Cthulhu Gonfalon

Sui Xiong didn’t consider himself to be particularly handsome—maybe he was considered handsome among jellyfish, but that didn’t mean anything at all. He wasn’t the Master of Mystery’s father or anything, neither had he ever asked the Master of Order to adopt him. So why would the Master of Mystery want to send him such a generous gift?

Indeed, the Master of Mystery did want to entice and curry favor with him, hoping he wouldn’t kick him while he was down by letting Wall split the “mystery” clergy. But Sui Xiong wasn’t the kind of person who couldn’t separate public and private interests, and considering the strength of the “knowledge” clergy, the “mystery” clergy’s fall would happen sooner or later regardless. Offering up a follower and a sealed God’s Kingdom already seemed like enough in Sui Xiong’s point of view, so was there really a need to add on such a luxurious gift package?

This was like if John Doe sent someone a set of valuable antique furniture so that person could help him with a job. The other person gladly accepts, only to discover that this furniture was filled with precious jewels over 100 times more valuable than the furniture. Sui Xiong felt that way. Aside from some bankrupt bigshot who didn’t bother doing inventory checks even after receiving a few hundred thousand dollars and left the bills to grow mold in the cellar, most people wouldn’t be bold enough to accept this.

Of course, if the current Sui Xiong were to discuss status and position, he ranked unspeakably higher than any bigshot back on Earth. But when it came to insatiable greed, he still couldn’t compare to them.

Which is why after thinking back and forth over it, he still couldn’t figure it out and even found himself feeling a little terrified.

So he was forced to ask the God of Art and Culture: what exactly was the Master of Mystery trying to do in giving him such a generous gift?

The God of Art and Culture was shocked when she saw the treasury. After calming down, she was silent for a long while, then said in a very uncertain voice, “Your Majesty, the Void Mask, I believe one reason the Master of Mystery has sent you this treasury is as a plea to you, and the other reason… is probably because he doesn’t want this to fall into the hands of the human gods.”

Sui Xiong’s mouth gaped wide; he’d only just now realized the huge blind spot in his thought process.

When the Master of Mystery was defeated by the Human God System, he had no choice but to surrender, but he wouldn’t have accepted it in his heart. He definitely wouldn’t want his most prized secret treasury to fall into their hands to greatly increase their strength. But the human gods had already occupied his God’s Kingdom and were currently doing a full sweep of the place, or you could say they were digging three feet deep. Even if he hid his secret treasury really well, it wouldn’t necessarily be able to avoid the human gods’ search.

In a situation like this, him choosing to send the treasury to Sui Xiong was a logical conclusion.

Whatever you might say about him, Sui Xiong at least wasn’t a member of the Human God System. Plus, he was sworn friends with the God of Justice, Yorgaardman, and the two had a conflict of philosophy with the master god of the Human God System, the God of Light. If things went as expected, sooner or later the two sides would end up in a fierce battle that could only end with one side’s survival.

Increasing the strength of Sui Xiong’s side was equivalent to weakening the Human God System’s strength, which was also equivalent to indirectly avenging the Master of Mystery.

As for the question of whether or not the Master of Mystery would become cannon fodder by the time the two sides fought—hehe, that was still a huge uncertainty!

The God of Light had always been vicious and merciless. If the Master of Mystery was human, he might have been able to sincerely sell himself out and place himself at the other’s mercy. He’d be able to live the life of a well-behaved little brother for the rest of his days. But the Master of Mystery wasn’t human. As far as the God of Light was concerned, no matter how loyal the Master of Mystery might act, it was still better to kill him and confer his clergy to a human god.

Having thought up to this point, Sui Xiong suddenly jolted, feeling as if a tiny wisp of cold air had threaded its way into his heart.

All the followers in the Master of Mystery’s troops were human…

No wonder he’d allowed these followers to fight to their deaths. The God of Spellcaster Ymirjar Le-Peyroux had probably committed suicide under his orders. It was all to prevent the God of Light from killing him and giving his clergy to these human gods!

He’d killed his own loyal subordinates just to protect himself from danger…

This realization left Sui Xiong sighing for a good while; the little sympathy he’d had for the Master of Mystery, as well as the uneasiness because of that present, vanished like smoke.

A vicious and merciless person like this wanting to take advantage of him was expected. It wasn’t something he needed to feel unsure about.

