The Darkin Blade
Published on: July 17, 2025
Aatrox
Whether mistaken for a demon or god, many tales have been told of the Darkin Blade...
but few know his real name, or the story of his fall. Aatrox was one of the first to be granted the gift of Ascension
at the end of his life.During this time, he was loyal to the Shuriman Empire and had served it for all his life. He was
noble and would not hesitate to help his fellow soldiers in battle. In ancient times, long before desert sands swallowed
the empire, a mighty champion of Shurima was brought before the Sun Disc to become the avatar for a now forgotten
celestial ideal. Remade as one of the Ascended, his wings were the golden light of dawn, and his armor sparkled like a
constellation of hope from beyond the great veil. When he Ascended, he was given a heightened role in the military.
He participated in the battle against Icathia and helped drive back the Void from the region around it.
Aatrox was his name. He was at the vanguard of every noble conflict. So true and just was his conduct that
other god-warriors would always gather at his side, and ten thousand mortals of Shurima marched behind him. When Setaka,
the Ascended warrior-queen, called for his help against the rebellion of Icathia, Aatrox answered without hesitation. But no one
predicted the extent of the horrors that the rebels would unleash—the Void quickly overwhelmed its Icathian masters, and
began the grinding annihilation of all life it encountered.
After many years of desperate battle, Aatrox and his brethren finally halted the Void’s perverse advance,
and seared the largest rifts shut. But the surviving Ascended, the self-described Sunborn, had been forever changed by what
they had encountered. Though Shurima had triumphed, they all had lost something in their victory... even noble Aatrox.
And in time, Shurima fell, as all empires must.
Without any monarch to defend, or the existential threat of the Void to test them, Aatrox and the Sunborn
began to clash with one another, and eventually this became a war for the ruins of their world. Mortals fleeing the conflict
came to know them instead by a new and scornful name: the darkin. Fearing that these fallen Ascended were as dangerous to
Runeterra’s survival as the Void incursions had been, the Targonians intervened. It is said that the Aspect of Twilight gave
mortals the knowledge to trap the darkin, and the newly reborn Aspect of War united many in fighting back against them.
Never fearing any foe, Aatrox and his armies were ready, and he realized only too late that they had been deceived. A force
greater than a thousand dead suns pulled him inside the sword he had carried into battle countless times, and forever bound
his immortal essence to it.
The weapon was a prison, sealing his consciousness in suffocating, eternal darkness, robbing him even of the
ability to die. For centuries, he strained against this hellish confinement... until some nameless mortal was foolish enough
to try and wield the blade once more. Aatrox seized upon this opportunity, forcing his will and an imitation of his original
form onto his bearer, though the process quickly drained all life from the new body.
In the years that followed, Aatrox groomed many more hosts—men and women of exceptional vitality or fortitude.
Though his grasp of such magics had been limited in life, he learned to take control of a mortal in the span of single breath,
and in battle he discovered he could feast on his victims to build himself ever larger and stronger. Aatrox traveled the land,
searching desperately, endlessly, for a way return to his previous Ascended form… but the riddle of the blade proved unsolvable,
and in time he realized he would never be free of it. The flesh he stole and crudely shaped began to feel like a mockery of his
former glory—a cage only slightly larger than the sword. Despair and loathing grew in his heart. The heavenly powers that
Aatrox had once embodied had been wiped from the world, and all memory.
Raging against this injustice, he arrived at a solution that could only be born of a prisoner’s desperation.
If he could not destroy the blade or free himself, then he would embrace oblivion instead. Now, Aatrox marches toward this merciless goal,
bringing war and death wherever he goes. He clings to a blind hope: if he can drive all of creation into a final, apocalyptic
battle—where everything, everything else is destroyed—then maybe he and the blade will also cease to exist.
Aatrox continues to wreak havoc across Runeterra, taking over hosts and killing all that he sees., with his ultimate
goal being to take revenge on the Aspects and reach oblivion in death. Aatrox has deep hatred towards Targon, especially towards
the Aspect of War, who united many mortals to fight against Aatrox. During the ensuing battle, Aatrox was pulled into his own
sword and his consciousness was bound to it and trapped within it. Aatrox eventually battled the Aspect in his weapon form while
trying to reach the top of Mount Targon. He killed the Aspect and left his host, Atreus, to die. Atreus survived and would later
battle Aatrox and win.
Aatrox hates Atreus and considers him a fool. The Aspect of Twilight is the one primarily responsible for the Darkins
defeat in the Darkin Wars and their subsequent imprisonment, as the Aspect showed humans how to trap the Darkin within their own weapons.
Because of this, Aatrox hates the Aspect and wants to kill it and all its hosts..
Leona regards Aatrox with disdain as he has no care for the lives of those under his command. Aatrox's hatred for the
Aspects likely extends to Leona as the Aspect of the Sun. Aatrox was responsible for decimating most of Tryndamere's tribe and sees
him as an ideal host, while Tryndamere regards Aatrox with animosity. The man whose body was stolen by Aatrox is unknown, as we now
know that after a darkin chooses a living body as a host, the battle for control over the body starts, if the human wins the darkin
eventually dies, but Aatrox winned this battle and he gained full control over the body.
His age is between 4396 – 5996 years old, being among the first Shuriman Ascended and we have no information regarding
the animal form Aatrox took after ascension, but we know he had wings. It's possible Illaoi's could free/kill Aatrox's human soul and
allow that soul to return to the cosmos. But it's complicated because the celestial concept Aatrox merged with and gained his ascended
power from—has been trapped/deleted. Literally the ideal he represented ceased to exist when he was trapped. Humans no longer could
even have the thought of what he was the avatar of.
Aatrox has spent the most time imprisoned, and- since his was the first, it was also an imperfect one that likely
damaged him in the process. By the time the mages had imprisoned Varus, they'd perfected the process a little more. Aatrox seems
to have been reaving in the north of Valoran, including the Freljord. Demonblade Tryndamere may be representative of "what if"
Aatrox changed host and succeeded to make a Tryndamere’s his new one.