"The flames will consume…"
Toka's voice echoed across the snow, calm, hollow, and devoid of inflection.
But he only managed to utter half a sentence.
It was like a taut string suddenly snapping.
His throat seemed to be blocked by something; the remaining words lingered on his tongue, but he could never utter them.
Tuke's eyes widened.
Deep within Toka's consciousness, he saw that ball of flame.
It moved.
From a static symbol, it transformed into a living thing.
What brought it to life was a will from afar, from the void.
That ball of fire didn't roar at him, nor did it burn and expand.
It merely opened its eye.
Yes, a single pupil, opening within the flames.
Golden, vertical, a dragon's eye.
There was no anger, no language, nor any divine radiance.
Only calm observation.
It looked at Tuke.
As if asking: "What are you, to dare prophesy my future?"
Tuke's spiritual body suddenly shattered.
His consciousness wasn't crushed, but erased.
Tuke's spiritual body struggled frantically, but it was meaningless.
The dragon's pupil within the flame merely gazed at him, without any superfluous movement.
But it was this gaze that caused Tuke's existence to melt away silently, like snow illuminated by sunlight.
His memories were disappearing.
He remembered who he was, how many prophecies he had manipulated, how he had toyed with mortals.
But the next second, these memories peeled away like erased sand paintings, piece by piece, turning into blankness.
"No… no!"
Tuke finally felt fear.
This wasn't a battle, not a confrontation, not even an overwhelming defeat, but a higher-level negation.
His very existence was being "negated" by that dragon pupil.
He desperately tried to escape, to sever the connection with Toka's mind, but it was too late.
His retreat was sealed by some invisible force; the entire world rejected his escape.
In reality, Toka's body trembled violently, and the darkness in his eyes receded like a tide.
He staggered, his knees hitting the snow heavily, gasping for breath, like a drowning man finally reaching air.
Skala's bone blade was already at his throat, but it stopped at the last moment.
"Toka?" Skala's voice was low, with a hint of probing.
Toka lifted his head, his eyes finally regaining clarity, but filled with pain and confusion.
He opened his mouth, his throat hoarse: "Captain…?"
And on the spiritual level, Tuke's last shred of consciousness was disintegrating.
He only remembered that he was a fragment of "that imprisoned god," a tendril cast out of the cage, a spore attempting to sow chaos among mortals.
The rest of his memories were blank.
What Tuke didn't know was that he still remembered these things because this was the last piece of information Obsidian wanted to know.
Immediately, Tuke's consciousness, carrying a reluctance and despair whose reason he himself didn't remember, completely dissipated.
At the same moment, the bone charm on Toka's body cracked without warning, then turned to dust, vanishing into the night.
However, his and the others' attention was not there.
Toka knelt on the ground, barely regaining his senses, cold sweat soaking his back.
Skala put away his bone blade and reached out to pull him up.
"It's over," Skala said, his gaze sweeping around, observing the other trolls.
Toka took a deep breath, his voice still trembling: "I just… I think I had a very long dream."
Skala patted his shoulder, saying nothing more.
—Dividing line—
Serakhen's sky was as empty as ever.
There was no sun, nor stars.
Light flowed out from the void, enveloping this demiplane composed of countless floating platforms, illuminating every floating, broken rock formation clearly, yet never revealing its source.
Obsidian was lying in the center of one of the slowly rotating platforms, his posture so relaxed he didn't look like a proper deity, but more like a salted fish drying on a rock.
He had folded his wings, pressed his spine against the warm stone surface, his four claws splayed open, his tail curled by his side, studying the knowledge and abilities of his divine office while weaving the laws of his divine kingdom.
"War, Order, Light, Knowledge, and Protection… why can't it just be poured directly into my brain?" Obsidian, feeling like he was back in his senior year of high school, complained in his mind.
"After the divine fire is lit, the divine power is enough to condense an avatar. In the future, it's best to only use an avatar when walking among mortals, and there's also the design of the floating city…"
"Where's my vacation? Why is there so much to do after becoming a god! I don't want to work!"
Obsidian was listlessly flipping through and studying divine knowledge when he suddenly sensed a slight anomaly on his faith line.
This meant that something had occurred that the "divine intelligence" couldn't resolve, requiring the deity to decide personally.
It was exactly like the notification sound of a messaging app from his previous life.
It meant new work!
Although it was new work, mortal affairs were always more interesting than his current studies, right?
With this mindset, Obsidian focused a little attention and "looked" along the faith line.
He discovered that a guy named "Tuke" was causing trouble in Toka's consciousness, even brazenly prophesying "The flames will consume…"
Obsidian: "?"
He was a bit curious, where did this thing get the guts to make threats in his believer's mind?
So, he took another look.
It really was just "a look."
As a result, "Tuke's" spiritual body immediately began to collapse.
Obsidian: "…"
He could only quickly extract keywords and obtain that information.
"Tsk, that's it?"
"Ancient God?" Obsidian raised an eyebrow, "I didn't provoke you, and you come to provoke me instead?"
Obsidian sentenced them to death in his heart, and just as he was about to withdraw his gaze, he suddenly noticed that "Tuke's" true body seemed to be hidden somewhere.
Following the residual traces of the spiritual connection, he easily located a room beneath Ita'erke.
A grayish-white tentacle was curled up there, its surface covered with twisted suckers and festering cracks, emitting a nauseating stench of decay.
It was the residue of Yogg-Saron.
He lazily lifted his claw, casually swiped it through the air, directly tearing open a spatial rift, and reached in, precisely pinching that tentacle, like picking up a disgusting worm.
The tentacle twisted frantically, struggling instinctively, but under Obsidian's divine power suppression, it had no room for resistance whatsoever.
"It feels a bit useful… but I need to ensure its safety."
A wisp of bright flame ignited on Obsidian's fingertip, and he began to refine this tentacle until the whispers, corrosion, and all traces of the Ancient God were completely erased.
Only something very much like a squid tentacle remained, except it was purple.
After doing all this, he casually closed the rift, yawned, tossed the trophy aside, and continued to lie back on the stone platform.
"I thought I could find some fun, but that's all?"
He grumbled, his tail tip idly tapping the rock, and continued to flip through divine knowledge.
As for Toka and Skala?
Oh, let them handle it themselves; the problem was gone anyway.
Obsidian rolled over, curled his tail, and made himself more comfortable.
"Continue studying… Ugh, so annoying, I want to just lie flat…"
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