The night in March still carried a trace of chill, and sitting on the rooftop made the oncoming cold wind even easier to feel.
Luke picked up the wine jug and tilted it. Only one or two clear drops of liquor fell out.
Before he knew it, the whole jug had been emptied. He stretched lazily and let out a comfortable hum. "It's getting late. Get some rest."
With that, he leapt down. His body drifted from the rooftop as lightly as a sheet of paper, finally landing steadily on the ground.
Katarina watched Luke use that almost uncanny movement technique, while her thoughts remained on the information she had just received.
She really did need some time to process it all.
Luke walked back to his room. Although he was indeed a little sleepy now, he did not go straight to bed.
Instead, he sat on the bed, closed his eyes, and used his consciousness to feel the condition of his body.
Now, he could clearly sense the two demonic powers inside him. During this period, they had not interfered with each other, nor had they caused the slightest negative effect on his body.
Luke also would not use them lightly unless he had absolutely no other choice.
However, now there was a third unfamiliar power inside his body.
He did not know exactly how to describe the feeling, but as long as Luke focused on it, he could clearly perceive its existence.
And the other feeling it gave him was that this power seemed to have fallen into a kind of "slumber." Naturally, Luke would not casually provoke "it" awake either.
After a while, he opened his eyes helplessly, looked at the snowy-white blade on the table, and sighed. "You really do suck anything into my body, don't you?"
That was right. The third power that had appeared in Luke's body was, shockingly, a World Rune.
To be more specific, it might be a fragment.
Because it had now merged with Luke's body, Luke could sense that it was incomplete.
Compared to the two demonic powers inside him, this rune fragment was the thing that made Luke far more wary and worried.
Although the power of the World Runes was plain for all to see, normally speaking, obtaining something this powerful should make someone excited.
But right now, Luke could not feel happy at all, because it was a World Rune.
This thing was not something that could be used casually.
If used poorly, something would go wrong.
One had to remember that the World Runes were the terrifying powers that had once sparked the Rune Wars. Even if this was only a fragment, it was still far from simple.
Even Eldred might only have developed a one-sided use of the rune's power.
What shocked Luke even more was that Snowglance, just as it had once absorbed the two demonic powers, had actually absorbed the energy of the rune fragment directly from Eldred's body.
Then, in one smooth motion, it had transported that power straight into Luke's body, without giving him any chance to react.
And after Eldred was defeated, the "main body" of the World Rune had vanished outright.
Clearly, it had run into Luke's body.
Luke did understand a little about the World Runes.
Runes were the source of all magic in this world. It could be said that without runes, there would be no magic.
In this world, the World Runes held an extremely important position. They could not be destroyed, possessed powerful energy, and could only be sealed away through certain methods.
In the past, countless people wanted to obtain them, because once one obtained them, it meant obtaining supreme power and status. That was what sparked the Rune Wars.
Human greed had nearly destroyed this continent completely.
That was the kind of thing the World Runes were. Their existence itself was not harmful to Runeterra. Only when they fell into human hands could the World Runes' terrifying destructive power be unleashed.
Because what they were best at was amplifying human emotions. Rage, hatred, fury, greed, they could almost make a person with an unsteady will instantly lose all reason.
And the price was that humans would eventually become puppets of the World Runes.
The rune itself was only a scrap of iron. Stuck ordinarily in the ground, it posed no threat. But once it was taken into human hands, it became a sharp weapon swung at others.
Humans controlled by the World Runes basically all met destruction in the end.
This was what worried Luke. A rune fragment like this had suddenly entered his body for no good reason. Even if it seemed extremely stable for now, who knew whether one day it would suddenly explode?
In other words, this thing was a ticking time bomb.
Power was good, but Luke had absolutely no need to bear this kind of risk.
Yet now that things had come to this, he could not think of any way to remove this rune fragment from his body.
For now, he could only let it stay inside him.
Luke believed that if he wanted to find someone who could solve this problem, there was only one choice.
A bald, purple-skinned figure flashed through his mind.
After a while, he shook his head and gave up.
In this vast Runeterra, trying to precisely find that particular person would be no easier than waiting for that person to come find him on his own.
"You, honestly..."
Luke glanced at Snowglance again, this ancient sword he had found in Demacia's underground treasury.
After thinking for a while, he still could not come up with anything to scold it for. This was simply the nature of the sword. What could he do about it?
After all, he had chosen it himself back then, so even if he had to endure it, he could only endure it.
By now, he had gotten used to using it. If he suddenly changed weapons, it would feel strangely awkward.
