Arcane: The Gods Want Me to Pick a Route

Snow settled in Janna's hair, and her already pale face had gone even whiter now—a drained, bloodless white from overtaxing her strength. But Janna pressed her lips together and kept pouring out more magic, supporting Lissandra as they continued maneuvering around Volibear.

Ursine Mountain had already completely collapsed.

The reason was simple: Volibear had revealed his true form.

Thunder rolled through the sky as Volibear's body expanded to hundreds of meters tall. Every time he lifted a hand, the landscape itself changed. Lissandra, meanwhile, had also stopped holding back. Black ice struck Volibear's enormous body again and again, and she had even summoned a black crystal iceberg nearly a thousand meters across, trying to use it as a coffin to seal him away.

But Volibear tore the massive ice coffin apart with fang and claw.

"You still holding up?" Lissandra drifted several thousand meters back and raised a hand, black ice winding around her fingertips as she looked at Janna and asked.

Janna nodded hard, took a deep breath, and said, "I'm okay. What about you?"

She herself was only assisting, restricting Volibear's movements and reinforcing Lissandra with shields. She wasn't facing him head-on. But Lissandra was different. She was the one confronting Volibear directly, and the pressure on her was far greater than what Janna was enduring.

But looking at her now, Lissandra actually seemed to be in better shape than Janna.

Good grief, what was wrong with the Freljord?

Janna felt deeply frustrated. After her fight with Nagakabouros, she had thought she was already pretty strong. But looking at things now, where was that strength?

Why was this place full of monsters this powerful?!

The strength of the Freljordian gods made Janna think of Shurima. No wonder the mighty empire of ancient Shurima had never managed to conquer the Freljord. Just from what Janna could sense here, there were around eight divine presences that were no weaker than she was, and several that were vastly stronger.

One of them, naturally, was Volibear in front of her.

Another was Lissandra, radiating that cold, dark chill.

Another was a gentle presence as vast as the sea.

Then there were two more, colder even than Lissandra, yet carrying a sacred quality.

And the last one felt even stronger than Volibear, blazing with an irritable, scorching force.

"I'm fine too. I can keep this up for a while yet. But if the Swain you mentioned doesn't show up soon, things are going to get troublesome," Lissandra said quietly.

As she spoke, she suddenly thrust both hands forward. Her palms, white as carved jade, slammed outward, and surging frost magic formed into a crystalline shield in front of her, blocking the lightning Volibear hurled at her.

The bear spirit was savage, and he only grew fiercer the longer he fought. Volibear was exactly the sort of god who became stronger through battle. In that respect, even someone as mighty as Ornn could not compare to him.

Hearing Lissandra's words, Janna sighed.

She had only passed the message along to Swain, telling him that Logan hoped he would come. Whether Swain would actually come, though, she had no way of knowing.

As for Karma in Ionia, Janna had gone to tell her too, but Karma's attitude had been even colder than Swain's. She seemed hesitant about leaving Ionia.

Really, beings on Janna's and Karma's level could all sense it when a battle of this scale broke out somewhere on Runeterra.

As gods of Runeterra, they were all connected in some way to the world's laws. When demigods fought, they were using the power of those laws themselves. Once two demigods clashed, the ripples in Runeterra's order were impossible not to notice.

But Swain and Karma still hadn't come.

That left Janna feeling helpless. But her nature was gentle and kind. If Swain and Karma chose not to come, she couldn't blame them for it. After all, if not for Logan, Janna herself wouldn't have come to a battle like this either.

This was devastating to a god's confidence!

She had only just started feeling like she was finally getting stronger, and now she was getting slammed into the ground and rubbed through the dirt. That kind of gap between expectation and reality was hard to take, okay?

Lissandra had no idea what Janna was thinking. She only said quietly, "We'll wait a little longer and see whether Udyr can make it here. If he can't, then this ends here."

"I will not fight Volibear to the bitter end for the sake of the Winter's Claw. I cannot afford to be injured," Lissandra said seriously to Janna.

It was only a step away from directly saying, If nobody else comes, I'm leaving.

A flicker of surprise flashed in Janna's eyes.

Actually, she had noticed it from the start. When Lissandra fought Volibear, it almost felt like... she was deliberately holding something back.

Not that Lissandra wasn't serious. It was more that Janna got the sense she was restraining herself.

And now that Lissandra had said she could not afford to be injured, Janna immediately understood why Lissandra had felt so strange.

"Pathetic coward, where else do you plan to hide?"

Volibear suddenly mocked them out loud, which left Janna speechless with irritation.

And Volibear wasn't done. He let out another strange cry, barked something about thunder calling to him, then leapt violently into the air, jumping from Ursine Mountain to one edge of the Ice Sea. In midair, his body swelled even larger, lightning crackling through his fur. He seized storm clouds and thunder in his hands and crashed down onto the Ice Sea.

The frozen surface shattered instantly for miles around him. Cracks spread across the ice like a spiderweb, racing outward so far that there was no telling where they ended.

