Lux's Farewell

When Kalya said the phrase "I'm just a bad old man hanging by the power of demons", Nasus was silent for a long time.

He widened his eyes, trying to see traces of joking from Kalya's body, but when he looked carefully, he felt more and more that the teacher's aura was like a candle in the wind.

This undoubtedly made Nasus's heart twitch. The obsidian-like muscles on his sluggish jackal face began to twitch involuntarily. All kinds of complicated expressions were superimposed, as if he was about to collapse in the next moment.

Nasus had already lived through "Kalya's death".

But at this moment, when he heard Kalya in front of him say these words with an understatement and a smile, Nasus still felt dizzy.

Unlike the last time after the "death of Kalya", he was complacent. This time, an indescribable despair surged from Nasus's heart.

In a trance, he even had the idea of ​​"Could Shurima's fate be doomed".

"Don't look like you're going to cry." Looking at Nasus's appearance, Kalya couldn't help but shook his head, "The reincarnation of life and death is inevitable, I gave up immortality on my own initiative, there is nothing to be sad about of—and, you weren't like this before."

Nasus opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Kalya's words "You were not like this before" sounded like a reassurance, but it seemed to weigh more than a thousand catties in Nasus's ears.

The next moment, Nasus retracted his eyes a little bit, not daring to look at Kalya anymore.

........................

Among the many ascenders, Nasus is undoubtedly a very special one - he is a very pure civilian.

As a grand maester of the Shurima Empire, he is considered "a learned man second only to Kalya", and is the guardian and inheritor of Shurima civilization.

It seems that Nasus should have a very close relationship with Kalya.

However, the actual situation is that the relationship between Karya and this student who "looks like herself in the eyes of others" is not good.

This is not because Nasus has not learned the yin and yang eccentricity that is the essence of Kalya, but because Nasus is too conformist and a person who has set an upper limit for himself.

Nasus is very knowledgeable and extremely loyal, but behind this knowledge and loyalty is extremely conservative.

And this conservatism conflicts with Karya in many ways.

In the eyes of Nasus, who was born in the most glorious age of the Shurima Empire, everything in the empire was perfect and wonderful.

With the Ascendant as the skeleton and the sun disc as the source of energy, for Nasus, who grew up bathed in this glory and has always been a "child of other people", everything in the Shurima Empire is real. , The greatness that cannot tolerate desecration.

Based on this cognition, when Kalya proposed to "develop a new energy source and get rid of the dependence on the solar disc", Nasus became the opposition.

Unlike those with vested interests, Nasus’s opposition to the vigorous development of new energy sources advocated by Kalya is not out of selfishness, because Nasus’s power does not come from the sun disc, and he has never formed a party to operate, even his natural He deeply loathes those Ascendants who devote their energies to climbing outside of work—because of the issue of the Ascendant's family, he and Rebesai even once had a fierce conflict and almost had a big fight.

Nasus objected to Kalya's proposal, not because he was unaware of the resource plight of the empire, but in his opinion, the main factor of this plight was that the empire supported too many "useless people".

In Nasus's eyes, many of Shurima's public utilities are purely useless and a waste of resources. The real solution to the energy dilemma should be to reduce unnecessary mana consumption.

Nasus agrees that the means to relieve Shurima's energy tension should be as follows:
First of all, all those scenic spots that are maintained by water pumping will be abolished to reduce the waste of this part.

Secondly, reduce some public magic power expenditures, and abandon extremely remote cities that are difficult to supply energy.

Then, to increase the strength of the research on the sun disc, and strive to raise a second sun disc for the empire.

Finally, vigorously investigate corruption, reduce waste at the source, and begin to limit the power of the ascended.

Compared with open source, Nasus cares more about throttling.

Objectively speaking, Nasus is not the same as those who oppose Kalya's development of new energy sources, but this does not prevent him from becoming the banner of these people, fighting against Kalya, and objectively sharing the resources that Kalya can mobilize. , Resources for the development of new energy sources.

In order to convince Nasus, Kalya had talked with him many times, but unfortunately, what Nasus believed would not change. Compared with the "possibility" of the future outlined by Kalya, Nasus believed in Now has a successful experience.

Using plants to absorb the magic power of the world for their own use, not to mention that this is just a possibility, even if it is true, it is not as efficient as erecting a sun disc and absorbing the power of the heavens!

For Nasus's stubbornness, Kalya actually didn't have much to do.

Many of what Nasus said are reasonable. There is indeed a lot of waste in the magic power of the Shurima Empire, and the organizational structure is gradually bloated. If more sun discs can be erected, the effect will be inevitable. It would be better than researching plants that absorb the magic of the earth.

But the implementation difficulty of the two is different.

In Kalya's eyes, the empire needs to maintain its forward momentum. If it stops advancing, the contradictions that were once covered up by prosperity will erupt.

In the eyes of Nasus, the current empire should stop, re-examine itself, have a profound bone scraping and healing, and then set off lightly.

This kind of conceptual contradiction is the most difficult to bridge, and both parties insist that they are correct.

This is a debate about the way forward.

Karya's words carry weight.

But there are more people on Nasus' side.

Thousands of years ago, Kalya was able to rely on his personal prestige to let the Shurima tribe, who had the ability to find an oasis to settle down, stride out of the sea of ​​death in the Great Sai Desert and take off from the banks of the Shurima River.

But after a thousand years, Kalya found helplessly that Shurima had unknowingly fallen into a larger oasis, and was hesitant to move forward.

But this time, although his prestige still supports him to raise his arms, the gradually bloated structure of the empire makes it more difficult to raise his arms...

As he stood aloft in Shurima, overlooking the great empire, and reflected on his decision to delegate power to mortals, Kalya had mixed emotions.

