"The victory you see… is nothing but an illusion."
Toka's voice was not loud, but it was extremely penetrating, echoing clearly in everyone's ears.
"You will eventually burn."
"You will eventually betray the gods, abandon your faith, and devour each other."
His eyes were as black as ink, but his expression was as serene as a shepherd's.
"…I have already seen your end."
Skala's entire body trembled.
This was a prophecy.
Something that Tuke often did before.
However, what he gave was not a true prophecy, but rather he would first cast a prophecy, then secretly push for its realization.
But this time, it seemed different.
Tuke was now powerless to personally intervene and realize this prophecy, yet he still spoke these words through Toka's mouth.
The only possible explanation was that this prophecy was not passively waiting to be realized, but rather a mechanism for forced realization.
Once spoken, it would trigger itself, irreversibly.
"He is forcibly pushing the prophecy to come true." Skala's eyes darkened, "This isn't predicting the future… this is creating the future."
"Is such a thing really possible?" Siye asked.
"Whether it's real or not, stop him," Skala whispered.
Shadow Wing had already noticed Toka's position, but he hesitated for a moment.
That was Skala's clansman.
It was the young hunter who appeared in his unbearable past.
"I'll do it." Skala said in a deep voice, raising his bone blade and stepping towards Toka himself.
"He was brought out by me, so he should be… brought back by me."
Skala walked towards Toka step by step.
He did not speed up, nor did he draw his bone blade.
He just walked, as if passing through some cold mist, step by step returning to the world of the young hunter.
Toka made no move.
He stood on the stone platform, a fervent priest, and even more, a vessel stripped of his own will.
"Do you still remember?" Skala's voice was extremely penetrating, going straight into Toka's ears, "The first time you failed a hunt, I didn't punish you. Instead, I retrained you and encouraged you to take responsibility."
"You cried then, saying you were afraid the gods would no longer forgive you."
Toka blinked, the darkness in his eyes surged for a moment, and a residual light within it tried to penetrate the murky abyss.
"This part… delete it."
In the mental space, Tuke's tentacles moved across a dark web of memories.
That web was Toka's mental landscape, his memories, emotions, and will—everything that made him who he was.
Tuke pinched the fragment of "failed hunt" and cut it off.
In reality, Toka's body swayed slightly, then he smiled, his tone gentle: "You are mistaken, Skala."
"That wasn't a snow leopard, but an ice wolf. That was our story when we went north." He said it naturally, even with a hint of playfulness, "You remembered it wrong."
"I never cry."
"And you also punished me by forbidding me from eating meat for ten whole days."
Skala's expression remained unchanged, and he pressed forward another step: "The scar on your left arm was left three years ago while hunting by the lake; you were bitten by an ice wolf while helping Gulen."
His description was precise down to the time and place.
"You thought Gulen looked down on you then, and you went to practice alone at night, and ended up hurting yourself."
Toka's left arm muscles suddenly tensed, he caressed the still slightly red scar, and his breathing became rapid.
Tuke frowned in the mental space, several tentacles extended simultaneously, trying to cut off that memory segment entirely, but each time they touched the memory node related to that scar, they were burned.
"How does he still remember it so clearly…" Tuke murmured.
No, it should be said that Toka wasn't "remembering," but rather this node was one of many nodes that defined who "Toka" was.
Without these mutually supporting nodes, "Toka" would no longer be able to be called "Toka," and his soul and cognition would collapse accordingly.
Logically speaking, with Tuke's ability, erasing such a node would be easy after paying a small price.
However, deep within Toka's soul, a mighty force was supporting him.
Like a moat, it prevented Toka's complete collapse.
Tuke tried to edit it several times, but this node regenerated each time.
"Then I'll change this."
Since he couldn't change the process, he would change the outcome.
Returning to the real world, Toka sneered, "Yes, and you punished me for three days and three nights for it…"
Skala stepped closer, interrupting Toka, who was about to continue speaking, the divine emblem in his hand emitting a dazzling golden light.
"You lied once. It was when I was judging whether you were qualified to join the hunt, and you didn't tell me your foot injury hadn't healed yet."
"I scolded you a few times, but you just smiled it off, saying it was your responsibility."
Toka's pupils contracted, black mist surged in his irises, trembling violently.
He seemed about to make a sound, but he was choked, unable to speak.
Tuke angrily slammed the rewrite node on the mental grid, trying to completely scatter that memory, but it was useless.
That mighty force—the force protecting Toka's essence—began to actively attack.
It began to grow wildly outwards, connecting spontaneously, automatically tracing back, like out-of-control vines starting to piece together Toka's complete personality.
"He's already starting to self-repair?" Tuke's voice was almost broken, "No, how is this possible?!"
"It shouldn't—" Then Tuke saw it.
Deep within Toka's consciousness, there was a flame.
It wasn't a prophecy planted by Tuke, nor a memory awakened by Skala, nor did it seem like something that should exist deep within a mortal soul.
It was something else.
A power Tuke had never seen before, and never wished to see a second time.
It burned quietly, like a spark existing outside of reality, warm yet inextinguishable; faint yet indelible.
Tuke gazed at it for a moment, his fingertips trembling slightly.
He didn't know the source of that flame, only that he was no match for it.
So he stopped.
His calm and composed demeanor, like a screenwriter, finally shattered at this moment.
Every one of his mental tentacles danced wildly, almost frenzied.
"…Then don't change it."
He thought with self-abandonment, no matter how hard he tried, the script could no longer be written.
"This play should also end."
Tuke raised his hand, preparing to force Toka to recite the "compulsory prophecy" that had been brewing deep in his consciousness for a long time:
[Firelight will consume everything, gods will fall to the ground, and believers will slaughter each other.]
He shouldn't have taken this risk.
He could have ignored Skala and directly let Toka complete this narration.
But just now, the distant "main body" had sent an indescribable warning—
If he dared to complete this prophecy, something terrifying would happen.
That wasn't some "plot twist."
Something so terrifying that even the main body was afraid.
Tuke didn't want to die.
He had only just managed to crawl out of the cage and gain the opportunity to manipulate human hearts.
But now, all the scripts had collapsed, all the characters had gone off track.
He had nothing left.
Then—one last frenzy.
He opened Toka's mouth.
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