Cthulhu Gonfalon

For most of the people who lived in the coastal area, the invasion of the sea race was a disaster that was even more scary than a tsunami.

The so-called sea race referred to the species that lived in the sea, that believed in the Goddess of Sea and adopted a hostile attitude toward the terrestrial creatures and aimed to kill every one of them. The sea race consisted of all kinds of different species, and the biggest branch of the sea race was the merman and the sea fairy.

There were various kinds of creatures in the sea, and in fact they could roughly be divided into two camps. One was ruled by the powerful half-God creature that regarded the Goddess of Life, who had already died, as their Mother. They lived in the distant seas or the deep seas and called themselves the “citizens of the sea.” The backbone of this camp was the merman race, among which there were many old mermen who had been living in the sea since the ancient time and had even witnessed the birth and the death of many Gods: the predecessor of the “furious tide” Haimu Sarah, and the “dark tide” Tim Saar, the half-God strong men or the “living tsunami” Sarah Mentor, was one of the old mermen and was also honored as the “king of the sea”.

And the other camp was the so-called “sea race.”

The citizens of the sea remained neutral and even had a friendly relationship with the terrestrial creatures. Since the citizens of the sea were very powerful, they had enough confidence, and they had been living far away from the land, so they were not in conflict with the terrestrial creatures in terms of habitat.

While things were rather different between the sea race and the terrestrial creatures. Most of the members of the sea race lived in the coastal waters or the shallow waters, thus they were in direct conflict with the terrestrial species in terms of the habitat. Since the individuals of the sea race were rather feeble and would often suffer losses in small conflicts with the terrestrial creatures, the hatred they held toward become more and more intense as time went by. At last, the sea race regarded all the terrestrial creatures as their enemy.

In the beginning, the Goddess of Sea was a God of Nature and she remained neutral in the conflict between the sea race and the terrestrial creatures. Later, she adopted the faith of the sea race and her mind was gradually eroded by their hatred, and she became an evil God at last.

After a period of time, the Goddess of Sea gave an oracle and asked the sea race to gather at a certain coastal line, then to land, and kill every terrestrial creature they could possible see.

This was the so-called the invasion of the sea race.

Among the sea race, the skirmisher was not that powerful; in fact, the most dangerous and powerful figure was the elite team led by the strong figures of the sea. These strong figures were not interested in attacking the ordinary citizens, instead they liked to attack the town and the village. Every time they destroyed a certain town or a village, they would gather all the captives together and dig a big hole in the ground. Then they would squeeze out the blood from these captives and pour the blood into the hole to fill it. Later, they would bathe in the blood one by one, and the one who had established the most splendid record would bathe first. The reason why they held this ruthless ceremony was to please the Goddess of Sea.

Once Garth City was destroyed by them, the soldiers would be either killed during the fight, manage to run away, or their blood would be extracted to fill the hole.

In the past, the sea race had invaded Garth City more than once, although they never managed to destroy Garth City that the Riley Family had painstakingly built. they had brought great misery to the citizens of Garth City. Thus most of the people felt extremely frightened whenever they heard of the sea race.

Currently, there was a big war in Garth City. Joseph, the chatelain of Garth City, and his daughter who believed the Goddess of Harvest, were in a big fight against Master Sean who believed in the Goddess of Quagmire. The other camps were also involved in this fight: therefore, the soldiers could only rely on themselves to fight with the sea race.

Could it really be possible for them to stand up against the invasion of the sea race? Since they neither had the backup of the defending force, nor did they have the magic array, the only thing they had were some ordinary soldiers and some brave adventurers.

Ray didn’t believe that they could definitely defeat the sea race, but he felt that he had to stay to fight and create more time for the people to run.

Liv also wanted to stay and fight together with Ray, but she was persuaded by Ray to leave.

“You need to take care of young Nice,” he said. “Your mother is very powerful, but it is impossible for her to spare the energy to take care of Nice if something happens. As for Steele, one can’t fully rely on her… so you should take up the responsibility to take care of Nice.”

Hearing this, Liv meant to bargain with Ray, but Ray put on a poker face and angrily stared at her, so she said nothing.

“Liv, you are a knight, right? If you think you are, you should obey the order I gave you!” He pointed at the crowded refugees, “As your teacher, I command you to maintain the order of the team and help them to successfully retreat.”

“But… I…”

“There is no ‘but’ in the dictionary of a knight!” Ray shouted. “Rank, Teague and Steele, you three have to cooperate with her, do you hear me?”

Rank agreed and he pulled out his sword, ready to fight together with Liv. Madame Teague was a bit stunned, since Rank directly called her “Teague,” but soon she lowered her head and obeyed Ray’s command; while Steele was a bit reluctant and frowned, but at last, she didn’t show her reluctance.

Liv was almost going to cry, but she managed to pull herself together. Then she yelled at, punched, kicked or hit anyone who was making trouble, trying to maintain the order of the crowd. She even killed a bandit, who meant to loot with her sword. She then brandished the sword from which the blood dripped and warned the refugees to behave themselves and to run toward the direction she was pointing. She looked like a shepherd and the refugees were just like a herd of sheep.

