Cthulhu Gonfalon

Crick was busy again. Although his life was like a candle flickering in the wind, he had no intention to rest at all and still maintained his original working style.

He was so diligent that when Sui Xiong saw how hard he was working, Sui Xiong couldn’t help but think of a famous allusion—a famous person called Zhu Geliang had bent his heart and exhausted his energy for his lord until his heart had ceased to beat.

Since Liu Bei, Zhu Geliang’s lord, had entrusted his son to him, Zhu Geliang had worked hard to support Liu Bei’s son and fought against many strong enemies. Not only did he lose inches of land, but also made several northern expeditions, which eventually threatened Chang’an, the capital of his enemies. if he hadn’t been overworking all the time, he would have reversed the trend of history with his own strength and realized the ideal of ‘reviving the Han Dynasty’ that he had agreed upon by Liu Bei.

However, Zhu Geliang hadn’t realized his ideals and was killed by exhaustion.

Now, Crick also wanted to be killed by exhaustion just like Zhu Geliang.

Upon seeing this incarnation with no special powers act so diligent at the end of his life, Sui Xiong was moved and felt ashamed of himself at the same time. How could Crick work so hard while he still felt no sense of shame when resting?

I’d better continue my work! But what on earth should I do?

Sui Xiong thought about it over and over again and finally decided to continue creating Oracles.

It was quite funny that he originally intended to create man-made souls to make up for the souls of high-ranking followers in his kingdom, but after practicing, he found that the souls he created weren’t ordinary souls, but more concise and powerful then ordinary followers’ souls.

If such man-made souls were only used as ordinary inhabitants of the God’s Kingdom in order to enrich the kingdom, it would undoubtedly be a waste of talent and resources, so after careful consideration, he changed his mind and further transformed the first man-made soul into an Oracle.

As a faithful fighter and reliable cannon fodder of a God, the greatest advantage of an Oracle laid in its soul imprint, which was engraved in the God’s Kingdom. With this, even if it was killed a hundred times, it could be resurrected a hundred times. As long as it was provided with enough Divine Power and time, it could be resurrected many times.

But the Oracles created by Sui Xiong before didn’t have such powerful abilities. Of course, it could be resurrected, but the efficiency of its resurrection was very slow, and if it died, it would take a few days to come back to life. It would be weak for a long time after resurrection and temporarily wouldn’t be able to restore its combat effectiveness.

This situation was due to the complexity of souls.

The souls of ordinary Oracles were very powerful, but their compositions were much simpler, which made them unable to form normal and complete personalities to think independently. This was due to poor manufacturing, so they were just mass-produced cannon fodder that sought great powers and rapid resurrection. They didn’t need complex souls to be controlled; on the contrary, they needed their souls to be as simple as possible in order to increase the speed of remodeling and recharging. Therefore, their souls were very powerful, but lacked complexity.

Of course, there were always exceptions. For example, some Oracles that were transformed from powerful followers had both great power and a complex thinking pattern, but their speed of resurrection was greatly affected, just like the one Sui Xiong originally created.

There was nothing wrong with such an Oracle, who was powerful and thoughtful enough to shoulder heavy responsibilities, but it was just… they couldn’t sufficiently do the job of “cannon fodder.”

So should he design another kind of souls for followers?

Sui Xiong thought for a moment and gave up on this idea.

Since he could create more perfect souls for advanced Oracles, why would he lower his standards and waste his energy to create ordinary souls?

The point was that he had been deeply shocked by Crick’s diligence, but now, he really didn’t want to do such a boring job, so he had better design souls for Oracles this time!

Sui Xiong made up his mind quickly and began to think about what kind of Oracles he wanted to design.

Firstly, he thought of creating an Oracle as cannon fodder according to the practice of Gods.

It was easy for him, and he designed several schemes for his plan. The creation of the cannon fodder Oracle wasn’t advanced technology, so almost every God could do it.

These cannon fodder Oracles Sui Xiong created were also very good and probably qualified to meet their missions, yet after careful consideration, Sui Xiong rejected these designs, too.

As an artist himself, he couldn’t accept the practice of creating cannon fodders in batches!

Such a kind of practice lacked aesthetic sense and healthy trends. More importantly, it lacked positive enthusiasm!

But… What kind of oracles should I design if I don’t design Oracles like these? The cannon fodder Oracles were also necessary, after all!

He thought about it over and over again, and at last, he came up with a way to make the best of both worlds.

After all, what he needed was not a ‘cannon fodder Oracle,’ but ‘cannon fodder with the same Divine Power as an Oracle.’ At first glance, they looked similar, but in fact, they were quite different from each other.

“Why… didn’t he create a special Oracle that could make and control powerful cannon fodder?”

He talked to himself, pondered over this idea, and thought it was wonderful!

Since what he had created was just cannon fodder, they didn’t need defenses that were too strong, as long as they couldn’t be killed in a second by a wide range of enemy attacks.

