Cthulhu Gonfalon

Sui Xiong met an unexpected guest before nightfall—the God of Strategy, Augmentin, the deputy leader of the War God System.

Augmentin didn’t wear his silver armor, nor did he ride his white horse or carry his big sword. He just dressed as casually as the normal residents, carrying a large bag almost as big as him. With a haggard face, he showed up on the street of Void City, just in front of Sui Xiong and Javier.

Javier was startled by Augmentin’s sudden appearance at first and then recognized who he was and calmed down. He asked confusedly, “Augmentin, why are you carrying such a large bag? Are you moving?”

There had just been a war between them, but that was an official affair. Personally, Javier had a good relationship with Augmentin, and that was why he was polite to him.

The War of God, Wenner, knew this very well, so he sent Augmentin as the envoy—if the War of God came himself, the result would be worse.

Heard Javier’s question, Augmentin smiled bitterly and answered, “Come on! Don’t laugh at me. This time we lost in the war, so I’m coming to pay the reparations and beg for mercy.”

Sui Xiong and Javier were surprised at that. They had never expected that such words would come from the mighty deputy leader of the War God System. Then they looked at each other and hurriedly invited Augmentin into the God’s Kingdom for a detailed discussion.

Augmentin was not good at compliments, so after entering the God’s Kingdom, he directly opened his bag. Suddenly, with colorful lights flowing, countless treasures fell down like a tide and piled into a small mountain within a second.

Not long ago, Sui Xiong and Yorgaardman had plundered the God’s Kingdom of the God of Underground Caves and took back all the savings of that old dragon. The treasure had piled into a mountain, and even the Goddess of Wealth had been shocked at its amount. She said, “It is true that war and plundering are the fastest ways to earn money.”

But compared to this time, Cladema’s savings were much more vulgar. In terms of quantity, the whole life’s savings of the old dragon was much larger. But in terms of quality, what Augmentin brought today was much better. There had been several pieces of treasure that the old dragon had valued most, but they were normal to see in the reparations of the War God System. Moreover, Sui Xiong didn’t even know what some of the treasure was in front of him now, but he knew without asking that it must be extremely rare.

However, the treasure was nothing special compared to over a dozen light balls in different sizes floating in the bag.

Not to mention Sui Xiong who was still unfamiliar with some treasures of this world, even the expert of wealth, Manissy, and the super powerful Yorgaardman were all shocked at seeing these light balls.

“Oh my god! These are God’s Kingdoms that have been sealed by magic!” Manissy’s eyes turned bright, and she almost rushed to those light balls. “Every one of them is full of strong vitality. It means that the God’s Kingdom was controlled and sealed by magic when the god was still alive! Oh my god, there are so many of them!”

“The War God System deserves to be the expert of plunder and robbery. You have so many precious things.” Yorgaardman couldn’t help swallowing. “Now I feel that maybe you are the richest God System in the Ring of the World!”

“Maybe we were, but not for now,” Augmentin said bitterly. “These years, we have collected 15 God’s Kingdoms. Now, they are all here. Please check and accept them.”

He paused for a while and started again sadly, “Most of them were conquered and sealed by magic with my hands, several of them were stained by my blood, and two even… In order to get them, I even lost some important partners…”

He couldn’t go on talking anymore and lowered his head in silence.

The gods all felt respect at that, all except for Sui Xiong, who barely knew anything about that. He asked confusedly, “Is there anything special in these God’s Kingdoms? My followers are collecting treasure from the God’s Kingdom of the evil gods that were destroyed by me now. Is there any big difference between them?”

His words put the room into an uneasy silence. A moment later, Javier jumped up all of a sudden and grabbed one of Sui Xiong’s tentacles and cried out, “Auscar, we are friends, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then how about sharing the benefit with me?” Javier hesitated for a moment and said finally, “Can you give me one of the God’s Kingdom? The smallest one will be good enough for me.”

Sui Xiong was surprised at that, and he looked at Javier carefully.

Although Javier was still acting like a fool, his eyes were quite clear, and there was an irresistible desire burning in his eyes like a flame.

“What’s wrong with you? You never look like this!” Sui Xiong said with worry. “No matter what kind of treasures they are, they are just external things. Shouldn’t you worry about your mental state first?”

Javier was startled. He closed his eyes in a hurry and kept breathing deeply. After a while, he opened his eyes again, and though they were still full of longing, they were no longer as fanatical as before.

“Thank you!” he grinned bitterly and said. “I’m sorry, I just lost my mind.”

“Never mind, the God’s Kingdom…”

“Forget it! You heard nothing just now.”

“You needn’t be so polite. There are a lot of them,” Sui Xiong said with confusion.

“No!” Javier shook his head with a firm answer. “No matter how many of them there are, these are all the reparations for you. You have won them with your life. What did I do? I made no contribution to the war. If I take one of them from you, I will feel uncomfortable in my heart for many years. No matter how precious the treasure is, my inner peace is more important.”

