Cthulhu Gonfalon

Chapter 131

Since building a sacrificial altar required a lot of space, the altar of the Church of Void Faceless was built in a rather desolate open field. There was nothing at all in the surrounding area of one kilometer, and the building closest to the altar was a small watch-house.

In the observatory of the watch-house, three huge dragons that had changed into human form were watching carefully at the altar where the followers were praying.

“How amazing. Our church was just a small church, with less than 100 people, but among the followers, there are three legendary strong men already!” Shuang was a bit annoyed. “Is it very easy to be a legendary strong man now?”

“Actually, as long as one stays close to a powerful figure, he will also quickly grow strong.”

Snow was smiling and made a small blackboard with frost. Then she drew a light ball on it. Around the light ball sat many people. The light ball was shining and radiating its energy, and the people that sat closest to it also had a halo above their heads.

“Since you put it that way, why are Xian and I still not very strong?”

Hearing someone mention her name, Xian, who had been feeling sleepy, struggled to open her eyes and look around. When she saw nothing special, she leaned on Snow and fell asleep.

Snow sighed and said, “Xian is a bit lazy, and spends most of her time sleeping.”

“But I have always been hardworking! I don’t sleep as much as she does!” Shuang said.

Snow sighed. “You, however, spend most of your time arguing with others.”

Hearing this, Shuang was speechless, and so angry that his chins turned red and swelled up. Then he turned away from Snow, and stopped talking to her.

Seeing this, Snow smiled, turned around, and continued to watch the altar.

The followers of the church of the Void Faceless were very disciplined. The principle priest was standing in the front. He called himself Ray, but the people in the church called him Leon Igor. He was a knight who wearing white armor and a dark blue cloak. In Snow’s magic vision, both the armor and the cloak were shining. Obviously, the two objects were very rare.

In fact, Sui Xiong made this armor all by himself. The armor on Ray’s head, shoulders, chest and back was greatly strengthened, and the armor on his waist, hips, ribs, and stomach was decorated with metal plates. The metal plates were all of different patterns. They divided into different groups, which consisted either of one plate or a few plates, and each group was a magic array. When Ray was wearing the armor, he could easily practice forty magic spells or so, simply by activating the magic arrays on his armor with the intention to fight. Before, he was just a professional knight. With the help of this armor, he become a versatile knight who could not only perform martial arts, but also practice magic spells.

The first time he wore the armor, Sui Xiong jokingly suggested he should wear a hammer on his back and take a book with him. Then he would become a real ‘versatile knight.’ However, this joke could only be understood by someone from Earth, which made Sui Xiong feel a bit sad at the time.

As for the cloak, it was a treasured object from the secretive treasure-house of the Riley Family.

Kashali Riley was very naive, but very grateful to anyone who had ever helped her. Ray had been working very hard to help her rebuild Garth City, and to get rid of those greedy people who coveted the money the Riley Family had. So she really wanted to return this favor to Ray.

For a naive girl who was in this situation, the first thing that Kashali came up with was marrying Ray. Ray emphasized that he was sort of a clergy, and the reason he helped her was simply to stand for justice, not because of her beauty. Besides, when Ray heard that Kashali wanted him to marry her so she could return his favor, Ray refused and criticized her. He told her that beauty was not everything, she should spend less time dressing up. Instead she should spend more time studying politics and culture. He told her to stop wasting her time thinking about the boring stuff, and that she’d better begin learning how to deal with government affairs. After hearing this, Kashali immediately threw away her naive and romantic ideas.

Ray rejecting Kashali’s offer showed that he was indeed a decent man. This made Kashali think very highly of him and even like him better, but she didn’t ask him to marry her again. Instead she spent a long time in the secretive treasure-house, and managed to find an appropriate present for Ray.

This present was the dark blue cloak. It looked very smooth, and on the inner side of the cloak, there was a starry sky made of magic treasure stones, instilled with magic power. This cloak was full of powerful energy and could help its owner greatly offset the damage of certain magic spells. In addition, anyone wearing this cloak could walk on water, and its defensive powers were as strong as a set of well made armor.

Ray liked this cloak very much, so he timidly accepted it. He had no idea that after seeing his embarrassed face, Kashali thought of nothing but Ray when she came back home.

The whole set of armor was called the ‘void protection,’ and the cloak was called the ‘the starry sky above the sky.’ Since Ray helped to write the prayers, he got promoted and became the principle priest. Even, so he continued behaving like a knight.

Gerrard and Wor were standing side by side behind Ray. The three people were the most powerful figures in the church of Void Faceless. The group of three was so shockingly strong that everyone was surprised to see them, no matter which country the three went.

Behind them were Palin, Rode, Olian and Steele. They were in the higher levels of the church. Palin was in charge of the collection and management of books, Rode was in charge of foreign commercial trade, Olian was in charge of missionary work in the Geerteng area, and Steele was in charge of managing the medical team of the church.

