Sun Disc Ascension

Sun Disc Ascension is the ancient Shuriman ritual that transforms mortal champions into god-warriors by channeling the cosmic power of the sun through massive magical constructs called Sun Discs. The Discs themselves were gifts from the Targonian Aspects to the ancient Shurimans, built to draw the raw power of the sun down into a mortal vessel. To Ascend, a worthy candidate stood beneath an activated Sun Disc while celestial fire remade them into an Ascended being of immense power. The Ascended were once Shurima's greatest defenders, warriors, scholars, and leaders raised to near-divine status, and for millennia they guarded the empire and fought the Void. Not every candidate was accepted. Those the ritual embraced rose as god-warriors, but those it rejected were reduced to lesser, twisted forms known as the Baccai. The greatest catastrophe came when Azir attempted his own Ascension and his trusted advisor Xerath betrayed him at that moment, destroying the Shuriman capital and its Sun Disc. Nasus and Renekton are among the few true Ascended who remain, their animal-headed forms marking the ritual's transformative power. Ascension grants superhuman strength, near-immortality, and command over elemental forces, and its recipients can live for millennia, accumulating knowledge and might. Nasus's intellect was amplified to cosmic levels, while Renekton became an unstoppable warrior. The cost is steep. The ritual demands a functional Sun Disc, of which very few survive; it is irreversible and can fail catastrophically, as Xerath's case shows; and it severs the Ascended from their humanity. The Ascended are also vulnerable to corruption, and the Darkin are fallen Ascended driven mad by the horrors of the Void War. When that war corrupted so many and Xerath's betrayal shattered the capital Disc, the knowledge of Ascension was all but lost, until Azir's return.