Sapo King raged.
He stared at the extinguished altar and the bloodstains on the long steps, trembling all over.
"Those who worship fire, how dare you let the fire go out!"
Before everyone's eyes, Sapo King's fury erupted.
The priests cowered on the muddy ground, behind them, other Logosians knelt, bearing looks of desperation or indignation, casting hostile glances at the priests who served the fire.
Their anger was not less than that of Sapo King.
The priests of the fire, who clearly enjoyed higher status, were supposed to ensure that the fire never went out, yet now they had allowed that sacred fire to be extinguished.
Sapo King turned around and glared at these quivering priests with a bitter laugh:
"The fire that gave us language has gone out, the Main Priest is ill, surely among you some are filthy and corrupt, so much so that the existence is angered, even Main Priest Al is affected!"
Sapo knew his brother Al, who was always diligent, would never commit the great sin of letting the flame die out.
Moreover, he loved his brother and couldn't help but dissociate him from this incident.
"Among you, there must be someone filthy and corrupt! We too shall be implicated!"
The King was so angry that his fists trembled, and with a cruel gaze, he pronounced judgment:
"Bring forth the fire, my people, anyone among you whose body burns in the flames, that person shall be deemed guilty, for the fire that gives us language shall consume the disrespectful!"
Upon hearing this, the priests were struck by panic, but before they could plead for mercy, the Logosians swarmed in, their emotions suppressed by the fear of death, now bursting forth like a breached dam.
The Logosians overpowered the priests one by one, spitting, jeering, and under Sapo King's command, they swiftly brought other reserves of fire to rekindle the altar.
The roaring flames burned on the altar, like the fangs of death.
The priests' faces turned as white as snow; they screamed and begged for mercy, but this did not bring the incensed crowd back to calmness. Amidst the resounding cries and under the authority of Sapo King, the priests were cast into the fire, with their last desperate wails.
Everyone indulged in their rage, none remembered their last words.
For a time, screams echoed from the depths of the flames.
The flames were like a beast eager for death, consuming the fragile bodies of the priests as the blaze grew fiercer, its heat spreading beyond the long steps.
The Logosians, even after the wailing had ceased, still hadn't found their reason but fell into an intense excitement of persecuting others, chanting Sapo King's name beneath the steps.
"Sapo King! The eternal King!"
"Great one! The first to be granted language by the King!"
From despair about death, the Logosians' cries now turned into excited and fervent cheers; with the priests gone, they could only hope that their leader, the King, would provide an answer.
Why must we die?!
In the crowd, someone took the lead, perhaps a rioter, or maybe all were rioters, loudly begging:
"Oh King, surely the filthy and corrupt have led us to our deaths! To die like beasts!"
After that call, the voices of the Logosians surged towards Sapo King like a mountain tide.
"In our tribe, some have become filthy and corrupt!"
"Burn those filthy and corrupt!"
"They are harmful to us, oh King, burn them to death!"
"Oh King…"
Sapo King stood tall before the altar, but the tumultuous cries from his people below drowned him out.
He was the first to be granted language.
He was the one to occupy the King's Throne; he ought to listen to his people's voices!
His broad authority resonated with the voices of the Logosians, and Sapo King spread his arms.
"My people, burn those people! Burn death itself!"
Sapo King responded to the calls of his people.
...
...
Al was ill.
He had been in a coma for several days and had just recently awakened.
After falling from the long steps, as the Main Priest, he could not withstand such a Spiritual Shock, so he fell seriously ill.
"Main Priest, these are herbal medicines."
A wiseman appointed by the Sapo King came to care for Al.
He passed over the boiled herbal concoction, and Al struggled to rise, leaning his body against the wall.
Al slowly drank up the herbal concoction.
The wiseman wanted to take the wooden bowl from Al's hands, but Al remained motionless.
"...My brother the King,"
Al uttered and asked:
"Why... did he throw all the priests... into the fire?"
The wiseman's complexion changed, he turned his head back, and only after seeing no one else did he begin to speak slowly:
"The King said it was precisely those people—filthy and depraved—that led us to die like beasts."
The wiseman was merely offering an emotionless narration.
Al caught on to something and said:
"The fire... it went out during my sacrifice, the fault lies with me... not with those priests..."
"Don't say such things, Main Priest, I know what you're thinking, the King has said that the fault isn't yours."
Al fell silent.
"Tell me, what is happening outside?"
The wiseman hesitated, then decided to reveal his true thoughts:
"The people of Logos Kingdom are about to lose their minds... they... they are everywhere, identifying those filthy and depraved."
Al gasped, momentarily becoming lost in thought.
The wiseman took the wooden bowl from Al's hands and then slowly began to speak:
"...Main Priest, those people have gone mad because of death. They think that death comes from the fury of the fire."
Al heard that the wiseman had something to say, and then turned his head to ask blankly:
"What about you, how do you view death?"
The wiseman set the wooden bowl aside, turned his head again to check if anyone had approached, and then whispered lower:
"Main Priest... I think, death is but a collective illusion."
Al was greatly surprised and pressed for an explanation:
"What... what are you saying? What does that mean?"
"Death might just be an illusion. Perhaps we have not died at all. Consider, a Logos person who lived for hundreds of years, a rational Logos person, unlike any beast, suddenly dies... It's unreasonable, none of it makes sense."
The wiseman swiftly articulated his outrageous view,
"I suspect that, perhaps, perhaps death is a dream, and we've merely... forgotten for some reason that 'someone is still alive', and then we call this forgetting—death. Maybe, I'm only saying maybe, in actuality he has not died, some part of him is still alive."
"Some part is still alive... which part is alive, where?"
Listening to the wiseman's reasoning, Al seemed to grasp at a lifeline, urgently inquiring.
But the wiseman himself couldn't say for sure.
"I... I cannot know."
Al refused to give up, asking repeatedly:
"You must figure it out, you must!"
The wiseman then sighed and said:
"I can't figure it out, I've thought about it for a long time. Maybe those deep mysteries are only known to the being that bestowed language upon us."
Hearing this, Al had no choice but to reluctantly let go of this lifeline.
But...
The wiseman's speculation still left a profound impression on Al.
"Yes... fire... the being that bestowed language upon us, that being must know. If only we could find that existence..."
A thought like none before sprang into Al's mind.
To personally seek answers from that existence...
The question that had driven the entire Logos Kingdom into madness.