Arcane: The Gods Want Me to Pick a Route

Chapter 318: Chapter 318: Waking in the Void

Logan woke with someone else’s terror in his mouth.

For a few seconds, he did not know his own name.

There was darkness around him, but not the simple darkness of a room without light. It had weight. It pressed against his skin, crawled into the space behind his eyes, and whispered against thoughts before they could fully form. He tried to breathe and found there was no air, or maybe there was no need for air. His body reacted anyway, chest tightening, throat working, hands clenching around nothing.

He remembered a river.

No. That was wrong.

He remembered snow.

That was wrong too.

He remembered Jinx looking at him with dead eyes, and then laughing, and then crying, and then standing in front of him with blood on her hands. He remembered Ahri’s voice, but it came from too many places at once. He remembered Lissandra shouting. He remembered a Watcher collapsing into itself like a broken star.

Then the memories slid away from each other.

They were there, but they did not fit.

Logan blinked hard.

A thin beam of pale spiritual light stretched from his chest to Ahri.

It was connected to one of her tails. The tail glowed softly, its fur stained at the edges by violet-dark corruption that pulsed and faded with each movement. The beam trembled between them like a line of thread pulled too tight.

Ahri was fighting.

That was the first thing Logan understood clearly.

She floated in the Void ahead of him, body twisting through empty space as two enormous Voidborn creatures circled her. There was no ground under her feet. No sky above. No horizon. Just a vast, black distance filled with patches of sick violet light and drifting shapes too far away to identify.

The two monsters were closer.

One resembled a massive serpent stripped of anything natural. It had too many jaws along its body, each one opening and closing without sound. Its hide was layered with jagged plates that shifted whenever it moved, as if the armor were deciding where to grow next. Long spines ran down its back, and each spine leaked threads of purple light into the dark.

The other Voidborn was broader, heavier, almost like a hulking insect with a head sunk into its chest. Six hooked limbs extended from its body. Its mouth opened vertically, revealing rows of grinding teeth that rotated instead of biting. A dull red glow burned deep inside it.

Ahri looked small between them.

Her ears were flattened. Her tails moved slower than they should have. The glow around her body came in uneven pulses, bright one second, dim the next. Several cuts marked her arms and shoulders, and the fabric of her clothes had been torn in places by claws or energy. Violet stains crept along one side of her neck, only to be burned away by the spiritual light rising from her soul.

She had been fighting for a long time.

The serpent lunged first.

Ahri vanished from its path with a flash of white-blue light. She reappeared above its head and drove a sphere of spiritual energy into its skull. The impact sent cracks racing down its armored plates. It twisted upward, jaws snapping open along its body, and a wave of dark force burst from them.

Ahri raised one hand.

A charm flared between her fingers, bright and pink-white against the Void.

The wave split around her, but not completely. Part of it struck her side and threw her backward. The beam connecting her to Logan stretched. Pain flashed through his chest, sharp enough to make him gasp.

Ahri felt it.

Even in the middle of the fight, her eyes darted toward him.

The insect-like Voidborn used that moment.

It slammed two limbs together, and a lance of corrupted energy shot toward her back.

Logan tried to shout.

No sound came out.

Ahri turned too late.

One of her tails swept in front of her, forming a curved shield of spiritual light. The lance struck it and shattered into sparks, but the force drove her down through open space. There was no ground to hit, so she simply kept falling until she forced herself to stop.

Her breath came hard.

Logan could see it in the movement of her shoulders, even without air.

The serpent coiled around her from below.

The insect came from above.

Ahri closed her eyes.

For one heartbeat, the light around her faded.

Then all nine tails spread wide.

The darkness near her recoiled.

She opened her eyes, and the glow in them turned clear and cold.

Three orbs of spirit fire appeared around her, then six, then nine. They spun once, fast enough to leave rings of light, and shot outward. The serpent’s jaws opened to swallow them. The orbs curved at the last moment, avoiding the mouths and striking the joints between its plates.

The Voidborn’s body buckled.

Ahri moved after them, one hand forward, the other pressed briefly against her own ribs. A blade of spirit energy formed around her fingers. She passed along the serpent’s length in a clean arc, cutting through the cracks she had created.

