"Damn, where the hell did Nilah send me?"
On a rainy night, lifting his head from chemical waste, Faen struggled to stand up from the sewer, looking somewhat disgusted.
He stood about 1.95 meters tall, with abundant blood and vitality, wearing a sleeveless shirt.
His face looked chiseled, carrying a heroic spirit full of life. His hard lines and solid muscles were exposed to the air, and the palm of his right hand bore an abstract seven-handed sigil, radiating a sense of vibrant life.
As a transmigrator from the Blue Star, Faen had long known he was in the Runeterra of the League of Legends lore.
Luck was on his side; his spawn point was Ionia. But Faen didn't dare relax at all—Noxus, Aspects, Darkin, World Runes... there was too much crap in the future!
Facing this pressure from the future, what could Faen say?
If you're trash, train more. If you can't afford to lose, don't live.
So Faen began learning Battle Dance—similar to how Irelia and Rakan fight. It's called a dance, but in Ionian art, beauty and lethality are equal.
Later, Faen went out to sea to study. However, just after setting off, he encountered a massive Ship-Eater Sea Serpent attacking his small boat.
Every time these behemoths, often dozens or hundreds of meters long, appeared, it meant a maritime disaster.
Although Faen thought he had some skill, facing such a giant beast on the sea... there was nothing to be said.
It felt like you just learned how to punch, and then you see Mike Tyson walking towards you with a grin, wearing a cloak. Sensing your terror, he laughs: "Don't worry, I'm your referee! Your opponent is~ Ultraman Taro from the Nebula M78!"
He was eaten, but fortunately, the space inside the sea serpent's stomach was large enough. Faen managed to survive for a few days relying on the supplies inside.
On the seventh day, a woman saved Faen—a woman with a perpetual, peculiar smile on her face.
She fought the sea serpent, turning brilliant flowing water into whipping blades in her hands. She sprinted across the shimmering sea surface, and in just a few breaths, sliced the hundred-meter-long Ship-Eater Sea Serpent into pieces with water blades.
Faen knew that woman—Nilah, a bookish girl who traded with the Demon of Joy, Ashlesh, forgetting her past to become a hero and go down in history.
And so-called demons are lifeforms born from the spirit realm. They live within the emotions of all life in Runeterra and feed on the emotions of all things.
Pain, confusion, hatred, agony, nightmares... all emotions have corresponding demons. The oldest ones are the Ten Great Kings born from the ten primal emotions.
The Demon of Joy, Ashlesh, as the name suggests, was born from the oldest and most primal joy and delight of all things.
After killing the sea serpent, Nilah, whose mind had already become abnormal due to the deal with the demon, discovered Faen.
Nilah wanted to send Faen away, but during the process, Ashlesh developed a great interest in Faen.
This caused a dispute between the two. During the conflict, the shockwaves of energy formed waves that directly knocked Faen out. He drifted while unconscious for a while before being sucked into a sewage pipe. His vision went black, and when he came to, he was here...
Now, looking at the seven-handed sigil in his palm, Faen was first puzzled, then his face revealed a look of solemnity and helplessness after sensing it for a moment.
Clearly, Ashlesh had detected the difference in Faen's soul, which Ashlesh found incredibly interesting—especially since Ashlesh had just returned to the physical world, and Nilah was a warrior obsessed with hunting monsters, unable to provide the colorful "joy" Ashlesh needed.
So now, Ashlesh left the power to Nilah but gave the ability to consume "joy" to Faen...
This is a curse, but also a blessing. Because the power derived from a primal demon greatly increased Faen's upper and lower limits.
Faen conservatively estimated that his strength, stamina, agility, resilience, and bone density had increased more than fivefold. It also gave Faen the power to control and bestow joy, and the power to manipulate water for his own use...
But as a price, Faen himself would feel intense joy and needed to create, feel, and breed more joy to dispel the discomfort caused by this joy.
And this discomfort of joy...
