Cthulhu Gonfalon

“The great Void Mask Majesty, thank you for the food that you have provided us today, Amen.”

Under the lead of an elder, the orphans put their palms together for a prayer and bowed at the image of a jellyfish on the wall, as they drew a cross before their chest. If this was on earth, such action that combined heresy and paganism would definitely be condemned in speech and writing by the theologist. There might even be someone who named ” XXX Barack” that bomb the stronghold of the heresy. But, in the world that was a forest of religion, it was perfectly natural, as it was an orphanage built and funded by the church of Void Mask.

Actually, Sui Xiong personally was against the idea of tying up belief for the orphanage, as he felt that people should have freedom of religion. As there was freedom of religion, there should be freedom of non-religion, and freedom of choosing their religion, and of course, freedom to change their religion. From his standpoint, all of these were natural, but he couldn’t insist the wrongs were the rights, just because he became God.

An orphanage was a charity organization, so there shouldn’t be any expectations in return, when one did good deeds. Even if one wanted repayment, that shouldn’t be involved with any religion commitment.

Looking at those kids who spoke on a daily basis with “the great Void Mask Majesty”, he felt uneasy. He felt that if he were to continue running the orphanage, it would eventually develop to the point where they brainwash and plant extreme consciousness into the kids, and finally sent them for terror attacks as suicide bombers.

With thoughts of such a possibility, he could feel his molar aching. But his way of thought triggered his believers’ refutation, even the old man in the orphanage didn’t agree with him.

To them, the orphanage was part of the church. As these orphans accepted assistance, they of course had to contribute their belief. It was only right and proper to do so, nothing wrong about it.

What do the churches ask for? Of course, belief! Does any other thing carry more value than the existence of greatness in mortal life? They are completely useless!

“You, Majesty, didn’t you tell me something about ‘equivalent exchange’? These kids received assistance from the orphanage and got their lives. What else could be comparable with life in this world? It will most likely be belief.” Leon advised, “It is of course great that you contribute without looking for return, but if you were to receive assistance and not repay it, isn’t that worse? To these kids, receiving your assistance means to repay with their belief. I feel that is quite reasonable.”

Sui Xiong remained silent for a long time. He thought the way Leon thought was problematic, but he couldn’t tell what’s wrong with it. In the end, he left a statement of “Until the kids grow up, they must have their freedom to choose their belief”, then he didn’t bother with the matters in orphanage anymore.

To be able to secure the kids grow up healthily was more important. The rest of the matters should be talked about in the future. He is god, but not the Almighty Lord, after all.

“Speaking of which… maybe we should try the way of the Almighty Lord?”

His thought ended, he then came into the Chaotic World again.

He cleared his throat and Sui Xiong shouted, “Firstly, there must be light!”

It was an earthly silence among chaos, and there was no response at all.

“Huh? Did I remember the lines wrongly?” He thought and mumbled, “Could it be that I must speak in English?”

Luckily Sui Xiong’s English wasn’t bad, thanks to his teacher. Plus, he had to use English when he was drawing gaming illustrations during his spare time, so he could really memorize a few lines from the English Holy Bible.

“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth…” He mumbled to himself and he straightaway ignored the part and jumped to the last part, “Let there be light!” he shouted.

There was still silence among chaos, with no response. Sui Xiong was quiet for a while and then finally burst out with laughter.

“Silly me!”

He rowed his tentacles, and the jellyfish god left chaotically, and returned to the main dimension. He came and left in silence, without telling anyone. So, luckily, his silly action wasn’t known by anyone, at least he thought so. As for the few bastards that were looking in a hidden spot, he wielded “Turn a blind eye power” and ignored them entirely.

He was so busy after all, he couldn’t be bothered by such small matters. This was really not an excuse, Sui Xiong was really busy then!

Ever since the aiding of victims for disaster, the church of Void Mask had increased their influence vigorously, and became a kind god church that gained a little fame. Not only did they accept many believers from Dhaka Commercial Association and Gold Coin Federation that directly benefited, even the other nations that did not benefit directly back then, had many of his believers as well.

There were more believers, and the most direct outcome was that there were more people that prayed to Sui Xiong . These prayers were sent to him via the channel of religion.

Although he could shield off most meaningless prayers through godly power and also those prayers that simply wanted benefits, there were some prayers that contained strong will that no god could ignore. These prayers were normally people who were asking for help in their difficult position or the passion from the deepest of their heart. If god did not respond to these, the unanswered prayers would turn into a heavy burden.

Once or twice would be alright. But if the burden were to be accumulated, god would have difficulty to move forward, as though they were tied down with a huge rock.

