Cthulhu Gonfalon

“Your Majesty, what have you done to frighten these thugs to death?! Especially the leader, who made such a horrifying cry when he died.”

Gerrard cleaned the bracelet with leaves, and looked at the Orc’s dead bodies lying in disorder, along with “Bloody Hands” Ruhr. Ruhr’s face was now twisted, and sh*t and urine were flowing down his pants all together. Even if he was already dead, he was still too repulsive to make others want to get close. Seeing this, Gerrard did not only feel a bit disgusted, but also quite curious.

“Actually, I do not know either. I just knocked gently on him, and that is it,” Sui Xiong said, while pointing at Ruhr’s body. “As for the others, I did not even touch them. God knows how they died.”

“Oh, I know; they were all frightened to death, and when they died, their souls also went mad, and became wraiths,” Gerrard said. He pointed at the black air wriggling in the shadow of a tree in the short distance. Inside the black air, they could vaguely saw many mad figures, crying and laughing.

Gerrard curiously listened and heard a crazy laughing sound. His heart suddenly shrunk. He immediately stopped listening and picked a topic to distract himself.

“Your Majesty, I counted just now, and there were only 30 bodies. But there were 35 or 36 of them yesterday. How shall we deal with the rest of them? Do I need to chase and hunt them down?”

“There is no need to fuss,” Sui Xiong laughed. “Cutting someone slack is a perfectly justified thing to do. If they manage to get away, then good for them. But it is not that easy to do; they should not think themselves safe if they have managed to escape. As for those who have fled, they cannot not get away and will soon come back to face their maker. We shall just wait here.”

Gerrard was in a daze. After he handed the bracelet to Ruhr, he came back, chatted with Sui Xiong for a while, and ate two helpings of barbecued meat. But in such a short time, the twenty Orc bandits had been killed, and he did not even hear any fighting or see any traces of the battle or blood. Even those who fled could not survive. How incredible the magnificent power of this God was!

Really, there was only one guy that had fled.

In the forest, there was a figure running as fast as the wind, and panting like an ox.

This figure was Shaman of the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves, who was called the ‘accountant,’ Burke. He was second only to Ruhr, and was the butler.

He was the oldest among the members of the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves. He was also very silent, taciturn, indifferent, and easily neglected by others. Usually, he would stand beside Ruhr when there was the need to appraise some certain objects other than the cash, to calculate the cost of certain wars, as well as the profit. At last, Ruhr would decide how to divide up the spoils of war.

Burke never asked for spoils of war, or talked with anyone but Ruhr, apart from when he served as an accountant and had to talk with others. But other than that, he never spoke to anyone, even when he was treating an injured bandit or fighting a war. But now, he was terrified, and his lips trembled. His teeth were chattering while he ran like crazy.

Earlier, Burke was sitting in a safe place as he usually was, and looking at Ruhr. Ruhr was an Orc he took with him from a tribe, who had quickly grown to be a strong Orc, and his own leader. He had managed to blackmail a rare treasured object from an inexperienced, pure and kind giant with a tough and cunning ultimatum.

For him, this was a glorious victory worth praising. The God that exorcised the beast (the God of Orc healing and schemes) would also feel happy about this, since he preferred to get the spoils of war by intimidating and tricking instead of simply using force.

As the Shaman who believed in the God of Healing and Schemes among the Orcs, Burke was not very talkative, since he preferred thinking and praying quietly. He put all his efforts on plotting and praying.

In his view, the way Ruhr usually got a spoil of war was too rough and direct, and lacked the beauty of pure violence. This time, he thought the way Ruhr got the bracelet was still a bit rough, but totally different from how he did before.

However, his happiness only lasted for a few seconds.

When Ruhr put the bracelet on his neck, he saw clearly that a ray of bluish white light appeared, and became a peculiar form he had never laid eyes on. He felt suffocated and pressured. This feeling was beyond description, and made him feel his heart had been crushed into pieces for a moment.

Other Orcs were extremely frightened, and acted as if their souls had left their bodies. They began to cry and run about in all directions. But they soon pressed their chests and fell down one by one. Burke managed to keep calm with his strong mind after years of exercises.

Actually, his being able to stay calm was not a good thing for him; he clearly saw a tentacle reaching out from that peculiar creature. It patted Ruhr gently, and the ruthless Ruhr was crushed by extreme terror. In the beginning, Ruhr was struggling to stay calm. Then he broke down mentally and was not able to counterattack anymore. He was forced to die by that incredible energy. This process only took a few seconds.

My God! What on earth was living inside that bracelet!

At that moment, the only thing he could do was kneel down, take out the holy emblem, and start to pray.

“God that exorcised the beast, please bless my soul, and make me think calmly, and be free of this terror and madness.”

As usual, the extraordinary power quickly befell him, and became an air as cold as a winter breeze. It went into his body, and Burke’s mind was clear again. He retained his calmness and escaped the terror. Then he ran away without hesitation.

