The Dread Council became concerned at the lack of contact from Servitor Zom and contacted Vek to ask about Zom's whereabouts. Vek admitted he had killed Zom to protect the human race and that the judgement that humanity deserved to die was wrong. The Dread Council vowed that Vek would die for his crimes and they sent a trio of assassins, the Deathlords, to kill Vek. Their combined energiser rings proved too strong for his ring and it was destroyed and he was injured in the process but managed to escape in the form of a dog. However, as his condition worsened he was trapped in dog form, only managing to warp his head back to Noxian form. However, with the help of Mrs West and her son Nick, he was healed with a sunlamp. The Deathlords had set up a shield around Bradfield to stop Vek escaping and decided to use his love of humanity to lure him out. They sent hypnotic waves all over the town to force the people to walk into the shield which killed them. Vek went to the centre point of the shield and found the energiser ring which was producing it. A deathlord was waiting for him but Vek managed to reach the ring first by throwing bricks from a chimney at the deathlord, knocking him over and giving Vek enough time to use the ring to kill the deathlord and deactivate the shield. He then disappeared for a few months giving the deathlords no idea of how to find him (although there is no explanation as to why they couldn't track him through the energiser).