Taking gaming as an example: you have to prepare, operate, strategize, get nervous, and win before you feel intense joy and satisfaction.
The Curse of Joy brings the joy directly, skipping all the previous processes. This causeless joy creates a strong sense of emptiness...
Look, Faen isn't even fully dressed yet, and he already feels an inexplicable joy and impulse wandering through his body. This groundless joy makes Faen desperate to do something.
At first, Faen tried to endure it, but soon he found that when he clenched his fist and his nails dug into his flesh, the pain also made him feel satisfied...
Are you kidding me? Masochism counts too?
Are you a Demon of Joy or a Slaanesh demon?!
Thinking this, Faen realized he had to do something to relieve this joy.
But the problem was, the environment here was a bit too harsh.
Recovering his spirit and climbing out of the sewage pipe, Faen quickly realized this must be Zaun on the Valoran continent—no other place in Runeterra had this acidic rain, toxic smog, and chemical waste all over the streets.
Looking up into the night, Zaun was situated between winding ravines and jagged cliffs. It was surrounded by overlapping mountain structures, with corroded smoke pipes clinging to them.
Distant chemical factories emitted roaring noises, leaking various colored toxic wastes through many dilapidated pipes.
Not only was the environment terrible, but the pedestrians were also dressed in rags and looked hurried.
They took loans from Chem-Barons to buy shabby chem-tech augments, working desperately just to feed their families, yet most of their wages went to repaying loans. Crude breathing filters made serious noise every time they ran, making one doubt if they could actually filter the toxins in the air.
Noticing Faen, wary glances came from the street corners. However, Faen didn't pay much attention because he sensed zero threat from them.
Just as Faen was wondering what to do, a roaring sound suddenly came from a nearby alley.
Accompanied by the boom of gunfire, pedestrians on the street quickly hid in their houses and locked their doors. From the direction of the sound, Faen saw fluorescent green sparks and electric arcs flying wildly, lighting up the rain curtain into a neon cloud—
With electricity under her feet, two green pigtails emitted yellow-green arcs in the night sky under the charge of energy.
Wearing an electric shell and holding a crude spark gun, Zeri moved quickly through the complex alleys. Her lower abdomen was stained with blood from a heavy blow, and her once clean face was covered in dirt and scratches, filled with gravity and hidden fear.
"Give up! You idiot! The Chem-Barons have put a huge bounty on your head!"
A heavily modified man, looking like a giant with only his head remaining original, his body completely turned into a four-meter chem-tech augment. Like a ferocious beast, he could smash an iron house with a single blow.
"You can't escape! Hahaha! Your head belongs to me, Zalunk the Crusher!!"
Before Zalunk's voice could fade, a slightly surprised voice came from the other side of the street.
"Zeri?!"
"Huh?!"
Hearing this, Zeri looked up in horror, only to find a tall man standing at the alley exit looking at her with surprise, as if meeting an old friend in a strange city—but Zeri didn't remember ever meeting this person.
Wolf in front, tiger behind... what kind of luck is this? Committing a crime on a rainy day and bumping into two bounty hunters at once?! And they are exactly in front and behind, leaving her nowhere to escape?!
"Huh?! A competitor!" Noticing Faen, Zalunk's gaze turned fierce. The tank on his back bubbled, and a large amount of high-purity Shimmer compound was pumped into the chem-tech engine through pipes, creating a violent hum.
"Dare to snatch Zalunk the Crusher's prey? I'll kill you too!!!"
Roaring, Zalunk's massive chem-tech body accelerated again, turning into a blur, crushing towards Zeri and Faen like a battering ram.
Feeling the evil wind attacking from behind, a flash of despair passed through Zeri's eyes.
If Faen hadn't appeared at the alley exit, she would have had enough confidence to release the electricity stored in her iron thread shell to accelerate and rush out. But now, with a wolf in front and a tiger behind...