Since they were meant to die, they didn’t need a complex shape, instead needing to be as simple as possible!

As cannon fodder, their ability of resurrection was also redundant, as long as their cost was low and they could be created in a very short time.

What he really wanted to do was create special kinds of cannon fodder troops and then design an Oracle that would create and control them.

It was just like an aircraft carrier!

Although Sui Xiong wasn’t a military enthusiast, at least he had some common sense. On earth, aircraft carriers had become the absolute core of large fleets, and the absolute main force of the navy. If two fleets with the same numbers fought against each other, one side with an aircraft carrier and the other side without an aircraft carrier, it was certain that the side with an aircraft carrier would win.

Since practices on earth had proved this point, what else should he consider?

“Why didn’t I think of this practice earlier? What I did before is just a waste of time!” Sui Xiong shouted out loudly and then threw himself into research design with high spirits.

At this moment, he could only feel endless enthusiasm and inspirations pouring into his mind like a tide. As if he had received an illustration order and found that the deadline was drawing near, his whole body was burning up.

The fierce roar of the big jellyfish echoed over the God’s Kingdom.

“Fighting!”

A few days later, at the monthly meeting of the Church of Void Mask, Sui Xiong, who was usually lazy at meetings, was cheerful and confident.

“I’ve done a big thing!” he said mysteriously.

“My majesty, have you killed another God?” Gerald, head of the Regiment of Knights in the Pantheon, asked curiously.

Hearing such a question, everyone looked at Sui Xiong with surprise and curiosity.

Killing a God was by no means an easy task. However, if it was the emperor of Void Mask who wanted to kill a God, as long as he was powerful and controlled a huge holy pedigree, it wasn’t surprising at all.

They were just curious about who had made their emperor angry.

Sui Xiong felt a little embarrassed at their gazes. He rubbed his nose and protested, “Why do you all think that Gerald guessed right? Do I look like such a cruel person?”

Everyone looked at each other. Some of them nodded silently, some laughed awkwardly, and some were puzzled.

“Isn’t it an honorable thing to be powerful and ferocious?” asked the big weird bird Favnier that had recently started believing in the Church of Void Mask.

Sui Xiong was unable to respond at that moment. After looking at the beautiful feathers and fierce claws of Favnier and the terrible jagged fangs in its mouth, he wisely gave up the idea of talking about mercy and kindness to it.

“Actually, I’ve created powerful magic!” In order to avoid the topic going in an inexplicable direction, he had to say it straight.

Everyone’s attention was immediately attracted by his words, and the Archbishop Leon first asked in surprise, “What kind of magic is it?”

For a long time, the spell-casters in the Church of Void Mask had been facing a troublesome problem—a lack of sufficient Divine Power to choose from. They especially lacked the exclusive Divine Power that could represent the Church of the Void Mask.

The so-called divinity was a kind of magic granted by clergymen like priests or pastors. Because it took a long time to pray and preach, most clergymen weren’t strong as mages or wizards. In order to remedy this situation, most Gods would choose to create a series of magic powers, and clergymen could master and apply them with the help of Divine Power, as long as they had enough magic power. That was what people called divinity.

Except for universal divinities, most Gods in the world would create their own exclusive divinity, which could not only provide unique skills for the clergymen, but also highlight the characteristics of their churches.

But for a long time, the Church of Void Mask didn’t have an exclusive divinity, which was mainly because Sui Xiong hadn’t created yet—he had been too busy.

It didn’t matter too much if they didn’t have an exclusive divinity, because most of the young Gods hadn’t created their own divinity. With the help of universal divinity, the clergymen lived the same way, but it would have been much better if they had exclusive divinity.

However, exclusive divinity needed to be reliable. If it was like the divinity of the God of Love and Beauty, which served only for pleasure, it would be very teasing to all the Gods.

And that was why Leon asked this question first, because he was quite concerned about it.

Leon was certainly very familiar and clear about his emperor Sui Xiong’s personality. He was a good man—or a good jellyfish—but he often came up with unreliable ideas and put them into practice. What if this time, he adopted one of his weird ideas to create a strange divinity? And what would he do if Sui Xiong really did so?

He couldn’t help but worry about when thinking about this.

Sui Xiong didn’t think too much about it when he heard Leon’s inquiry. He laughed, and with a light shining from his body, he showed his divinity to everyone.

It was a summoning divinity called ‘summoning of Oracles.’ Just as its name implied, it could summon Oracles created by the emperor of the Void Mask.

Leon and the other Gods were relieved after seeing this. Although the summoning of Oracles wasn’t a distinctive divinity, it was fair and square.

Leon felt very happy and asked what kind of Oracles it could summon.

Sui Xiong’s eyes suddenly lit up when he heard his question, and he laughed proudly. He waved his hands and summoned his newly-created Oracle.

“Come on! Say hello to everyone!”

“Oh!”