Following Illaoi, Logan and Lissandra each used their own powers to walk across the sea.

Wind swirled beneath Logan’s feet as he skimmed over the surface of the water, each step sending out rings of ripples. But in the very next instant, those shifting ripples froze into a thin sheet of ice. Bilgewater’s waters were green, so the ice itself took on a dark jade color.

Illaoi followed silently behind them, striding along after the white-haired woman in front. At first, as she stepped onto the ice, she had genuinely been worried that one careless step would send her crashing through, punching a hole straight into the surface and dropping her into the sea.

She knew her own weight very well. Even without counting her heavy clothes and the idol strapped to her back, she still weighed a little over two hundred forty pounds. A sheet of ice this thin honestly should not have been able to support her at all.

And yet, strangely enough, it did. Illaoi had even tested it by deliberately putting more weight into her steps, but the ice still refused to crack.

"That ability of yours is really convenient."

"Mine, or Lissandra’s?" Logan called from the front.

He really had no choice but to lead the way. Lissandra was the one freezing the sea beneath them, so if he followed behind her, then he would just be walking on ice. Obviously, that was nowhere near as effortless as moving the way he was now.

"Both," Illaoi said after thinking it over. "I can understand the wind power. I’m guessing you got that from Zaun’s wind god. But what I’m curious about is your spiritual and soul power. What exactly is going on with that?"

For all that Illaoi looked massive and imposing, standing next to Jax like an older sister beside her younger brother, the path she followed was actually divine in nature. Nagakabouros’s power touched the domains of spirit and mind, and as its most trusted and capable servant, Illaoi naturally walked a similar path.

Which was exactly why she found Logan’s changes so fascinating.

Two or three years ago, Logan’s soul had already been far stronger than that of any ordinary person, but it had been nowhere near as terrifyingly powerful as it was now.

At this point, Illaoi could not even begin to grasp his limits. All she could sense was that Logan’s soul far surpassed her own, vast and bottomless like an abyss. The distance between them had become unimaginably great over the last few years.

"Then you guessed wrong." Logan smiled and turned around, clasping his hands behind his back. He moved lightly over the sea, every bound carrying him more than thirty feet at a time.

"This power of mine comes from Ionia. In Ionia, there’s a sword school known for its legendary wind technique, and I just so happen to have mastered it."

"A human martial art?" Illaoi frowned and said doubtfully, "Human martial arts can’t possibly reach that level, can they? From where I’m standing, that looks more like magic."

"No, that’s only because you’ve never seen a true grandmaster of martial arts." Logan answered, suddenly thinking of Jax still holding the line in Zaun, and of Master Yi, who had already returned to Ionia. With a smile, he continued, "I know someone who reached godhood through martial skill alone, someone walking a true Martial Path. If Runeterra ever gains a new law of power in the future, then he’ll be the one who carved it out."

"Other than lacking actual godhood, he’s no different from the gods you know."

Illaoi clearly did not believe him.

Logan did not bother explaining further. A person like Jax was the kind you had to see in action with your own eyes. Otherwise, no one would ever believe it.

Because in the eyes of most humans, the greatest difference between humans and ancient gods was not really raw power, but size.

That was right. Ancient gods usually possessed mountain-sized bodies. Just from the pressure and impact of their appearance alone, humans could never compare.

"How much farther?" Logan asked.

"Almost there," Illaoi replied.

The afternoon waters of the Guardian’s Sea stretched wide around them. To the west lay Ixtal, the only true wild jungle left in Runeterra. If Logan had to compare it to something, it felt like the Amazon rainforest to him. Ixtal was the largest rainforest on Runeterra.

To the east, meanwhile, everything was swallowed by darkness. Looking up, he could see huge masses of black cloud overhead, squirming as if alive. Even from so far away, Logan could hear the wailing coming from them. The sound was awful, eerie, and deeply unsettling.

Apparently that miserable howling annoyed Lissandra. The witch coldly raised a hand toward the distant Shadow Isles, and the slowly advancing black clouds instantly retreated. The ones too slow to flee turned into icy mist.

With Lissandra’s power, she could freeze even space itself solid. Black Mist and dark clouds meant nothing to her.

"We’re here."

Illaoi took a few more steps forward, looked at a small island in the distance, and spoke.

She hesitated, then added, "I won’t be going any farther. Nilah is on that island. It used to be protected by a barrier and occupied by an ancient god, but Nilah forced her way in, killed it, and destroyed the barrier. That’s the only reason the island has now appeared out here in the open sea."

"Nilah won’t attack you," Logan told Illaoi.

Illaoi nodded, smiled, and said, "No, she won’t attack me. The problem is that she’s been hunting the god behind me the whole time. The Serpent Mother is wary of her, so I’d rather not go looking for trouble."

"Knowing when to read the situation and stay out of the mess is a virtue too."

Once she said that, Illaoi did not wait for Logan to answer. She simply sat down cross-legged, placed her idol in front of her, and closed her eyes.

"I’ll meditate here and wait for your good news."

Since Illaoi clearly had no intention of coming along, Logan did not push the matter. He nodded and said, "All right. If it takes too long, you can head back to Bilgewater first."

