Change is good. And if you are separated from your team, he will do bonus damage to you, and you'll be in what is called, the term in the game called isolation, and he will do more damage to you. In the game, also, there exists a kind of a hunt-slash-rivalry between Kha'zix and Rengar, them facing against each other, not like a competition, you know, and it's a reference to the Alien vs. Predator films, which Kha'zix's isolation mechanic is also a reference to the alien in those, and he looks a lot like a real-life praying mantis, except he walks on two legs instead of, like, his arms are like the front claws of a praying mantis, but they don't touch the ground and help him move in the same sense as a praying mantis would.
But Kha'zix is also the only void-born champion without any true damage on any ability. So Chunkath, who we have not talked about, has his Feast, his ultimate, which has true damage. Kogma, who we also have not talked about, has the Kathian surprise, which is his passive effect. Furious Bite from Rek'Sai, which is, I believe, Q, the Q ability, and then you have the passive and ultimate of Vel'Koz.
So notice that Kha'zix and Malzahar aren't mentioned there because they're now void-born champions, so they're champions of the Void due to their relationship with it, but they were not born in the Void. They were born in Shurima, the Shuriman Desert. Kha'zix's name, in an old ancient language, possibly either Shuriman or Ixtalian, means you face yourself, so I measure what the meaning behind that is. And that's kind of it for the old trivia on Kha'zix, and that'll do it for the intro.
We will hop into the short biography, as is the case with all of these void-born champions, and then get into a much longer short story featuring his nemesis, Rengar, who we have discussed all but briefly in our Shuriman series, I think. So I hope you all learned something, and thank you all for listening. Kha'zix, the Void Reaver A vicious void predator, Kha'zix infiltrated Valorant to devour the land's most promising creatures. With each kill, he absorbs his prey's strength, evolving to grow more powerful.
Kha'zix hungers most to conquer and consume Rengar, the one beast he considers his equal. When Kha'zix crossed over into this world, he was fragile and ravenous. The animals he first encountered were too small to fuel the rapid evolution he craved. Kha'zix focused his hunger on the most dangerous creatures he could find, risking his life to satisfy his need.
With each kill, he feasted and changed, becoming a stronger, faster predator. Kha'zix soon chased his prey with unrestrained aggression, believing he was unstoppable. One day, while savoring a fresh kill, the predator became the prey. From cover, a creature pounced in a blur of fangs and steel, tackling him to the ground.
It roared in his face, slashing and clawing, and Kha'zix felt his blood spill for the first time. Screeching in fury, he sliced at the brute's eye, driving it back. They fought from sunset to sunrise. Finally, near death, they were locked up and separated.
As his wounds closed, Kha'zix burned with anticipation at the idea of devouring one who could match the Void's strength. He resumed his search for powerful prey with renewed vigor. Someday, Kha'zix will feast on Rengar. One by one.
Uh, this short story for Kha'zix is called Adaptation, by Ian St. Merton. To be exiled is to be erased. You are not forgotten.
You never existed at all. Each beat of your heart is judged unworthy of counting. Even a slave wears chains, proving their value. Even the dead are mourned.
I am nothing to the Kha'zix who birthed me. The name Rengar no longer recalls the face of their kin, son of Chieftain Ponjaf. I am outcast from their hearts as much as their hearths. There is no return from such a fate, or so I was told.
Years and blood can change such things. My heart still beats, and so I went to them with trophies gathered in the hunter's path. Wordlessly, I was brought before my father's gaze. He offered me a return to the tribe, where my name would be spoken and face remembered, where my heart's beating would be counted again.
And he named the cost for such a thing. I must track a shadow, bladed shard of moonless night. Abomination. Return from the jungle with its head, and I shall be exiled no more.
I melt between the trees. I hear, smell, feel. I parse the spore of a thousand creatures big and small. This comes from instinct, sharpened by the cold teachings of a human who found an outcast, and sent him down the path of the hunt.
I still bear the knife from Archon gave me. I search for the wrong thing that dwells here, unable to belong. The trophies that hang and rattle from my coat are gone, left behind in my camp. There is only the blade, a layer of grease slicken my fur, in the slow, measured beat of a hunter's heart in my chest.
There is nothing amid the teeming life of the rainforest, until there is something. It is faint, but stark, slithering over my senses. The sickly-sweet unfamiliarity of it halts me for a moment, as I take it in. It is wrong in every way, repulsive.
An enemy to life in ways I cannot describe. It defies everything around it. The true hunt begins. I follow the trail.
I snake around it, never touching. I endure the wrong things sent, until the sounds of bloodletting reward me. Something is dying. Through the trees ahead, it is not dying well.
A pack of jungle raptors, far from the apex, raptors are still capable predators, and rarely ever prey. Their attacker is either desperate with hunger, or unconcerned by their lethality. I bear my teeth in a grin. It may be a challenge, after all.
The reek of the wrong thing is overpowering. It clings to the clumps of bright, bloody plumage strewn about the forest floor. I surge up a thick, rugged tree trunk, my claws carrying me silently into the canopy. I crouch there in the leafy shadows, tasting the humidity of the air, narrowing my eyes, seeking my quarry.
It has speed. That is a weapon that has honed to a fine edge. I catch only glimpses as it darts back and forth, finishing its kills and preparing to feast. The promise of trophies does not spur it to hunt.
I sense a greater hunger in its movements, something beyond the primal urge to survive. When the last raptor dies, the wrong thing slows. Even so, it is never still. It leaps and slides across the ground like smoke.
