The forest that was gradually darkening was beautiful, but the girl had no intention of watching it, and stamped her feet along the winding path.

Glowing winged fireflies danced in the twilight, leaving behind them a glow-in-the-dark shadow, but the girl slapped them away from her face, unconcerned about the fleeting grace. She lowered her eyes to the ground and kicked a rock away, allowing it to leap between the tangled roots, oblivious to the setting sun shining through the dense canopy. The petals of the purple sable slowly opened, spitting shimmering pollen into the warm twilight, but she hurriedly passed by and twisted the stem.

Her cheeks burned red with shame and anger. The mother's reproach still lingered in his ears, and the ridicule of his brother and other children lingered.

She stopped, looked back at the broken petals on the path, and frowned. There was something strange about it all, as if she had already experienced it. She shook her head and continued on, deep into the dense forest.

She finally came to the Divine Spirit Willow. Its languid branches seemed to float in the water, rubbing against each other and whispering like wind chimes.

The anger in her body was still blazing, but she closed her eyes, clenched her fists, and inhaled slowly, as the elders had taught her, trying to suppress her rage.

She was hit by something, something hard, and it hit her in the back of the head impartially, and she threw herself forward and fell to her knees. She touched the place where she had been beaten with one hand, and her fingers were stained with blood. Then she heard the laughter, and her fury surged up.

She stood up, facing her brother and the other children, her eyes shooting a blinding darkness, her breathing heavy and rapid, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, all her efforts to calm herself out were instantly overshadowed by a flicker of anger. Anger burned within her, like a vicious disease, invading and expanding, the air around her seemed to glow, and the willow behind her began to fade and wither. The red sap fell like tears, and the willow leaves curled and turned black.

The magic of the land had begun to nourish the spirit willow in the same way that no one remembered, but now it was about to die, the soft willow had become shriveled and crisp like dry bones, and the roots of the soil were curling painfully. The wind chimes on the branches rang the death knell of the dead words, but the girl did not hear the willow, she was lost in the boiling rage.

As the ancient, primordial spirit tree vanished, the girl left the ground and floated in the air. Three darkest orbs engulfing the light began to circle around the girl.

None of her tormentors could laugh now

Karan stood on the battlements of Filor, looking beyond the narrow sea to the interior of the Nascent Lands that man now calls Ionia.

There was no moon tonight, but everything was as clear as day, and his feline pupils were at their maximum. Sometimes, these eyes are illuminated by torches and reflect a blazing divine light, which is the eyes of a night predator.

Karan is Vastaya, and the bloodline dates back to ancient times. His sunset-like hair was braided and hung down on his back, but now his hair was mixed with strands of gray. His proud face was like that of a big cat predator, and his face was covered with scars written all over his face. The hairless left side of his face, and the angry red texture is a testament to the severe burns he suffered as a young warrior. A pair of curved horns sprouted from his temples, each stamped with spiral runes, and three of his tails swept behind him, each covered in a section of plate armor. He wears the black iron armor of Noxus, a garb from his second home country that always makes him sad.

Some call him a traitor, saying that he betrayed both Ionia and the Vastaya lineage, but he didn't care. It doesn't matter what they think.

The fortress of Philol is located on the westernmost island of Ionia. Easy to defend and difficult to attack, it stood here for hundreds of years, withstanding countless enemy attacks, but finally collapsed during a long siege during the Noxian invasion.

At that time, Karan had not yet joined Noxus. At the fork of fate, in the Battle of Presidian, he surrendered to Svein. Later, he demanded the position of ruler of Filol from the empire as a reward.

The Noxians laughed at him behind his back, and he knew it well. He could have been rewarded for a bigger reward, but he chose Filor, a forgotten corner on the edge of the empire.

They don't understand. But he didn't care. He needs to stay here.

Of course, Noxus didn't win that war, but Ionia wasn't the victor either. In short, after a few years of that battle, Filor was still in the hands of the invaders.

Thirty-three warships were docked here, and there were less than half the number of merchant ships. Under his command were more than a thousand Noxian warriors, made up of veterans of warbands from all remote corners of the empire.

A patrol marched past the battlement. They saluted Kahlan and slammed their fists on their breastplate, to which Kahlan nodded in return. He didn't miss the darkness in the sentinels' eyes. They hated him as much as the Ionians, but they had fear and respect for him, and that was enough.

He looked back at the other side of the Narrow Sea, pausing to revisit the past. The question of why he was here would come from the eyes of his subordinates every day, and would creep upon him in the darkest of nights, where the forest and the hunt called to him. However, the answer is simple.

He was here to be able to keep an eye on her.

A pair of men in black emerged from the sea, a man and a woman, as silent as death. They climbed the near-vertical side of the Scarlet Huntress battleship with spider agility and quietly stalked along the gunwale. Their blades flashed with a cold light, and the ship's night watch sentries were silently brought down, one after the other, without any alarm.

In a moment, all five Noxian sentinels were killed, and their blood began to leak onto the deck.

"Dry Lisso, brother," one of them began, leaning over the shadows of the upper deck. On her face, only a pair of eyes and indigo tattoos wrapped around her could be seen.

"This is thanks to my slightly talented teacher," the other replied. He was also dressed in black, crouching in the shadows, except that where his sister's face was tattooed, his skin was thickly scarred.

"A little talent, Augin," she said, raising an eyebrow.

"Can't make you too proud, Ciric," her brother replied.

"No more fuss," Mr. Chirik said. She opened the leather bag that was tied around her waist and slowly took out something that was tightly wrapped in wax and leather. She carefully unwrapped the outer shell, revealing a fist-sized piece of dark crystal.

"It's not wet," Aujin asked quietly.

In response, Cirick shook the crystal slightly. An orange flame flashed through the center of the crystal, like an ember stirred up

"Looks like yes. I'll find him a good place," she said, nodding her head to a nearby door that led to the lower deck. "You signal to the others.".

Aujin nodded. Cilik floated to the lower deck, and her brother crept back to the side of the ship. He leaned his upper body to the outside and made a gesture. Seven more men in black emerged from the dark water, silently crawled onto the deck, and swarmed into the shadows.

They were the unspeakable, the last fighters left. Before Noxus took Filore, they were all sentinels of the fortress. The shame of that defeat still burns in their hearts, and neither does the desire to expel the Noxians from their ancestral lands.