"I’ll owe you one for this."

A faint smile curved Illaoi’s lips as she meditated, then she calmly said, "I do need that favor from you, because it could help me a great deal. But just like I said before we set out, this is a win-win situation. I help you find Nilah, and you take Nilah away. Logan, neither of us owes the other anything."

"The Buhru have no interest in joining the Federation, and the Twin Cities don’t need Buhru strength anyway. They’re traditional and conservative. They don’t even want much contact with Bilgewater, though I’m an exception."

"But even I have no desire to take the risk of joining you. What I can promise you is this, the Buhru will remain in the Blue Flame Isles. We have no ambitions toward the outside world."

Logan gave Illaoi a few extra looks. He had to admit it, after spending only half a day with her, his impression of her had improved quite a bit.

Now he could understand why Illaoi was so popular in Bilgewater.

A woman this powerful and untamed, yet still gentle in her own wild way, intelligent and thoughtful, truly did have an incredible kind of charm.

"Then I wish you victory."

As soon as they drew near the island Illaoi had pointed out, Logan frowned.

Beside him, Lissandra opened her eyes as well, and a trace of surprise passed through her pale pupils.

"How unusual..." she said, opening her mouth to speak in a rare moment of candor. Standing beside Logan, Lissandra reached out and caught a cluster of falling snowflakes in her hand. This frozen weather was not something she had created. It was the island’s natural environment.

"The world we live on is mysterious in ways most people could never imagine. Otherwise, it would never have drawn the gaze of the Celestials in the first place," Lissandra murmured.

Now that Illaoi was no longer here and only Logan remained, a little life returned to her voice. It was not nearly as cold as before.

Like now, when she spoke in a low voice full of puzzlement, as if asking Logan, or perhaps simply speaking to herself. "How many more little worlds like this could there be hidden in this world?"

"The power of this ancient god was no weaker than Fenrir’s, and even so, it was still killed?" Lissandra’s expression turned complicated.

She had lived for nearly ten thousand years, and with her Dreamwalking ability, there were certain ways in which her power was even more terrifying than Raum’s.

Raum’s ability was formidable, but it had its limits, because it could only pry into the secrets of those on the verge of death across Runeterra. Lissandra, on the other hand, could move freely between two realms. And yet even she had no idea when someone as important as Nilah had appeared in Runeterra.

The difference was that Swain’s secret-seeing power was passive. Raum actively devoured the memories of the dead before death fully took them, whereas Lissandra had to work like a diligent little bee, slipping into people’s dreams everywhere and gathering secrets one by one.

Thinking of it that way, the fact that the witch knew so much really did make her seem like an absurdly dedicated worker.

When Logan first rose to prominence, Lissandra had noticed him almost immediately. But when it came to Nilah, she truly had no impression of her at all.

"Feeling reflective?" Logan noticed what Lissandra was thinking and raised a hand, intending to pat her on the shoulder. But the moment his hand lifted, Lissandra stopped him with one calm look.

Awkwardly withdrawing it, Logan said, "It’s not strange that you don’t understand Nilah. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with your power. It just means Nilah’s situation is very unusual, unbelievably unusual."

Lissandra looked at Logan, waiting for him to explain.

So Logan did.

"Nilah is human, but also not human. No ordinary human suddenly vanishes for an extremely long time, only to have her voice, face, and true name erased from the world of the living. She only appeared out of nowhere in the last two years, so of course you wouldn’t know anything about her." Logan lifted two fingers and made a small gesture beside his cheek.

"If everything about her vanished from the world of the living, then how do you know all this?" Lissandra asked.

She had wanted to know the answer to that question for a long time now. Just how did Logan manage to feel so all-knowing?

It was as if he could see the future.

Wasn’t that why, thanks to him, Lissandra had not spent nearly as much time lately wandering through dreams, peering into memories, and gathering information?

Though... when she thought about it, maybe that was actually a good thing.

As for Lissandra’s question, Logan simply shrugged as if it were nothing.

Seeing that, Lissandra did not press him further. Instead, she turned to look toward a certain point on the island. Her pale lips parted, and she said softly, "The person you came for has noticed us. She’s already on her way."

"She’s very fast."

"Come on, let’s go meet her," Logan said.

Lissandra nodded and raised a hand. With a small motion of her pale fingers, the space in front of them shattered. The broken, glass-like fragments formed into an icy door, and she stepped through it first.

Logan followed right behind her, and in the next instant, both of them vanished from the shoreline of the island.

"Hm?"

A voice full of delight and confusion rang out, and the owner of that voice looked up.

Then she revealed a somewhat slender face. Her skin was a dusky wheat tone, and she was strikingly beautiful, with hair that fell all the way to her waist in a long, braided ponytail.

The hair at her forehead was loose and wind-tossed. On one exposed ear, two bright blue jewels danced against her skin, and from the glowing jewel on the left hung a thin silver chain that shimmered as it linked to the ring at her nose.

