Self-knowledge is a virtue—Silco was such a person.
Although in the past, Silco made wrong choices due to misjudging Zaun's strength, seizing Vander's power and turning Zaun, which was slowly being euthanized under Vander's rule, into a Zaun that accelerated towards sudden death with a stomp on the gas.
But after realizing many problems in reality, Silco quickly calmed down, prolonging the time before sudden death as much as possible...
Among these, the most correct thing Silco did was the development and utilization of Shimmer.
This made the entire Zaun overly dependent on the Shimmer controlled by Silco to operate effectively, and also made those Chem-Barons dare not fall out with Zaun no matter how they lived off one person while secretly helping another.
Including those merchant families—anyway, Zaun was going to be finished, so no need to rush, saving Zaun from fighting to the death. At that time, who knew how much risk those strange things bred by chemical pollution would produce.
Based on this, Silco was considered the most terrifying King of Zaun. But in reality...
Silco actually didn't understand the power in his hands.
The reason he could master Shimmer was only because when he broke with Vander and fell into the toxic lake roaring, his intense paranoid spirit attracted the attention of the primal Shimmer within, which allowed Silco to survive and master the method of producing Shimmer.
Apart from this, what kind of nature Shimmer possessed, how it strengthened the human body, activated human nerves, and even revived him from near death and drowning... Silco himself didn't know.
He wasn't a scholar, but the initiator of the Zaun resistance movement. Apart from mastering the production method of Shimmer potions, Silco's understanding of Shimmer's nature was far inferior to the poisoner Faen met at the concert before—that guy at least mastered the related technology of activating poison fog through Shimmer purification.
Simply, regarding things like magic and gods, Silco stopped questioning too much, but asked: "What do you plan to do? Regarding Zaun."
Silco's words also attracted the attention of Soona and others on the side—although old acquaintances, Soona obviously had some opinions about Silco. Even until now, her face was still full of indifference, without much communication.
No wonder Soona was like this. After all, Soona back then really thought Silco could change Zaun, making Zaun no longer like under Vander's rule, becoming Piltover's follower, begging for some useless scraps from the other party, but reclaiming the rights related to the Sun Gates that originally belonged to itself, truly becoming independent.
But who would have thought, facts proved Vander was actually right...
If knowing this meant Soona herself also had responsibility. Then later, as Silco controlled the bottom of Zaun through Shimmer potions, Silco became a traitor in Soona's eyes.
However, Faen didn't have much interest in the grudges between this group of older generation Zaunites. Just said calmly: "Zaun's future will always be in the hands of Zaunites. I don't have time to become the so-called King of Zaun."
"Then who do you want to become the new King of Zaun?" Silco frowned, then asked calmly: "Or rather, after seizing Zaun, how do you plan to plan the new Zaun?"
"Zaun's future will be in Zaunites' own hands." Faen reiterated, then turned and walked towards Janna's statue. Walking while saying: "I will only stop and correct when Zaun's development direction makes more and more Zaunites feel uneasy and despairing, just like now."
Hearing Faen's words, Silco couldn't help frowning.
Faen saying this seemed to have no pursuit of power, but thinking carefully, in fact, the power Faen wanted even far exceeded the sum of himself and Vander.
Because even he and Vander failed to truly control the entire Zaun, while Faen's meaning gave the feeling of placing the future of the entire Zaun above his thoughts and decisions.
One thought life, one thought death.
This was much more power than what was needed to become the King of Zaun.
Just when Silco was about to say something, Faen raised his palm.
More or less able to feel the thoughts in Silco's heart, but Faen didn't care. Because for Silco, saying more was useless. When the time came, he would naturally make the correct choice.
And now, accompanied by the constantly activating spirit, in Faen's vision, the world before his eyes also began to blur gradually, then regained clarity, just with many more ripples that ordinary people couldn't observe with naked eyes.
This was the scene of magic flowing in the atmosphere—the division between the spirit realm and the material realm wasn't as absolute as people imagined. Even saying, many people had accidentally entered the shallow spirit realm, the so-called 'dream'.
