The Darkin Blade

The Darkin Blade is the living prison of Aatrox, once among the most revered of ancient Shurima's Ascended. In the age before desert sands swallowed the empire, a mighty champion was raised before the Sun Disc as the avatar of a now forgotten celestial ideal. Remade as one of the Ascended, he bore wings of golden dawn-light and armor like a constellation of hope. Aatrox was his name, and he stood at the vanguard of every noble conflict, so revered that other god-warriors gathered at his side and ten thousand mortals of Shurima marched behind him. His fall came in the war against the Void. When the warrior-queen Setaka called for aid against the rebellion of Icathia, Aatrox answered without hesitation, but the Void soon overwhelmed its Icathian masters and began annihilating all life it met. After years of desperate battle, Aatrox and his brethren halted its advance and seared the largest rifts shut, yet the surviving Sunborn emerged forever changed. As they descended into madness, the Aspects of Targon used celestial magic to seal Aatrox inside his own greatsword. The weapon feeds on the blood and flesh of whoever takes it up. Little by little it consumes its wielder, reshaping the stolen body into a towering, grotesque war-form so that Aatrox can walk the world again. In his grip the sword wields apocalyptic power, able to cut down even other Darkin, spirit gods, and celestials. What it holds now calls itself the World Ender. Aatrox does not celebrate his immortality but wields it as a threat, for he cannot be killed and wants that truth to terrify all who face him. Beneath the fury lies despair for the noble protector he once was, a being he has come to loathe. Having long ago broken free of his weapon-prison to wear a mortal host, he is the strongest of the free Darkin, marching across Runeterra, bringing war and death wherever he goes, and seeking nothing less than the end of creation.