Her sharp eyes, keen as an eagle’s, swept around with the turn of her small face. The corners of her lips curled upward in a strange smile. In her hand she held an ancient silver object, something that looked half like a sword hilt and half like a ritual instrument, from which spilled a brilliant ribbon of water that formed into a long, slender sword of flowing liquid.

"How strange. Did I sense it wrong?" the woman murmured, lowering her head.

Her name was Nilah, someone who had disappeared and then returned, someone who had forgotten everything and was now walking the path of a human hero, or perhaps... not quite human at all.

With a puzzled look on her face, that bright smile still curled on her lips as she muttered softly to herself.

But before Nilah could sort out the answer, she abruptly raised her head and looked straight ahead.

Her slender fingers tightened around the hilt. In one motion she lashed outward, and the radiant flow of water became a streaking sword-light that crashed down like a waterfall, beautiful and deadly all at once.

"So I didn’t sense wrong after all~!"

"Haha, come out!"

Nilah cried out in delight, eyes widening as she stared ahead.

Then she saw the sword-light that could have sliced sea beasts apart with ease freeze solid in midair, transformed into a block of ice radiating cold.

The sight was gorgeous.

But Nilah had no interest in admiring the beauty of it. The enemy’s strength awakened a hunger deep in her soul, a hungry kind of joy.

"Wait, Nilah!"

The voice that called out was human, and that made Nilah instinctively hold back. It was not as though she had never killed humans before, but those had all been accidents, or situations where people had brought it on themselves.

Put simply, she would not actively attack humans, because humans could never fill the hungry emptiness in her stomach.

That starving joy instantly ebbed by more than half. Nilah still wore a smile, but her tone and gaze settled into something calmer. She felt troubled. She even felt angry.

But Nilah could only feel joy.

Because of that, she had no idea how to express frustration or anger. So all she could do was stare calmly ahead, wearing that same strange smile, at the human who had suddenly appeared before her, a black-haired man, lean and unremarkable, with delicate features.

"So it’s just a human. Then I really was mistaken." Nilah said it with a cheery smile, but her voice was full of disappointment.

Logan stepped out from the ice door Lissandra had created and looked at Nilah, a trace of delight in his eyes.

Nilah really was strong, so strong that the Logan of today was absolutely not her match.

That casual whip strike she had thrown out just now was something he would have needed to transform for and combine with Aatrox’s power just to block.

But that was no surprise.

After all, whether Nilah was truly human or something closer to a demon was a question no one really knew the answer to.

Yes, Nilah wielded demonic power, like Swain, she was an inheritor of a demon’s might.

The difference was that Swain had subdued Raum, while Nilah had been granted her power directly by a demon. And compared to that one, Raum was basically nothing.

Because the power Nilah carried belonged to the primordial demon Ashlesh.

Lord of the Seventh Layer, one of the Ten, a progenitor demon on par with Fiddlesticks.

After all, ordinary demons like Tahm Kench and Evelynn already possessed power on the level of demigods. Who would question whether Tahm Kench had demigod-level strength?

No one.

But Ashlesh was a higher existence than Tahm Kench or Evelynn, a far more powerful demon.

Which was exactly why Nilah could slaughter dragons and demigods so easily.

"Come out, human. Tell me your true name, and tell me why you know mine," Nilah said.

She recalled her water sword, and the brilliant stream of water flowed back into the instrument in her hand.

Then she swayed forward toward Logan, her steps elegant and distinctive, like a snake drawing back before a strike, ready to attack at any moment.

Looking at Nilah, Logan realized that she was not nearly as exaggerated as Illaoi had made her sound. She was clearly capable of conversation, wasn’t she? How was this supposed to be insanity?

When Logan had first met Jinx, she had not listened to a single word anyone said.

He had honestly assumed they would have to fight first before they could talk things out, but if she was willing to communicate, then obviously they could skip the fight.

Logan was not some battle maniac.

But just as Logan was about to speak, Lissandra stepped out.

In an instant, a streak of water flashed past right in front of him.

"Haha! So it was you, not him!"

"Come on, I don’t care whether you’re a demon or a god, let’s fight first!"

Logan’s mouth twitched. He turned his head and saw that Nilah had already flashed right to his side. One hand reached out and casually shoved him aside, her eyes shining, all her attention fixed entirely on Lissandra.

She was also muttering strange words under her breath, words Logan could not understand at all.

But the last line, that one he understood.

"Joy, unceasing and forever~~~"

"This is what I really wanted!"

Lissandra, who had only just stepped out of the ice door, calmly faced Nilah. She raised both hands, magic surging through the air, and the temperature across the island, already frozen to begin with, dropped even lower in an instant.

Then Nilah’s wild laughter rang out across the entire island.

Massive streams of water surged upward, forming a curtain across the sky and blotting out the heavens. The largest torrent reached nearly halfway up the island’s central hill, and that was not even counting the immense sword-light that Nilah carved out as the water flowed around her.

Those blades were even broader and sharper, sheet after sheet like cascading falls, splitting heaven and earth apart. Down on the ground, not a single snowflake could be seen falling from the sky anymore.

"Damn it..."

All right. Logan took back what he had just been thinking.

Nilah really was a complete lunatic.

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