On a windless night, Zach moved like a shadow, leaping swiftly between the buildings.
Soon, he was very close to the west side of the village.
It was also then that Zach slowly stopped.
Not far ahead of him stood a very run-down little house.
Because night had fallen, faint candlelight glowed inside the house.
For some reason, that candlelight was very dim, as though it might go out at any moment.
Zach knew that this was likely the storage room the village chief had mentioned, the one where the “girl cursed by the Void” was staying.
Although this little house was on the west side of the village, it was very far from the houses where the villagers lived.
Not only that, but on the side where the villagers faced that little house, they had actually erected a spiked fence!
A fence inside the village could not have been built to guard against Void creatures.
Then there was only one thing it could be guarding against.
That little house.
Seeing this, Zach could not help frowning slightly.
He crossed the fence ahead and walked toward the little house.
Meanwhile, inside the broken-down house.
A figure wrapped entirely in dark-purple carapace was sitting hunched over beside the bed.
The shell around her head slowly parted to both sides, revealing the face hidden beneath it.
She was a young woman with purple hair, and on her back was a pair of external skeletal structures that continuously emitted purple light.
The young woman’s features were extremely delicate, and beneath the carapace wrapped around her, her figure was tall and slender.
At that moment, her forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat, and her usually resolute eyes now carried a deep look of pain.
Under the glow of the candlelight, the carapace around her waist slowly opened, revealing a hideous wound.
If not for the protection of the carapace, that wound would have nearly cut her in half.
Not only that, around the wound, purple light filled with an evil aura was constantly corroding her flesh and blood, making it impossible for her to heal on her own.
The young woman looked at the wound on her waist, her purple eyes filled with helplessness.
She did not know what she could do to repair the injuries she had suffered.
Even more than that, she did not know who in this world would be willing to help her.
Should she go ask the villagers outside for help?
She would probably have arrows and spears pointed at her the moment she stepped out of the house.
But without someone else’s help, how was she supposed to heal this nearly fatal wound?
Perhaps from the moment she walked out of the Void wearing this carapace, she had been destined to meet this end. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Alone, dying in her fight against the Void.
She had gone out tonight to search for a way to heal herself, but she had found nothing.
On the contrary, she had run into a massive swarm of Void insects again, which had only made her already heavily injured body deteriorate even further.
The intense pain from her waist and the weakness caused by blood loss made the carapace on the surface of her body begin to slowly contract.
What came with it was a needle-like stinging across her skin.
It did not want to perish here either.
In a daze, the young woman’s thoughts drifted back to the years before she had become like this.
Back then, she had been just like anyone else her age, a little girl with a happy family.
But not long after that, Malzahar, the Prophet of the Void, summoned the Void beneath the earth and completely swallowed her entire village.
Back then, she had only been ten years old.
In endless darkness, all she could do was listen in despair as the voices of the villagers around her faded away one by one.
It was also from that moment on that she was left alone, setting out on a path of survival through that vast darkness.
She did not know how long she had struggled through the darkness before a faint purple glow finally appeared ahead of her.
For a survivor who had been walking through the dark for who knew how long, that purple glow was nothing less than hope.
She ran toward that purple light with all her strength.
But when she reached it, she discovered in terror that it was no light of hope at all.
It was clearly a Void nest piled together from countless Void insects!
That purple light was the light of annihilation, the light that signaled the end of all things.
Because of the young woman’s arrival, countless Void insects rushed toward her, trying to devour her completely.
And in that moment of life and death, she raised the dagger her father had given her.
After a violent tumble, she drove the dagger into the heart of that Void insect, then dragged it with her as they rolled deeper into the Void.
After that, she lost consciousness completely and had no idea what happened next.
When she woke again, the strange carapace of the Void insect had already fully attached itself to the surface of her body, becoming her second skin.
In this land of the Void, where danger was everywhere, that strange carapace gave her the ability to survive.
From that moment on, she lived every second locked in battle against Void creatures, while also searching for the way home.
At last, after an unknown number of years, she once again set foot on the land of Icathia and stood beneath the sunlight.
However, while the Void carapace on her body had given her the power to kill the Void, it had also stripped her of the right to interact normally with other humans.
She had become a monster that everyone wanted to drive away.
People had even painted her image on walls to warn passing travelers to be wary of this monster.
And when she faced all of it, her eyes were always so calm.
Just like now.
Although the people of this village treated her like a monster and guarded against her, when a little girl from the village was about to be devoured by a Void creature, she still chose to step in and save her.
Even if it meant having her body pierced by the bone spike of a top-tier Void creature, Cho’Gath.
She had always remembered that she had not returned for herself.
She had returned for those who could not come back.
From beginning to end, she had never betrayed that belief.
Only now, her fight against the Void might be nearing its end.
The hideous wound at her waist could not heal on its own, and she could not find anyone willing to help her.
All she could do was quietly feel it, feel the Void’s aura in the wound wear away her life bit by bit.
Gradually, the young woman lay back on the not particularly large wooden bed, and her purple eyes shimmered with faint tears.
“Finally… can I rest now?”
“Knock, knock, knock!”
Suddenly, the knocking at the door made the young woman sit up sharply from the bed.
She could clearly sense that someone was standing right in front of her door.
In the past, this would have been impossible.
After all, who would come looking for a Void monster?
And yet now, it had happened, and at such a special moment!
At that, there was almost only one thought in the young woman’s mind.
Are they trying to kill me while I’m badly wounded?
A sorrowful, bitter smile rose on her lips, and she stood up before walking toward the door.
Perhaps it was time to leave this village.
At the very least, she should die in battle against Void creatures.
Creak.
The door was slowly pulled open, and Zach, standing at the entrance, met the young woman’s eyes.
But the words Zach spoke next made the young woman freeze completely.
“Need a hand?
My family’s been patching people up for generations.”
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.