Cthulhu Gonfalon

When all the troops had gathered together in the planned areas, Joseph, the chatelain of Garth City who had been silently sitting in the center of the rostrum close to the square, finally stood up and began to give the opening speech.

Joseph was a legendary strong man, who was tall and had a well proportioned body. His hair was gray and mixed with a bit of green due to his extremely powerful natural force; his skin was as white as a scholar who rarely went out but sat in their library year round. His eyes were also gray, and one could see a green light flashing in them from time to time, which showed that he was really indeed powerful.

Ray was bored by Joseph’s cliché opening speech and didn’t listen to what he was saying at all. Still, he was very interested in Joseph and observed him secretly.

According to what Ray had heard about Joseph from other adventurers, he knew that Joseph was a strong priest who was very good at martial arts and was even better at practicing magic spells. He had been learning from the priest of the church of the Goddess of Harvest from a very young age, and was very good at cudgeling and hand-to-hand combat. Besides, he could even practice intermediate level magic spells which further increased his combat effectiveness.

In fact, although he had not pushed past the human limits of martial arts and practicing magic spells, and in terms of legendary strong men, he was not that powerful either, but because of the huge wealth the Riley Family had been accumulating for generations, Joseph could make an extremely good outfit for himself to greatly increase his combat effectiveness.

In the past, he once got into a fight with a legendary strong man, who was a templar of the church of the God of Justice. He was someone who always stood by justice and denied the privilege that was enjoyed by the aristocracy and businessmen. One time, Joseph broke into court where a young aristocrat was on trial for riding his horse over a civilian for fun, and killed him. Later, Joseph killed the entirety of the court, and around two hundred people were hanged outside Garth City, and their bodies hung on the trees along the road. This incident happened almost ten years ago, and at least ten churches of the good Gods heavily criticized him. Even so, Joseph didn’t care about whether he would still be accepted by these churches and said that anyone who dared to do the missionary work for these churches in Garth City shall be hanged.

When this incident was over, a small scale war broke out, and at last, the Riley Family won. Thus, Joseph became a legendary strong man in the continent and was considered the representative of the aristocracy and businessmen. He had won great honour among his peers.

To be honest, Ray didn’t like Joseph that much, but he really admired Joseph’s ability and his resoluteness in doing things.

The opening speech didn’t take much time, and Joseph sat down as soon as he finished his speech. Then his eldest daughter, the principle officiant of the church of the Goddess of Harvest, began to read the prayer and start the grand ceremony that was held to pay for the gift from the God. This was why so many people had come there.

The gift from the God could heal the wounded and keep one healthy, which was the necessary and luxury enjoyment of the rich. Besides, even a ceremony of this kind could cost hundreds of gold coins, and it was impossible for the poor to pay for it, so the poor came here, hoping they could get the gift from the God to keep healthy and got some of their wounds healed.

Most of the viewers were in rags and looked famished. It was still early spring and was a bit cold, so many weak people were heavily shaking due to the temperature. In fact, every year before the ceremony, many poor people who came for the ceremony would die on the street due to the lack of food and accommodation. In the past few days, Ray had seen this scene more than one time.

Ray had been told by the adventurers, who had been staying there for a long time, that in this year, the number of people who had frozen to death was relatively low, far lower than that of the last year…

Thinking of this, Ray sighed deeply and felt very sympathetic for the miserable life of the poor.

He really wanted to do something for them, but he had no idea what he should do.

Even if he was powerful enough to scare away a huge dragon, under these circumstances, he felt he was so feeble to do anything to help them.

“Maybe, if I am as strong as His Majesty, I can follow my heart to do things and make things better…”

While Ray had no idea that Sui Xiong was also in trouble now.

The Dark Shadow Evil was very difficult to cope with. Although it was not that tall, it was indeed very powerful even for Sui Xiong, and if he was hit by it, Sui Xiong would be badly and painfully injured. Besides, thanks to its agile and small body, the Dark Shadow Evil always managed to dodge Sui Xiong’s attacks.

Of course, for Sui Xiong and the Dark Shadow Evil, who were both very powerful figure, a hand-to-hand battle was only one way of fighting, and if the close fighting proved to be unfavorable to both sides, the two could fight with each other via practicing magic spells.

The magnificent cold energy functioned as the dimensional anchor, shrouding a region of tens of miles, and even froze space. Sui Xiong believed that as long as he could trap the d*mn Dark Shadow Evil so it could not move freely and quickly, he could definitely catch it and tear it into pieces!