I can see it more clearly now. It makes my brain itch. It is like an insect, but not completely. Its parts do not make sense.
Limbs and flesh and shell and claws that cannot belong to the same single creature. All inside a glistening outer skeleton. Blackish, purple-like rotten fruit. The air and light writh around it.
They do not want to touch it either. That gives me the understanding I seek. The wrong thing bears the mark of an exile, too. I am ready to send it back to whatever foulness spawned it.
With Markhan's knife flight in my grip, I drop from the branches. There is no sound when I land behind the creature. It pays my approach no heed. I know how to move unseen, unheard, until those sweet, adrenaline-filled moments after a killing blow is struck.
I have risen to become an apex predator by adaptation, by instinct, and in this moment my instinct screams that something is not right. Hesitation saves my lifeblood from joining that of the raptors. I barely see the claws. It slices the air I would have occupied.
It knew I was coming. Had I not stopped short, it would have ended me then. Everything has been too clean, too easy. I should have recognized this sooner.
Pondias' promise has blinded me. Confidence soared to hubris, leaving me exposed. A slick chittering comes from the monster's throat. Ichor flexes its jaws.
There is movement on its back, straining against the carapace. It hisses, a noise I cannot tell, is of pain or pleasure, as a pair of new limbs erupt and unfurl into hideous, dripping wings. It has seen the threat I pose, and so it changes. It is unwilling to submit as prey.
I lunge. Too slow. The creature's riposte sends Markhan's knife spinning from my grip. Foolishly, sentimentally, my eyes follow it for an instant.
The air opens the way for the wrong thing to strike. Another bladed claw flicks out. Hot, stinging pain. A roaring between my ears.
I fall back. Blood slips my face. I scramble to gain distance, trying to blink the red from my vision. The right eye is a blur.
The left remains dark. The roaring will not fade. I reach for my cheek. I realize what the beast has taken.
Beating the last of the vile slime from its wings, the wrong thing rises to hover over me. It bares its fangs, either in further challenge or a cruel grin, and holds my left eye up for me to see. Slowly, it lowers the blood-slick orb over its fangs and drops it down its cullet. My gorge rises.
I clench my fists, rubbing at my remaining eye. The defilement of it. The symbolic shift as this vile creature snatches the role of Hunter away from me. I no longer feel any pain, only rage.
I hurl myself at it. I need no life. I have the claw that I was born with, and the triumphal roar I learned for myself. I will not be defeated.
We collide. The red dance of violence seems unending. We each give chase in turn. The abomination is cold darkness.
I am the core of a vengeful sun. We cut away at each other over and over, and the rest of the world no longer matters. Finally, as night falls, my enemy flees. Or is that just as I wish to see it?
Maybe it learned all it can from me, and instinct guides it on to greater things. Exhaustion takes hold. I collapse, left with bloody wounds and a new, terrible sense of connection to this monster. It is a bond forged in the form of the date of my flesh.
The Kailash know the wrong thing is Kha'Zix. In the old mortal tongue it means you face yourself. True enough, it changed as we fought. Growing and twisting, it went forward, always forward to find its edge.
Where I look back into myself, back into the past, and the tribe of my birth, to summon my exile's fury. This was not enough, as it has adapted now. So must I, for I will have my kill. To truly know someone, beat them, and what am I in their feet?
So that will do it for Kha'Zix. The story obviously was not from his perspective, it was from Rengar's, and we get an interesting entry into their battle, and it kind of reminds us now of Nassus and Renekton and their eventual meeting in the future, and so there will probably be another meeting between Kha'Zix and Rengar. Kha'Zix, this time around, taking an eye out of Rengar, and Rengar wounding Kha'Zix enough to make him flee, and both leaving with respect for the other being, Rengar being the hero in this tale, Kha'Zix being an evil void creature, and we get the name drop of the Kailash tribe that Rengar is a part of, and just kind of further developing this universe, right? We're kind of out of the desert here, right?
We're definitely in a jungle area in this particular story. But, yeah, so a lot of these void stories, they seem to be, I mean, it would be hard to have stories from the perspective, necessarily, of the void creatures. I mean, Kha'Zix does speak in a common tongue, unlike Rek'Sai, who just makes noises, so you couldn't do it from that sense, but I find it much more interesting to have it from other characters who unfortunately interact with them, like we learned last week with the boys traveling across the Shreem Desert, and having an unfortunate encounter with Rek'Sai, the massive void beast, and now the void reaver is out running amok and devouring prey to evolve itself, and in the game, as Kha'Zix, once you hit certain thresholds, you evolve your abilities and your appearance will change slightly, and so that's kind of his shtick, is the evolution and the hunting of isolated targets, and that's the same for Rengar, to be honest. You definitely single out isolated targets with Rengar, and just obliterate them from the face of the map, and anyway, we mainly have one week left of the void, due to lack of short stories for a potential character, so we have Cho'gath and Kha'kma left, and so we will wrap them up right before Easter, and then we will start into something new, maybe have a little break in between, we didn't do any break episodes in between the last series and this one, so we'll probably do for that, and it would make sense since this one was a bit shorter, just kind of adding on to the last series wasn't too bad before, you know, doing something a bit more fun, even, and thank you all for listening, I hope you learned something about Kha'Zix, about Rengar, and we will be back next week with another episode.
MY WINGS ARE RESTLESS My WINGS ARE RESTLESS I hate an optimist once, but I couldn't keep him down.