Since Madame Teague was a follower of the Goddess of Forest, she didn’t join the church of Void Faceless. Neither did Liv, since she was a follower of the God of Knights. The two, along with young Nice, were standing in the distance, curiously watching this rare prayer ceremony.

The ordinary followers were standing behind the four. Most of the followers were the pioneers that built the church. There were also two adventurers among the followers who were persuaded by Phil to become followers of Sui Xiong. Even though Phil always said that he only believed in the ‘ancient Goddess,’ he was really good at the missionary work.

In Garth City, there were also some followers of the church of Void Faceless, but not many. Currently, they were praying together with the two adventurers who just chose to follow Sui Xiong, in an open field.

The solemn sound of prayer was echoing in the air. At the same time, countless tiny spots of light appeared in the air and gradually gathered above the altar. This was the power of belief, the power that both attracted and frightened the Gods.

Among the light spots, the shadow of a floating jellyfish appeared. It waved its tentacles and immediately, many light blue light balls appeared and floated above the altar.

The blue light balls were the souls of the followers that had been killed by the Dark Shadow Evil. When Sui Xiong managed to get them back from the Dark Shadow Evil, he found that these souls had been contaminated by the Dark Shadow Evil’s negative energy. He made a huge effort to get most of the negative energy out of their souls, but still, some remained. To solve this problem, Sui Xiong decided to ‘contaminate’ their souls with his energy, hoping his energy could suppress the negative energy. That was why these souls turned light blue.

Would this cause any bad effects to them? Maybe not… Anyway, it is better than being contaminated by negative energy! Sui Xiong thought.

With the power of belief still gathering, Sui Xiong began to do a spell. This was the first time that he officially did a divine magic spell. He did the classic spell of resurgence, a spell that was worthy of the title of a God.

The magnificent magic energy was flowing out from the jellyfish’s shadow and connected Sui Xiong with the light blue spots, the souls of his followers, via the power of belief. The magnificent energy was flowing in the air, and a huge amount of energy and nourishment was pouring into the light blue spots. Then, one could see each light spot gradually growing into a human body.

About half an hour later, ten naked people were lying in disorder on the huge altar.

Sadly, most of the followers didn’t come back to life; these followers could roughly be divided to two categories.

A great number of them were not that faithful, or their belief to Sui Xiong was too weak. So their souls couldn’t become the bridge that connected them with Sui Xiong, with the help of the power of belief.

Sui Xiong couldn’t do anything to help these people. Recently, he had learned quite a lot from the God of Justice, and knew that there were many rules that needed to be followed. Although some of the rules really annoyed him, they were still very reasonable. For example, there should be some limitations with the spell of resurgence.

Bringing a dead person back to life was a precious gift given by a God. If there was no rule to restrict a God’s behaviour, then a God could simply bring anyone he liked back to life at will. Then the balance between different churches would be destroyed. Besides, for the dead, being alive again was not that ideal; many dead didn’t want to be alive again, and pursued calmness in the afterlife.

Among the followers that hadn’t come back to life, there were a small number of followers that wanted to enjoy the calmness of the afterlife and refused to be alive again.

As for those whose faith was not that strong, Sui Xiong thought it was fine that they couldn’t come back to life at that moment. When the Holy Kingdom was built, he would see whether their faith had strengthened, and allow them to be admitted into his Holy Kingdom. If they failed to enhance their faith, Sui Xiong would have no choice but to send them to the underworld.

The whole praying ceremony didn’t last for too long. When Sui Xiong managed to bring ten people back to life, there was still much power of belief left in the air. Sui Xiong didn’t want to hastily absorb it, so instead he stored it in the altar.

He had already witnessed how dangerous the power of belief was before. And before he found a way to properly deal with it, he didn’t want to have anything to do with it!

Then he returned a bit of the power of belief to the followers, via the path of belief.

Immediately, all the followers trembled and felt a magnificent power. Although it was only a tiny amount of the power of belief that had flown into their bodies, they felt very comfortable, and their bodies were in the best condition ever. For a long time to come, they would not be ill. At the same time, the two adventurers who hosted the praying ceremony in the Garth City felt that there was a strong power surging from the bottom of their hearts, as if they had also grown much stronger.

This made Sui Xiong’s followers become even more faithful.

Of course, not everyone could receive the God’s grace. The more faithful a follower was, the wider his path of belief was, and the more power of belief he would get in return.

Sui Xiong felt it was perfectly fine that the amount of the power of belief one could get should be determined by how faithful he was. Just like the people on Earth; the more faithful one was to the Buddha, the more sincere he was, the more grace he would receive.

Everyone showed his gratitude to Sui Xiong, and then the ceremony was over. The jellyfish’s shadow slowly disappeared. Still, the followers in the altar remained in solemn silence.

At this moment, a cold breeze brushed the ten naked people, and they all woke up and began to sneeze.

The one who made the loudest noise was Satan.