AATROX

THE DARKIN BLADE

Whether mistaken for a demon or god, many tales have been
told of the Darkin Blade... but few know his real name, or the
story of his fall.

In ancient times, long before desert sands swallowed the

empire, a mighty champion of Shurima was brought before
the Sun Disc to become the avatar for a now forgotten
celestial ideal. Remade as one of the Ascended, his wings
were the golden light of dawn, and his armor sparkled like a
constellation of hope from beyond the great veil.

Aatrox was his name. He was at the vanguard of every noble

conflict. So true and just was his conduct that other god-
warriors would always gather at his side, and ten thousand
mortals of Shurima marched behind him. When Setaka, the
Ascended warrior-queen, called for his help against the
rebellion of Icathia, Aatrox answered without hesitation.

But no one predicted the extent of the horrors that the rebels
would unleash—the Void quickly overwhelmed its Icathian
masters, and began the grinding annihilation of all life it
encountered.
After many years of desperate battle, Aatrox and his brethren
finally halted the Void’s perverse advance, and seared the
largest rifts shut. But the surviving Ascended, the self-
described Sunborn, had been forever changed by what they
had encountered. Though Shurima had triumphed, they all
had lost something in their victory... even noble Aatrox.

And in time, Shurima fell, as all empires must.

Without any monarch to defend, or the existential threat of

the Void to test them, Aatrox and the Sunborn began to clash
with one another, and eventually this became a war for the
ruins of their world. Mortals fleeing the conflict came to know
them instead by a new and scornful name: the darkin.

Fearing that these fallen Ascended were as dangerous to

Runeterra’s survival as the Void incursions had been, the
Targonians intervened. It is said that the Aspect of Twilight
gave mortals the knowledge to trap the darkin, and the newly
reborn Aspect of War united many in fighting back against
them. Never fearing any foe, Aatrox and his armies were
ready, and he realized only too late that they had been
deceived. A force greater than a thousand dead suns pulled
him inside the sword he had carried into battle countless
times, and forever bound his immortal essence to it.

The weapon was a prison, sealing his consciousness in

suffocating, eternal darkness, robbing him even of the ability
to die. For centuries, he strained against this hellish
confinement... until some nameless mortal was foolish
enough to try and wield the blade once more. Aatrox seized
upon this opportunity, forcing his will and an imitation of his
original form onto his bearer, though the process quickly
drained all life from the new body.

In the years that followed, Aatrox groomed many more

hosts—men and women of exceptional vitality or fortitude.
Though his grasp of such magics had been limited in life, he
learned to take control of a mortal in the span of single
breath, and in battle he discovered he could feast on his
victims to build himself ever larger and stronger.

Aatrox traveled the land, searching desperately, endlessly, for

a way return to his previous Ascended form… but the riddle of
the blade proved unsolvable, and in time he realized he would
never be free of it. The flesh he stole and crudely shaped
began to feel like a mockery of his former glory—a cage only
slightly larger than the sword. Despair and loathing grew in his
heart. The heavenly powers that Aatrox had once embodied
had been wiped from the world, and all memory.

Raging against this injustice, he arrived at a solution that

could only be born of a prisoner’s desperation. If he could not
destroy the blade or free himself, then he would embrace
oblivion instead.

Now, Aatrox marches toward this merciless goal, bringing war

and death wherever he goes. He clings to a blind hope: if he
can drive all of creation into a final, apocalyptic battle—where
everything, everything else is destroyed—then maybe he and
the blade will also cease to exist.