Void Corruption

Void Corruption is the anti-reality energy that seeps into Runeterra from the Void, a dimension of absolute nothingness that hungers to consume all existence. It is not magic in the conventional sense but the antithesis of creation itself. The Void predates the world, a nothingness older even than the celestial realm; when the universe was forged, it remained as the absence between realities, an empty hunger that instinctively seeks to unmake whatever was made. On contact it dissolves matter and energy, and because it operates against the principles of existence, ordinary magic can barely hold it back. The Void has scarred Runeterra since before recorded history. In their desperation to defeat Shurima, the ancient Icathians opened a gateway to the Void, unleashing a cataclysm that destroyed their own civilization and left the Void-scarred wastelands behind. The Watchers, entities of the Void, have pressed toward Runeterra again and again, and every incursion leaves lasting corruption in its wake. Those touched by the Void follow very different paths. Malzahar, driven mad by its visions, has become its prophet, tearing open rifts to loose Voidborn into the world. Kassadin sacrificed his humanity to fight the Void from within, turning its own energy against itself. Kai'Sa was dragged into the Void as a child and survived by bonding with a living symbiote, emerging as a hunter of the very creatures that spawned it. Runeterra has raised defenders against the corruption for just as long. Malphite is a primordial shard of living stone, made by the Ascended Ne'Zuk to combat the Void, and he still labors to halt its spread. Zilean bends time itself against the Void's seemingly inevitable triumph, searching possible futures for one in which Icathia's mistake can be undone, while Nami has battled Voidborn near an underwater Void rift far beneath the waves. Yet the Void has no strategy and no intelligence of its own, only hunger; its Voidborn adapt to overcome any defense, and even its most devoted servants are more puppets than masters, corrupted by the force they wield.