Balyard was an anomaly, an exception that shouldn't exist. The entirety of the Shadow Isles was inhabited by the undead, a place teetering on the boundary between life and death, yet he alone existed in both realms simultaneously.
Unlike Karthus, the first being he saw upon opening his eyes and the Grand Steward of the Shadow Isles at the time, Balyard was not a lich, nor was he a living creature with undead traits.
He was both living and dead. Perhaps it was precisely because of this that he ascended to the throne of the Shadow Isles amidst Karthus's respect, Thresh's disdain, and Mordekaiser's conflicting sentiments. Under his rule, for the first time since its cursed birth, the Shadow Isles entered a framework of order, thus gaining the right to negotiate with other nations and powers.
Still, he rarely left the Shadow Isles. Aside from the regularly held World Conferences he was required to attend, his excursions beyond the Isles were few and far between.
Karthus disapproved of him wandering freely, arguing that his meager strength was unworthy of the title "Sovereign of the Shadow Isles."
And life on the Shadow Isles was dreadfully boring.
He resided in the Dark Temple, which was called the Temple of Light back in the Blessed Isles era. However, the so-called god of light, assuming such a being ever existed, clearly did not protect the Blessed Isles. One could even argue that god abandoned them.
Isn't that just the way of the gods when it comes to mortals?
As for the name "Blessed Light," Balyard couldn't find its origin in the texts Thresh had preserved, but as the name implies, he surmised it meant "Light of Blessing." The Blessed Isles had once been a peaceful, isolated land.
That land also held the Water of Life, which could grant mortals immortality, and it was perpetually shrouded in white mist that repelled outsiders. A paradise gifted by a divine being? Perhaps.
Ancient texts also recorded a prophecy that outsiders would bring ruin to the Blessed Isles. In name, it was a prophecy, but in truth, it was more likely a divine decree, a warning of punishment should the people violate the god's laws.
Caporos was not a god who liked an unchanging world. Gods who tried to control fate were either weak or had already been eliminated. Those who still wielded power over fate at best could merely glimpse fragments of an ever-changing destiny.
So really, how could a "god of light" possess such great control over fate? The destruction of the Blessed Isles was nothing more than a disaster in which the god played an active role.
The undead born from that tragic fall were masters of madness and delusion, every one of them. Balyard found himself completely out of sync with their minds.
He couldn't communicate with the weaker undead at all; they had to be driven off with force. Only the powerful undead would even acknowledge Balyard, such as Karthus.
Only a small number of undead were strong enough to be useful, but not so strong as to defy his commands. These he could barely command, but even they were mostly under Karthus's orders.
On top of that, Balyard's strength had stagnated for years. He remained stuck at the Seventh Tier, the starting point of the extraordinary, making life on the Shadow Isles even more dull and uneventful.
There was no one to talk to. Only Karthus would occasionally converse with him, but Karthus was usually busy. As for the others… well, Balyard, who considered himself one of the more mentally stable beings, found no meaning in constantly listening to the rage, hatred, and pain of the undead.
Waking at six in the morning meant dragging himself deeper into aimless boredom. For someone with eternal life and nothing to do, this was torture.
He'd heard that dragons could sleep for decades at a time. If conditions allowed, Balyard wouldn't mind finding some remote island, or even burrowing under the sands of Shurima, to sleep for a few hundred years.
But alas, Karthus still restricted his travel, and the World Conferences took place every ten, hundred, or thousand years. As one of the most powerful forces on Runeterra, the unified Shadow Isles were expected to attend; nonattendance wasn't an option.
The demigods of the Isles, due to their uncontrollable nature, weren't accepted as representatives. Only Balyard could go.
Since Valoran was the center of Runeterra, the conferences were usually held in the capitals of Valoran's major powers. If those demigods attended, the local rulers would either evacuate the populace a month in advance or move the location entirely.
But ever since Balyard attended his first World Conference, he had been plagued with trouble.
Being forced to wake at six every morning was thanks to Hecarim and his cavalry, who thundered across the Isles at that hour, their roars shaking the land.
It wasn't just Hecarim's battle cries; his stampede would also awaken the souls who had found a brief respite in the night, provoking their howls of rage.
Only nighttime could soothe those shattered souls, briefly easing their pain. But Hecarim seemed to take offense at their temporary peace, shattering it day after day.
To be honest, Balyard's travel restrictions had been lifted ever since he defeated that guy once. But still, he found no way to leave the Shadow Isles long enough to get proper rest.
Thresh, who holed up in an underground vault and seemed to be the only one unaffected by Hecarim's hoofbeats, was the real source of Balyard's troubles.
Shurima, Valoran, Ionia, and Thresh had been to all three continents, and he never behaved himself. Every time he returned from his trips, he came back "loaded."
Balyard couldn't see how many souls Thresh stuffed into his lantern, but he could estimate based on the paperwork that followed closely after each trip.
Even the old mage who wandered Runeterra in the name of stability had expressed his discontent with Thresh's misdeeds.
Every Ascended of Ionia had a regular correspondence schedule with Balyard.
The yordles of Bandle City also sent messages to Balyard, especially that big-headed one whose head was nearly the size of his body. Each message came via a different tool.
Even if they looked the same, Balyard could never tell whether the message was spoken aloud or extracted from the yordle's claw, nail, patch of skin, or strand of hair.
That said, Heimerdinger hadn't used such gimmicks in centuries. The last letter Balyard received from him was 45 years ago.
It came in the form of a mechanical dog. At first, Balyard thought that the so-called "Great Inventor" and smartest mind on Runeterra had run out of ideas, until the dog exploded.
Just before the explosion, it let out Ziggs's trademark cackle. Ziggs had secretly modified Heimerdinger's mechanical dog. Fortunately, the transmission function still worked.
It was a teleportation array meant to deliver Heimerdinger's handwritten messages to the Shadow Isles… How boring, right?
In truth, Thresh rarely visited Bandle City; he seemed to find the tiny souls there less satisfying to play with.
Of course, Balyard had no idea that after Thresh captured a Bandle yordle's soul for the first time, the legendary Child King of Shurima cried behind him the entire time.
Every time Thresh left the Shadow Isles, Amumu followed him closely, sobbing endlessly. Oddly enough, this helped Thresh.
Thresh crawling out from under a bed was terrifying enough. Add Amumu's weeping, and some people died from fright, saving Thresh the trouble of killing them himself.
But with someone crying behind you day and night for one or two months straight, who could endure that? If it didn't take so long to fight Amumu, Thresh would've never let the yordle soul go or promised not to capture Bandle yordles again.
Thus, Heimerdinger's messages, ostensibly complaints from Bandle City about Thresh's atrocities, were really just an excuse to show off his latest tech.
And it all stemmed from Balyard's criticism of Heimerdinger's "mechanical dolls" during the first millennial World Conference.
So petty… With a head that big, why are the input and output ports so tiny?
Nasus, the self-exiled Shuriman death god, also visited the Isles from time to time to report Thresh's atrocities in Shurima.
But all Balyard could do was listen, then toss the reports aside. Restrain Thresh? Maybe when he could beat him.
Aside from Mordekaiser, the full-metal armored tyrant whose hidden face still somehow provoked the urge to punch it, and Karthus, whose singing was so awful it could kill, no one else on the Isles could even last one round against Thresh.
And Balyard himself? Among all beings on the Isles, excluding common spirits, he was the weakest of them all.