POV - Morgana
Time came undone within the chamber. It did not stop, as if frozen by a stasis spell, but dissolved, losing its linear form to become something more fluid, like water itself. The air around me seemed to have transformed into ocean, dense and heavy, every breath a conscious effort against an invisible pressure.
And in the centre of it all, back turned to us, was the source. The woman named Illaoi.
Her presence was not merely physical; it was geological. She existed in that space not as a visitor, but as a fundamental part of the landscape, like a mountain or a cliff face carved by time. The idol on her back, a mass of gold that should have bowed her spine, seemed instead to anchor her, an extension of her will, as natural as the chains on my own wings.
"The Fallen and the Eternal Soul finally arrive."
Her voice did not echo. It filled the space. It was not loud, but possessed a resonance that vibrated not in the ears, but in the bones, like the sound of underwater bells or the heartbeat of a leviathan in the deep.
Then, she turned.
The movement was neither fast nor hesitant. It was deliberate. Inevitable, like the turning of the tide. The world seemed to pivot around her, not the other way around. The colossal idol on her back did not sway, did not waver; it moved with her in perfect equilibrium, a silent testament to a strength that defied mortal logic.
Her face was a landscape of power. Strong, angular, carved not for the delicate beauty Demacians valued, but for unshakeable truth. There were fine scars, stories of battles etched into her dark skin, but they did not disfigure her; they defined her. Her expression was a complex mixture of appraisal and something akin to a smile, yet a smile that offered no comfort. It was a smile that recognised, that saw, that knew. A mouth accustomed to speaking truths that broke bones and saved souls in equal measure.
And then, her eyes met mine.
And the metaphor of the ocean ceased to be a metaphor.
Her eyes were green.
Not the soft green of Ionian foliage, nor the venomous green of Zaunite shimmer. It was a vibrant, deep green that shone with its own supernatural light. The colour of an emerald in the heart of a forge, with a golden glow pulsing at its core, as if liquid gold ran through her veins. It was not the world's light being reflected; it was the light of somewhere else, of unfathomable depths, shining through her.
And I recognised it. With a shock that ran through my soul like cold lightning, I recognised it. Those were not the eyes of a mortal. They were the eyes of Nagakabouros.
This was not merely a priestess. This was an avatar. Not a possession, not a puppet of flesh; her will was still there, strong and unbroken. But it was a partnership. A fusion. The goddess looked at the world through those eyes, and in this moment, the goddess was looking at me.
Illaoi smiled.
It was not a gentle smile, nor a cruel one. It was a smile of recognition. The recognition of a wolf seeing another wolf in the forest. The recognition of the ocean seeing a storm forming on the horizon. The recognition of one primordial force meeting another, disguised and chained, yet unmistakable.
"You do not belong to these waters."
Her words were a fact, not an accusation. Her voice was like war drums and the heat of a bonfire, a sound that could announce battle or offer shelter, depending entirely on her will.
"But the Serpent sensed you nonetheless."
She took a step towards us, closing the distance. The idol made no sound. "Ancient power. Bound. Suffering." Her head tilted, and the braids in her hair sounded like the rattling of bones or wind chimes made of shells. "And searching. Searching for something order does not offer. That law does not provide."
She was close now, too close for evasion to be an option. Her presence was a physical force, impossible to ignore, impossible to lie to.
"I am Illaoi," she said, the introduction simple, stripped of the pompous titles Demacian nobility loved so dearly. "Truth Bearer of Nagakabouros. Spokesperson when the Serpent desires words instead of tides."
Then, those gold-green eyes, eyes holding the depth of the ocean and the light of a deity, fixed upon mine.
"And you are an Ascendant."
The word was not a question. It was a statement. A truth spoken aloud, stripped of any doubt. She saw through my glamour, through centuries of practice at seeming mortal. She saw the divine spark I fought so hard to suppress, the light I had chained in shadow.
"Fallen," she continued, every word a precise strike. "Bound. Seeking redemption in a philosophy that contradicts your own nature."
The truth. Naked, brutal, and undeniable. I did not answer. What could I say? My silence was a confession.
Satisfied, her eyes moved. She turned to Azra'il. And the intensity of her gaze did not diminish, but changed. The appraisal of an equal was replaced by deep curiosity, that of a geologist finding a stone that shouldn't exist.
"And you," she said, voice softer but no less intense. "You are the fracture in time. The echo that refuses to fade."
She crouched, placing herself at Azra'il's eye level, a gesture of respect that surprised me. "Yara felt the age in your soul. The weight of many tides. I see the current that binds them together. The motion that never finds the shore."
Azra'il's breath hitched, a tiny sound, almost inaudible, but to me, it was like thunder. It was the first time I had seen her shaken, her façade of analytical control cracking under the weight of being... seen.