He did not ride his wolf, since all the wolves had already run away and disappeared. Before, they were running as if they were being chased by the scariest war craft, and Burke thought they would not stop running until they died.

In fact, he thought what he was doing now was the same as what those wolves did earlier: running, running as fast as possible to the furthest place one could possibly go.

He had no idea what that damn bracelet was, but there was one thing that he could be sure of. That bracelet was much more mysterious and powerful than he ever thought.

The Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves was already doomed, as was Ruhr. What he could do now was save himself. But even in this, he was not sure if he could succeed. The spell he practiced earlier could not last for long. If he could not get himself out of the range of the spell of the peculiar bracelet, he would certainly die!

Burke was trying his best to run without thinking what horrors he might face later. He was only thinking about one thing, and that was running faster and further!

What on earth was that? What on earth was the creature that came out of the bracelet?

It was incredible that he could still think when he was running so quickly.

Powerful… magnificent… incredible…

Suddenly, his eyeballs shrank, a cry came out of his dry throat, and his muscles immediately got stiff.

He had guessed what that creature was.

His cheeks started to tremble and his teeth began to chatter, as if a big snake had surrounded him. He could not even stand steadily, since his feet had become limp. He leaned the tree next to him so that he would not fell on the ground.

That… that… that was a God!

Burke, a man who was always so calm, finally let out a frightened cry, and his body began to tremble as if he were suffering from chills and a fever.

I have to run! I have to run quickly! The further I run the better! I have to run out of the four villages in the northwest and Badlands, and run into the inland. I shall never stop running! If I do not hurry, maybe he will find me soon!

Maybe he is already on his way!

Thinking this, the Orc Shaman’s fur stood up. Although it was quite warm and he was wearing very comfortable clothes, he felt very cold. He could not resist the coldness, since it came from his heart. He felt as if he were standing naked on the ice field in winter, and would be frozen in the next very second.

Run! Run! Run fast!

But he could not stand up. his feet were shaking and out of control. He struggled to stand up many times, and finally managed to do so.

This is not working! I cannot run like this. I have to use the energy of-

He knelt down—which was not a difficult thing to do—and took out the holy emblem with his shaky hands and began to pray.

However, this time he did not get the reply.

The God that the Orc believed in was cruel and brutal. Thus, a coward’s prayer would not get his reply.

Luckily, Burke had stored other magic objects. When he found that he did not get the reply, he instantly took out a scroll with a golden border around it. He opened it without hesitation and pressed on it with his magic, and managed to activate the alabaster on it.

The expensive scroll started to burn and became a golden halo. The halo then fell on him. Immediately Burke regained his strength. Before he was so terrified that his mind had turned into a mess, but now he became courageous again.

Then the Shaman, the evil backstage manipulator, continued to run. He was running so fast that he stumbled over a stump or a stone along the road and fell on the ground heavily. Then he hurriedly got up and continued to run without even daring to turn back, as if there was really something chasing after him.

No, he had indeed felt that there was something chasing after him. And that thing was huge, powerful and scary…

Soon, the spell ceased to be effective; the terror crawled up his mind again.

He was going to be caught. Ha-ha; a mortal could never be able to run away from a God. The reason he had managed to run this far was because Sui Xiong wanted to chew his terror slowly, and watch his futile struggling, so he could have some fun.

What would happen to him next? Was he going to become a rock and stay deep in a forest where no one ever stepped foot, and spend his long, long life alone, and see nothing but the darkness?

Or maybe he would be thrown into purgatory, where the guilty were punished, and suffer. There, he would want to die so badly, not being able to stand the pain anymore, but he might not even be able to die. He would have to wait until the God showed his mercy.

Maybe his body, and even his soul, would be crushed completely, and became the material of a magic object. Would his crying face be left on a knife or an axe?

Burke was panting for breath, for he was extremely terrified. His body had reached its limit. He did not stop running, even when there was white foam coming out of his nose and mouth. Soon, he had almost lost his sight, and began to walk unsteadily. His facial expression became lifeless.

Now he could not see his surroundings or hear any sounds. He was still running, but more and more slowly. At last, he could not run anymore, and fell on the ground.

He still wanted to try. He struggled and managed to crawl a few steps, then burst out laughing.

“He has come! He has come to punish me!”

This was the last sentence that the old thug said. He, who had done so many crimes in so many places; from the Northern Wasteland, to the four villages in the northwest. He had also helped establish the bandits’ group that had committed all manners of crime, and left many terrifying records.

At last, in his sheer terror, exhaustion, despair, and madness, the last breath left his body.

When his soul rose up, it was caught by an invisible force, and thrown into the black air in the short distance.

Inside the black air, there were already many mad souls crying and laughing.

“See? The last bandit has also been caught,” Sui Xiong said to Gerrard, who was totally stunned.

The sun gradually rose up. Looking beneath, one could see that the place that the ‘accountant; Burke had run formed a perfect circle.

He started from the opening, and ended at the opening. A big circle.