"Elder Tuke… He is too merciful…"
"He forgave Skala."
"He could have executed the heretic, but chose to let him live."
For a moment, an atmosphere of "gratitude" appeared in the crowd, and some were even sobbing.
The firelight flickered, the bonfire seemed to burn brighter, as if dawn had truly arrived.
But Skala's world had completely darkened.
Unable to catch Tuke, he had to find another way.
He turned and quickly moved through the crowd to the side of those he trusted most.
Toka was quietly explaining to others, "Perhaps Skala is right, he's just too radical… Elder Tuke is the more lenient guide."
Siye was talking to two female trolls, her tone calm, "We cannot be divided anymore, or this journey will collapse."
And Gollon—Skala's consistently trusted veteran—was sharpening his knife with his head down, muttering:
"It shouldn't be… We should trust Skala."
Only his own tone was uncertain, the firmness in it like a candle flame that could be blown out at any moment.
Their movements were small, and their voices weren't strong.
But the naturalness emanating from their very bones was the gentlest, most terrifying poison.
They didn't roar or fight, because they were already completely immersed in the script Tuke had arranged for them.
Skala stopped, his chest heaving violently, the heat of the Divine Emblem constantly surging upwards, as if a branding iron was pressed against his heart, searing his every breath.
He knew he had to do something.
If he didn't break Tuke's script now, he would truly lose them.
Skala no longer hesitated.
He tore open his animal skin tunic, pressed his Divine Emblem to his chest, and pulled it outwards with all his might.
The Divine Emblem, personally bestowed by the Dragon God, burned in his hand, like a fire core embedded in flesh.
"My Lord," he whispered, like a call, or a delirium, "If you are truly watching… now is the time."
The Divine Emblem suddenly glowed brightly.
It wasn't a gentle light, but a bone-chilling heat that pierced through his palm and entire right arm, illuminating the night sky and the illusion.
Everything around him—the bonfire, the snowy ground, the totems, the shadows of people—trembled violently for a moment.
The scorching light instantly tore through the night sky.
It wasn't fire, but more like a golden thread peeling back the illusion from the depths of reality, exploding into ripples that swept across the entire camp.
One Divine Emblem glowed.
Then a second, a third…
Siye was the first to react.
Her breastplate was embossed with Obsidian's Divine Emblem, which had been as silent as dead iron, but now suddenly blazed with light, as if responding to some call.
That golden thread seemed to pierce through the chaotic mist on her forehead, instantly startling her awake from her dream.
She stared blankly at Skala, her lips slightly parted, and after a long moment, she finally uttered a sentence:
"You… were always right."
"Tuke doesn't exist at all!"
A few steps away, Gollon suddenly jolted, as if someone had pulled him by the back of his collar and dragged him out of the water.
He looked down and pulled out the Divine Emblem he had recently worn close to him.
It was burning, feeling utterly without temperature, yet pulsating like a volcanic eruption, making his palm tingle.
"Damn it," he cursed, drew his battle-axe, and stood in front of Skala.
"I almost believed it."
Skala looked back at them and nodded gently.
But Toka didn't react.
He stood at the edge of the shadow cast by the golden light, looking down at the "bone charm" on his waist.
That wasn't a Divine Emblem.
That was Tuke's "protective item" given to him, a grayish-white bone shard with faintly spiraling patterns on its surface.
When the golden light swept over it, there was no reaction.
Toka paused, then suddenly looked up, drew his bone spear, and roared as he lunged at Skala:
"You're not one of us anymore, Skala! You've even forgotten Hak'kah!"
The spear tip tore through the air, aimed directly at his face.
Skala sidestepped to avoid it, his bone blade parrying the attack, steadily blocking the fatal blow—but he didn't retaliate.
"Calm down."
"Shut up!" Toka roared, "You betrayed all of us! You believed that new loa, and then you went crazy!"
He continued his fierce assault, each blow carrying pain and fanaticism.
The other awakened and unawakened trolls also moved.
But the difference was striking.
The trolls controlled by Tuke seemed like an extension of a collective will:
They were orderly in their arrangement, unified in their attacks, advancing like interlocking gears, their movements precise, silent, and coldly inhuman.
Like a group of "components" dedicating everything to a grand plan.
In contrast, the few individuals awakened by the Divine Emblems, though their fighting spirit remained, their footsteps were chaotic.
They were still struggling, not yet fully free from the aftereffects of the illusion, lacking coordination among themselves, appearing clumsy and fragmented in the face of the enemy's seemingly mechanized front line.
The battle circle rapidly contracted.
"Protect Siye!" Skala roared in a low voice while parrying Toka's continuous attacks.
Gollon stood in front of Siye, preventing the out-of-control trolls from taking down their female hunter.
However, Siye raised her bow, unsure whether to loose the arrow.
Skala shouted loudly, "Come closer! Don't get entangled with them!"
The trolls freed from control, displaying their still glowing Divine Emblems, rapidly approached their leader.
"We should retreat, towards the hillside, near the snow ridge!"
Gollon shouted, his actions not stopping; he knocked a young hunter to the ground and then kicked him away fiercely.
"Don't hurt them, use blunt weapons!"
Siye finally shot a few arrows, but she aimed for their legs.
Someone shouted, "But they're trying to kill us!"
"They're our own people!"
"Not the way they are now!"
The battlefield was chaotic, the snowy ground already scattered with gray-white armor fragments and broken bone spears.
Tuke did not appear on the battlefield.
In fact, he had never truly appeared.
The body cloaked in the elder's skin was merely a vessel, a visual tool for a "storyteller."
The true Tuke, the scriptwriter lurking in the shadows, had already rooted himself in the consciousness structure of this team days ago.
Now, his will was not only surging through the minds of these loyal, unified believers, constructing a cage of perception;
He was also simultaneously browsing, correcting, and rewriting the branching nodes of the entire "journey narrative," like a playwright writing a "play of destiny."
In the original script:
Skala was supposed to be the leader whose "faith confusion led to mental collapse."
Toka was to become the "tragic warrior inheriting the will of the new god."
And Tuke himself—the "incarnation of the prophet"—would sacrifice himself in plain sight, triggering a collective "enlightenment" to completely eliminate the seeds of faith in these trolls and plant his own will.
But all of this had now derailed.
Those trolls clearly already belonged to him.
But that Divine Emblem… no, what should be called an "other's seed," how could it awaken their will?
Tuke "watched" silently.
He felt no anger.
Only annoyance.
This was not part of the performance.
It was not the script he wrote.
This "Skala" had deviated from the original setting, a character who escaped the chapter, an actor who jumped off the stage.
And what he needed to do now was to get the script back on track.
Not an encirclement. An encirclement would be cut.
This was a retrieval to get the script back on track.
To send those derailed names back to the stage.
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