"Your journey is not a circle," Illaoi continued. "It is a spiral. Always returning, but never progressing. Motion without purpose. Stagnation disguised as travel. A blasphemy, to my goddess."
She stood up, the movement fluid as a wave. "You two." She looked from me to Azra'il, and back. "The Fallen who chained herself to stagnation out of fear of her own power, and the Eternal Soul chained to endless motion. You arrived at this temple together, yet your souls are oceans apart. There is a truth between you, stagnant and rotting like puddle water."
Her piercing gaze fixed on me. "You call her daughter, but now you realise you do not know the first truth about her. The revelation has left you adrift." Then, she turned to Azra'il, and her voice softened, becoming almost gentle, yet with the cutting honesty of a blade. "And you, little one. You call her mother, but feed her a lie of silence. You crave the safety her love offers, yet fear the full truth of your nature will destroy it. Your fear is the anchor preventing both of you from moving."
She was right. The pain of the revelation wasn't just about what Azra'il was; it was about what she had hidden. It was the absence of trust that hurt.
"You came here seeking answers about Nagakabouros," Illaoi said, her voice regaining its strength. "But you cannot understand the motion of the ocean if you are trapped in your own slack tide. The truth of a soul is not found in words. It is revealed in motion. In action."
She turned to Azra'il, and the challenge in her eyes was clear.
"The Serpent cares not for what you were. She cares for what you will do. You seek her acceptance, her love, without giving her the truth of who you are. That is stagnation. That is fear. If you truly wish to be her daughter, then you must allow her to see you. All of you."
Illaoi hefted the gold idol from her shoulder with a single powerful movement, the heavy metal humming in the air, and slammed it onto the stone floor. The shockwave vibrated through me. Tentacles of blue-green energy sprouted from the idol, writhing in the air like living serpents.
"Nagakabouros gives no answers," Illaoi declared, and her voice was now the voice of the ocean itself. "She gives you the ocean and demands you learn to swim. Together."
Her gaze fixed on Azra'il, not as a judge, but as an instructor, a guide to a painful truth.
"I can force the truth from you. The Serpent can rip every memory, every life, and show it to her. But that would not be your choice. That would be violation." She paused, letting the weight of her words settle. "True change only comes from the motion you choose to make. The padlock is not on her heart, little soul. It is on yours."
The world around me seemed to narrow, the entire chamber becoming only Illaoi, her pulsing idol, and the choice that now rested entirely on my daughter's shoulders. The time for hiding was over.
"So I ask," Illaoi said, voice echoing with the power of a rising tide. "Will you allow yourself to be seen? Will you face the current with her, or will you let this silence drown you both?"
The silence that followed was not empty. It was dense, heavy, filled with the sound of one beating heart, mine, and the absence of the sound of another. I looked at Azra'il.
My daughter. The babe I found in a dead stone forest, who became the only living thing in my universe for so long. I saw her façade rise, the walls of sarcasm and cold analysis slotting into place, a defence built over supposed lives I could barely begin to imagine. A small twitch in her jaw. A blink, too fast for a casual observer, but to me, it was like the closing of a fortress gate.
"Is this part of the standard holiday package?" Azra'il's voice came out, surprisingly steady, sharp with the irony she used as a scalpel to dissect the world. "The temple tour, followed by an invasive spiritual therapy session? Is there an additional charge or is it already included in the price of not being thrown off a cliff?"
It was her opening gambit. Deflect. Trivialise. Transform a moment of existential vulnerability into a transaction, into something she could analyse and control.
Illaoi did not move. Her smile did not waver. "Fear dresses in humour when it has nowhere else to run, little soul."
The response was like a hand reaching through Azra'il's walls and squeezing her heart. I saw the impact in her eyes, a flash of shock, of being read, of being so quickly disarmed. The façade of sarcasm trembled.
For an instant, she looked like what she was: a thirteen-year-old child, cornered by a goddess and the very truth she carried.
I felt the primordial impulse within me, the fury that was as much a part of me as compassion. The desire to interpose myself, to raise a shield of shadows and power and tell this Truth Bearer to back away. To leave my daughter in peace.
But I restrained myself. Because Illaoi was right. There was a truth standing between us, and it was poisoning us.
Azra'il looked at the floor for a long moment, her small shoulders curling under a weight that was not physical. I could almost hear her, the silent conversation she held with herself, with that other presence I felt in her but had never named. Her mind, always so fast, so brilliant, was now trapped in an impossible calculation.
'If I refuse,' I could feel her thinking, 'this abyss between us will become permanent. Silence will become our new language.'
'If I accept, the other side of the equation, she will see everything. Not just the age, not just the lives. She will see the mistakes. The blood. The times I was not the heroine, nor even the pragmatic survivor, but something... worse. And her look... the look she has for me now... might disappear forever.'