In the end, Carya, whose heart softened a bit, chose to take a step back after estimating the situation.

Two lines in parallel.

Because the Shurima Empire is highly dependent on the sun disc, most Shurima people are unwilling to try another way. Even if Kalya personally leads students to study, there are very few people who are willing to engage in research in this field.

Compared with the study of new energy sources that do not know when the results will be produced, the related subjects of the solar disk are more popular.

However, just when the research on the rune tree was about to see the light, the outbreak of the Icathian War finally intensified everything.

In fact, until the Icathian War ended and the Shurima Empire became the post-Shurima Empire, Nasus had no regrets.

Even in his opinion, the deterioration of the situation in Icacia is inseparable from Karya's choice. He mistakenly trusted some of the deceived Icacia people, which led to the empire's ignorance of the void. That's what made the situation so bad.

Even after the war, the empire fell into disintegration, Nasus still thinks that this is an opportunity to bring Shurima back to greatness, and the new Shurima, freed from the heavy burden, will inevitably rewrite the myths that have been engraved in history !

Then, reality mercilessly gave him a series of slaps.

Although the new Shurima Empire still has the sun disc, although it has reduced a lot of "useless consumption", the division after losing Setaka and Karya makes the sun disc very difficult to maintain.

Behind the efficient use of the power of the solar disc in the past is the integration of all the power of the entire Shurima continent. The raw ore of Kalamanda, the grain of Kumanggra, and the stone of Ixtar, these low-priced products support the The prosperity of the empire.

Now that the empire is divided, many materials that used to be cheap need to be purchased at high prices, and trade barriers have blocked the commercial routes of Shurima. Although the solar discs have much fewer energy sources, the maintenance costs have skyrocketed!

What's more terrible is that without the suppression of the empire's size, the followers of the giant gods and members of the Ascension Order began to quietly raise their heads and gradually become presumptuous.

Even though Nasus presided over a lot of purge work and closed many facilities that he considered pure waste, the situation in the empire was still worsening day by day.

Without a clear future and direction, the new Shurima Empire fell into internal strife, and the restless royal family even had a shocking large-scale internal struggle for the first time...

Faced with such a situation, Nasus was shocked to find that the decline of the empire seemed to be happening faster than expected!

In desperation, in order to gradually sharpen internal conflicts and avoid further division of New Shurima, Nasus finally watched slavery spread in Shurima on a large scale.

At this point, Nasus is no longer willing to recall his dispute with Kalya, he can only force himself to look forward, and try to find a path that can completely reform Shurima!
Then, he found Azir.

Azir looked like a combination of Kalya and Setaka. When Nasus saw him for the first time, Nasus once gave a silent admiration.

Since he was a child, the unloved Azir played and studied with the slave Xerath. Although Nasus knew these two children who were not in the world at the time, Nasus knew it well. He chose to keep it a secret—because in Azir, he saw something similar to Kalya.

In this way, Nasus watched Azir grow up step by step, and finally chose to stand by Azir's side, helping him become emperor.

Perhaps, Azir can bring a different future to the empire.

Nasus thought so, and he did so.

As Grand Maester, he fully supported Azir's every decision, until he boldly asked Nasus to support him and help Xerath ascend.

"It's time to abolish the decadent slavery!" Nasus still remembers Azir's excited appearance that day, "Mr. Nasus, I think the time is ripe, we are now capable of recreating the former glory of the empire !"

Facing the high-spirited Azir, Nasus hesitated a bit, but at this moment, Renekton stood up and stood unswervingly by His Majesty's side.

So, Nasus nodded in agreement with Azir's request.

Half a year later, the ascension ceremony full of Nasus's infinite expectations failed completely. The angry Xerath left a sentence "Shurima does not deserve a wise emperor", then took Azir's remains and left The ruins of Shurima.

And Renekton, after gazing at the ruins for a long time, let out a roar, revealing his ascension body, and rushed towards the depths of the desert, never to be seen again.

In this terrible collapse, only Nasus hurried back to the Great Library, using all his strength to preserve the last essence of the empire.

Thousands of years passed in a flash.

Outside the Great Library, the rise and fall of Runeterra has been staged one after another, and one empire after another will appear on the stage after you sing.

In the big library, Nasus mechanically reads one book after another every day, like a self-imposed exile.

Now, when he finally plucked up the courage and walked out of the library, wanting to rebuild Shurima again and restore Shurima to the appearance in his memory, what Nasus saw was a completely A different scene, a world that is very different from the past.

The indescribable loneliness made Nasus more and more silent. He visited one royal descendant after another, hoping to try again to find another Azir.

But what the eyes see are insects and liars fighting for power and profit in the name of the royal family.

For Nasus, Xerath's presence was a challenge, but it also showed him a way forward.

Although no reliable descendants of the royal family were found, at least Nasus knew that Xerath's behavior would never work. Relying on his way of wooing sand bandits and rogues and ruling with an iron fist, it would be impossible to revive Shurima no matter what. of.

So, Nasus finally had some strength.

Until now, I saw Kalya and heard him say "I'm just a bad old man who hangs his life by the power of the devil."

At this moment, Nasus was finally able to fully understand Kalya's helplessness and choice, and was finally torn through the wound that he didn't want to stare at for a long time.

Perhaps, the fall of Shurima was inevitable.

The great and glorious country that I once witnessed is gone forever.

Thinking of this, Nasus' tall body finally bent down, and he prostrated himself in front of Kalya, crying like a helpless child.

"Teacher..." Nasus' voice was full of unwillingness and expectation, "I want to rebuild Shurima!"

Extra episode tomorrow!