Cthulhu Gonfalon

Thinking was indeed a mentally tiring activity. Zhuge Liang, a Chinese politician in the Three Kingdoms Period, always thought too much, even about trivial things like a soldier being beaten due to the violation of his discipline. He died of thinking too much in the end.

Suddenly, Palin’s face became pale, and his physical abilities were degenerating rather quickly. He was becoming what a dead person was supposed to look like.

Sui Xiong felt that there was something wrong with Palin, and he immediately instilled his magic energy into Palin’s body to replenished him with vitality.

“Your Majesty, what is wrong with brother Palin?” Gerrard asked Sui Xiong through telepathy.

Sui Xiong was silent for a while, then he honestly told Gerrard about Palin’s situation.

“What!? His soul has left his body and he moves by relying on the vitality that supported his body and mind? But in my view, he looks perfectly normal!”

“I do not know the reason either,” Sui Xiong laid his tentacles on the ground, showing his helplessness. “I only know that once he loses the supply from outside and runs out of his vitality, he will immediately die. So as you see, we have to constantly supply him with the vitality.”

“But this cannot go on for too long, can’t we supply him with a great amount of vitality?”

“He is too weak to absorb a great amount of vitality… You may not be able to understand this, but his body cannot absorb a great amount of vitality at one time and trying to do so will do him no good,” Sui Xiong said, and suddenly a bright idea occurred to him.

There was a cold cure called “Sustained Release Capsules.” It’s mechanism sealed the drug into small packages that dissolve at varying speeds inside a human’s body so one capsule could last for twelve hours. If this was real or not, Sui Xiong was not sure, but maybe it was. Based on this idea, Sui Xiong made something similar for Palin!

He tried to concentrate a great amount of vitality into a ball, and made a thin shell with the dissolvable substance. The ball’s diameter was about one centimeter. In each section of the structure, there was a one-time use of vitality, and the thickness of each section varied.

Of course, it was just a trial product which needed further testing to make sure it was safe. So, Sui Xiong did not instantly give it to Palin, but instead he made a digestive system similar to the human’s intestines and stomach inside his body. Sui Xiong performed the clinical experiment and saw the result.

But this was not important now, what was more important was dealing with the spoils of war.

Sui Xiong had defeated the God of Conspiracy, and the God’s four-faced beast became Sui Xiong’s reward. This peculiar creature had great power and was at the master level of sorcery. Sui Xiong swallowed, carefully digested and analyzed it, and felt that he had learned a lot in this process, which he hadn’t expected.

As the oracle of the God of Conspiracy, the soul of the four-faced beast contained some of his magic power.

The main priesthood of the God of Conspiracy was scheming, deception and illusion, along with many other secondary priesthoods: wickedness, disorder, darkness, and impurity.

Compared with Wu Mian, the gatekeeper of the Night Gods, who could do nothing apart from his priesthood— shadow, guarding and death— the God of Conspiracy was as versatile as a magician who performed in the street.

Sui Xiong had already done this before, mastering all the power of a certain God and imitating it by analyzing its magic power. Compared with the magic power that was left inside the Baldacchino, the magic power contained in the four-faced beast was far superior both in its quality and quantity. It was pure and magnificent. Though there was not much of it, it was as strong as 80 percent of Sui Xiong’s power. If the four-faced beast had exerted its strength fully, Sui Xiong would not have been able to catch it that easily.

Analyzing the magic power of a certain God required both time and technique. Sui Xiong was not in a hurry and could just take his time.

When he was enhancing his abilities in seclusion in the ice trench, he had no idea how long he had been there. Actually, he did mark the time, a year or two years, according to the changes of the four seasons, but later he got confused and became too lazy to bother anymore.

Compared with those long and boring years, the time that was spent analyzing the magic power of the God of Conspiracy was basically nothing.

Besides, his two subordinates did not have a strong sense of time either. Before Gerrard used to think carefully about how to cultivate many followers for his own God. Now he usually went to sleep when he was full. He had become too lazy to even think since he now had a smart peer: Palin. Palin was totally different; he did not need to sleep. Since a body without a soul could function with enough vitality, he spent all of his time reading and thinking, and anyone who saw his hard work would feel ashamed.

Sometimes, Sui Xiong wished the two would build a balanced character instead of going to extremes.

Day after day, the huge jellyfish floating in the sky did not need to eat, while the two in the cave could use magic to make food. This life was fine.

