"An earthquake? First time I've seen one down here." Kai'Sa slipped out of concealment, took off her helmet, and stared toward the source of the tremor.
Her voidskin had sharpened all her senses, so she felt the vibration even more clearly than Zihark did.
"I don't think it was an earthquake," Zihark said. "If the shaking was really that strong, it shouldn't have ended in an instant. It felt more like... something fell."
"Like what happened to us?" Kai'Sa blurted out. Then she quickly calmed down, several possibilities flashing through her mind at once.
"Could someone have fallen down?"
"The Void creatures must have felt it too."
"We should go take a look."
As she spoke, her violet eyes stayed fixed on Zihark, every tiny shift in her expression carrying a quiet, careful probe.
Whenever something unexpected happened, the decision was his. Without his permission, Kai'Sa was not allowed to go exploring on her own.
If something really had collapsed, then just as she said, had humans appeared?
That was exactly what Zihark feared. If humans had fallen down here, they would not survive even a day, but a few words from them before they died might be enough to shatter Kai'Sa's innocence for good.
He had wanted her to understand the cruelty and coldness of human society little by little, but this sudden accident had thrown all of that into chaos. Was he really going to destroy that innocence now, by force?
But the look in Kai'Sa's eyes stung him.
Forget it. If this was fate, then so be it.
"Let's go have a look."
Zihark took the hand she held out to him and was immediately pulled toward the source of the tremor by her impatient excitement.
...
"Baa—"
When they reached the center of the disturbance, Zihark heard a familiar cry before they even stepped into the cave.
"It's goats!" Kai'Sa said in delight, quickening her pace at once.
Goats were animals from the surface. Just as Zihark had expected, something from above had indeed fallen down.
They entered the cave and found that a huge section of the ceiling had collapsed. Beneath the rubble lay dozens of goats, most of them already dead from the fall.
Kai'Sa eagerly moved to jump down the slope and get closer to them, but Zihark stopped her, gripping her arm tight.
"Not yet. Look over there."
He pointed beyond the rubble, toward a sunken stretch of land. Purple abyssal darkness churned there, Void energy rising and falling in endless tides, sometimes twisting into ugly, misshapen forms.
Kai'Sa froze. It was nowhere near as large as the one they had seen before, not even a tenth the size, but the sheer weight of death pouring from it left no room for doubt.
It was the same kind of abyss they had encountered a year ago.
Getting close to it was far too dangerous. Kai'Sa immediately forced herself to stop.
"How can this be such a coincidence? The place they fell just happened to be right next to an abyss?"
The scene before her left her baffled. When they had fallen down back then, there had been no abyss anywhere near the ruins.
Maybe it was not a coincidence at all...
"Kai'Sa, when the village prepared goats, were they taken somewhere specific to be offered as sacrifices?" Zihark wanted to understand the connection. He already knew who stood behind all these tragedies, but that did not mean there was no value in following the logic through.
Maybe he could figure out the cultists' sacrificial patterns, or what they were trying to accomplish.
That would mean learning a little more about the enemy they both hated.
"I don't know. But whenever goats were prepared that night, they were always gone from the pen by the next morning. Those strangers must have taken them."
Staring at the goats buried in the rubble, Kai'Sa began remembering village customs she had never understood before.
A string of moon pearls hanging above the hearth. Dancing beneath the new moon. Praying to Nasus for a thriving household and a flourishing family. Leaving a few goats outside the door to satisfy the beasts' hunger.
The more she thought about it, the more horrifying it became. Now that she looked back on those customs with new eyes, they revealed something far more terrible.
Were those goats meant to feed wild beasts in exchange for peace?
No. They were ringing the dinner bell for the Void creatures.
Those cultists had never intended to buy peace through sacrifice. They had been luring Void creatures to the surface all along.
The realization hit Kai'Sa like a bolt from the blue, leaving her heart pounding.
"We have to get back up there and tell everyone the truth. They can't keep listening to those cultists. Everything they're doing is hurting themselves as much as everyone else!"
She lifted her head toward the collapsed ceiling, as if she could somehow return to the surface through it.
But Zihark immediately doused her with cold water and forced her to calm down.
"Try using your brain before you act. How exactly are you going to tell them? If it were you, who would you believe—a person who looks like a monster, or monsters wearing human faces?"
"Have you forgotten how we got thrown down here in the first place? We were cast underground because we failed to prepare the goats for the sacrifice and didn't carry out the cult's orders. If anyone on the surface openly resists them, they'll end up exactly like we did."
"And look carefully. The way above is blocked. The ground split open, then closed again. We can't get through."
His three blunt denials crushed her completely. The fire in Kai'Sa died at once, and now even she felt the version of herself from a moment ago had been painfully naive.
"Then what are we supposed to do?" she muttered, lips puffed in grievance. She squeezed her brain dry, but no other idea came to her.
"What's the point of thinking about that now? Look at the height of this cave ceiling. It has to be hundreds, maybe thousands, of meters below the surface. That means the Void creatures still have a long way to go before they can reach the top. The goats being thrown down from above aren't enough to draw them all the way up yet. As long as the people obey, they're still safe for now."
Since they had found no living humans in the rubble, Zihark quietly let out a breath. At least Kai'Sa had not come into contact with anyone from the surface. Still, he did not dare relax completely. Sooner or later, that was something she would have to face.
"Then what about these goats...?" The surviving animals were still struggling and bleating in the rubble, and their cries tugged at Kai'Sa's heart.
"We eat them, obviously." Zihark licked his lips. He had been craving goat meat for a very, very long time.
A whole year.
Did anyone know how he had lived through this past year?
He was still growing, and at his age the craving for meat came naturally. The moment he saw these goats waiting to be butchered, his stomach, silent for far too long, started pounding against his heart like a war drum. Wave after wave, as if heralding the final battle.
"Huh? But goats are so cute. How can you eat them?" Kai'Sa stared at him in disbelief. This lonely, miserable underground world had finally welcomed a few gentle living creatures, and the first thing Zihark thought of was eating them.
Zihark shot her a flat look. "Don't tell me you've never eaten goat before. You used to eat it all the time during festivals. I still remember you showing off a roasted leg of lamb right in front of us, covered in spices your father brought back from outside. The kids next door and I were so hungry we almost cried. The drool was practically running out of our mouths."
[End of chapter]