Cthulhu Gonfalon

“One, two, three, four, five, six… a total of six,” said the Archbishop of the Church of the God of Aristocracy. She squinted to count the number of powerful auras that suddenly appeared from the formation of the Church of the God of Knowledge. There were no traces of fear on her face at all. On the contrary, she was smiling as she said, “The God of Knowledge really dared to invest so much capital this time; in one go, he sent down six of his clones.”

“A bit cheap, isn’t it? That’s not even enough for us to have one each,” said the elderly man from the trio consisting of the elderly man, the middle-aged man, and the jolly green fellow. He sighed and appeared to be a little depressed.

“Are we going to fight our way there or wait for them to charge their way here?” asked a female mage who was skilled in space magic. She had just retreated from the battlefront.

The Archbishop made no reply. Instead, she turned to her assistant by her side and instructed, “Get our Holy Daughters ready and prepared for our god’s descent too. It may happen at any time.”

Her assistant nodded and saw to the task right away.

That was when she finally addressed the few Legendary Masters, “By right, with nine against seven, we should have more than a winning edge over them. But the methods of gods are difficult to fathom, so my intention is to request for Your Majesty to send two of your clones to descend upon the mortal world. Not for any other purpose other than for us to at least be able to see through their methods.”

The Legendary Masters, undoubtedly, would not object. Despite how confident they were of their capabilities, a powerful comrade watching their backs would certainly be much better.

After arriving at a unanimous decision, the Archbishop smiled emotionlessly as she took out a scarlet wand.

“We are still unclear of how strong the clones that the God of Knowledge has sent down are. So let us first put them to a test.”

With that, she started chanting a spell. Then the scarlet wand glowed with a glorious bloody light that even gave off a nauseating stench. In the blink of an eye, there was a long, crimson snake that sported a hideous snakehead and a pair of eyes that emitted a devilish green light. It hissed as it flew up into the air, and then it hovered in the air for a moment before transforming into a python so huge that it could swallow a living man whole. It emitted a stench that encircled it as it flew towards the formation of the Church of the God of Knowledge.

This was another extremely powerful treasure. Even though it was a far cry from the Jewel of the Heaven’s Wrath, when placed in many small churches, it was more than qualified to be a supreme treasure that dominated over others in the vicinity.

It was made of a legendary venomous python, and the first step of the refining process was to pull out the soul of the venomous python and replace it with the soul of a living human. Then after numerous vicious and terrifying processes, it would ultimately become a terrifying weapon that would make anyone shudder with fear.

The venomous python that flew towards the Church of the God of Knowledge had an extremely strong resistance against spells. A majority of the spells were useless against it, and its body was extremely sturdy with infinite power. So long as it had knotted its body around something and then exerted strength to strangle it, then whatever it encircled would be easily shredded to pieces, even if it were a piece of chain metal.

Not only that, it had extremely lethal toxicity. Once bitten, even a Legendary Master might not be able to survive. Even if not bitten, just a little drop of the toxic fog was lethal enough to kill an ordinary human right away. What was even scarier was that those humans who were poisoned to death by this toxic fog would undergo mutation after some time and transform into strongly aggressive living corpses. If people around were not paying attention, then there was a likelihood of a second round of injuries.

Over the past years, there was once someone who had used this magic wand to stir up trouble in a city under the command of a Legendary Master. If that person had not been found and killed, perhaps just the power of this wand would be enough to destroy the entire city.

At that time, the Archbishop was among the group of adventurers that found this person. But at that time, she was merely a mid-ranked priest out on a risky venture with some other adventurers. They had paid a huge price and had sacrificed almost half of their team before they managed to kill that evil mage who had been manipulating that wand.

However, when they brought that magic wand and the corpse of that mage back to report to their higher-ups, what awaited them was not a welcome, gratitude, or a reward. On the contrary, there were framed and backstabbed, just because the captain of the city’s patrol team had wanted this magic wand for himself.

