Jax had never liked fighting enemies who did not need to stand still.
Xerath floated above the ruins of Vekaura like a storm. Lightning bent around him. Blue-white power crawled over the broken streets, leapt between shattered pillars, and tore chunks from buildings that had already suffered too much. Each blast turned stone into dust. Each movement left glassy scars across the ground.
And through it all, Xerath was searching.
...
If Xerath only wanted destruction, he could have erased what remained of Vekaura from above. But he drifted from ruin to ruin with purpose, blasting open collapsed houses, splitting old foundations, burning through walls and towers as if looking for something buried under the dead city.
Or someone.
"Again," Yi said.
Jax tightened his grip on his lamppost.
"Yeah. I noticed."
Yi moved first.
A blur of green and silver cut across the ruined avenue, fast enough that even Jax had to track him by instinct rather than sight. Xerath turned a hand. A beam of raw arcane force speared downward. Yi vanished before it landed, reappearing behind a broken arch and launching himself upward in the same breath.
Jax came in low.
He crossed the distance over cracked stone, vaulting a fallen column, then planted his foot against a wall and sprang toward Xerath's flank. His lamppost struck the Ascended with a hollow thunderclap. Blue light rippled. Xerath shifted back only half a step.
It was still more than they had gotten a moment before.
Yi appeared above him and slashed down.
"Persistent," Xerath said, his voice carrying over the ruins.
He opened his arms.
Jax felt the air tighten.
"Move!"
He twisted away as lightning erupted outward in a ring. The blast caught his shoulder and threw him across the street. He hit the ground, rolled, and slammed his lamppost down to stop himself from sliding into a broken pit.
Yi landed nearby, one knee to the stone.
For now, both of them were still standing.
Karma's absence changed everything.
With her here, they had been able to pressure Xerath from three sides. Her shields had blunted the worst of the blasts. Her spirit magic had forced Xerath to defend instead of only attack. Without her, the fight had become uglier. Yi could avoid death, but he could not protect the city while doing it. Jax could take punishment, but even he had limits.
Karma had left shields behind before she followed Rammus toward whatever Void horror the armadillo had sensed in the southeast. Many of Vekaura's survivors still glowed faintly green as they fled through the ruins, dragged children into cellars, or crawled behind thick walls. The shields had saved dozens already.
But they were not permanent.
Jax saw one flicker around a woman carrying a wounded boy. A falling stone struck the barrier and broke apart, but the light dimmed after the impact.
They were running out of time.
Xerath turned toward a collapsed plaza.
Jax followed his gaze.
There were people hiding there.
"Yi!"
"I see them."
Yi became motion.
Xerath lifted a hand.
Jax threw his lamppost.
It spun end over end and smashed into Xerath's wrist just as the spell formed. The blast went wide, cutting through the top of a ruined tower instead of the plaza. Stone rained down. Yi reached the civilians before the first rocks landed, carving through falling debris with precise strikes, then pushing two survivors behind a wall.
Jax yanked his lamppost back by the chain wrapped near its base and caught it as Xerath faced him again.
The Ascended's eyes burned brighter.
"You delay the inevitable."
"People keep saying that," Jax said. "Funny how often they still get delayed."
Xerath answered with a bolt.
Jax raised his weapon. The blast struck the lamppost and drove him backward. His boots carved lines through the stone. Heat crawled up his arms. The metal groaned.
Yi struck from behind.
For one instant, his blade pierced the outer layer of Xerath.
Jax saw the opening.
He stepped in hard and swung.
The lamppost hit the same point.
The armor plates cracked.
Xerath's head snapped toward him.
Jax smiled under his hood.
Then Xerath vanished in a burst of light.
The next blast came from above.
Jax barely crossed his arms in time. The impact folded the street under him. He dropped through broken stone into the floor below, crashed through a table, and landed in a room full of dust and old pottery.
For a second, everything rang.
...
