Viktor moved through the half-finished corridors of the Commune like a quiet pulse of light.

The space had once been a collapsed warehouse—rusted beams, broken piping, puddles of chemical runoff that shimmered like oil-slick constellations. Now it breathed. Now it lived. Hextech veins glowed along the walls, soft and steady, as if the place itself were exhaling after years spent choking.

He preferred to keep his steps soft. People rested here.

The Undercity had always been loud—metal boots clanging, chem vents roaring, shouts cracking through the alleys like broken glass. But inside the Commune, the noise tapered into something gentler. Not silence. Something kinder.

A low hum, a promise.

He knelt beside the next cot, movements practiced, almost meditative. A woman lay curled beneath a threadbare blanket, feverish, breath rattling like a rusted valve. Shimmer scars patterned her arms, faintly glowing, feeding her pain. She watched him through half-lidded eyes, confusion flickering into fragile hope.

“Your suffering is temporary,” Viktor murmured, voice as even as a metronome. “We will correct what was broken.”

His palm hovered above her wrist. A lattice of light spilled from the Hexcore fragment embedded in his arm—shifting fractal geometry, pulsing in time with her ragged breaths. The Commune’s glow responded, brightening, almost listening.

Her heartbeat steadied. The fever eased. The scars dimmed.

Viktor exhaled gently, though his lungs were no longer entirely organic. He felt each improvement like a distant ripple through a vast, unseen web. Every life he touched became a note in the growing harmony.

He rose, cloak brushing the floor in a whisper. Across the room, others waited—bent-backed miners choking on chem dust, children with tremors born from tainted water, workers hollowed by exhaustion and neglect. Piltover had always turned away from these faces. Viktor refused to.

He passed a small cluster of people gathered near a makeshift hearth—blue fire spilling from a hextech furnace. They whispered his name like a prayer. He did not acknowledge it. Reverence was unnecessary. Evolution required no idol.

Yet still, they watched him with wide eyes as he crossed the Commune, tools and vials clinking beneath his robes with each step. He carried the scent of ozone and clean metal, a strange kind of comfort in the Undercity’s usual haze of smoke.

He stopped near the entrance, where the walls had not yet been fitted with circuit-veins. Here, raw brick met open air, and the city’s muffled chaos seeped in through the gap. Footsteps echoed down the stairwell outside—uneven, hesitant, unfamiliar.

Someone was approaching.

Not the desperate limping rush of someone seeking immediate aid. Not the heavy tread of a chem-dealer looking to bargain. Something quieter. A presence testing the threshold, lingering just out of view, caught between retreat and revelation.

Viktor tilted his head slightly, listening.

The Commune welcomed all—broken bodies, wounded minds, doubtful hearts. He had made certain of it. Evolution did not discriminate.

“If you require assistance,” he said softly, his voice carrying just enough to reach the stairwell, “you may enter. Harm will not find you here.”

No command. No expectation. Only invitation.

The Hexcore glowed faintly beneath his skin, answering the quiet approach with a pulse of its own—as though recognizing a new thread ready to weave into the growing pattern.

Viktor turned toward the doorway, posture calm, eyes luminous and patient.