In the end, out of this group of adventurers, only two managed to escape. Twenty years later, the two joined hands and set off a terrorizing bloodbath in that city, massacring more than 30 soldiers who had previously participated in the fabrication of untrue evidence against their group. So now, these two returned to kill these 30 soldiers and their entire families, sparing neither young nor old. Then they even took this wand away from the City Lord’s treasure vault.

Her last companion was severely injured in that battle and passed away shortly after. This magic wand became all that she had left. Through these years, it had accompanied the Archbishop on her various conquests where she had killed countless lives and made a name for herself.

Seeing that gigantic, venomous python flying over, the expressions of many people from the Church of the God of Knowledge changed.

“Scarlet Venomous Python Wand!” someone could not help shouting aloud in surprise. “Beware!”

Lion frowned as she watched the venomous python approaching her side in the air. With a wave of her scepter, she sent out a signal. Following her command, at least 20 cannons were fired at that gigantic python, and approximately two-thirds of these cannons seemed to be successful shots. The gigantic python was hit and recoiled a few times, but it was uninjured.

“Ordinary attacks have no effect on it,” a clergyman of adventurer origins rushed to say. “We are left with no other choice; only Your Majesty can help us now!”

With that, everyone cast their gazes over at the young men and women who stood unmoving, as though they were all in a trance.

These were, of course, the Holy Sons and Holy Daughters who had just accepted the possession of the God of Knowledge. At that very moment, they were no longer mortals, but the clones of the God of Knowledge.

They were all standing still because, one, they had to conserve energy, and two, for them to better adapt to a mortal’s body, so when it was time for the next battle, they would be able to wield a greater force.

Feeling the eyes of the crowd on them, one of the possessed bodies opened his eyes and looked right at the venomous python that was hovering and tumbling about in the air. The snake was occasionally spurting toxic fog, and even the concentrated cannon attacks by the Oracles could not force it into descent.

“Pathetic humans!” said the god while letting out a deep, low sigh. A glowing light flashed in his hands; then a simple, long black blade speedily appeared between his hands.

Then with a deep, low sigh, he wielded it towards the sky.

The lightly swaying blade seemed void of energy, but the black trail that it left amidst the sky had sliced a void space along the way. The lingering rays were about to disperse without a trace. Transforming into a stream of black blade light, it headed straight towards that venomous python.

The venomous python had the soul of a human, so naturally, it had a certain level of intelligence. Catching sight of that blade light, it knew that its visitor came with hostile intentions. Immediately, it gave out a strange cry, then huddled into a bundle within the air. Scarlet light rays changed into layers of matter that resembled scales as they attempted to block that blade light.

But this was not of much help. The black blade light easily penetrated those defenses put up by the scarlet rays to strike upon the python’s body.

This blade did not seem to be much of a heavyweight, but the moment it landed upon the venomous python’s body, it caused the python to jerk violently. Right away, it transformed into a stream of red light and attempted to fly out of the range of the black blade. In the blink of an eye, it had flown back to the Archbishop of the Church of the God of Aristocracy and had transformed back into its original form of a wand. Then in a most dejected manner, it made its landing.

The Archbishop bent down to pick up the wand and found that the area nearest to the tail of the wand had a black mark that seemed to have been imprinted onto it by a soldering iron. She frowned and started to chant the spell, but she realized the wand no longer responded to her.

After a round of meticulous examination, her expression became gloomier.

“Truly deserving to be the means of a god,” she said then fell silent for a moment. She continued to say, “Though it did not manage to cause massive damage to the wand, the soul that was sealed within it has been expiated. Losing that soul, this wand will become useless for the time being.”

“Can it be restored?” asked her assistant.

“Of course, it can be restored,” said the Archbishop in a deep voice and her face registered an uptight expression.

Restoring it was not difficult. The prerequisite was that she would have to make it back alive. But judging from the strength of this blade, she could not quell the worry rising from deep within her heart…