In Zeri's vision, at one end of the alley, Faen had already lowered his center of gravity. Turbid rain dripped onto his solid flesh, splashing into broken water flowers.
Having grown up on the streets of Zaun, Zeri could feel the surging strength in Faen's body. In despair, Zeri didn't care anymore and directly unleashed all her stored electricity, rushing towards Faen with a desperate scream.
Similarly, focusing his attention on the bounty hunter behind Zeri, Faen's gaze was filled with solemnity, and that flamboyant joy that couldn't be completely suppressed no matter how much he tried to control it.
"Command one evil, and execute the rest!"
As the seven-handed sigil in his palm lit up with a dim arc, Faen could clearly feel the flow of every drop of water in this rainy night.
It wasn't magic manipulation, but an innate authority. Just as natural as breathing, requiring no deliberate mastery, just a subconscious association... He flipped his hand, and the surrounding curtain of water seemed to receive an order, freezing instantly.
He turned his hand over, and the rain reversed.
As the frozen water droplets poured down, they became incredibly viscous. The moment she was inside it, Zeri felt like she had fallen into a ditch. Let alone sprinting, even running became incredibly difficult in the congealed, thick rain curtain.
Am I going to die?
Zeri thought subconsciously. Watching the blur rapidly approaching in the muddy water, Zeri could only grit her teeth secretly, then pulled the trigger towards her front in despair.
But soaked in water, the homemade spark gun only flickered a few arcs before losing function. Amidst her despair, while trying to prepare for death, Zeri saw the figure rush straight past her—Huh?
A look of confusion appeared in her eyes. But before Zeri could be confused for long, the shockwave of Faen sprinting through the water curtain hit her face. It felt like a heavy hammer smashing into Zeri's face; her eyes rolled back, and the little girl fell asleep instantly.
On the other side, before the guy calling himself Zalunk could react, Faen, constantly accelerating through the water curtain with the power of Ashlesh, had already arrived in front of him.
The moment he closed in, his left foot stomped the ground, sinking heavy force into the earth and creating web-like cracks. His right arm pulled back, and as he swung, the water curtain behind him wrapped around his arm as if it were alive, bursting out like liquid muscle—BOOM!!!
One punch landed, and the water clinging to Faen's arm exploded. While neutralizing all the recoil, in front of Faen, the nearly four-meter-tall Zalunk was almost instantly turned into flying debris.
Broken organs mixed with fragments of chem-tech augments scattered all over the ground. Dirty turbid rain rolled down, quickly washing away and diluting the spilled blood and Shimmer...
Looking at the corpse in front of him, Faen stood up straight after a moment of silence and looked down at his right arm—this was the first time Faen had killed someone.
Faen could feel that the moment he realized the reality, he felt a slight discomfort and uneasiness. But before he could carefully feel this sensation, it was converted into joy under Ashlesh's blessing...
Couldn't say if it was good or bad. If one indulged in it, perhaps Runeterra would give birth to a whimsical serial killer? But for Faen...
It felt pretty good. The disordered joy was effectively replenished, which gave Faen a slight sense of satisfaction.
Stretching his body and feeling the abundant power within, even Faen had to sigh with emotion.
Runeterra truly deserves to have the word "Rune" stamped on its face. Mages are awesome, warriors are low-tier.
He worked hard to learn Battle Dance for over ten years at the academy in Placidium, and the result? One blessing from Ashlesh, and a casual punch has seventy years of cultivation behind it, complete with special water effects. You have to admit it's impressive.
No wonder Nilah, after gaining Ashlesh's power, didn't take long to kill the Camavoran Dragon ancestor, the shapeshifting demon, and the mad demigod... The gold content of a Primal Demon is indeed top-tier.
Although he received Ashlesh's Joy and didn't directly inherit Ashlesh's power, upon careful inspection, Faen could feel that his power increased correspondingly the moment he felt joy...
Thinking of this, Faen slapped his forehead—almost forgot!