This is the moment.

He sacrificed so much for this moment and spent a lifetime preparing. A decaying empire and its confident young monarch will be doomed by the stupid and undoubting sign of the sun. The key to immortality, the secret that is tightly guarded and stingy with offering, will be his own, and he will steal it from the whole world. It was a moment of perfect revenge, the moment when slave Zelas was set free.

His master wore a helmet and couldn't see any expression, and he knew that the gracefully patterned metal armor would not return the favor with kindness, but even so, Zelas looked at the soulless eagle head with a smile on his face, and his smile was heartfelt. He had spent his life in a low-brow and pleasing manner, first enslaved by a mad emperor, now replaced by another vain emperor, who had devised and intrigued for the throne, and whose quest for knowledge on the edge of oblivion had all but swallowed him up - all the efforts that had finally brought to fruition the bizarre masquerade ball, the ascension ritual.

When this sentence was read aloud, it was a blow: we will ascend, and you will be chained to the rubble, waiting for the sands of time to swallow you all. No, it won't be like that again, there won't be a next time. The chosen golden monarch will not accept the embrace of the sun and will ascend to godhood. A slave will take his place; A slave through and through, an unfortunate slave boy, saves a royal heir from the sand.

Because of this sin, Zelas was punished, and suffered a terrible promise that drove people mad: freedom. Freedom that cannot be touched, freedom that is forbidden. A slave who imagines even a moment of freedom deserves the death penalty, for the Ascended can see through flesh and bones, through human souls, through the twinkling betrayal in his soul. But freedom is there, in the mouth of a young monarch. He had pulled out the prince, Azir, the golden sun, from the gentle embrace of Mother Desert, and he had vowed to grant him freedom, his savior, his new friend.

However, this promise has not been fulfilled to this day. This promise comes from a grateful child, but at the same time an ignorant child who does not understand the impact of such a promise. How could Azir shake thousands of years of rule? How could he stand against tradition, against his father, against the mandate of heaven?

In the end, the young emperor will lose everything because he broke his promise.

In this way, Zelas was promoted and continued his education, eventually gaining Azir's trust and reluctance – but never being free. Unfulfilled promises eat away at his nature and eat away at his future. Zeroth was robbed of something small and simple: the right to control his own life, so he decided to take everything, everything that was rightfully his, what should be his: empire, ascension, and the closest thing to pure freedom.

Zeros approached the imposing and aggressive Ascension Altar and walked respectfully behind the Emperor, receiving the salutes of the soldiers on both sides, the incompetent men who were Shurima's defenders. Zelas felt an inexplicable lightness in his heart, causing himself to panic and be stunned. Is this what joy feels like? Does revenge bring joy? The emotional impact almost made his body shake with it.

At this moment, the finely carved golden armor suddenly stopped. Turning around, he walked towards Zelas.

Did he get it? How could he possibly know? This spoiled obsessive little boy? This righteous and righteous emperor was actually as bloodstained as Zelas's hands. Even if he knew, he wouldn't be able to stop the fatal blow, and everything was already working.

Zelas prepares for many contingencies. He bribed, murdered, mediated, conspired, and all went on for decades, even playing with the monster-looking brothers, Nasus and Renekton, to turn the tiger away, but he never expected this to happen.

Emperor Shurima, the golden sun, the darling of Mother Desert, the soon-to-be-ascended man took off his helmet, revealing his haughty brow and smiling eyes, facing his most familiar and trusted friend. He spoke of brotherly love, of friends, of hard victories and helpless losses, of family, of the future, and finally of freedom.

After saying that, the guards on both sides rushed up and raised their weapons.

So this young gentleman really knows. Did Zelas's plan just abort?

But these fools in armor are saluting. They didn't show any fierce faces, and they were paying homage to him. They are congratulating him.

Congratulations on his freedom.

The master he hated had just liberated him. He freed all the slaves. Shurima people will never again be shackled. Azir's last directive, as a mortal, was to liberate his people.

The crowd let out earth-shattering cheers, drowning out all of Zelas's reactions. Azir put on his helmet and stood on the altar, his retinue preparing him for a divinity he would never receive.

Standing in the shadow of the sun's disk, Zelas knew that a catastrophe was coming that would destroy the entire empire.

It's too late, friend. It's too late, bro. It's all too late for us.

Zelath was an ancient Shurima wizard who ascended into an arcane energy body that surged among the fragments of the Magic Sarcophagus. For thousands of years, he has been imprisoned beneath the desert, but the recent rise of Shurima has freed him from his ancient cage. His insane thirst for power drives him to take back what he thinks is his own, and to replace these pretentious civilizations in the world, making himself the only idol to be worshipped and unifying the world.

The boy who would eventually become Zelath was born thousands of years ago into a slave family in the ancient kingdom of Shurima. His parents were scholars who had been captured by the Empire, and their lives consisted of endless servitude and obedience. His mother taught him letters and numbers, while his father told him historical legends in the hope that this knowledge would lead to a better life. The boy swore that he would never fall victim to hard labor and flogging, like other slaves.

One day, the boy's father scrapped a leg during a construction work to dig the foundation, and the whole project was only to erect a monument to the emperor's favorite horse. His father was left at the scene of the accident and died in vain. Fearing the same fate for him, his mother begged a famous tomb architect to take him as an apprentice. Although the architect was reluctant at first, he soon noticed the boy's excellent attention to detail and understanding of mathematics and language, so he agreed. Since then, the boy has not seen his mother again.

He was a quick learner, and his master would send him to the Nasus Library almost every day to retrieve specific manuscripts and plans. One day, the boy met one of the emperor's least favored princes, Azir. Azir was laboriously reading an ancient text, and although the boy knew that talking to the emperor's relatives was almost asking for death, he stopped and helped the prince understand the complex grammar. At that moment, a bridge of friendship trembled and was built. And over the next few months, the friendship grew stronger.

Although slaves were not allowed to have names, Azir gave the boy a name. He named him Zelas, which means "one who knows how to share", but the name can only exist secretly between two boys. Azir used his royal privileges to make Zelas his domestic slave, and then took him as his personal assistant. The two of them shared the same love of knowledge, so they read a lot of books together in the library and became close friends. Zelas accompanies Azir all day long, his new identity exposes him to culture, power and knowledge he never imagined before, he learns voraciously, and finally dares to dream that Azir will one day give him freedom.