Similar to the walls and gates, the sight of the inner city of Vikora is only a shadow of the former glory. Azir's mother was born here, and the young emperor generously bestowed grace on the people of the land. The gardens are filled with flowers brought from all over the empire, surrounded by a splash of colors and wonderful aromas. Clusters of towers are adorned with silver and jade, and cool water flows from the Great Temple, running day and night along the elevated canals. It is all naïve to believe that the well-being here will never end.

The past thousand years have eroded the city to the point of being stone-built skeletons, and much of its former glory has been reduced to rubble. The ruins have been erected over the past few hundred years by people who are still nostalgic for their homeland, who stubbornly believe that the future of their homeland lies in the revival of the past. Nasus followed the growing crowd, and all he saw was a bad imitation of a forgotten history.

The building designed by the skilled craftsmen is a deceptive imitation of the glory of Shurima's body. Once famous for its square-cut granite, the walls are now made of wood and rudely split stones. The original outline of the city remains, but Nasus feels as if he is walking in a nightmare, new materials and strange forms reinventing the once familiar surroundings, and everything is deliberately distorted as if it were designed to make people restless.

He heard someone muttering something around him, and occasionally his name faintly came to him, but he turned a deaf ear and walked all the way, turning a corner, and finally stepping into the square in the center of the city. When he saw what the residents of Vikora had built in the revitalized city center, his claws clenched.

It was a temple of the sun, made of sandstone and bare reef rocks knocked out by chisels. From the hands of man, and stop at the human realm. Compared to the colossal temple that was once the heart of the Shurima Empire, this temple can only be regarded as a child's toy. The Great Temple used to be the envy and envy of the entire Valoran continent, and the kings from afar came from far away just to catch a glimpse of it. And the so-called memory of future generations is the current pile of shameless stones

The dark exterior shimmered like basalt, but Nasus could see through the crudely patchwork of the wall panels that were full of tenons of various sizes. A solar disc hung from the top of the temple, and even from a distance, Nasus could see that there was no gold on it, just a wrought alloy of bronze and copper. In addition, the disk of the sun that Nasus worshipped when he took the form of Ascension was suspended in the air, but the bronze plate was suspended by several hemp ropes and hung from several asymmetrical pillars on either side.

Nasus wanted to lash out. He and countless other warriors fought bloodily for the Empire, but today's people only commemorate their homeland in such ugly ways. He wanted to wake them up and tell them that their ancestors had fought desperately and bloodily to get the solemn history of the empire. But they knew nothing, their eyes clouded, and they couldn't understand what he knew about the past, and he couldn't make them understand.

A clergyman in feathered robes stood in front of the disc, his hands raised in a prayer posture, his voice drowned out in the noise of the city.

Could this be the person he was looking for?

He strode resolutely across the square towards the temple, only to see that the steps at the four corners were also jagged stones. Two samurai guarded the stairs with fitted armor made of copper sheets and animal-shaped helmets covered with feathers on their heads. They turned to look at him. Nasus recognized what their helmets represented, and hesitated. The two helmets depict the heads of the beast with a protruding snout, one in the crude mimicry of a crocodile's long snout, and the other in the brim of a roaring jackal.

Seeing him approaching, the two men crossed their spears and stopped in front of him. But when he removed his robes and straightened up, the warriors were stunned. Nasus had wandered in the mortal world for too long, hunched over with shame, trying to hide his high name. He silently paid for his sins during a long and bleak period of self-exile. However, the days of incognito are over. Nasus no longer wanted to hide his face in the dark.

Standing in front of the guards, Nasus is the deity of divine power and magic. When the heroes were still walking among mortals, he existed as an ascendant. His flesh was sublimated and recreated by the magic of the solar disk, and the withered and dying flesh became a jackal-headed demigod with an obsidian body. His chest and shoulders were covered with gold-covered armor and a votive girdle with the coat of arms of Shurima. He reached out and ripped off the strip of cloth wrapped around the "cane", revealing a long-handled battle axe. The blade of the axe glistened with excitement, and the center set with an aquamarine gem drank the sun.

"Get out of the way."

The guard cowered his head timidly, but didn't move. Nasus sighed, swung his axe, and made a half-arc back and forth in front of him. The end of the axe struck upward, striking one of the warriors and throwing him thirty yards away. Then he struck down, and the other samurai fell into the dirt. Nasus left behind the warrior who groaned in pain and reached out with the clawed soles of his feet and stepped onto the first level of the steps.

He crawled towards the top, the sun shining on the inferior metal discs. Halfway up the climb, he looked beyond the broken walls of Vikola, and saw barren sand dunes on three sides to the end of the sky. On the eastern side of the city, the land rises into a large area of hard, low foothills covered with drought-tolerant desert palms and the hard branches of Banavaal trees, whose roots are hundreds of metres long, digging deep into the sand to suck water.

The empty desert was what Shurima was looking at, and Nasus felt a pang of sorrow. He recalled how abundantly countless lives had bloomed when the Mother of Life nourished the earth. Azil may be able to give Shurima a new lease of life, but if that doesn't work, finding someone with the bloodline is crucial.

More guards began to rush to the top of the temple, and the words that came out of their mouths were inherited from the ancient Shurima, but without the grace and sophistication of the original.

Nasus felt pain and fear. This feeling was also experienced when he climbed the old Great Temple for his ascension ritual. The emaciation prevented him from climbing on his own, so his younger brother was carrying him on his back all the time. When they finally reach the top, the sun will also reach the zenith. His life was draining like quicksand in a broken hourglass. He begged Renekton to let himself go and leave him alone to face the scorching sun. But Renekton simply shook his head and whispered the last words they could remember as mortals.

"I will be with you until the end."

Then the solar disk turned them all into ascendants.

Even now, these words could easily cut into his heart, hurting more than any sharp blade. As a mortal, Renekton was fickle, sometimes irascible and cruel, but equally graceful and courageous. The ascending energy bestowed upon him supreme divine powers, and in the end, it was Renekton who fought the rebellious witch spirits in the Emperor's mausoleum. He sacrificed himself to save Shurima.

Save Shurima

On that day, what they did was really save Shurima Azir from his childhood friend, and the uncontrollable magic that erupted after the interruption of the Ascension Ritual also destroyed the city in one fell swoop, and it was buried in the sand. He sealed the door to the mausoleum, leaving Renekton and Zelath inside. Every day since then, he relived the moment of the lockdown in his mind. Although he knew in his heart that he had no choice but to do so, the guilt still unresistibly welled up in his chest.