"You speak of a response? Then who will respond to our children who were taken?!", Rur's short table was slammed.
An elder troll glared at him, a broken Rhunok bone charm still hanging on his chest; even his anger couldn't hide the sadness in his eyes.
"You invite an apostle of a strange loa in and then say we need to 'discuss'? Do we have any shame left?! What about Rhunok's honor?!"
"Enough!" another middle-aged hunter also slammed the table and stood up, "If Rhunok were still here, he wouldn't let us kneel under Frost Howl's banner! And he certainly wouldn't let them abduct our children!"
"Shut up!"
"Everyone shut up!"
Rur roared, standing up, his voice louder than any words he'd spoken during rituals in years.
But his roar didn't stop the quarrel; instead, it was like pouring oil on a fire.
Skala stood in the corner of the room, silent.
He shouldn't have spoken. This was not a test given to him by the Lord.
But this argument reminded him of the Tok-Aak incident…
Skala walked out from the corner of the room, stood among the people, and spoke in a calm but forceful tone.
"You aren't looking for Rhunok's honor."
"Because we all know that Rhunok's honor is what you yourselves threw away!"
"Some of you are just refusing to admit this, and some just think it's better to just let it all end like this."
Everyone was stunned by his words; some lowered their heads in shame, while others looked directly at Skala.
"You offered your totems to save your lives. You refused to believe me because you were afraid of being abandoned again. I can understand." Skala walked step by step to Rur, "But you need to understand, I am not here to buy your faith."
He raised his hand, holding the divine emblem high.
"This is not charity. He will not save your lives, nor will He wash away past mistakes, at least not now. Right now, He does only one thing—listen."
"Only when you voluntarily speak to Him, will He possibly respond."
After these words fell, the tent was eerily quiet.
Struggle surfaced in Rur's eyes, and the elder troll gritted his teeth, finally turning his face away.
After a long while, Rur quietly asked, "If… someone among us is willing to open their heart to Him, what will happen?"
Skala slowly lowered his hand, the divine emblem glinting slightly in the firelight, as if it were truly witnessing everything.
"Rhunok's favor will not return, but you yourselves will have new hope."
Another moment of silence, until—
"I want to try."
A voice sounded from the crowd, not loud, but like a stone dropped into the bearskin tent.
Everyone turned their heads in unison.
The speaker was a young female hunter, thin, clad in worn animal hides, with an unhealed scar on the side of her face, yet her expression was calm and resolute.
She walked out of the crowd and stood still under many gazes, her eyes falling on the divine emblem in Skala's hand.
"Siye!" The elder troll almost lost control, "Are you crazy? You're still wearing Rhunok's bone charm!"
"It was us who betrayed Rhunok, not Him who abandoned us first." Her voice held no anger, but was instead incredibly cold, "We offered up our totems, laid down our weapons, and then knelt before our enemies, hoping to exchange it for the right to survive."
"We made our choice. Now we want to pretend none of it happened and escape reality?"
Her gaze swept over everyone, and she said, word by word, "We have already given up Rhunok; continuing to stick to old ways will only lead to destruction."
The crowd was silent for a moment.
The old troll gritted his teeth, his voice hoarse: "Are you saying we should betray our ancestral spirits and convert to a strange god?"
"I am not betraying," Siye slowly turned to Skala, "I am admitting our mistake. We were wrong, and now—we must take the first step ourselves, survive first, then seek forgiveness."
She took a step forward.
"If this Dragon God is truly as you say, a benevolent loa willing to respond, then we cannot just kneel and wait for salvation."
Skala looked at her, slowly raising the divine emblem, the vertical pupil on the obsidian surface faintly glowing.
"If you are willing to try, you can start by touching it."
Siye stepped forward, extending her hand without hesitation, her fingertips gently pressing on the emblem's surface.
The next instant, her expression subtly changed.
There was no thunder, no illusion, only a warmth that spread from her skin into her bones and blood—it wasn't a scorching fire, but more like a heart restarting after growing cold.
She withdrew her hand and turned to the crowd: "…It's warm."
The tent was silent as a tomb.
Skala slowly spoke: "This is not the beginning of betrayal."
"But salvation."
"What if Rhunok's will is for us to perish?!"
When the elder troll roared this, the entire tent shook with him.
His face was contorted, his eyes red-rimmed, and the bone staff in his hand struck the ground fiercely, raising dust.
"We've always said it was us who betrayed Rhunok!" he cried wildly, "But what if it wasn't?! What if it was He who decided we should fail, suffer, and die?!"
"Have you ever considered that we are just the useless ones Rhunok himself wanted to abandon?!"
At these words, many people's expressions instantly changed.
Those tribesmen who were still hesitant, those who had lowered their heads, those who had secretly drawn closer to Siye, were all thrown back to their original places by this single sentence.
Despair is more terrifying than silence.
"You say you're not afraid of betrayal?" He pointed at Siye, "You are afraid! You're afraid Rhunok truly doesn't want you anymore, which is why you're so eager to find a substitute! You're afraid that even if you pray for the rest of your life, you won't hear His voice anymore!"
Siye opened her mouth, but found she couldn't speak.
That wasn't because she was refuted, but because he had hit the deepest crack in their hearts.
Rur finally stood up, his voice low: "Nak, stop talking."
"You know what I'm saying is true!" The elder troll—Nak—turned to Rur, almost pleading, "You can't hear him either, can you? You don't dare to sleep either, do you? Afraid that in your dreams there will be no shadow of a bear, only fire and blood!"
Rur closed his eyes, silent.
"We are cursed by the loa!" Nak growled, "Do you want to invite another one?! Believe again? Be crushed again?!"
His voice grew louder, his tone almost hoarse: "We haven't even fully buried the bones of our tribesmen, and now you want to pledge loyalty to a strange loa?!"
Skala finally spoke again.
"Then you'd rather die under the curse of the old loa than live in the next possibility?"
Nak looked at him abruptly.
"You say Rhunok wants you to perish, are you just going to accept it? If he asked you to self-immolate, would you really light the fire?"
"I am not advocating for abandoning faith. What I want to convey is—your loa has fallen silent. And my loa is still listening at this moment."
He swept his gaze over everyone, word by word:
"Will you continue to wait for fate to descend, or bravely take the next step? Seek an opportunity to question Rhunok in front of him?!"