I saw her hand tremble, just for a fraction of a second, before she closed it into a fist at her side.
Then, slowly, she raised her head. And she did not look at Illaoi.
She looked at me.
In that gaze, I saw an ocean. I saw the wisdom of millennia and the fear of a child about to confess her worst secret. She was not looking for judgement in my eyes. She was looking for the promise that, no matter what the current revealed, I would still be on the shore waiting for her.
And I did not look away. I let her see everything in me too: my shock, my pain at the revelation... and the unshakeable love that sustained it all. Love that was conditional not on her history, but on her existence.
A sigh escaped Azra'il's lips, a sound of surrender.
She turned to Illaoi, the walls of sarcasm gone, replaced by a fragile and terrifying honesty.
"The premise of your test is flawed," said Azra'il, voice quiet but firm. The scientist in her refused to yield completely. "You assume truth is inherently healing. Truth is just... data. Interpretation is everything."
She paused, taking a deep breath.
"But..." she continued, and this time her words were for me, "the absence of data is worse. It creates a vacuum. And speculation fills vacuums with the worst possible scenarios."
Finally, she addressed Illaoi with a resolve that made my heart ache with pride and fear.
"So, for the sake of methodological rigour... let us gather the data." Her blue eyes, old and young at the same time, fixed on Illaoi's. "Show us your test."
It was not submission. It was a challenge. It was the bravest act I had ever seen her commit, not on a battlefield, but there, in the temple of her own soul. She was choosing to face the risk of rejection rather than live with the certainty of estrangement.
She was choosing me.
Illaoi smiled, a genuine, broad smile this time, one that reached her green eyes and made them shine with approval.
"The motion has been made," she declared. "The Serpent is satisfied."
Illaoi then gestured to the dark pool in the centre of the chamber. "The ocean does not keep its secrets in dusty books. It carves them into the water itself. Our souls are no different."
She walked to the edge of the pool. "This is not a test of strength. It is a test of honesty. A mirror."
She looked at us. "You will enter the water. And the water, blessed by Nagakabouros, will dissolve the barriers. Not only the walls you built around each of your lives," her gaze moved to Azra'il, "but the doubt you carry like an anchor in your soul," she said, looking directly at me.
The word hit me with the force of a wave. Doubt. It was the most precise and painful description of my eternal state.
"You chained yourself by choice," Illaoi continued, and her voice held no judgement, only the clarity of undeniable observation. "But you question that choice at every sunrise. You wonder if your compassion is merely weakness in disguise. You fear that the justice you seek, a justice of restoration, is just an excuse not to embrace the cleansing flame that is yours by right. Your sister's shadow hangs over you, an eternal 'what if' that poisons your peace."
"There will be no words," Illaoi said, voice softening. "Only... feeling. You will see through each other's eyes. You will feel the weight each carries. The truth will be shared, not as a told story, but as a tide that floods everything."
The idea was terrifying and... beautiful.
"For you," she said to Azra'il, "it will be the chance to share the burden you carry alone. To allow someone to see the vastness of your journey."
Then, she turned to me. "And for you, Fallen One, it will be the chance to truly understand. Not just her history, but the why of the silence. And in that shared feeling, you will find common ground."
It was a promise of pain and healing in equal measure.
I looked at Azra'il. Fear was still in her eyes, but now there was a quiet resolve. She took off her boots, placing them carefully to the side. Then, without hesitation, she walked to the edge of the pool. She did not look down, but at me. A final look that said: I trust you.
I removed my own boots and stood beside her. We extended our hands to each other, an instinctual gesture, fingers interlacing. Her hand was small and warm in mine.
"The ocean does not judge," said Illaoi from behind us. "It simply... reveals."
Together, we took the final step and entered the dark water.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
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Okay. Deep breath.
I need to know what you all thought about Illaoi in this chapter. 👀🌊
Was she imposing enough? Intimidating enough? Wise enough?
Or did it feel like a gym priestess showed up to emotionally bench press two traumatized immortals?
Because that was kind of the vibe.
Also.
📢 To all Illaoi players:
Just know that I always ban you in top lane.
Always.
No hesitation.
No negotiations.
No "it's a playable matchup."
If I see tentacles, I see the ban button.
That being said (and I say this with respect), I genuinely love Nagakabouros' philosophy. Motion vs stagnation. Growth through pressure. Truth through impact. Illaoi isn't cruel. She isn't soft either. She's… inevitable. Like the tide. Or like your HP bar disappearing after she presses R.
So tell me:
Did you like this portrayal of her?
Did she feel true to her spirit?
And if you're an Illaoi main… do you forgive me for the ban? Or are you about to pull my spirit out and 1v1 me under tower? 💀
The ocean is watching.
And apparently… so are the tentacles.