He climbed out through the broken floor, coughing dust. Above, Xerath was already tearing open another section of the city. He was closer to the western ruins now, blasting through collapsed chambers one by one.
Searching.
Always searching.
Jax pushed himself up.
"We can't keep trading hits", Yi said as he landed beside him, breathing harder than before.
"No. But we can keep him from focusing", Jax said.
"That's your plan?"
"It has worked so far."
They looked at the shattered street, the fleeing civilians, the sky full of arcane fire, and Xerath still floating almost untouched above them.
"Has it?"
...
They attacked together.
Yi became the blade in the air. Jax became the weight on the ground. One cut at speed. One struck with force. They did not try to overpower Xerath outright. They forced turns. They broke angles. Jax hurled broken stone into spell paths while Yi severed lines of gathering energy before they finished forming.
For several breaths, it worked.
Xerath had to defend.
Jax landed a strike against his side. Yi cut through a coil of lightning near his shoulder. Xerath's body flickered again.
Then the Ascended stopped playing defense.
Power gathered around him in a sudden, terrible stillness.
Jax felt his skin prickle.
"Down!"
He and Yi moved in opposite directions as a pillar of energy dropped from the sky and swallowed the center of the avenue. The blast did not explode outward at first. It drilled down, deeper and deeper, burning through stone, basement, foundation, everything.
Then it burst.
The shockwave threw Jax into a wall. Yi hit a broken staircase and rolled through it. The plaza split. Several of Karma's distant shields flashed as rubble struck them.
Xerath descended slowly into the smoke.
"I have endured chains, betrayal, and centuries of darkness," he said. "Do you believe two mortals can make me fail now?"
Jax planted his lamppost and stood.
Xerath raised his hand.
Jax knew he would not dodge this one cleanly.
Then a massive shape struck the ground between them.
A staff hit first.
Not a simple staff. A great weapon, heavy, its head carved with the weight of old Shurima. Sand and dust rolled outward as Nasus rose to his full height. The jackal-headed Ascended stood between Jax and Xerath, his eyes calm.
Jax exhaled.
"About time."
Nasus did not look back.
"Protect the survivors."
Xerath stared at him.
Then laughed.
Delight sharpened into cruelty.
"Nasus," Xerath said. "How fitting. Fate has a taste for symmetry."
Nasus lifted his staff.
"Leave this place."
Xerath's laughter grew brighter, louder, until sparks danced across the broken stones.
"You arrive just as he draws near. Of course you do. The desert has waited so long for this reunion."
Jax glanced at Yi.
Yi's expression had tightened.
Nasus went very still.
"Where is he?"
Xerath spread his arms.
"Coming. Following the sound of war. Following hatred. Following me."
His gaze burned into Nasus.
"And following you."
Nasus's calm cracked at the edges.
Only for a moment.
Then he stepped forward.
"So be it."
Xerath fired.
Nasus met the blast with his staff.
The impact shook Vekaura.
Jax did not waste the opening. He moved right, Yi moved left, and together they struck at Xerath as Nasus drove forward through the storm of arcane light. The fight changed immediately.
Xerath's spells crashed against him.
Nasus endured.
Jax and Yi came in when Xerath shifted focus. Nasus punished every opening with blows that made the air tremble.
For the first time that day, Xerath was pushed back.
The ruins of Vekaura shook under them. Survivors fled through alleys lit by green shields. Above the city, arcane fire clashed with old Ascended power.
Jax did not fool himself.
The battle was just beginning.
If Xerath was telling the truth, another disaster was coming across the sands.
But for now, they had Nasus and Xerath was no longer free to search.
And for now, Jax could keep swinging.
——————
Far beyond the ruins, a massive crocodilian silhouette moved through the desert, following the thunder. His blade dragged a line through the sand, and in his ruined mind, revenge had two names, the bastard who filled his mind with madness in the darkness, and the brother who had left him there.