In the dim tunnel, baleful light traced the outline of an inhuman profile, while a low, unreal voice described horrors no one should have to understand.
"High concentrations of energy can knock a living creature unconscious in an instant, then let the Void remake and control its body."
"There are strange 'lakes' in the underground, but there are no fish in them. Those lakes are gateways to another dimension. Stand beside one for a while, and you'll see slick, glistening newborn monsters crawl ashore and rush straight at you."
"A touch from a Void creature can dissolve organic matter, then rebuild it into whatever form they need. If that's too abstract, think of it this way: they melt people down like chocolate and mold them back into monsters."
"Those are the only three ways they reproduce that we know of for now. If I remember anything else, I'll add it later."
In such a terrifying atmosphere, you might have thought Zihark was telling ghost stories. He was actually teaching.
Kai'Sa hadn't been very cooperative at first, but once Zihark suggested playing pretend, she slipped into the game. They were not playing mother and father, though. They were playing teacher and student.
"Mr. Zihark..." Kai'Sa hesitated. She had heard that interrupting the lesson without permission would get her spanked.
"Kai'Sa, what's your question?" Zihark asked as he worked through the tangles in her hair. Purple had already begun creeping into the roots.
"What's chocolate?"
"Chocolate is a kind of candy. You should be able to buy it in Piltover."
"Candy? Then it must taste really good. Father once brought me some from outside, but the desert heat melted it all into syrup... It was still sweet, though. Sweetest thing I'd ever eaten."
The memory warmed her for a moment, but once it was gone, she could only hug herself tighter against the cold.
"I'd rather you ask something useful. The more you understand the Void, the sooner you can leave the underground. And when that day comes, I'll take you into the city for candy. You can eat as much as you want."
Kai'Sa had been very young when she fell down here. There was still so much of the world she had never seen, and Zihark was just as curious about this magical place as she was.
One day, they would leave the underground, see the sun again, and truly look at the world for themselves.
Children were easy to coax. A simple promise was enough to light a fire under her.
"I want to know how the living armor bonds with us."
"Good question."
"When the shell touches skin, the contact point first dissolves into soft, pale fibers. Then the two fuse and rebuild themselves into flesh that links them together."
"That process needs energy to work. The first time I tried it, I didn't have a voidspawn heart, so the armor ate into me instead. Consider that a failed demonstration."
"So that's what the heart is for." Kai'Sa became even more convinced that voidspawn hearts were a wonderful thing. Tomorrow, she absolutely had to find a way to get a whole pile of them.
"...Go on. Tell me how the dark carapace forms."
"But I'm sleepy."
"Then sleep."
The unchanging darkness blurred all sense of time. Zihark had no idea how long his lesson had gone on before drowsiness finally swept over them.
He chose to keep watch on his own. Young Kai'Sa clearly had no sense for that kind of danger yet. He did not explain what he was doing. He just kept stroking her hair, coaxing her to sleep faster.
To help her rest through the first night after their symbiosis, he used his left eye to harshly warn the restless armguard until it finally settled down and let her drift off without pain.
The underground offered more than endless darkness. It offered endless cold.
That was a trial everyone had to endure. Nothing grew down here, and there was no firewood to be found.
A fire might drive off beasts elsewhere, but underground it would do the opposite. There were no beasts to scare away, only starving monsters it would lure in.
If you did not learn to blend into the dark and instead chose to expose yourself to the light, you were a fool.
A long sigh drifted through the darkness.
Symbiosis came with a price. The second skin on Zihark's hand began to tighten, sending prickling pain through him as wave after wave of bottomless hunger rolled over him.
It was hungry.
Hungry enough to devour even Kai'Sa.
It wanted to use that terrible hunger to seize control of Zihark's body and make him turn on her.
Not happening.
Zihark immediately forced down the killing urge crawling across his skin. He trembled as he drew in deep breaths, fists clenched so hard even the air around him seemed to warp.
He did not know if he was the only one who felt it so strongly. Maybe it was because his brain had already changed, but his senses had sharpened to the point that he could feel the living armor's cravings with disturbing clarity.
It was almost like sharing its hunger firsthand, as though he were starving enough to swallow a full-grown drake-lizard whole.
Kai'Sa, on the other hand, could only judge its hunger by the way her skin tightened and loosened, and by how much pain it inflicted on her.
That difference between them might have been the reason he could control it. He perceived the Void from the perspective of a Void creature, not a human being.
In the end, the hunger became too much to endure. Zihark had to forcibly use his left eye to make his left hand settle down.
...
Without a target, the voidspawn did absolutely nothing. They looked as though they could remain in one place forever, holding their ground even if ages passed around them.
But that stillness was not discipline. Those things possessed only the crudest instincts. The scent of living creatures was the only thing that could rouse them.
They were scattered throughout the cave, their torsos balanced on four inverted, blade-like legs, trembling with an unnatural twitch as though afflicted with some grotesque madness.
Because of that trembling, the light leaking from their three eyes swayed across the cave walls like dandelion fluff stirred by a breeze.
But anyone with even a little common sense knew there could be no wind underground. Every breath of air in this place whispered the same truth: it was a land full of terror and hostility.
Kai'Sa crouched at the cave entrance. The living armor dulled the scent of life on her body. And since there was no wind underground, they did not need to waste effort looking for a downwind position.
Zihark had found this cluster of voidspawn with his heightened senses, but before the hunt began, he made Kai'Sa study them carefully first, using the real thing to review the lesson from the night before and burn it deeper into her memory.
What a dedicated teacher.
On the voidspawn, Kai'Sa saw the Void's threefold nature. She saw their faintly pulsing hearts. She saw that their very existence was something this world could not tolerate.
She learned them so she could eliminate those threats more efficiently, and so the tragedy that had happened to her would never happen to anyone else.
Zihark stood in the shadow cast by the rock wall and closed his eyes to sense the swarm.
He raised a hand and rubbed his thumb against his forefinger, as though crushing a crystal of salt between them.
One grain broke away from the whole. On the edge of the swarm, a voidspawn separated from the others and began to move closer under his mental control.
Kai'Sa took two steps back into the darkness, raised her spear high, and prepared to bring down righteous judgment.
[End of chapter]