Cthulhu Gonfalon

“After today, I don’t know how many more corpses will be added or how many skeletal remains there will be…” Olian Geerteng looked intently at the lush forest surrounding her, yet she was feeling low-spirited and gloomy.

From a personal point of view, she did not want to fight this battle. The world is vast, and there were so many places to preach to. Moreover, preaching was a long-term affair, so there was really no need to fight for a specific time and place just to preach. There was simply no need for such competition. But she also knew that Teacher had made the right decision.

To her teacher, the God of Knowledge, this mission at present was nothing much to get upset over even if they did not have the affinity to complete it. Yet, to the God of Aristocracy, this was the best opportunity for him to strike down a great Divine Power. If he took this chance to strike at a great Divine Power, then in future when the two God Systems confronted one another, her side would most certainly not be spared from suffering a great loss.

This was why, even if it meant weakening their enemy to protect themselves, they had to stop the God of Aristocracy and not let him advance.

Although it was necessary to fight for this, people would die, and they themselves would incur a gigantic loss. Still, all of this would definitely be worth the while!

The people shouldn’t just look at what’s right before them; they should be more farsighted.

This was why she merely sighed once then pulled herself together. She deployed the church followers in a battle array, arranging their positions according to a planned layout, she and did all necessary preparations to fight a hard battle.

Today, every single person she brought with her from the Church of the God of Knowledge was an elite. Even the ones in charge of miscellaneous tasks were no ordinary people. At her command, everyone started to get busy. It only took a moment of work for them to cut down the trees within the surroundings and level it to flat ground. Some of the roots were dug up and removed, while others were left behind as base points for setting up the magic array, engraving the runes and refining them into temporary magic weapons.

It was said that many hands made for light work, and so the more people there were, the higher the efficiency of getting work done.

All these jobs were necessary, and the battle of churches was unique. It was different from the small-scaled melees where adventurers trapped and killed. It was also different from the cold and horrendous large-scale battles that the soldiers fought. The majority of their battles depended on their respective Divine Positions and drew support from their Divine Power to execute various methods.

Especially for the Church of the God of Knowledge, where their top-rated martial skills did pale in comparison to its opponent’s skills—they had to pay special attention when building up the formation of their Divine Positions. Only after they managed to build a perfect layout of Divine Positions and summon the gods could they make up for the difference in martial skills between them and their opponent and turn the tables to achieve victory.

On the other hand, the Church of God of Aristocracy had an entirely different style from the Church of the God of Knowledge. They too built on the layout of Divine Positions, but they directly made use of their Magic Flames to burn down an entire patch of forest. They then paved the area with slates that had been engraved with Magic Runes, and they laid out the magic weapons that they had prepared beforehand all around their Divine Positions. This was not only a faster method, but it also produced more effective results—but of course, at a much higher cost.

Speaking of cost, the Church of the God of Knowledge was most certainly, wealthy. Yet “cost” did not only refer to monetary wealth. Even without considering costs, those magic weapons that could be used to speedily build Divine Positions also required a tremendous amount of time to manufacture. However, from the day it was established up to the present day, the Church of the God of Knowledge’s age might only add up to a total of a couple of decades. Where would they find such an accumulation of magic weapons?

Ultimately, the problem was still the lack of manpower.

“Our spies have returned, and they say that the other side has leveled the ground and laid out their positions,” a tall and skinny elderly laughingly said. “But the funny thing is that they have unexpectedly left a lot of roots behind. On these roots, they engraved Magic Runes which are to be used as nodes of their Divine Positions.”

“Ha ha! How pathetic!” a burly man laughed and said. “The roots are not strong at all. When the Divine Powers of both sides collide, just a few crashes will send these roots shattering to bits and pieces.”

“Don’t hold high expectations for these later generations. The oldest among them is not even older than your grandchildren,” a lady said with a smile. She was dressed luxuriously, looking very poised and graceful, and yet, her smile seemed to be full of mockery.

The three of them were among the nine Legendary Masters of the Church of the God of Aristocracy. Because they were skilled in tackling fortified positions, moving quickly, and even space magic, they were always at the forefront of formations. This was naturally to strike fear in their opponents by displaying their strength before the battle. Even if the situation might not be favorable, they would still be able to advance or retreat freely without being killed easily.

