Deep within a certain district stood an old estate belonging to House Zaavan.
It had once been the mansion of an ancient Noxian noble family. The castle towered above its grounds, heavy with the weight of age, but the surrounding decay made the palace look faintly sinister.
There was not a single figure in sight. Thick clusters of trees surrounded the castle on every side, quiet and still.
Inside the palace, soft footsteps slowly echoed through the halls. Before long, a captivating woman walked out. Her hair was as vivid as blood, arranged in an aristocratic style. Her face was breathtakingly beautiful, and her red eyes carried a dangerous, alluring gleam.
She wore a long dress of red and black. The smooth fabric outlined her flawless figure, while the black skirt fell only to her knees, revealing long, smooth calves beneath it and a pair of elegant feet in high heels.
Her entire presence was proud and aloof, like a rose with thorns.
Yet such a beautiful woman lived in a palace few people ever bothered to visit. The drawing room was dim, with cobwebs stretched everywhere and spiders crawling near them, some large, some small.
From time to time, faint rustling sounds came from the shadows.
She strolled at an unhurried pace, elegant with every step, and headed toward a staircase.
After reaching the second floor, she stopped in front of a room, raised her hand, and pushed the door open.
The room beyond was quite clean. Candlelight gave off a warm glow. A large bed stood against the wall, and on it lay another beautiful woman. Her purple hair was loose and scattered, her clothes barely covering her, leaving a broad expanse of pale skin completely exposed.
"LeBlanc."
The woman in the black dress frowned slightly at the sight and said with displeasure, "You've been freeloading here for almost two months. The outside world is in complete chaos, and you really don't plan to do anything about it?"
As her words fell, LeBlanc slowly opened her eyes. Then she sat up, stretched comfortably, and said, "Would doing something change anything? It's rare for me to have a vacation, so of course I should enjoy it properly. Also, Elise, those little spiders of yours have no manners at all. They're always making noise. I can't sleep well."
"That isn't a reason to trap them with magic."
Elise looked up and waved her hand. A flicker of magic flashed through the room.
With a bang, the small spiders imprisoned in the corner of the wall and ceiling were freed at once, and they scrambled away in every direction.
"Don't forget, you're the guest here. I took you in out of kindness. If you keep pushing your luck, it won't be very polite."
She looked at LeBlanc and expressed her dissatisfaction again.
"That really hurts. We've known each other for so long. I thought we were friends, so when I ran into trouble, I came to you."
LeBlanc spoke with an injured tone as she got off the bed, and a lovely outfit appeared on her out of thin air.
"Have you forgotten? Back when you were in trouble, I was the one who appeared and helped you solve it."
Her tone made her sound like an abandoned lover, every inch of her radiating grievance.
"Can you not bring that up?" Elise raised an eyebrow and sneered. "You make it sound as if I haven't done just as much for you over the years. Besides, who would want to be friends with a lying witch like you?"
She admitted that, back when she had still been a weak and helpless noblewoman, she had indeed received LeBlanc's help.
She had been born into House Kythera, one of the oldest bloodlines of Noxus.
In a political marriage arranged by their families, she had been wed to the former master of this palace, Berholdt Zaavan.
It had been a decision that benefited both families. As pawns, neither of them had the right to choose.
But if one compared only family background, she held the greater advantage.
After the marriage, though they were husband and wife in name, there had been no reality to it. Even the banquet on their wedding night had merely been another social occasion designed to benefit both families.
After the wedding, the two of them relied on their own methods. Yet as her abilities became clear, she had already become the true master of House Zaavan.
That finally stirred jealousy in Berholdt, who was only the public head of the family. As time passed, his resentment grew deeper and deeper.
At last, one evening, during a dinner as cold and silent as always, Berholdt laid his cards on the table.
He had poisoned her wine. He demanded that she withdraw from social affairs and allow him to take control of the family's actual power.
She knew the man did not dare kill her, because House Kythera stood behind her. All he wanted was to control her with the antidote.
So she guessed that the antidote had to be on Berholdt himself.
The facts proved her right. After she drove a dagger through Berholdt's heart, she found the antidote on his body.
