Cthulhu Gonfalon

Some might have felt that the Dahl family had other unexplored options such as hiding the news or attempting to purify their blood…

However, these options were all not trusty. For the former, while they could of course attempt to conceal the news, walls had ears, and sooner or later, it would escape the confines of the family. What complicated the situation was that the idea of blood awakening was periodized, and within one or two generations, it would appear regularly in intervals. If Baron Dahl’s eldest son had awakened the devil bloodline, it would be expected that within the next one or two generations, more would follow. It would be impossible to hide the truth from the world then.

As for purifying the blood, while there was significantly lower risk, the price of it was extremely high, and the Dahls would find it hard to afford.

Blood purification was a magical and spiritual ceremony, and its difficulty level was of that of legendary. One needed a high-level priest or pontifex, an advanced mage or psychic, two high-level spellcasters and about 5000 gold coins’ worth of spellcasting resources. At the same time, individuals who were undergoing the purification would be weakened, and this would affect their life expectancy and fighting skills.

The second-generation baron in the Dahl family had fallen sick when he was young, and this caused him to have a weak immune system. Although he had brought troops into battle more than once, he did not actually have the real fighting skills to challenge anyone, and so all his battles were led by his knights. Now that Baron Dahl thought harder about it… this relative had not actually fallen sick but rather had gone through blood purification!

It was just that his ceremony had been incomplete and did not manage to fully clear all traces of devil blood. Thus, it continued flowing down the generations till now. Devil blood was much stronger than human blood, and any remnants could regenerate slowly till it became pure again.

As he thought, Baron Dahl felt resentment towards his ancestor for being too careless and causing the current chaos. Now, if the Dahl family wanted to repeat the same procedure, they would need 42 cycles! Forty-two sessions of blood purification required 221,000 gold coins! This was a tremendous amount, and there weren’t enough trustworthy spellcasters to carry out so many sessions as well. To carry out such high-level ceremonies, spellcasters’ own bodies would be damaged a well. Even if these high-level spellcasters had strong bodies, they would still only be able to hold one session every one to two months. Every day’s delay put the Dahls in greater danger! Thus, blood purification was not a viable solution for them at all.

The only real solution was thus to leave the aristocratic system and run into the arms of the Void Mask Lord. Once they had secured a position under the Void Mask Lord, they would not be at the mercy of the aristocrats. Even if the news about devil bloodline within the Dahls were to spread, the Void Mask Lord would speak up for them, and the aristocrats would be forced to keep their opinions to themselves. Of course, there was the cost of having to follow the Void Mask Lord’s teachings and develop themselves as honest good people. This was a high cost, but it was a better alternative than being persecuted or losing territory. Thus, the Dahls accepted this cost.

At the family meeting, the core members unanimously agreed to change camp and join the Church of Void Mask. However, they also mentioned that in order to not over-anger the aristocrats in the Commonwealth of Gold Coins, they would temporarily retain the Commonwealth flag and replace it officially only with the ascension of the next generation. To this, Kabbalah did not have any opinion as it was a trivial matter to him. As long as the Dahls were willing to follow the Way of Goodness and the Void Mask Lord, he was content.

The same night, the Dahl family sent out a mass order for all families to round up their members from infants to the elderly. This was a serious command by Baron Dahl, who exclaimed that anyone who did not turn up could no longer identify as a Dahl.

Within five days, the entire family of about 100 people assembled at the Church of Void Mask’s temple and conducted the admission baptism ceremony under the supervision of Kabbalah. Afterward, amidst the noise, Baron Dahl handed the seal, scepter, saber and flag to Kabbalah, which signified the handover of a regime, command, troops and family respectively. With such a handover, there was the idea that the Dahls fully gave up their independence to become Void Mask disciples. After Kabbalah received these items, he quickly blessed them before returning the seal ad scepter to Baron Dahl. This signified that he was now the god that supervised the Dahls and also accorded the Dahls the highest level of military as well. Kabbalah held on the other items to signify that the land was now under the church’s law and to formally include all the Dahls as disciples.

As there had already been news about this development within the family, the Dahls were not shocked, but the onlookers were flabbergasted. Many stared and gossiped as they did not understand why the Dahls had made such a grave decision. Normally, only extremist disciples who had been fully brainwashed would do such a thing, and Baron Dahl did not seem like one.

It was only when Baron Dahl’s son removed his hat to reveal his yellow, short horns did everyone comprehend the situation. Baron Dahl did not hide the truth and shared it openly. Many who had assumed a high-level of understanding of the Dahls’ history were shocked. Since that was the case, this conversion was no longer surprising. Although leadership was important, to continue the family name and avoid danger, Baron Dahl had made a wise choice. On the other hand, many were curious about the strength of the Dahls. While having devil blood brought much danger and trouble, the fact that the Dahls possessed it as well as support by a new leader could mean that they grew much stronger in the near future.

The green jellyfish flag was thus finally erected successfully at the city gates.