Morals and the like were something you could only talk about with good people. If you tried to talk about morals or kindness with someone like this, you’d need your head examined!

Did the words “morality” or “kindness” exist in his head? It’d be a wonder if they did!

So Sui Xiong’s mood quickly improved as he stopped pondering on all those trivial matters. He moved on to complete the contract with the God of Art and Culture and take her in as a follower, but the God of Art and Culture was clever as well. Right when she finished signing the contract, she gave Sui Xiong a very valuable suggestion.

“Your Majesty, as the God of Classics has already fallen, I believe you could have the God of Knowledge attempt to take the clergy for himself.”

Sui Xiong thought on this, then looked at Wall standing by his side.

It was quite a reasonable suggestion. Wall liked books and had been a librarian before, so following his philosophy, it was entirely possible to gain recognition from the source of the world and inherit the “classics” clergy.

Wall had been pensive this entire time, looking noticeably preoccupied. Sui Xiong stared at him for a good while before the God of Medicine, Arcaian, called him back to reality, and he hurriedly apologized.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” The grinning Sui Xiong honestly didn’t mind; on the contrary, he was a little curious as to what Wall had been thinking about.

If he had questions, then naturally he’d ask them. Wall had no intention of hiding anything either, calmly replying, “I was just thinking… should I take advantage of this moment to extend my church to the Mifata Federation?”

Everyone was surprised at that, and they exchanged blank looks with each other.

If you thought about it, this was a really reasonable decision. The Mifata Federation primarily worshipped the God of Spellcaster, Le-Peyroux, but now that Le-Peyroux was already dead, a blank space had appeared where their object of worship had once been.

Of course, many of them would most likely choose to switch their faiths to the Master of Mystery, but the Master of Mystery had just lost a war, been taken captive, and surrendered on top of that. All this really ruined his image. Those who were a little more courageous might not be willing to worship a weakling, and if you compared him to the God of Spellcaster, Le-Peyroux, you could see at once how much worse he was.

Heroes generally worshipped heroes. Even nasty and evil villains usually hoped their bosses would be an upstanding, courageous guys rather than soft eggs who admitted defeat without the slightest hint of shame the minute things started to go wrong. So at the very least, within a certain period of time, very few people were likely to actually make the decision to worship the Master of Mystery.

If the God of Knowledge, Wall were to forcefully get himself involved right now, his clergy would definitely be able to attract a lot of scholars. His legendary life and his history of being happy to act on either gratitude or revenge could also add quite a few points.

Even more was the fact that Sui Xiong was backing him. The giant jellyfish, who was called the Void Mask, was the only god powerful enough to walk on the Main Plane using his real body. This jellyfish had an honest way of doing things too, and he had a bold and powerful personality. He was also rather good at governing a kingdom, and in the short span of a few decades, he’d turned the overgrown, desolate northwest territory into a prosperous and powerful country. You wouldn’t lose a thing from relying on a boss like this!

This was why Wall got this inclination to run over and preach to the Mifata Federation to expand the Void Mask System’s influence.

“This is no small matter! I think we should discuss it further…” the God of Medicine, Arcaian, frowned as he said. “I’m afraid it will cause conflict with the Human God System…”

“If we clash, then we clash. What’s there to be afraid of!” The God of Art and Culture, Song Ballard, had no good opinions of the Human God System. She let out a cold humph as she said, “Your Majesty helped the Kingdom of Dwarfs prevent an invasion from the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs, and you’ve already long since offended the Human God System. Besides, fighting over believers is the basis of being a god; you shouldn’t concede even to a lover or a friend!”

“I agree!” The habitually silent God of Healing, Three Nothingness, had opened her mouth to give this rare comment. Sometimes, she wouldn’t say a single word in an entire day. In order to increase his persu

asiveness, he purposely moved to stand by Wall, making his position clear.

With three vs. one, the result of the four great followers’ discussion was made evident. Sui Xiong didn’t make a hasty decision though, instead beginning to ponder over it carefully.

He thought a lot before finally remembering his bro, Yorgaardman, and then he made a decision.

“Go do it!” he said to Wall. “I can go back you up whenever you need it!”

Wall laughed, lowered his head in a bow, and hurried away. On his person, a fierce edged sword made its long-awaited reappearance.