Yet even with the antidote, the poison remained in her system, leaving her bedridden and unable to rise.
It was at that time that the Pale Woman, LeBlanc, came to her.
Only later, during their conversation, did Elise learn that the marriage between House Kythera and House Zaavan had actually been arranged by this woman.
Even Berholdt had been this woman's puppet. Everything he had done had been in service to an organization known as the Black Rose.
There, trusted members would gain access to hidden knowledge and secret witchcraft.
In truth, the Pale Woman did not care who ruled the great noble houses. She only cared whether those in power were loyal to her.
Since Elise had already killed Berholdt, her puppet, Elise had to prove her own worth. Otherwise, LeBlanc would find someone more suitable to replace her.
The information she received that night was like the opening of a door to an entirely new world.
Faced with such a ladder of power placed right in front of her, how could Elise refuse?
She proved her abilities to LeBlanc and successfully joined the Black Rose. In the time that followed, she quickly gathered the wealth of both families together, bringing her own authority to a new height.
Yet she was still one final step away from entering the core of the Black Rose.
At that time, Elise learned of something the Black Rose valued greatly, the skull of the ancient warlord Sahn-Uzal, which was said to have been hidden on the Shadow Isles long ago.
To gain LeBlanc's favor, she took a dangerous gamble. Leading a group, she set out for the cursed city.
Though she failed to find Sahn-Uzal's skull, she obtained another opportunity.
A creature long forgotten had made its home in the lightless abyss beneath the city. That bloated monster with a chitinous shell was the spider god, Vilemaw. It lunged out of the darkness and devoured the intruders, until its fangs finally sank into Elise's shoulder.
Those were days of unbearable pain. She felt as if her body were being tortured every day. Every day, her body changed in some new way.
At last, to her horror, she discovered that her spine was rising and shifting on its own. Then, several spider legs tore out through the flesh of her back.
She had become a spider monster that was neither human nor ghost.
Vilemaw did not kill her. In some unseen way, her soul seemed to communicate with the spider god without the need for words.
Only after some time did she slowly master the method of returning to human form. Then she fled back to Noxus.
Once again, she found LeBlanc.
LeBlanc, however, saw that what Elise had obtained was actually a dangerous blessing, a way to travel safely between Noxus and the Shadow Isles.
She had been chosen by the spider god. In that moment, Elise understood who she should truly serve.
It was the spider god.
Later, the two reached an agreement immediately. The Black Rose would provide Elise with a steady supply of foolish sacrifices to offer to the spider god. In return, she would bring back any object that housed power from those dark, forbidden shores.
Counting the years, she and LeBlanc had known each other for centuries now.
Their relationship had remained quite stable all these years. After all, each took what she needed.
But if Elise were being honest, in order to repay LeBlanc's help from back then, she had also solved plenty of problems for her over the years at no cost.
This time, for example.
Somehow, the affairs of the Black Rose had once again spread through the streets, and the situation seemed even more severe than before.
"How heartbreaking. Also, I'm hungry."
LeBlanc sighed, clutching her stomach as she spoke weakly.
"Then stay hungry. I'm not your servant."
Elise shot her an annoyed look. If outsiders saw this woman now, a useless layabout who woke up to eat and went back to sleep after eating, they would never believe she was the master of the Black Rose, the Pale Woman.
"Sigh."
LeBlanc sighed again.
"It seems you really haven't gone outside at all lately."
Elise spoke then. Seeing LeBlanc look up at her in confusion, she continued, "You probably don't know that Demacia launched an attack four days ago. They've already taken Trevale, and they're probably still advancing."
LeBlanc was slightly startled. "Really?"
A thoughtful look appeared in her eyes. She had to admit that even she found this news surprising.
Demacia had actually changed its usual behavior and taken the initiative to attack.
That meant they were ready for all-out war with Noxus.
Coming back to herself, she asked, "Whose idea was it?"
"You're asking me?" Elise looked at her and said, "But the person leading the army this time is Demacia's second prince, the one you mentioned a while ago."
Those words made LeBlanc pause again. Then an intrigued look appeared in her eyes.
