Ascended and God-Warriors

Ascension was one of ancient Shurima's greatest sources of power. Under the Sun Disc, selected mortals could be transformed by celestial energy into beings capable of feats beyond an ordinary human lifetime. The empire called upon those god-warriors to defend and expand its order.

The transformation did not make their personal histories irrelevant. Nasus's scholarship and Renekton's ferocity began before either stood beneath the Disc. Their bond, and the extraordinary circumstances in which both were transformed, continued to matter after they entered the ranks of the Ascended.

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Service in the imperial wars also left wounds. The confrontation with the Void at Icathia exposed the god-warriors to a threat that could not be understood as another mortal army. Aatrox's history traces a path from honored service through trauma and the disintegration of the order that had given his strength a purpose.

The darkin emerged from fallen Ascended, but the two terms should not be used as though they describe exactly the same condition. The empire's collapse, the wars among its surviving god-warriors and the eventual imprisonment of darkin in weapons form a sequence of changes. Nasus and Renekton's later lives differ from Aatrox's imprisonment, even though all belong to the larger legacy of Shurima's pursuit of power beyond mortality.