The serpent split apart in sections.

It did not bleed. It came undone. Pieces of its body peeled away from each other, dissolving into black fragments that tried to crawl back together. Ahri did not let them. She turned, teeth clenched, and released a pulse of blue-white fire from all her tails.

The fragments burned.

The insect Voidborn struck her from behind.

Its hook caught her shoulder and dragged her backward. Logan saw Ahri’s face tighten with pain. The creature’s mouth opened in her direction, the rotating teeth gathering energy between them.

Ahri grabbed the limb buried near her shoulder with both hands.

For a moment, she did not move.

Then she pulled herself closer instead of trying to escape.

The Voidborn seemed to hesitate.

Ahri placed her palm against the side of its head.

"Enough," she whispered.

The word reached Logan through the beam between them.

A burst of spiritual power tore into the creature at point-blank range. The light did not explode outward. It went inward. The Voidborn’s body swelled as if something inside it had been filled too quickly. Cracks opened across its shell. Violet light spilled out. Ahri pushed harder, arm shaking, face pale with exhaustion.

The creature struck her with another limb.

She did not let go.

It struck again.

She screamed, but kept her hand in place.

The third strike never landed.

The Voidborn burst apart from within, scattering chunks of dissolving matter into the dark.

Ahri floated there, one arm hanging lower than the other, hair drifting around her face. The light from her tails flickered. For a few seconds, Logan thought she might fall, though there was nowhere to fall to.

Then she turned toward him.

Her expression changed immediately.

The fight left her eyes, replaced by something raw and almost relieved.

"Logan."

This time, he heard her clearly.

She came to him as fast as she could, though he noticed it was not as fast as before. Her movements were controlled, but heavy. She reached him, wrapped both arms around him, and held him so tightly that his ribs hurt.

He did not know what to do with his own hands at first. Then he raised them slowly and touched her back.

Ahri pulled away just enough to take his face between her palms. Her thumbs brushed his cheeks, checking him as if she needed proof that his eyes were truly focused.

"Don’t worry," she said. "You’re awake. You’re here. Stay with me."

Logan stared at her.

He knew her.

Of course he knew her.

But the memories were blurred.

"Ahri," he said, and even her name felt like something he had pulled from deep water.

Her breath caught.

"Yes." She nodded quickly. "Yes. That’s right."

"What happened to me?"

Her hands tightened slightly against his face. She tried to smile, but it failed halfway.

"The corruption reached your memories," she said. "It was using them to hurt you. To change what you felt. To turn love into hatred, guilt into despair, everything into something it could use."

Logan closed his eyes.

Jinx flashed through his mind again. Not one memory, but too many layered over each other. Her laugh by a river. Her eyes full of fear. Her hands covered in blood. Her voice calling him a liar. His own anger, too strong, too sudden, like something poured into him.

He opened his eyes sharply.

Ahri noticed.

"I had to absorb the memories tied to the corruption," she said. "Only the infected parts. I couldn’t remove everything cleanly, so some of them are tangled right now. That’s why you feel confused."

"You took my memories?"

"Not permanently." She said it at once, firm despite how tired she looked. "They’re still yours. I’m holding the damaged pieces away from the Void’s influence until your mind can reconnect safely. In a few days, maybe less if we find somewhere stable, they should settle back into place."

Logan tried to understand that.

His thoughts moved slowly.

"And you’ve been fighting like this the whole time?"

Ahri looked away.

That answer was enough.

Guilt rose in him, immediate and heavy. Before it could sink too deep, Ahri pressed her forehead lightly against his.

"No," she said. "Do not start blaming yourself. I can feel it happening."

"You can feel that?"

"I’m connected to your soul. Of course I can feel it."

"That sounds inconvenient."

A weak laugh escaped her. It sounded almost normal, and for a second the Void around them seemed less close.

"It is," she said. "You are very stubborn."

"I’ve heard that before."

"You’ll hear it again when we get home."

Home.

The word struck something in him.