But for Ryan, things were rather difficult. Since he had had a setback last time, the God of Conspiracy was not willing to have anything to do with the area Ryan was in anymore. Ryan was hoping the God of Conspiracy would reply to his prayer. For him, every day was a year long. He could feel that he was aging on a daily basis and dying, and he could not see any hope of going to the Holy Kingdom. This was driving him crazy. Now he could not sleep without taking drugs, and even though he took a dose of sleeping drugs that would make an ox fall asleep, he would still suddenly wake up at midnight, shouting and crying like a child abandoned by his parents.

He was desperate. He was thinking hard on why he had not gotten a reply, and thought maybe it was because his plan did not succeed. The Cloudkill Scroll was not activated, and the bone bracelet that the giant had with him could not only practice Restoration, but also the Dismissal… Then he found that there were too many holes in his plan, and thought it was not strange at all that he failed.

“It is definitely because my plan did not work, and I bragged to His Majesty that he is angry!” Thinking this, Ryan began to sweat heavily out of sheer fear, “There is only one way, and that is trying again and getting it done this time!”

But his legs instantly gave way when he thought that he would need to fight against the furious giant.

After a month, Ryan could no longer stand this kind of life any longer, so he was determined to try it again. He took a few subordinates from the Association of Thieves that were loyal to him, found a powerful wizard, and went in the direction of the place where Ruhr’s treasures were hidden in a formidable array.

“Are we going to fight against a giant?” the wizard asked.

“Yes, we are.”

“What specialties does it have?” the wizard continued.

“It has great strength and speed, and its body is very firm. It is not stupid, which is very rare for a giant,” Ryan replied.

The wizard was silent for a while, and asked, “Is there any other specialty of it that was worth mentioning? Or some special outfits?”

“It has a bone bracelet that is probably an advanced magic object and can practice Restoration,” Ryan said. ” I guess there is probably a God’s will living inside of it.”

“That’s impossible!” the wizard instantly denied his assumption. “A giant does not have a God that it believes in, and I cannot even recall a single god who would allow his holy objects to be possessed by a giant and not ask his sacred warrior to fetch them. I think the thing in that bracelet could just be the soul of their ancestor. The giant race usually believes in their ancestors and magic objects that their ancestors’ souls live in, and those are not rare at all.”

When it came to the witchcraft, only the professionals had the authority. So Ryan did not stick with his own thoughts, and asked the wizard how to fight against the giant.

“The best way to fight against a giant is to use magic to lead it to the edge of a cliff and make it fall over the cliff by itself. But as you have put it, it is staying in an airtight cave, so we can only get in and out by practicing Transportation, and so we cannot lead it to a cliff…” The wizard contemplated and thought a while before asking, “What is the height of that cave? Is it spacious?”

“It is not that high,” Ryan said honestly. “And it is kind of narrow, so the giant needs to bend when he stands inside it.”

Suddenly, a bright idea crossed the wizard’s mind.

“Then it is easy,” he smiled. “I have got plenty of ideas to kill a giant in a narrow space. When that moment arrives, I will practice a spell and make sure that its head and bones break, so it will probably die immediately.”

Hearing this, Ryan was greatly delighted. On second thought, he became a bit worried and asked, “What if it was not crushed to death?”

“Even so, I can still trap it inside and make it unable to move.” The wizard was very confident. “Then I will practice another spell—”

He thought a while and said, “If the bracelet is lost, you will not mind, will you?”

“Of course not!” Ryan said without any hesitation. “There are still many other treasures in that cave!”

“Fine, just leave this to me. It is a piece of cake.” The wizard stood up, brushed the dust off his clothes and went straight back to the camp to sleep.

As a wizard whose values lied in his brain instead of his muscle, there was no need for him to spend the night on watch. If he had enough sleep, he could practice the spell steadily, and that was why Ryan had brought a huge number of his subordinates with him.

After all… To fight against the scary giant, a knife, arrow or sword might not work. The key to the fight was magic.

Ryan sat by the campfire while watching the wizard walking to the camp to sleep. He then turned his attention to the burning flame and began to think.

If that giant did not die… if it was really strong enough to withstand the Cloudkill… if there was really a god’s will in that bracelet…

He sighed deeply, and his face looked very tired.

The vice chairman, who did not say anything when he made his departure, sat in the corner and watched Ryan quietly. His eyes were glistening.

“The chairman is really old now.” An idea that had never crossed his mind was forming in his head, “Maybe… I need to make some plans for myself now…”