And putting aside this weapon's habit of sucking things up at every turn, it was truly excellent in every aspect.
Perhaps before studying the rune fragment inside his body, Luke should think of a way to study this strange weapon first.
At that moment, he suddenly noticed that the covered voice transmitter was faintly making a tapping sound.
It was a sound he had ignored when he entered the room just now.
He moved over, opened the lid, and said into it, "It's the middle of the night. Why aren't you asleep? Why are you knocking on this thing?"
Not long after his voice carried over, Miss Crownguard's slightly complaining voice immediately came from the other end. "Why did you only come back now? I've been waiting for a while."
Luke answered casually, "Why were you waiting for me? Did you miss me that much?"
"Pah!" Lux spat. "I was just bored, all right?"
Luke chuckled when he heard that. "So you know what boredom feels like too. If you spent this time reading, by now you'd at least be a proper literary girl."
"Am I not one now? Don't imply I'm uncultured."
Lux's slightly angry voice came through the transmitter. She emphasized, "I read every day now!"
Luke immediately said, "Then may I ask the title of the last book you read? Answer within three seconds."
"..."
The voice transmitter fell silent. More than three seconds passed before Lux's voice finally came through. "Dreams and Distant Songs."
"Miss Crownguard." Luke sighed softly. "It's fine to fool me, but don't fool yourself too."
"..."
There was another silence from the other side. Then came Miss Crownguard's stiff attempt to change the subject. "The stars are quite pretty tonight."
"They are."
Luke did not expose her. He raised his head and looked out the window. As the night deepened, the stars in the sky gradually increased, connecting into a vast spread like the Milky Way.
Meanwhile, on the other end, in House Crownguard, inside Lux's room.
The blond girl was also looking up at the stars above. The Milky Way was reflected in her bright, radiant eyes, making them extraordinarily beautiful.
The corners of her thin lips curved lightly with a sweet smile. For some reason, her mood at this moment was inexplicably good.
She said, "I feel like today was almost a dream..."
So many things had happened in this single short day.
From the mages suddenly rising up, to their swift suppression. From Galio's appearance, to the Mageseekers being abolished and all mages being pardoned.
From the mages suddenly rising up, to their swift suppression. From Galio's appearance, to the Mageseekers being abolished and all mages being pardoned.
It all gave the current Lux an unreal feeling.
Just like that, in only a single day, the dark clouds that had pressed down on her heart for more than ten years had suddenly been scattered.
She no longer had to feel worried and afraid because of her identity as a mage. She no longer had to fear waking up one day and seeing the Mageseekers come to arrest her.
From this day forward, she could openly declare herself a mage, and at the same time, so could countless mages just like her.
This was liberation in the truest sense.
That was precisely why she was still too excited to sleep.
"Dreams have a time when you wake from them, but reality doesn't. Tomorrow will be a new day. Sleep well, Miss Crownguard."
Luke's somewhat sleepy voice came through the receiver.
His tone was clearly perfunctory, obviously trying to hastily send her off to sleep.
Lux puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction. "Why would I sleep this early? You spend every day doing nothing but sleeping. Can't you be a little more energetic? You're not allowed to sleep!"
Luke's voice came through. "Fine, fine. Then may I ask what I'm supposed to do if I don't sleep right now?"
Lux immediately said, "Chat with me. It feels like we haven't chatted through the voice transmitter in a long time."
"..."
Luke was quiet for two seconds before his voice came through again. "Why do we need to chat through this voice transmitter when we can talk face-to-face?"
"Because it feels different."
Lux spoke into the receiver. She did not know why either, but she just rather liked chatting like this through the receiver.
They could not see each other, yet their voices could still reach one another. She had always found that magical.
"All right. What do you want to talk about?"
Luke compromised.
Lux tilted her head and thought for a moment, then said with bright eyes, "Let's start from the first time we met."
Luke said faintly, "Are you planning to stay awake all night?"
Lux ignored that and said happily, "I still remember what you looked like when I first met you. You were wearing a cloth shirt, and just standing there gave people a kind of plain, old-fashioned feeling."
"You could just say rustic." Luke clicked his tongue, smiled without caring at all, and casually teased her. "Back then, I was still wondering which landlord's silly daughter had come running up to get herself scammed."
Having her dark history brought up made Lux's little face turn red. She choked for a moment. "I didn't think those people were that bad at the time."
Back then, she had always felt that in the capital, where the people were simple and honest, scammers would not be so blatant. So she stubbornly believed that her luck was simply bad.