His body plunged deep into the Ice Sea, the waterline reaching his waist.

This bear...

His body had already expanded to thousands of meters in size.

From dozens of meters to hundreds, and now to thousands—it was as if every time he swallowed more lightning, his body kept growing, as though he were devouring thunder itself and turning it into mass.

Just looking at that made Janna's chest tighten.

She could grow larger too. In fact, every demigod could.

The difference was only in how large they could become.

Janna's limit was only a few hundred meters at most. But Volibear at thousands... that wasn't even something she dared imagine.

And the worst part wasn't just that Volibear was getting stronger and stronger.

It was also the other presences Janna could feel, stirring and drawing closer from all around them.

"Hey... what's with all those guys?"

They were getting closer and closer, close enough that Janna couldn't help asking Lissandra.

"Those guys..." Lissandra narrowed her eyes, then answered, "Janna, this is the trouble I was talking about."

"Some of those gods once went to war alongside Volibear. And some of them..." her voice turned colder, "are coming to settle scores with me."

The Three Sisters had ruled an age. If Lissandra had not sacrificed her two sisters, the legend of the Three Sisters might have endured all the way to the present.

In the age of the Three Sisters, the Freljord had been full of demigods, but broadly speaking, they had been divided into two factions.

One faction was humanity, led by the Three Sisters.

The other was the Old Ways, led by Volibear. The Iron Boar had been one of the gods in that faction.

And the final result had been victory for the Three Sisters' side, which shattered the Old Ways. Volibear's old divine coalition had been powerful, but the Three Sisters had plenty of gods helping them too.

Anivia, for example.

The Seal Sister.

And White the Snow Fox.

That was why the hatred between those two camps couldn't possibly be explained in a few simple sentences.

And in any case, Lissandra had no intention of explaining it all to Janna.

All Janna needed to know was that if things kept dragging on like this, and no one came to help subdue Volibear, then the final result would not just be Lissandra running.

Janna would have to run too.

As for the Winter's Claw and Sejuani...

A brief hesitation crossed Lissandra's face, but it vanished almost immediately.

"Volibear..." she murmured. "After hiding for thousands of years, the moment he shows himself again he causes this much chaos. Has he been asleep too long? This is no longer our age."

"Our age, huh... Heh. Tell me, what do you think?"

"What do I think? I think the witch is strong. I don't know what kind of madness took hold of her, to make her leave that fortress of hers and actually go looking for trouble with Volibear, but I can tell that compared to eight thousand years ago, she's no weaker than either of us. In fact, she's probably much stronger."

"But even so, the witch still isn't Volibear's match."

"Yeah, I know what you're getting at..."

Elsewhere in the Freljord, two powerful spirits drifted close and began speaking to each other through a silent exchange.

One was a black spirit, radiating a sinister aura.

The other was a bitterly cold white one.

"Show yourself, Rilfen," said the icy white spirit, revealing its true form.

It was a snow-white serpent, sleek and graceful, its scales dazzlingly beautiful. Its head was oval, and a pair of dark green eyes, like polished gemstones, fixed themselves on the black spirit.

"So you've really made up your mind?" the black spirit asked hesitantly.

The white serpent flicked out its tongue. Its voice was that of a pleasant-sounding woman.

"What else is there to decide? I'm sick of being ignored by humans. Because of Anivia, my range has been reduced to this miserable little corner. Just look at me now. Without the power that comes from the faith of my followers, I can't grow any stronger. And with my hunting grounds shrinking, I'm even starting to weaken!"

"I've had enough of living like this!" The white serpent's voice was full of hatred and resentment.

"All right, Jie. You're right. We did lose. But now Volibear has risen again. With him leading us, and with no Anivia, no Avarosa, no Serylda among the humans... this time we won't lose again." After considering it, Rilfen looked toward the northeast, where thunderclouds stretched across a thousand miles of sky, dark and terrifying.

That sight convinced him.

He and Jie had once belonged to the faction of the Old Ways. They had been part of the coalition of ancient gods that opposed the Three Sisters.

They truly had lost.

But now Volibear had stood up again, seemingly ready to launch another war.

And if that was the case, could the Old Ways return as well?

The ancient Freljord had once belonged to the old gods. To let humans occupy it now, the way things stood today, was a humiliation to them.

For humans, thousands of years was history, an age long gone.

But for primordial demigods like Rilfen and Jie, a few thousand years ago was only their own past.

"Then good. We'll go help Volibear!" Jie nodded excitedly. Then she opened her mouth, showing a pair of tiny white fangs, and said viciously, "I'm going to bite right through Lissandra's throat and pour my venom into her body. I'll make her feel my pain too!"

"But the two of us alone won't be enough," Rilfen said, shaking his head.

Then the black light around him dispersed, and he stepped out of the spirit form.

Ever since humans began spreading across the land, demigods like them had chosen to exist in the Freljord mostly as spirits, only rarely revealing their true bodies.