Surging magic lay between the spirit realm and the material realm forming a curtain. Some people would accompany the body's sleep during slumber, leading the spirit to gradually cross to the other side of the dream. It was just that often, this kind of dream couldn't be maintained for a long time. Once any noise came from the material realm, or any fright appeared in the dream, it would make people's consciousness quickly detach from it, then sigh "luckily it was a dream".
And the spirit realm was also different from the material realm. The composition of the spirit realm was very complex. In this huge space, just like the multiverse in science fiction. Any interest could form an independent spirit realm, and even an individual person could expand their spiritual consciousness into a spirit realm unique to themselves.
And different regions also produced different spirit realms due to the different people living on this land.
Among them, mostly things in the material realm affected the spirit, which in turn affected the spirit realm, and then the spirit realm affected people's spirit in reverse, further intensifying things happening in the material realm—Zaun was no exception.
It was just that Zaun was different from other places. People here understood magic not as pure arcane, but wanted to analyze it through scientific methods, allowing mortals to freely control the power within.
The ideal was good, unfortunately even mass-produced standard Hextech weapons had strict usage requirements for ordinary people.
And life in the spirit realm often had relationships with many concepts. Just like the demigods of Freljord, after the people living there shifted their faith from many primitive demigods to the Three Sisters of Ice. A considerable number of demigods withered and weakened due to the poison of faith. Only a very few demigods who realized the negative effects of the poison of faith from the beginning and didn't try to master it for quick success were spared.
And the Twin Cities as the center of cultural exchange in Runeterra, trends of thought here would change every once in a while. Let alone brewing a regional deity, even constructing a spirit realm life in the true sense couldn't be done.
Especially after the sinking of Zaun happened, ancient Zaun turned into the literal 'Twin Cities'. Even if countless changes in trends of thought brewed some kind of consciousness, it completely lost the chance of birth along with the split of the city-state.
For spirit realm life, such a violently changing region was definitely not the first choice for a nest—because the changes in trends of thought here were too frequent, they couldn't obtain stable, long-term single extreme emotions here.
But even in such an extremely harsh environment for spirit realm life, there was always a consciousness running through from beginning to end, never perishing.
Suddenly, Jinx on the side seemed to feel something, looking sharply at a tunnel on the side.
Noticing Jinx's movement, everyone on the side also looked into the distance. Not long after, accompanied by a rumbling sound, everyone clearly felt a burst of cool, clear sea breeze that absolutely couldn't be produced inside Zaun blowing from the tunnel.
And in that storm, verdant cyan birds spread their wings and soared.
Cyan birds were Janna's messengers; this was something every Zaunite knew.
And now, looking at the flying birds, Silco and others on the side also shut their mouths and stopped discussing the matter just now, looking at the scene before their eyes with curiosity, surprise, or disbelief.
Surrounded by wind currents, birds flew out from the tunnel one by one. Landing on the walls on both sides, or even on Janna's statue. Sesame-sized eyes looked at Faen blinking curiously, and a few bold cyan birds even jumped directly onto Faen, looking curiously at who attracted the guardian's attention.
Among them, staring blankly with surprise in her eyes for a moment, then Seraphine suddenly said: "I heard it!"
"Uh? Heard what?" Zeri looked at Seraphine somewhat incomprehensibly. Although pricking up her ears, Zeri didn't hear other sounds besides the wind and bird calls.
"Singing!" Seraphine's eyes were filled with expectation and curiosity.
"It's singing! Singing I've never heard before! Not just birds, but also many people! I can feel it, that's the voice of Zaun! Just like... just like Mr. Faen yesterday!"
Seraphine said quickly: "Yesterday when Mr. Faen announced the establishment of the Wind of Change, I heard such a melody playing in people's hearts! Now too! I heard it, it's the singing of change... no, the Wind of Change has arrived!"
Hearing Seraphine's words, Zeri's eyes were full of surprise. But Jinx and others were mostly puzzled—not everyone knew how magical and powerful Seraphine's ability was.
But no need for too much explanation. Because in that surging storm, a pure white ethereal figure appeared very soon.