A lady with a silver crown said, “In the Church of the God of Knowledge, apparently there is only one Legendary Master.” Then she continued to say in a light tone, “But, we should be on guard as the Legendary Master of the Church of the Void Mask might come and help.” At the rear of the entire layout of Divine Positions that the Church of the God of Aristocracy had laid out, six Legendary Masters were in discussion.

“But that would be flouting the rules!” the elderly man exclaimed. He seemed so old that he might soon become a corpse. He slammed his crutches heavily against the solid ground, causing the ground beneath to split into pieces due to the sudden impact. Obviously, his temper was as great as his age, and he was truly getting firmer as the years went on.

Beside him, a jolly young fellow hurriedly intervened. With a flash of green light, the broken pieces were superimposed, and the broken slate was restored back to its original form in the twinkling of an eye. Another middle-aged man, who had the gentle disposition of a scholar, was persuading the elderly man to cool down and not to stoop to the same level as those uncouth people.

These three people might seem to be of three different eras, yet they were in fact, all from the same era. Their differences in their ages did not exceed more than a hundred. It was just that the one who looked like a young fellow paid particular attention to maintaining his appearance, while the one who looked as though he was a walking corpse was intentionally making himself look old. This was the reason why from outer appearances alone, they looked like they had a huge age gap.

The other three in front consisted of the Archbishop of the Church of the God of Aristocracy, along with two other identical, sturdy men donning suits of heavy armor who stood by the side in silence. They all made up the nine Legendary Masters of the reputable Church of the God of Aristocracy.

The God of Aristocracy had been given his title not too long ago, so presently, he was not even 300 years old. Out of the nine Legendary Masters under his command, only four of them were talents that he had recruited or nurtured after he had become a god. The other five had long been well-known masters, prior to pledging their alliances to him. For instance, the trio consisting of the elderly man, the jolly green fellow and the middle-aged man were all masters who were once under the command of the former God of Royalty. Back then, they had some conflicts with the Archbishop, who thus gave them the cold treatment for several hundred years. That had left them full of resentment. Thereafter, when the God of Aristocracy assassinated the God of Royalty and gained independence, the three were quick to offer themselves to the God of Aristocracy, where they were highly-regarded and greatly used.

Generally speaking, regardless of what kind of battle, it was more than enough just by mobilizing the three of them. However, this time around, the Church of the God of Aristocracy chose to gather all the nine Legendary Masters to firstly ensure victory; secondly, they wanted to take the chance to establish their might and prestige, so as to show the various other churches how powerful they were.

Interesting enough, the other side, which was the Church of the God of Knowledge, also thought likewise.

Their Divine Positions that had just been fully constructed were surrounded by wreathing smoke. This was their way of using magic to block off all kinds of spying methods and to hide the actual scene in the middle of their formation.

At the core of the formation, an altar that could accommodate around four to five people had been constructed to completion. The clergymen were in the midst of arranging precious stones, gold coins, steel, and materials from various creatures neatly into four different piles onto the altar.

“Madam, are we injecting too much capital into this?” a high-level priest asked begrudgingly as he looked wistfully at the four little piles on the altar. “To spend this amount in one go… this is easily ten thousand gold coins.”

“Money is not an issue,” Oilan said in a peaceful manner. “This time we are going up against a powerful enemy who owns the nine Legendary Masters. If we do not summon a powerful god, we are bound for failure. No matter how much money we have, it will be useless to us if we are dead.”

“But… we also cannot spend so much in one go. From what I can recall, 30 units of every kind of resource here is required before we will be able to summon a god…” the priest replied.

“And will this god be of some help?” Olian retorted.

That priest fell silent for a while, then muttered to himself, “At the very least, it could execute a power close to a high level…”

“But you can only use it for a few seconds,” Olian said, “as such a god would not help much in a battle of that level.”

“Who knows, I might get extremely lucky and summon a powerful one…” the priest replied.

Olian could not hold back her laughter and said, “Thirty units of every form of resource, and you wish to summon the great elite gods… My dear Joseda, I see that you are not exceptionally white-faced, how is it that you can be so confident about your character?

That priest also knew that what he said sounded untrustworthy and could not help going red in the face. He shut his mouth and spoke no more.