But, it was no easy task to answer prayers as well. Sui Xiong always encountered wishes that he had no idea how to deal with, even god had no idea, sometimes. He had to ask for help from his brothers, and the answer he got was, it is really impossible, to make this person lose his memory then.

The fuck! That works too?!

Sui Xiong was embarrassed. He couldn’t imagine that this is the way various gods dealt with unfulfillable wishes. He sighed with emotions, thinking that he was really too young and innocent, and immature at times…. If you can’t solve the problem, eliminate the problem. Isn’t that a famous cyber line?!

Huh?! You say that cyber lines are not trustworthy? Cheh… The head of country could use cyber lines to rule a nation. He, who was a jellyfish, used cyber lines to solve problems, so what was wrong with that!

But, Sui Xiong was a honest and generous man after all, even though he learned the ultimate profound skill of “eliminating problem”, he leaned more towards “solving problem”. Even though it was more troublesome and more difficult, it wasn’t much of a problem.

Then, he was dealing with a problem that was slightly more troublesome and more difficult. It was a noble that wasn’t any devoted believer. He prayed to any god, for god to bestowed a child upon him, regardless of a son or daughter, as long as there was a child! As long as his child could inherit his manor and title, inherit his family name, he need not to worry about the extinction of his family line!

But this noble was cursed by the human god system’s Goddess of Family once, due to something. So, he didn’t have the ability to reproduce.

How to deal with this? At least any normal gods had no ideas. If the matter continued to develop, most likely the noble would gradually grow hopeless, and finally, either die or strike a deal with the devil, which was harmful to himself and the others.

But, he was lucky, as the Void Mask church was newly built in his manor. After he did some research and realized the “Void Mask” god was a kind god that operated theme parks and aided victims of disaster, he visited the leader of Void Mask Church, a businessman.

And he prayed before the other person’s shrine, at the statue of a green jellyfish. His prayers were sincere and the emotions were strong, just like a mosquito buzzing at Sui Xiong’s ear.

“You are cursed.” There was a ray of lights shone onto the noble from the jellyfish statue. After a few seconds, the light dispersed and Sui Xiong’s voice was heard from the statue, “You can’t give birth to any children.”

The noble knew about it long ago, and he wasn’t surprised, but he prayed with sincerity anyway. That was what his theologist friend taught him, as long as the church didn’t chase him out, continue to pray sincerely. As long as he tried one after another, there must be a god that couldn’t stand his annoyance, and that finally stood out to resolve his problem and fulfil his wish.

He persisted in prayers for about then minutes, and Sui Xiong was annoyed. He had no choice but to help him to solve the problem. The noble was cursed that he couldn’t reproduce. If so, detour from the “curse” then.

“Do you know? Actually, a drop of blood, and a strand of hair would contain the complete genes.” Sui Xiong floated out from the shrine and looked upon the alms giver, who was surprised. “You are cursed by the Goddess of Family. Even I wouldn’t be able to resolve the curse for you, but I could shift the curse away.”

“Shift?”

“Correct.” Sui Xiong smiled and said, “The curse does not direct to your soul, but your body. Reproduction is a body’s matter, which was not related to your soul, but the one that was carrying a curse wasn’t your genes, but you as a person.

The noble was confused, as he didn’t understand. Actually, Sui Xiong didn’t understand himself, so he was just simply bullshitting.

Seizing the time where he was bullshitting, he had already checked the noble’s body thoroughly, and had made a body that looked exactly the same in secret.

He checked carefully at the body, and made sure there wasn’t any curse or any bad content or hidden illness. He seemed pretty healthy.

Then, he used magic to make the noble fall asleep and concealed the surroundings to move the noble’s soul to a new body. As expected, after changing into a new body, the curse didn’t follow over.

“That’s it?” The noble didn’t know that he already changed a body when he woke up. He realized that he was still the same, with no changes. He couldn’t help but felt a little doubtful.

“Out-and-out, genuine!” Sui Xiong said proudly, “You can go ahead and try. If you can’t give birth to any children, go ahead and cause me trouble!”

He thought and added, “But I do not guarantee that you will give birth to a boy…”

The noble left quite dubiously, and left the body that was cursed by the Goddess of Family. Sui Xiong pondered and brought the body along to analyze it.

Regarding the ability of the Goddess of Family, he was quite curious. Like the saying “there was no day nor night in the mountains”, once Sui Xiong started researching, he would forget about time, until he was finally awoke with a start. When he woke up, the eldest son of the noble was already born, and they were throwing a ceremony to pray to him piously to thank him.