Sui Xiong was still confused. He looked at his other friends only to find that they all grinned bitterly. Although they were longing for the God’s Kingdom a lot, none of them opened their mouths to ask for it.

“What on the earth are you all doing?” Sui Xiong was a bit angry and shouted. “Don’t keep me guessing! What is so special about these God’s Kingdoms? Tell me!”

At last, it was Yorgaardman that answered his question. These God’s Kingdom had been sealed by magic when the god was alive. That meant that the origin of the god had been sealed inside, but their consciousness had been taken away. In other words, they were empty now.

Moreover, since the origin of the god was still sealed inside the God’s Kingdom, their clergy was not empty after their death. It was still occupied by their empty God’s Kingdom.

A mortal, as long as he understood and mastered the corresponding area of a clergy and got one of the God’s Kingdoms, would have a great chance to take over the clergy that had left by the god and directly become a god himself.

In other words, the fifteen God’s Kingdom represented fifteen chances of becoming a god. They were definitely not hopeless and risky chances.

And for a god, owning the fifteen God’s Kingdoms meant that he would have 15 new god followers.

Fifteen! What an amazing number! Even if most of the 15 God’s Kingdoms were correspondent to the clergy of a low-level or weak Divine Power, they were gods after all!

For a god, there was a huge difference between having a god follower and not. If he had a god follower, it not only meant that he had a respected identity in this world, but it also meant that he had great advantages in the world order that had been created by the King of Order. As long as his god follower was alive, the master god would have constant Divine Power and a source of belief, no matter how bad the situation he was in was.

Although there were also disadvantages in having a god follower, in total its advantages would outweigh them. However, the masters that would be able to become gods were all highly-aimed in life, proud and firm in purpose. They would be other’s subordinate at most, but how many of them would like to be the followers of others’? Once they became a god follower, they had to be under the control of their god for their whole life unless their master god let them go. In some extreme conditions, the master god even might grab their God’s Kingdom and directly occupy their clergy, and that would make these God followers drop from the rank of a god.

Let’s take the God of Fear as an example. The God of Fear didn’t have any god followers, and now he had to run away embarrassedly to avoid being hunted by the God of Justice. If he had had one god follower before, such as the God of Shadow and Assassination, that had been extremely loyal to him, then he would have directly occupied the clergy of his god follower and grabbed his divinity and Divine Power for a faster recovery. In this way, although he couldn’t turn his failure into success, he could be confident in protecting himself and manage to run away safely, to wait for his chance in the future.

In all God Systems, there were almost no god followers in a real sense, except those three of Sui Xiong’s who had been promoted by him all the way. Most of the so-called god followers just had the title, and they were not really under the control of their master god.

However, these 15 God’s Kingdom meant 15 actual god followers!

Javier had suffered a hard life all along. Although he was sociable and smart enough to maintain a good relationship with others, there were few gods that really respected him. There were many gods like him—their clergies were not important to real life, and they were not powerful enough, so they were almost at the bottom of the Pantheon temple. Even some powerful demigods could ignore them.

Why did Javier feel like Sui Xiong was his old friend when they first met? They soon became best friends too. The reason was that Sui Xiong had never looked down upon him for his lower strength and useless clergy. Although Sui Xiong was far more powerful than him, Sui Xiong was always sincere to him and treated him as a real friend.

However, if Javier could have a god follower, he would become a master god, and that would be a totally different identity! Nobody dared to look down upon a master god, even if he had just one god follower. And Javier would be at a higher level than the normal gods.

That was exactly why Javier had been so excited and lost his mind just now!

Over the years, although he always had a smile on his face, his heart was really bitter and tired. No one among the gods here could be more eager for strength and status than he did.

But at last, he suppressed this desire and calmed down again.

After known everything, Sui Xiong became more cautious and serious when he looked at those floating light balls, those God’s Kingdoms that had been sealed by magic. He completely understood the value of this present and clearly felt upset at the War God System as well as their sincerity in begging for his forgiveness.

Then, he picked up the light ball that Javier had asked for just now and passed it to him.

“Here you are,” he said. “This is indeed an extremely rare treasure, but, my friend, you need it more than anyone. So take it. I’m not sharing the reparations with you. I’m taking care of my friend. Please don’t reject it.”

Javier was silent for a while. Finally, he reached out silently and took over the light ball that seemed to emit warmness.

He lowered his head and covered his body with fog to hide the moment when his tear dropped on the light ball.

A moment later, he calmed down, put the God’s Kingdom away and showed up in front of everyone.

He laughed very loudly and shouted, “It’s time for the celebration. Let’s go. There are a lot of guests waiting for us.”

The Void Mask and his friends looked at each other and burst out in laughter together. They walked out of the God’s Kingdom with Augmentin, who smiled bitterly but felt quite released, and appeared in the center playground of Void City.

When they showed up, sacred light soared into the sky, making everyone around them cheer.

The victory celebration started now!