While the Dark Shadow Evil clearly knew its disadvantages, he didn’t give Sui Xiong any chance to completely block the space and managed to break out by uniting negative energy into a sharp long spear that penetrated the block. When it got out, it didn’t run too far but chose to loiter inside the region and fight with Sui Xiong.

Thus, the fight turned into a war of attrition.

Judging from the current situation, Sui Xiong knew that the Dark Shadow Evil could run away at any time and couldn’t come up with a good way to trap it completely. When it came to combat effectiveness, Sui Xiong held all the trump cards since he was in a better place than the Dark Shadow Evil in terms of both the strength and the understanding of the energy. Every time their magic energy collided together, Sui Xiong was always in a better place, and as things went on like this, he would definitely win at last.

But Sui Xiong still felt very worried. His anger had already faded and he had become sensible again. Then he was very confused. Since he had never done anything to provoke the Dark Shadow Evil, why on earth had it attacked Sui Xiong’s followers?

To be honest, most of the figures of the Evil Camp were a bit peculiar, especially those who were extremely evil, confused, and were basically a psycho. Since the Dark Shadow Evil could both accept the prayers of those thugs and manage to strike a deal with them, it was not a freak as Tim Saar was. There must be a clear reason why it attacked his followers, and Sui Xiong himself had no idea what it was.

What could it be then…?

In the center plaza of Garth City, stood Haley Riley, the principle officiant of the church of the Goddess of Harvest. She was forcefully articulating the anthem to the Goddess of Harvest, and a powerful magic energy rose up around her and turned into a green light rising into the air like a green vine.

This woman looked quit ordinary, but she had a pair of fierce eyes which were full of confidence and pride like a shining treasured sword that had just been unsheathed.

Undoubtedly, she was very powerful, which could be easily seen from that magnificent magic vine. After comparing her with her father Joseph and brother Sean, Sui Xiong realized that she was not as powerful as either of them. Both her father and brother could restrain their true power and no one could really see how strong they were in normal times. Ray had come into close contact with Sean several times, but he still didn’t realize Sean was actually a spell-caster. This was indeed terrifying that one could be so strong that he could even hide his power.

If Sui Xiong could choose between Haley and Sean who he was going to fight, he would prefer the former, not the latter.

After a while, Haley finished her spell, and one could see that the green vine had already risen high up into the sky and disappeared into a piece of cloud that was floating above the plaza.

Suddenly, the cloud began to shine green, and one could vaguely see, behind the light, that there was a beautiful and nice country where there were many ripe grains and fruits in the wild field and countless angels singing, while working and harvesting the field.

“This is the projection of the Holy Kingdom of the Goddess of Harvest,” Sean said. “No matter how many times I see this, I feel very uncomfortable.”

Hearing this, Ray was shocked, and the hairs on his back prickled with fear.

The reason why Sean said this was already very obvious and shocking. Even Ray, who was extremely brave and audacious, was terrified by Sean’s words. There was going to be a war between a certain God and the Goddess of Harvest!

Ray was shocked and felt very unlucky and really wanted to curse. Since he came here simply for some information, he never thought he would get involved in a fight between a certain God and the Goddess of Harvest!

The Goddess of Harvest was a God that had the power of the intermediate level, and of all the Gods of the Main World, with its center in the Main Plane, she was a powerful figure. The God who wanted to fight her must be very, very terrifyingly powerful!

Ray always thought highly of himself, but in this situation, he thought he was just like the cannon fodder!

My god! His Majesty, would you please allow me to kill that d*mn Sean? What? You think I could not win against him? Screw him! I don’t care if I can win against him or not! I have been severely implicated by him!

However, it was too late for Ray to withdraw, he had no choice but to pull out his sword and ready himself to fight. He did this not to fight with Sean or to protect him, but instead he began to hurriedly draw back, hoping to meet his peers.

He at least needed to protect the people. As for other things, he neither had the time nor the energy to care since a war between two Gods was about to begin!

While Ray was panicking and pulling out his sword, Sean stood up and coldly stared at the slowly emerging Holy Kingdom of the Goddess of Harvest, then he sneered and waved his right hand.

“Please come, God of the Quagmire and the poisonous fog!”

Immediately, the wind began to blow and the cloud changed color, even the sky and the earth were shaking.