Dark.

I tried to breathe, but I was in a lot of pain.

The lobes of the lungs and throat felt empty, as if they were pinching their breath halfway through the inhalation, leaving the lungs to wait hard. I had my mouth wide open and my throat wide open, but I couldn't take in my breath. The inside of the ribcage was pulled tightly.

None of my limbs nor muscles were at my disposal. I can't breathe. I'm suffocating. Blood pressure increases. The chest and limbs gradually become paralyzed. I wanted to scream, I wanted to tear my face open, I wanted to cry - but I was trapped. I can't move. I can't move.

Dark.

I must remember. I must-

That battle. I'm out of control. It's stupid. Mortals form legions against me. I crashed into the crowd. Drink blood. The temptation was too great. As I harvested, I fused their flesh and blood into one to create an image closer to my true body. I devoured more and more flesh hysterically, hoping only to redeem even the slightest echo of what was left of my former self. But, like a raging fire, I burned too fast, and the host's body melted away.

Dark.

We fought in the rain. Is it the mud and the blood that buried me? Or did I hide myself, for thousands of years? The terrible thought of being trapped in this prison made me panic even more. The battle is coming to an end. I can feel it. I had to stand up. I have to ...... I have to ......

I lost my arms and legs. The darkness haunted me like a cocoon.

No way. I stood upright. But I don't know if it worked. I felt nothing but darkness.

Please let mortals find me. Please. I begged for the darkness all the time, but my shameful pleas were only silence.

But then......

I sensed a mortal nearby. I didn't have eyes, I didn't have ears, but I could sense him approaching. Someone was chasing him. He must want to fight back. He's going to grab me.

Did he see me? If he just ran over like that, I would have been thrown off.

I felt his hand grip on ...... His consciousness opened up to me!

I dug into his body and dragged him deep. I was like a shipwrecked sailor who was thrown into the water, struggling to swim to the surface with the help of someone else's body.

"What's going on?!" The mortal screamed. But he was swallowed up by the darkness that sounded the same boundless darkness I had just fled.

I had eyes.

I saw heavy rain falling. Sludge everywhere. Bloodstains in the slaughterhouse. Two knights stood in front of me with spears in their arms. I cut them open, devoured their bodies, and reshaped them into the form I wanted.

They are too weak. I have to hurry. I'm going to find a stronger body, a better host. I am surrounded only by dead and dying people. I can hear their souls withdrawing from the world.

The battle is not over yet. The battlefield was transferred to the city walls. I forced my new body, staggering towards the shouts of murder and crawling to the ground. Find a better host.

I growled. But there was no momentum of victory. There has never been a momentum of victory.

I'm going to drink in that city, but the end result is a deformed imitation of the glory of the past. I am shaped by the pure beauty of starlight and astral spirits. I was a concrete light and reason. Guarded the world in the most majestic wars. Now, the stolen body is rotting, dripping pus, blood, and filth. Muscles and bones were bumping and tearing at each other, protesting against my freakish appearance.

I took a deep breath.

"No, Aatrox." I say. My voice was damp and hoarse, echoing among the dead around me.

"We're going to keep going...... Advance...... Advance....... ”

Until the final annihilation comes.

The Darkspawn has been mentioned in many legends, with some describing him as a god and others as a demon. But few people know his real name, and how he fell.

In ancient times, long before the sands swallowed up the empire, a great hero of Shurima was brought to the Sun's Disc as the embodiment of interstellar faith that no one remembers today. When he was reinvented as the Ascendant, his wings glowed like the golden light of dawn, and his armor shone like a constellation behind a curtain of deep space.

Aatrox is his real name. He charged forward in every noble battle. He was sincere and well-led, and the other Celestial warriors were always gathered under his command, followed by 10,000 of Shurima's mortal soldiers. When the Ascended Warrior Setaka sought his help because of Acacia's rebellion, Aatrox did not hesitate to comply.

However, no one could have predicted that the local rebels would later unleash such a terrifying force. The Void turned against each other in an instant, devouring Acacia, and then began to destroy all living beings in its path.

After years of hard fighting, Aatrox and his compatriots finally stopped the Void's frenzied expansion and sealed the largest rift. But the surviving Ascendants, who call themselves the Sun Bloodline, have been forever changed by their enemies. Although Shurima was victorious, they all lost something...... The noble Aatrox was no exception.

Time passed, and Shurima also fell. As in the fate of all empires.

Without the kingship to defend to the death, and the threat of the Void no longer imminent, Aatrox and the Sun Bloodline began to fight each other, eventually turning into a war that destroyed their world. The mortals who escaped were given them a new name, a scorn: the Darkspawn.

Just like the invasion of the Void, fearing that the fallen Ascenders would also endanger the survival of the Runeterras, the Titans intervened. It is said that the Twilight Star Spirit taught mortals the means to imprison the Dark Descendants, and the newly reborn War Star Spirit united an army against them. Aatrox and his army had been feared and ready to attack. But by the time he realized he had been tricked, it was too late. A gravitational pull greater than a thousand dead stars dragged him into his hand with the greatsword that had traveled with him countless times, locking his immortal spirit away forever.

The weapon was a prison that sealed his consciousness in impenetrable eternal darkness, and even deprived him of the ability to dismantle himself. He tugged at the hellish shackles for hundreds of years, until some stupid nameless grabbed the greatsword again. Aatrox seized the opportunity to forcibly inject his will into the host's body, and reshaped the host's body in imitation of his original image, while also taking the host's life. In the years that followed, Aatrox overran many hosts, both men and women, who were both vigorous and resolute. Although his magic is not profound, he can take the body of a mortal in an instant. And in battle, he found that the dead could be used by him, and he made himself stronger and stronger.

Aatrox roamed the land, searching for a way to return him to his ascension form, but the mystery of the sword could never be solved, and he realized that he would never be free. The flesh that had been snatched and brutally reshaped looked more and more like a mockery of his former glory—and it was just another cage slightly larger than the greatsword. Despair and shame grew in his heart. The divine power he once represented, and all his memories, were erased.

The unjust fate made him angry. And the solution he finally thought of was the bitter despair of a prisoner. If he can't destroy the sword, and he can't free himself, then he'll embrace annihilation.

Now, with this ruthless determination, Aatrox spreads war and death along the way. He was left with a blind expectation that if he could drag all creation into a final apocalyptic battle that would destroy everything — then perhaps he and the sword would cease to exist forever.