“She is doing pretty well.” Ray crossed his arms on his chest and smiled while watching Liv doing so in the far distance, “I never thought she was so leader-like!”

“But it all seems very reasonable. Since the king has always thought highly of the knight, Pahn, and regarded him as the perfect lord-to-be of the Holy Land, and Liv, as his daughter has been under his education from a very young age, so it is not surprising she is a warrior with a mind. Maybe her real talent is not in the field of swordsmanship, but in leadership…”

Then, Ray turned around and pulled out his sword.

“Although I may not be able to win this fight at all… still, it makes me feel very excited!”

At the bay, the tide was turning; meanwhile, countless mermen landed, brandishing their shabby weapons. They were such a mess and acted in a disorderly manner, but they managed to frighten any brave man who dared to fight against them simply with their numbers.

Moreover, among them, there were many powerful elites who were leading the army, like the merman priests, the merman warriors, the merman tribal chief and alike. The mermen team might look very messy, but when examined carefully, one could find that there were many disciplined proceeding groups among the messy team.

“It is a common practice for the merman to cover the elites with the messy crowds.” The old officer came close to Ray and said to him, “Thank you for your help. It never occurred to me that an adventurer like you, who has just come to this city, would be willing to risk your life to help us.”

“Any decent man could not possibly ignore a massacre that is soon to happen,” Ray replied. “Especially… after my failing to stop another massacre that happened very recently.”

The old officer was silent for a while and asked, “What on earth is going on over the plaza?”

“I can only tell you what I have seen and the speculation I made based on what I have seen, and I can’t promise you that everything I am going to say is one hundred percent right.”

“Please.”

“Firstly, Master Sean seems to be a follower of the God of Quagmire, and he is of very high rank in his church. I think he may be some sort of candidate,” Ray said. “Although he seems like he doesn’t want to join this fight, his identity and status make him unable to contradict the order of the God of Quagmire.”

The old officer was shocked, and his eyes and mouth were wide open.

He had already been shocked after hearing only the “firstly.” The Riley Family had been following the Goddess of Harvest for generations, and most of the family members were all in some very important positions in the church of the Goddess of Harvest. He never thought that the future successor of the Riley Family could be a candidate of the God of Quagmire!

This was just like the leader of a herd of cats suddenly becoming a dog, or the king of the ladies kingdom turning out to be a man! It was indeed ridiculous!

“Then, during the ceremony, he summoned the doppelgänger of the God of Quagmire to come to the Main Plane,” Ray said. “Maybe he summoned a doppelgänger of a certain oracle, since that huge sticky monster was too shabby to be a doppelgänger of a God.”

The old officer nodded and took no notice of Ray’s disrespect of the doppelgänger.

“Then, Haley was eaten by the sticky monster; the sticky monster initiated a large scale attack, and turned all the viewers in the plaza into sticky liquid. The chatelain was furious and Sean was severely injured by him. Then Sean was possessed by the God of Quagmire, and the chatelain also summoned the incarnation of the Goddess of Harvest by burning his vitality. Later, Haley’s soul turned into a divine creature and fought against the sticky monster with other survivors.” Ray was trying very hard to make a summary of what had transpired so far. “Now, they are still fighting with each other.”

Hearing this, the old officer became silent, and let out a long sigh.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

Ray shrugged and said, “Even I didn’t understand what was really going on; although, I was there at that time, so it is pretty normal for you to not be able to understand!”

“But I know what I should do now,” the old officer shook his head, and tried to clear his mind after hearing the story told by Ray. Then he said in a very low voice, “I don’t care what is going on over the plaza, since I am a member of the sea defense army, my obligation is to protect Garth City from the invasion of the sea race!”

Ray patted his shoulder while smiling, “You are right… but have you got any better ideas? If you don’t, it is very likely that we may lose!”

“Ideas? I haven’t got any ideas! To be honest, I don’t think we can win this fight!” The old officer, with one third of his hairs whitened, murmured, “Even so, we should confront them! I have lived in this city all my life and I am an aristocrat. I can not possibly abandon my city to save my own neck, and leave it to the enemy…”

Before he even finished his words, he suddenly shot an arrow and killed a young man who was well dressed.

This young man was trying to sneak away while the old officer was talking with Ray, and thought no one had noticed him.

“The number one rule of the sea defense army of Garth City: anyone who runs away during a fight shall be killed!”

Suddenly, the old officer’s attitude became as cold as the freezing north wind. He then said coldly, “I know many of you have been sent to join the sea defense army with the intent of polishing your experience, and I know you always bum around being gluttonous and lazy, and even deceive your superiors and delude your subordinates… Well, I can forgive all this, but now the sea race is coming, and you want to ask me why you are so unlucky that you have to be in this situation, and I shall tell you that this is your fate!”

“So don’t complain to me or try to run away! What you should do is to pick up your weapons and fight!”

“I don’t want to hear any excuses, and I don’t care. I am only in charge of two things. First, I will never allow the sea race to cross the bay and to kill the people, even if this would cost my life. Second, I shall kill anyone who attempts to run away!”

He looked around in a rather serious way. Although he was just a low rank officer, now he was as magnificent as a huge dragon.

“Now, let’s fight!”