Yet those people really had been quite blatant. They had nearly tricked her out of her entire little savings stash.
Speaking of which, it seemed that after that, she had never seen those people again.
Luke said then, "But if not for those people, I might not have met you there, and none of the things that happened afterward would have happened."
"That's true."
Lux nodded. Thinking about it now, meeting Luke back then had also been extremely wondrous.
Who could have known that a person she casually met on the street would turn out to be Demacia's other prince?
And now, although those past events were not actually that far away, they somehow seemed like things from a very long time ago.
Perhaps this was the charm of memories. Every detail, when recalled, filled people with endless emotion.
Through the voice transmitter, the two chatted about one trivial past event after another. They did not feel bored at all. Just like that, they watched the night sky while talking.
Time passed minute by minute, second by second.
Lux was completely immersed in the conversation, becoming more energetic the more they talked.
Fate really was a wondrous thing.
If she had not met Luke, then there would not have been what happened today. No one knew what direction the wheel of history would have turned in.
Lux suddenly thought that ever since she met Luke, her life seemed to have changed as well. That day had been like a turning point.
At a fork in the road of history, with Luke's appearance, a completely new path had suddenly emerged.
Lux always had this inexplicable feeling in her heart.
By now, she had already grown used to Luke being by her side. Because of him, she had encountered so many interesting things, experienced so many happy moments, and even untied the knot in her heart, forgetting her worries.
Lost in their conversation, Lux gazed at the beautiful night sky. A shooting star streaked past, and the corners of her mouth carried a sweet smile.
She thought to herself that Luke felt like a star gifted to her by the heavens, bringing good luck into her life.
"Huh? Why are you suddenly saying something so sappy? You're giving me goosebumps."
At that moment, Luke's voice came from the receiver, sounding as though he were twisting awkwardly as he spoke, extremely uncomfortable.
Lux froze at first. The next second, her little face flushed bright red with a whoosh.
She stared blankly with wide eyes, her entire body rapidly heating up. It seemed she had realized that she had actually blurted out the words she had just been thinking.
Once Lux realized this, she exploded with a boom.
She wished she could find a crack in the ground and crawl into it on the spot.
Her mind was a mess, and her heart began pounding wildly, like a startled deer crashing around. She covered her burning cheeks, feeling as if smoke was about to rise from her whole body.
Those embarrassing words had actually come out of her mouth?
That sappy? Was she trying to die?
Most importantly, that guy had heard them!
Just as Lux did not know what to do, Luke's faint voice came from the receiver again. "I just feel like you're a star gifted to me by the heavens..."
"Aaah!"
Before he could finish, he was directly interrupted by Miss Crownguard's groundhog-like scream.
She suddenly shot up from the bed, a surge of killing intent bursting from her eyes. In her heart, the idea of charging straight to Luke's house to silence him immediately appeared.
Now!
There was only this choice!
She had to do it!
It was not that scary to accidentally say what was in your heart. What was scary was having it heard by the person you least wanted to hear it. What was even scarier was having this guy repeat it back!
He was practically dragging Miss Crownguard's sense of shame across the floor!
"What are you screaming for? It's the middle of the night! Why are you going crazy instead of sleeping?"
Just then, Augatha's angry scolding came from outside the room.
Lux immediately shrank her neck and sat back down, moving with exceptional caution. Looking at the receiver, she now wanted to die.
"I just feel..."
"If you dare say another word, I'll go over there right now, kill you, and then kill myself!"
Hearing Luke's voice come from the receiver again before he could finish, Lux viciously interrupted him with a threat.
"..."
The receiver fell silent. Clearly, Luke still had at least some survival instinct.
"I'm done talking. Sleep!"
Lux snorted coldly, angrily closed the receiver lid, and did not even say good night. She threw herself onto the bed, pulled the blanket over herself, and buried her entire body underneath it, looking as if she intended to heat herself to death.
Inside the blanket, she touched her still-burning cheeks, her eyes flickering as she bit her lip.
"That awful guy. He has no idea how to read the mood..."
Although she did not want to admit that she had personally said those words just now, they really were what Lux felt in her heart.
She believed that meeting Luke was her good fortune. It was the luckiest day of her life.
On the other side.
Luke looked at the receiver, which had gone silent, and smiled. Then he closed the lid as well.
He turned his eyes toward the starry night sky, the corners of his mouth curving with a smile as he murmured to himself, "That's what I wanted to say to you."
Meeting you was my good fortune.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810