The Twin Cities. Jinx. Vi. Silco. The Entresol. Zaun’s air. Piltover’s light. A bed he shared with someone who smelled faintly of oil, smoke, and candy. His chest tightened again, but this time the feeling was his own.

Ahri’s eyes searched his.

"That’s good," she murmured.

"What is?"

"You reacted without the corruption twisting it." She shifted one hand from his face to his chest, just above the beam of light. "Your spirit is moving again."

Logan looked down.

The light between them pulsed.

Ahri closed her eyes and focused. Logan felt something brush through him, gentle but deep, like fingers passing through water. It moved across his soul, his mind, the places where the Void had left stains. The sensation made him tense, but Ahri’s hand remained steady.

After a moment, she opened her eyes.

"You can use a little spiritual energy now," she said.

"I can?"

"Not much. But enough to help hold the corruption back. With me supporting you, it should be enough for us to move without stopping every few minutes."

Logan looked past her at the endless darkness.

"Move where?"

Ahri did not answer immediately.

That worried him more than any monster.

She turned her head, staring into the distance. There was nothing there as far as Logan could see. No light, no landmark, no path. The Void stretched in every direction, patient and hostile.

"I’m not completely sure," she admitted.

Logan stared at her.

She gave him a tired, apologetic look. "Far away, there’s an area that feels less corrupted. Or maybe less active. I can’t explain it well. It might be a pocket where the Void’s pressure is weaker. It might be something else. I only know that staying here will kill us."

"You’re guessing."

"A lot," she said, then tried to smile. "But it’s the best guess I have."

Logan looked at her properly now.

She was exhausted.

Not just tired after a fight. Exhausted in a way that had gone past the body and reached whatever part of her spirit kept forcing her to stand. Her glow was thinner than before. The ends of her tails trembled. When she thought he was not looking, her eyelids lowered for half a second too long.

And still, she held him like he was the fragile one.

Maybe he was.

"Ahri," he said quietly.

She met his eyes.

"Thank you."

Her expression shifted. Pain, relief, and something she hid before he could name it.

"Don’t thank me yet," she said. "We still have to get out."

She moved beside him and wrapped one arm around his waist. One of her tails curled around his back, guiding the spiritual connection into a steadier shape. Logan felt a faint warmth spread through his chest. It did not remove the Void’s pressure, but it gave him room to think.

"Focus on that warmth," Ahri said. "When the corruption presses in, push back through it. Don’t fight the whole Void. Just protect the space that is yours."

She gathered power beneath them.

Ahri’s spiritual energy formed a brief platform of light under her feet. She bent slightly, pulling Logan close.

"Ready?"

She launched them forward.

The empty dark rushed past.

At first, Logan could not tell whether they were moving fast or whether the Void was sliding around them. Ahri’s tails streamed behind her, leaving faint trails of blue-white light. The beam between them stayed intact, now shorter and steadier, pulsing with both of their spirits. Logan tried to do what she had told him. He focused on the warmth, on the small space inside himself that still belonged to him.

The Void noticed.

Whispers pressed at the edge of his mind.

Some sounded like Jinx.

Some sounded like himself.

He pushed back.

The warmth flared weakly, then held.

Ahri glanced at him and nodded once.

They continued through the dark, toward a place neither of them could see, following a feeling too thin to be called hope and too necessary to ignore.

...

Far from them, another rupture opened in the Void.

A man in battered violet armor stopped mid-step.

He had felt the earlier wound, the one left by two beings who had entered from the edge of creation and survived longer than they should have. That disturbance had been bright, unstable, and difficult to follow through the Void’s shifting distances.

This was different.

Sharper. Cleaner. Deliberate.

The man turned his masked face toward it.

Then he vanished.

He appeared again far ahead, space tearing open and closing behind him. Another step. Another tear. Another burst of violet light. Each movement carried him farther.

He crossed the dark with practiced violence, cutting through distance by force.

Ahead, a one-eyed creature drifted through the rupture it had made, carrying a small cluster of strange essence gathered from the edge of a ruined battlefield. It moved with purpose, traveling toward a region where two other presences had already disturbed the Void.

The armored man saw it.

His blade lit.

Then he stepped through another rift and followed.

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