bilgewater native.
At this moment, Zach had truly experienced that terrifying legend firsthand.
As for why the tithe had to be paid, Zach had an understanding that was different from most people’s.
Bilgewater could be called the place in all of Runeterra where faith was most concentrated, because there was only one god here.
Every Bilgewater native offered their most sincere faith to the terrifying demigod who existed within the deep waters of Bilgewater.
The god who represented life, growth, and eternal motion, Nagakabouros!
Nagakabouros strictly controlled all faith throughout Bilgewater.
That was exactly why she was so powerful, powerful enough to rank among the strongest demigods in all of Runeterra.
And the tithe was one of the methods Nagakabouros used to control Bilgewater’s faith.
Throwing golden kraken coins into the sea was not truly paying tax to the ocean.
It was offering faith to Nagakabouros!
Nautilus was one of Nagakabouros’s most devout and dutiful believers, responsible for supervising whether passing ships had paid the tithe.
Of course, this was only an inference Zach had made based on his understanding of Nautilus’s backstory from his previous life.
Whether that was actually the truth or not, he had no way of knowing.
After finally shaking off Nautilus’s pursuit, Zach could at last continue forward in peace.
What Zach did not know was that not long after he left that stretch of sea, green-blue tentacles slowly rose from the seabed.
They clung to the stone spikes he had summoned and moved closer to Nautilus little by little.
Then those green tentacles exerted a little force, and the stone spikes instantly shattered completely.
The light in Nautilus’s eyes also lit up once again at this moment.
After breaking free of the stone spikes, Nautilus gently brushed his large hand over those tentacles, then raised his head and glanced toward the surface of the sea.
After that, he turned back into a shadow and sank into the abyss below.
On the surface, after being tangled up by Nautilus, the sky, which had already been near dusk, grew even darker.
On the sea, where faint ripples of reflected light shimmered across the surface, Zach lay on the wooden plank and paddled forward with his arms.
As he moved, Zach kept watching his surroundings for any Bilgewater fishing ships that had gone out to sea.
After all, Zach’s Ascended power was not complete, so he still could not walk through the air like Aatrox and the other Ascended.
If he released Ascended power for a long time to walk across the sea, it would consume too much energy.
So if he wanted to cross this vast ocean, he still needed to take a ship.
But from the afternoon until now, Zach had not seen a single ship on the sea.
He had not seen even one seabird or sea monster either.
All of these abnormal signs made Zach’s heart tense.
He carefully observed everything around him, trying to find some clue from the smallest traces.
But Zach helplessly discovered that aside from the endless sea, there truly was nothing around him.
It was as if all living things had vanished at this moment.
After searching bitterly and finding nothing, Zach had no choice but to keep riding that wooden plank and paddle forward.
Time passed little by little.
Before he realized it, night had completely fallen.
“Woooooo!”
Whether it was an illusion or something else, a series of wails suddenly rang out around Zach.
Zach quickly turned his head and looked around.
Ascended power had given Zach powerful eyesight, so he could clearly see everything around him.
But when Zach looked directly behind him, his entire face fell.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.
Do I really have to be this unlucky?”
At this moment, Zach finally understood why there was not a single living creature in this stretch of sea.
In front of that thing, any living creature would probably be corroded in an instant into an undead that only knew slaughter.
Without any further hesitation, Ascended power erupted from Zach’s body.
He picked up the wooden plank beneath him, stepped onto the surface of the sea, and ran forward like a madman.
Not long after Zach’s figure vanished from where he had been, a gray-green fog slowly covered the place he had just occupied.
This fog came from the southeast of Bilgewater, spreading northward along the way.
The wails Zach had heard just now had come from within this Black Mist.
Meanwhile, inside Bilgewater Harbor, the sound of gongs and drums rang out.
“The Harrowing is here!
Hide now unless you want to die!”
Felix, a transmigrator from Earth, wakes up in Zaun before and during the events of Arcane.
He becomes connected to Silco’s side, gains a Skin Master System, and uses League skin-based weapons, tech, armor, and abilities to change the fate of Zaun.
Instead of letting Arcane’s tragedies play out exactly the same way, Felix tries to protect the people around him, especially Powder/Jinx, and push Zaun toward open rebellion against Piltover.
The story starts with the Piltover-Zaun conflict, then expands into the wider Runeterra setting: Noxus’s invasion of Ionia, Demacia’s internal conflict, the Freljord, Shurima, the Void, and eventually the Ruination/Shadow Isles plotline.