Rilfen's true form was a giant wolf with pitch-black fur. The mane around its neck was like a lion's, or like black flames that shivered and burned in the wind.

With his red eyes fixed on Jie, Rilfen spoke seriously.

To put it nicely, they said they simply didn't want to deal with humans.

But to put it bluntly, they were the losers of that war.

All they could do now was hide from humanity.

"The Seal Sister and the fox are still alive. Volibear has the power to tear up the old pact, and they wouldn't dare do anything to him. But what about us? If we break the agreement, they'll come out too," Rilfen said sternly to Jie.

After their defeat in that ancient war and the loss of their worshipers, many of the gods from the old divine coalition had died.

Some of the demigods from the Three Sisters' side had died in that war too, but two of them were still alive even now.

The Seal Sister.

And White the Snow Fox.

"Don't talk to me about White!" At the mention of the snow fox's name, Jie's eyes narrowed. In those tiny dark green pupils flashed a humanlike hatred.

Rilfen just shook his head. "I'm only stating a fact."

White and Jie had been mortal enemies in that war long ago.

The reason Jie could no longer grow to colossal size was because White had sealed away part of her divine law.

White the Snow Fox was one of the Freljord's powerful native demigods, a god who had appeared after the three primal gods.

So in a certain sense, she was like a younger sister to Ornn, Volibear, and Anivia.

Though the three gods had never acknowledged such a thing. No matter what, White had not been born alongside them.

Even so, White's power was beyond question.

She had lived for tens of thousands of years, making her even older than Jie and Rilfen.

She had inherited part of Anivia's power over True Ice and could use it for sealing. To the Old Ways, White had been an extremely troublesome god during that war, because while she was not especially skilled at direct attacks, her sealing arts had caused many of the ancient gods considerable suffering.

So if she came out now, the battlefield would become even more complicated.

And just then, a giant snow eagle appeared overhead.

"Heh. You two really did end up together, just like I thought," the snow eagle said loudly in an ancient tongue.

"Kinl, what are you doing here?" Rilfen asked.

"That's enough, Rilfen. Drop the act." Kinl's voice sank low, then he turned to Jie. "What are the two of you thinking about Volibear?"

Jie avoided Kinl's gaze and said nothing.

Even within the same alliance, relationships between gods could be good or bad.

As a serpent spirit, Jie naturally disliked Kinl, whose true form was a great eagle—just as she instinctively feared Anivia, the phoenix.

Snakes feared birds.

Even demigods could not escape that.

Because that was the working of divine law.

"And you?" Rilfen shot back.

Kinl snorted. "I've already contacted the Iron Boar and Doad. Both of them are willing to fight for Volibear."

"I assume the choice you and Jie have made is the same as ours."

"After all, you've had enough of living like this too."

"Anivia is immortal. Her existence forces us to honor the old oath, because no one can know when she'll revive again and come find trouble for us through the humans once we tear up the pact. But now Volibear is marching to war. With him here, there's nothing Anivia can do."

"So?"

"So... let's do it."

Rilfen nodded his wolf head hard and said loudly.

"Good!"

Kinl beat his wings and spiraled into the sky, growing into a snow eagle hundreds of meters across.

Rilfen's body expanded at once too, becoming a wolf over a hundred meters tall, standing astride the mountains, his black fur as large as trees.

Only Jie, because of White's power, could maintain a body only a few meters long.

The moment Rilfen and Kinl revealed their true forms, a wild, primordial aura rose from the south. Then a gigantic boar appeared, tusks spearing up into the sky. After that came one more presence from the west—a colossal weasel that let out a shrill scream.

At the same instant, Lissandra sensed all of it.

And for the first time, worry flashed through her deathly pale eyes.

But Volibear only threw back his head and laughed.

"Good! Follow me! Flatten the Freljord and bring back the Old Ways!" he roared.

And on the Ice Sea, the black-haired young man—his body covered in wounds and drenched in blood—also sensed those terrifying powers one after another.

At this point, there wasn't a single patch of flesh on him that was intact.

His chest and abdomen were blackened with burns and webbed with lightning.

The bones in his left arm had been shattered.

Half of one shoulder blade jutted out crookedly, a broken spike piercing through his flesh.

Seeing that, Logan yanked the wind-forged sword out of an Ursine's skull.

He raised a hand and wiped the blood from his face and eyes, then looked ahead.

More than a hundred Ursine were staring at him in shock, their eyes filled with fear.

Behind him lay dozens of Ursine corpses.

Logan took a deep breath.

One, two...

How many demigods was that now?

Even if Swain and Karma both came, would the number of gods on their side actually be enough to match all these demigods?

Logan hesitated.

He was starting to feel like maybe he had played this a little too big.

No, seriously—how was the Freljord hiding this many demigods on Volibear's side?

The developers never said a damn thing about this!

And wasn't the boar god supposed to be on the Winter's Claw's side?

Wasn't he supposed to be helping Sejuani and Udyr?

So why...

why was he siding with Volibear too?

Goddamn it!

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