That second prince again.
She had lived for so many years. If there were only a few people she could not see through, then this second prince was one of them.
There was something about him that LeBlanc could not quite describe.
Compared with the people of Runeterra, he felt out of place.
Perhaps it was because he was the only person who had ever made her plan fail so completely.
Not only that, he had even thrown trouble back at her from all the way across Demacia.
And now, he had personally led troops here.
Interesting. Truly interesting.
It made LeBlanc's interest in him deepen even further.
"Also, that carefully chosen puppet of yours has been doing more and more foolish things lately. I just received news that he plans to send Demir to deal with that prince. And he still stubbornly refuses to recall the forces sent to Ionia."
"However, he seems to agree with your suggestion. In secret, he selected the descendant of a warlord who supports him and has already started building momentum for him recently. It seems he's preparing to raise him as the next heir."
"Also, he agreed to that prince's prisoner-exchange deal and plans to pay the other side thirty million gold."
Elise saw that LeBlanc was thinking. Though she did not know what LeBlanc was thinking about, she still interrupted and slowly told her all the recent information she had received.
After listening, LeBlanc raised her head and said calmly, "That is within my expectations. The more restrained a person is, the more they long to break free. Besides, he feels that he doesn't have much time left, so everything he does will only become more self-serving. From the beginning, I never had any expectations of him."
Elise asked, "Then how do you plan to deal with him?"
"At least for now, he still has value." LeBlanc spoke slowly. "Someone more capable than him isn't easy to find at the moment. Raising a second Darkwill would also take time."
Elise said, "So you deliberately mentioned Demir to him. Who is the person you secretly chose?"
LeBlanc leaned back and fell onto the bed, saying lazily, "Would you believe me if I said I haven't found one yet?"
Elise laughed softly. "In your current state, I would."
LeBlanc rolled over and lay on her side. Her long, jade-like leg lifted and pressed down on the blanket as she said lazily, "There's still time. Although Darkwill won't live much longer, he still has a few years."
Elise also sat down on the bed. She could smell a faint fragrance drifting from the sheets. She normally never sprayed perfume around the house, so naturally, it was LeBlanc's own scent.
After taking in that scent, she suddenly said, "Swain was a good choice. A pity he died."
LeBlanc said, "He was indeed one of the rare outstanding ones. Unfortunately, he was too intelligent. People like that don't even fear death. Controlling him would be more than ten times harder than controlling Darkwill. Why would I waste my energy?"
Elise thought about it and found that reasonable, so she skipped past the topic and asked, "What about this war? You don't plan to interfere? That prince is coming in fiercely. I'm afraid he won't be easy to deal with."
"I'll be cursed from head to toe the moment I show my face. What am I supposed to use to interfere?" LeBlanc's tone remained quite calm as she continued, "Besides, did Noxus raise all those warlords just so they could collect paychecks? If they don't stand at the front, do they expect my Black Rose to go instead? If they're truly a pack of useless trash and get beaten until they flee in disgrace, then they deserve it."
"That's true."
Elise nodded slightly.
The people of the Black Rose were all lying low now. Although the storm had been suppressed, that did not mean people had forgotten.
At present, as long as anyone suspected of belonging to the Black Rose was exposed, they would become a target for everyone.
Even LeBlanc could only obediently hide for now.
As for this war, if those warlords could not handle it, then Noxus had raised them for nothing.
With that thought, she stood up and walked toward the door.
Noticing this, LeBlanc asked, "Where are you going?"
"To make breakfast. I happen to be a little hungry too."
Elise replied flatly and pushed the door open to leave.
"Oh, go easy on the chili. My stomach's been acting up lately."
Hearing that, LeBlanc gave her a reminder.
Elise looked back and shot her a sidelong glance. "Stop being so picky. You'll eat whatever I make."
LeBlanc stopped talking and lay obediently on the bed, patiently waiting for her breakfast.
In her mind, however, she once again thought of that second prince. The corners of her lips could not help curving into a smile, adding a few traces of charm to her already beautiful face.
This was becoming more and more interesting.
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