Cthulhu Gonfalon

“What in the world are they thinking?” Sui Xiong was spread out on the ground looking like he was fast asleep, but in truth, he was wide awake. According to his spiritual awareness, there was a pair of gray-haired mages so old they might as well be corpses, standing at the foot of the mountain around five or six miles away. They were currently holding a nervous discussion and sending out cautious gazes in his direction.

A Legendary Master’s perceptive abilities were not to be underestimated. Even if they normally couldn’t sense Sui Xiong’s spiritual line of site, he didn’t want to test what it would take to put them on guard; all he did was watch from afar, not making any other moves.

A long time passed, and the sun already past noon before the two Legendary Masters finally finished discussing things and made their decision.

Their movements then sped up. Using flight spells, they crossed the five or six miles in no time at all, traveling halfway up the mountain to land before Sui Xiong.

After they landed, the slightly older-looking mage opened his mouth to yell, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

Sui Xiong ignored him, pretending to be sound asleep.

The two mages exchanged looks, and rays of light began flickering from the slightly younger one’s hand; he’d cast a simple spell—Noiseburst.

This spell was quite a common one, usable by even lower-level spellcasters, but normally, the only people who used it were priests. Most mages couldn’t learn it—though of course, that wasn’t a problem for Legendary Mages. They could figure out how to cast a decent version of this spell after only thinking about it for a bit.

This spell wasn’t powerful, but it could create a very loud noise. The loud noise was enough to make your average person dizzy and make them unable to do anything for half a minute at most. But for Sui Xiong, it was nothing more than a big alarm clock.

“Who’s there! Disturbing other people’s sleep this early in the morning—where’s your sense of civility!” Sui Xiong put on a very irritated expression as he opened his eyes and glared fiercely at the two Legendary Masters. “Tch, so it’s just a pair of old men… What are you trying to do here? Have I gotten in your way just by sleeping?”

What he’d said was honestly a little too gentle. It was not what someone who’d just been roused from sleep would say, but Sui Xiong’s speaking habits had always been like this—it was impossible for him to sound more vicious. Then again, coupled with the intense power pressure he exuded, the result wasn’t all that bad.

The two Legendary Masters had long had power pressure resistance spells and the like activated, but Sui Xiong’s power pressure was too intense for their spells to completely cancel out. Their faces turned pale the instant he roared and, suddenly, they were unable to stand steady on their feet; they tottered backwards a couple of steps.

After that, it was still the older mage who spoke first, saying, “Your Majesty, the Great Void Mask, we truly did not intend to interrupt your sleep, but there is something important that we need to report to you.”

“Tch! You think I can’t tell? You’re obviously followers of the Master of Mystery. If you have a problem, then report it to him; it doesn’t have anything to do with me!” Sui Xiong blew air out through his nose and smiled disdainfully. He put on an attitude which seemed to say, “I might not read much, but that doesn’t make me easy to trick.”

This reaction didn’t go against the two Legendary Masters’ expectations at all. They shared another glance, and the slightly older mage once again said, “Your Majesty, the Void Mask, have you ever heard of the Wine of Eternal Life?”

Sui Xiong stared blankly a moment, carefully went over his memories, and then asked, “Are you referring to that super medicine that can supposedly allow mortals to gain eternal life? That’s just a legend. Legends shouldn’t be taken seriously.”

“But it really does exist,” the older Legendary Master said. “We recently acquired the recipe for it.”

Sui Xiong was immediately interested and curiously asked, “If you came especially to me, does this mean you’re planning to sell the recipe to me? I can definitely do that—of all the things I lack, money isn’t one of them.”

“I’m not lacking in money either…” the slightly younger, probably “only” 3000-year-old Legendary Master said with a pained smile. “After carefully studying this recipe, we discovered we lack an incredibly important ingredient…”

Sui Xiong pondered a moment, then asked, “Don’t tell me… it’s a giant jellyfish’s tentacle?”

“It’s a real god’s flesh, and it must be from a living god’s body.” The slightly older Legendary Master, probably around 1000 years older than the other one, obviously didn’t have very much patience. Interrupting the totally pointless guessing game, he said in an understanding tone, “The only one we could find in the mortal realm was you.”

Sui Xiong was silent for a few seconds, then calmly asked, “So you plan to cut off a piece of my flesh to use in your Wine of Eternal Life? Are you two actually dotards? Or are you so audacious you’ve forgotten how to spell the word ‘death’? I’ve killed a bunch of gods over the past few years; where did two insignificant Legendary Mages like you find the confidence to face me?”

He spoke very gently without a single hint of ferocity, but his words seemed to make a dark, cold smell appear from thin air; it gradually filled their surroundings like slow-moving ice water. The two Legendary Mages felt as if they’d fallen into an icehouse and were seemingly unable to put any of their defensive spells to use.

They shared a terrified glance, only to see thin layers of ice on each other’s faces.

So it wasn’t their imagination!?

In an instant, with just that shared look, the two realized that their feet were already entirely numb. Not only had they lost feeling in their legs, but the numbness was climbing upwards at an incredible speed. In no time at all, it had reached their waists, and if they waited even the slightest bit longer, it would probably climb up to their chests, their necks, and their heads.

At that point, it would be a fatal disaster!

With this imminent catastrophe fast upon them, these two mages—who together were older than the Stone Age site Sui Xiong had found on Earth back before he had space-traveled—could no longer bother keeping up appearances. They began to involuntarily shout.

“Spare us!”

“We have something to report!”

It was then that Sui Xiong realized he’d been unintentionally emitting a killing intent, the cold air already close to freezing them to death. He hurriedly sucked in a deep breath and drew all the cold air back in, thus saving them from a frozen fate.

Even so, they were still cold to their very cores, feeling as if all their organs had frozen. When they spoke, it almost seemed as if they were going to spit out ice.

“The… the situation… is… is like this…”

They then gave him a detailed account, speaking with a bumpy rhythm.

It turned out these two had only joined from a foreign land after Master Le-Peyroux established the Country of Casters. As they weren’t part of Le-Peyroux’s inner circle and ordinarily put on airs because of their old age and seniority, over time their relations with the Mifata Federation had gradually worsened.

As Legendary Masters, bad relations didn’t matter much, so there’d been no need to care, but years had passed. A few thousand years later, their lives had almost reached their limits. These two characters who’d been around since the Witch Age had experienced quite a few wars, and they’d taken more than a little damage. Even if they used every trick and plan they could think of, they could only manage to stretch their lives out to this point. Seeing that they would turn to dust in another 100-or-so years, there was no way they wouldn’t be burning with anxiety!

It was then that they chanced upon a piece of information and discovered a ruin from the Witch Age.

Ruins from the Witch Age weren’t worth much to two seniors who’d gained fame during that same era, but those ruins often included items left over from that time. The spellcasters back then were only average in skill, relying mostly on precious materials to increase the power of their spells, so ruins would occasionally include a few relics.

The pair entered the ruins and, while they failed to find anything of worth, they did discover the recipe to the legendary Wine of Eternal Life, as well as a few remnants.

As they spoke, they pulled out the hide scroll with the recipe recorded on it, as well as some leftovers within an almost entirely dried-up bronze cup.

Sui Xiong examined the objects; they really were items from 4 or 5000 years ago, and there was nothing fake about them.

The two by this point had reached the end of their rope and so were perfectly happy to grasp for straws. After analyzing the recipe, they discovered with astonishment that in order to complete this legendary elixir, they would need to find Sui Xiong. And so, though they knew perfectly well how dangerous it would be if they angered him, they still came anyway.