"How are we supposed to find him..." Caleb frowned at the tangled layers of rope knots, genuinely at a loss.
The giant beast stood before the three of them like a small mountain.
"Do you have water?" Sivir turned and asked.
Out in the desert, water was a commodity far more precious than gold.
Especially here, in the so-called endless plains, where the nomadic tribes had an enormous need for it.
"I do." Caleb didn't waste words. He directly pulled out a waterskin as tall as a person from his pack.
"Hiss..." Sivir sucked in a breath.
Where did he get that from?
Could it be that he wasn't just an ice mage?
Rune Magic was endless in its possibilities. There was only what people couldn't imagine, not what mages couldn't do.
And when she thought about Caleb's physical abilities, which actually weren't weak at all, Sivir started to believe a little more that this guy really could have become the Governor of Zaun.
The twin cities might have originally been built to distance themselves from magic, but that didn't mean Piltover and Zaun still shunned Rune Magic in this age of Hextech.
For one thing, Noxus had plenty of battle mages marching with its armies to the north. For another, Hextech itself was basically magic constructed through Hextech crystals.
After all, the twin cities weren't Demacia, where mages practically had no rights.
Because of that, Sivir found it much easier to accept the idea of a mage becoming Zaun's Governor.
So under that young exterior, how old was the soul actually hiding inside?
Sivir couldn't help getting curious.
Right up until Caleb flicked her forehead again.
"What are you spacing out for? Call someone."
A little embarrassed and annoyed, Sivir shot him a fierce glare, but still gave up on the urge to spin her crossblade and smack him with it.
She put two fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle.
The ropes on the Dormun immediately stirred, and a figure with hook-claws strapped to both hands and feet descended soundlessly in front of the three of them.
"Have any of you seen an arcane being? We're willing to trade this whole bag of water for information."
The rider silently nodded, then immediately shouted something up above.
The cry was sharp and far-reaching, clearly the way Dormun riders communicated with one another.
The ropes trembled. Not long after, two more figures with hook-claws on all four limbs dropped down as well.
"Which one of you saw that arcane being?"
Sivir didn't waste any time and asked directly.
The tall, thin rider pointed at himself.
"Where did it go?"
"It went toward the city of gardens," he replied, looking extremely cooperative.
But Caleb had already lowered his left hand out of sight, ready to summon his longbow at any moment.
Only one rider had come down at first, but now there were three hook-claw riders standing here.
Nomads, how exactly did that lifestyle work?
If they saw something valuable, wouldn't they just take it?
To put it bluntly, in a barren desert like this, even a person could count as an important resource.
"Go ahead and take it." Caleb extended his right hand in a polite gesture.
The faces of the two other riders were full of caution, and one of them even wiped down his hook-claw.
The threat was obvious enough.
By contrast, Kai'Sa and Sivir both looked perfectly calm, with no intention of fighting at all.
Caleb used a bow, and over the past few days, his strength had improved quite a bit.
Up on the Dormun's back, there were dozens of eyes watching this spot.
The riders most likely had some kind of ranged attack.
And considering that the Skallashi had runes and charms hanging from it, the Dormun might very well have something similar.
One bag of water wasn't enough to make both sides turn hostile.
The three riders placed the waterskin into a transport basket. Naturally, someone above started turning gears and hauled the water upward.
Then the riders themselves climbed back up onto the beast's back.
"Now we've got a destination." Caleb looked at the departing giant beast and spoke in a low voice.
Next came that bastard Xerath.
To be honest, Caleb didn't have much confidence.
After all, even Nasus and Renekton together hadn't been able to beat him. Only with a stone sarcophagus and chains had they managed to keep him sealed in the Tomb of the Emperors for so long.
Even a proud Ascended warrior like Renekton hadn't been able to withstand the brainwashing Xerath had worked on him over all those long years.
Even if Azir had awakened again, Caleb still didn't think victory was guaranteed.
And that was the problem.
Should he put his full trust in Azir and fight alongside the emperor when the time came?
Or should he try to come up with something else?
Caleb turned around and called to the Skallashi, which was still standing there.
"Let's get moving first."
"This isn't the endless plains anymore. We can't just charge over there openly, or we're done for."
Sivir spread out a map and pointed toward the direction of the city of gardens.
"How strong is that arcane thing, anyway?" Yuumi floated over to join the conversation too.
For Caleb and the others, these past few days had felt long. For a yordle like Yuumi, though, it was about the same as a brief little play session.
"Very strong." Caleb felt it was time to give them a warning in advance.
"At the very least, strong enough that Nasus and Renekton together couldn't handle it."
Thinking about that, Caleb's face darkened.
Renekton's close-combat ability was far stronger than anyone in their group.
And Xerath was the type who excelled at magic.
So how were they supposed to fight him? Was this nightmare difficulty?
Caleb already knew the system had no good intentions.
Back when he'd just had an ordinary human body, he'd constantly been thrown into situations involving the peak of normal human combat power.
Now that he had grown far beyond the people who just played with technology and chemtech, the system had brought him to Shurima to mess around with the Ascended.
You couldn't exactly call this difficulty welcoming to all ages, it was just outright torturous.
And that wasn't even mentioning the Black Mist incident, when so many champions had shown up...
Hecarim, Kalista, Yorick, Thresh, and according to Janna, there had even been a yordle with dark circles under his eyes...
Most Harrowings happened in the unmanaged port of Bilgewater.
For one thing, it was geographically close. For another, while the people there were fierce, they were also an unruly mass with no real unity.
Under those conditions, with everyone fighting alone, countless sailors, crewmen, and all sorts of others had been carried off by the Black Mist.
There was nothing strange about how many different ways an outlaw could die.
But why had they come to the twin cities, and why had so many champions shown up there?
If it had just been a concentration of Black Mist, that would have been one thing.
But when he thought about the tactics they had used that night...
They had taken advantage of the fact that the Shadow Isles champions could move quickly through the Black Mist and split up to strike Piltover...
Thresh's goal didn't seem to be as simple as gathering souls during the Harrowing.
There had to be something urgent pushing him to increase his strength as quickly as possible, enough that he was willing to go that far no matter the cost.
Kalista and Hecarim fighting together, even dragging Yorick into it, this clearly hadn't been an ordinary Harrowing.
Caleb had every reason to believe that night was tied to the Ruination event from that year in his previous life.
The Ruination storyline had been a mess, but after Viego awakened, the whole continent of Valoran had been swallowed by the Black Mist.
The return of Pantheon, the Aspect of War, and the fall of Karma, the soul of Ionia.
Just from those two developments alone, it was easy to see how terrifying the Ruination really was.
Could those Sentinels of Light really handle it?
This wasn't going to be simple.
Thunk.
That was exactly when Sivir, seeing Caleb zone out again, smacked him without hesitation with her gauntlet.
When she saw the blank look in Caleb's eyes, she lifted her chin proudly and said,
"We're turning here, stop spacing out!"
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