In front of the Sun Temple of Vikaura, Li Lin and Nasus stood side by side at the top of the stairs.
A tall, thin man, holding a dripping ice pack against his face, stood before them with a broad smile, nodding and bowing to them...
But more to Nasus.
The man was wearing a robe covered with iridescent feathers, with sleeves as wide as flying clouds, and a dirty ebony turban wrapped around his head.
On the man's bandaged face, there were countless bloodstains that looked like they were scratched by tiny metal particles, but also looked like they were burned by hot iron blocks, showing horrible brown-red marks.
His name is Azrahil Salam, a priest and ruler of the reborn city-state of Vekaura.
Before finding Li Lin and the others, Nasus "visited" the man who claimed to be a descendant of Eagle King Azir.
After a "friendly" exchange, Nasus used a crude imitation of the sun disk above the temple that could reflect sunlight to verify that the ruler had no "ascended bloodline" at all.
"I have done as you instructed. My soldiers have gone to evacuate the residents of Vikaura, Grand Secretary." Azrahil chuckled and said respectfully.
But the resentment and fear hidden deep in his eyes could not be hidden from Nasus.
"How long is it expected to take?" Nasus said calmly, not caring too much about Azrahil's hatred towards him.
After all, he was the one who caused the wounds on this guy's body and the burns on his face.
"Weikaola has a permanent population of around 3,000 people. Add in the nomadic tribes, caravans, travelers, expeditions, and so on that stop here, and the total population might be close to 10,000..."
Azrahil's expression was somewhat embarrassed, and his hands, also wrapped in bandages and covered with scars, were pressed together and placed in front of his chest.
Although the scale of Vikaura is not as large as the port towns of northern Shurima such as Beljun, Telishni, Nashrameh, and Uzeris.
But as the junction of Dasai, Kohalise and Kalixai, and located next to the River of Life and the Kohali River, Vikaola is already a town with a large population in the desert.
It is almost impossible to completely evacuate the people in a city with a large population.
Not to mention some people who are stubborn and refuse to leave, let alone those women, children and the elderly who are unable to move or are in poor health and have to travel through the vast desert.
Even though they were Shurimans, a considerable number of them could not withstand the harsh desert environment and were buried in the yellow sand.
This greatly increased the difficulty of the evacuation work.
"With your name, caravans, nomadic tribes, travelers, and explorers will probably leave first, but those mercenaries are a problem; they're likely to do something shady.
"However, my two hundred elite soldiers will do their best to maintain order and protect civilians from being affected."
Azrahil looked troubled. "As for how long the evacuation will take... I really can't give you a precise time, Grand Maester."
"I can sense the ancient magical aura of Xerath, that evil ancient witch spirit. He will arrive in a day at most."
Nasus closed his eyes and sighed heavily.
Although when he first arrived in Waikaura, he was angry about the way the people here remembered their homeland and their ignorance of history.
But they are still the people of the desert after all, and they still have longing for the former Shurima Empire. Nasus could not bear to see them being implicated unnecessarily.
"Try to speed things up as much as possible. Say that an evil demigod is about to descend upon Vikaura and destroy everything here."
"But, but..." Azrahil became emotional, "If we do this, it will cause unrest!"
"Let's just say that the Desert Death God is here, controlling everything. If anyone dares to cause trouble at this time, I will harvest their soul."
Azrahil was silent for a moment, then finally nodded and called two personal guards to walk down the steps of the Temple of the Sun.
Only Li Lin and Nasus were left on the altar.
Long before the decision to evacuate the citizens was made, Kassadin went with Sivir to evacuate the people.
As for Talia, she ran alone to the unrebuilt ruins at the easternmost end of Vikaola, ready to use her magic to build a temporary shelter underground with rocks for women, children and the elderly who were unable to travel far to hide there.
"It's time." Nasus glanced at Li Lin and whispered softly.
The votive bands wrapped around his arms and waist fluttered in the wind as the desert heat blew down from the heights.
Nasus gripped his battle axe tightly in his left hand, placed the base of his axe against the stone brick floor made of a mixture of inferior marble and basalt, and slowly closed his eyes.
Then, he raised his right claw, and purple-black magic power as smooth as flowing water and silk emerged from the palm of his hand, attracting a large amount of yellow sand particles scattered on the ground, forming a vortex-shaped halo around his arm.
Not long after, Nasus suddenly opened his eyes, and the red light that was originally flickering in his eyes suddenly turned golden.
He controlled the yellow sand to gather around him, and with the continuous infusion of magic power, soon, the two yellow sand soldiers sent by Azir to follow Li Lin were directly summoned out by him.
“It’s truly Azir’s power.” Nasus spoke with a hint of joy. “With this medium, I can contact Azir and ask him to come to my aid…”
As he was speaking, his voice stopped abruptly and his expression seemed a little worried.
"But Azir has only just resurrected and ascended. I'm not sure if he's mastered his ascension yet, nor am I sure if we can defeat Xerath..."
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