His voice wasn't loud, but every word was like a snowflake carrying chill, falling into everyone's ears.
"I forgive you, Skala."
"I know you've been affected recently, having some… mental troubles."
He pressed his torn leather robe to his chest; the wound on his face was mostly healed, and even the bloodstains had disappeared.
"But you shouldn't have swung your blade at me before the gathering."
"You shouldn't question the peace, hope, and future in our faith."
He turned his head and looked at the surrounding tribesmen, his tone slightly mournful:
"Everyone knows that I have been with you all the way from Tok-Aak, never leaving."
"I said that new hope is brewing; that is our only path out of chaos, out of old dreams."
"But as we prepare to welcome this day…" He pointed at Skala, "Someone is attempting to interfere with my guidance with a sharp blade."
For a moment, the crowd whispered among themselves.
"What's going on?"
"Did Skala really attack Tuke?"
"Is he too tired… He seems to be dreaming a lot these days…"
Skala looked around and found that everyone's face showed "taken for granted."
No one questioned why Tuke and Skala weren't armored, nor did anyone realize they had actually been "woken up" in the middle of the night.
No one thought the light was wrong, even though it was clearly not yet dawn.
Skala finally realized that Tuke wasn't controlling their bodies.
He had altered their "perception of reality."
They now thought it was daytime, thought it was a regular meeting, thought Tuke had always been one of the leaders.
And he—Skala—was the "madman" who suddenly swung his blade, disrupted order, and questioned the gods.
He stood in the center of the crowd, his Divine Emblem burning hot on his chest, telling him that this "everything" was not over yet.
"Do you have anything else to say?" Tuke asked gently, like an old shaman unwilling to give up a patient's last chance at treatment.
Skala did not refute.
Because he knew, no matter what he said, Tuke had already written the script.
But that didn't stop the play from beginning.
"Don't let him run!" a young hunter suddenly shouted, waving his long spear to block Skala, his eyes full of fear, "He just cursed Elder Tuke, and… and said he would kill him with a bone blade—I heard it clearly!"
"I saw black smoke coming out of his mouth," another person roared, "He's not one of us anymore!"
"You're crazy, Skala!" an older tribesman roared from afar, "Are you going to bow to that 'evil god,' or what?!"
Skala looked at these familiar faces, each expressing indignation, their voices impassioned, as if they were truly participating in an "heresy cleansing assembly" and gradually reaching a consensus.
And he was the character pushed onto the chopping block by "plot necessity."
Waiting to be slaughtered was not Skala's habit.
In an instant, he exerted force and charged towards Tuke's position, bone blade in hand, wanting to cut off the axis of this nightmare with one blow.
But—
Tuke retreated.
One step, two steps, each retreat like stepping off an invisible stage.
Skala's speed wasn't slow, but the distance never seemed to close.
Like chasing a reflection in water, the closer he got, the blurrier the other became.
The last time Tuke appeared in everyone's sight, he stood on a stone tablet, slowly waving to the crowd, his expression gentle and mournful, as if bidding farewell to a misguided child.
Someone cried.
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