Cthulhu Gonfalon

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

This marvelous summoning technique was not a means of the Church of the God of Knowledge—it was bestowed to them by the His Majesty, the Void Mask. It was said that His Majesty, the Void Mask, called this summoning technique, "Major Building," but no one knew what it meant.

To complete this summoning technique, an altar needed to be built, then four types of resources had to be placed on this altar, namely, gold coins, precious stones, steel and materials from a variety of creatures.

These materials were generally portioned into the most basic amount known as a "unit." Thirty units of each resource would be the minimum requirement to complete one summoning technique. If converted into gold coins, this amount would require approximately one hundred gold coins.

When sufficient resources had been placed onto the altar, a simple ritual could be performed to carry out the summoning. Through this ritual, the resources would be consumed, and then Oracles from the Sanctuary of the God's Kingdom would descend upon the mortal world to become reliable helpers.

Every helper was merely temporary and would return to its God's Kingdom after a short period of time. They were not only very powerful, but they were also really beautiful too. No one else could be more reliable than them as comrades, and besides, they were very attractive visually. This was why although this technique was not formally spread and made known to all, internally, it was already very popular among the higher-ups of the churches who knew about it. Almost every high-level clergyman within the Void Mask God System would make it a point to specially learn this technique. At times when the need arose, they would execute this technique to summon Oracles for help.

In general, using more resources would enable a more powerful Oracle to be summoned. Yet among the gods, there was a special group of elite Oracles who were far more powerful than the ordinary Oracles. However, the price for summoning them was no different from that of ordinary Oracles.

With resources that did not differ much, a different kind of luck was added on.

Yes, the key was "a different kind of luck."

When experiments were run internally, the occurrences of summoning an elite Oracle with the minimum amount of resources had taken place more than once. But most of the times, a great number of resources had been spent. Yet it was still the mass-produced Oracles being summoned.

The clergymen were all frustrated over this situation and had prayed to His Majesty, the Void Mask hoping that he could bestow a more stable summoning technique. However, this was how His Majesty had responded:

"Whether one's face was born dark-skinned or fair-skinned, one's fate can never be changed. Just like how the possibility of attempting to alter one's fate is as low as trying to retain the trace amounts of Krypton found in air."

Hey, just what exactly was this supposed to mean!?

Although it was not very clear what His Majesty, the Void Mask meant, the clergymen were quick to spread the concept of comparison between a "Dark Mask" and a "Light Mask" among themselves. Those who could summon the elite Oracles were "Light Masks," while those who were still only summoning the mass-produced Oracles were the "Dark Masks."

By the way, the priest who was persuading Olian not to waste so many resources was a representative of the Dark Masks. Until the present day, he was never able to summon an elite Oracle—not even once.

Kabbalah, the young man who was currently conducting the summoning ritual, was a representative of the Light Masks, and he had managed to summon an elite god almost five times. His extremely high success rate made all his colleagues so jealous that their eyes practically went green with envy.

Undoubtedly, this was one fellow who could be considered the epitome of the Light Masks. According to Sui Xiong, he could be described as a "European who ought to be burned to death."

As for why the Europeans ought to be burnt to death, this story began with one of Brother Xiong's past gaming experiences. This was a long story to tell, so to keep it short, everything could be summed up in one sentence.

Brother Xiong, he… was an African, and one of the purest African blood at that.

He could recall a mobile phone game that he had played previously where he had to collect enough resources within the game to summon different kinds of cards. Generally speaking, so long as the player was not wasteful, it was possible to collect enough resources to summon three cards on a daily basis. He had played the game for one full year, yet he failed to own a rare card that he had gained via his own summoning. The few rare cards that he owned were all giveaways from events.

Similar occurrences had happened more than once, and although Sui Xiong might have started out as an apathetic faction, he eventually changed into a reasoning faction. Then he continued to change until he reached the point where he became a part of the "burn the Europeans, long live the African brothers" faction.

These were all past events that happened long ago. Now, Sui Xiong could most certainly summon anything and everything he wanted to. But the feeling was different from before when it simply felt as though he were playing a game.

The clergymen went about accumulating resources, and everyone wore different expressions as they did their best to add resources to the existing piles on the altar. Some looked gloomy, and some had overcast expressions or faces reflecting hope, while others displayed determination through gritted teeth. In reaction to the results, some were rolling their eyes or beamed with pleasure, while others heaved long sighs or showed indifferent faces. Sui Xiong was reminded of his original life, and he could not help but let out a knowing smile.

At that moment, he kept himself unseen whilst high up in the sky as he gazed down at the summoning ritual. He was also looking down at the two gods in the midst of a confrontation.

At a distance slightly above the formation of the Church of the God of Knowledge, a clone of Wall, the God of Knowledge, was also present in an invisible form. Not too far away from Wall's clone was the clone of the God of Aristocracy, who was also invisible.

This was a necessary move when war broke out between churches. Gods from both sides would send clones of themselves down to keep a close eye on each other. Firstly, this was a preventive measure in case the other party paid no heed to their identity and planned to hurt any humans. Secondly, this was their way of looking out for the talents that they held in high regard during these intense battles so that they could help them avoid any possible injuries.

To the humans, a war of churches was a matter of high severity. But to a god, so long as there was no war between gods, everything was negotiable.

The ordinary followers and clergymen would incur some losses, but did that really matter? Their souls would go directly to their God's Kingdom, which in fact, might not be that great of a loss after all.

As for the rise and fall of human power—the thoughts and perceptions of gods followed a timeline calculated in units of hundreds or thousands of years. Even the weak Divine Powers might not be concerned about the rise and fall of two generations of humans, needless to mention, two mid-level Divine Powers.

Of course, this was on the premise that Sui Xiong did not make a move. If Sui Xiong were to make a move, given the fact that he was the one and only great Divine Power in the whole world with such a formidable might, he alone would most likely be able to uproot the forces of all the various churches on the Main Plane and drive them all out.

If Sui Xiong really made his move, then his act might be tantamount to offending the numerous gods; if Sui Xiong had really made his move, then he could forget about taking another step out of the Main Plane as he had made himself the biggest public enemy of all the gods on the Main Plane. The God of Aristocracy knew that Sui Xiong would be restrained by every god possible, and he would no longer need to fear Sui Xiong. Yet, the threat of Sui Xiong making a move was still very possible. This was why even the God of Aristocracy did not dare to pull any tricks. Instead, together with the God of Knowledge, they followed the rules humbly this time around.

Although, the God of Aristocracy had really wanted to make the Church of the God of Knowledge suffer a crushing defeat so that he could swallow up the additional gaps in belief released by the Mifata Federation. These gaps of belief were his chance to wield a powerful force that could enable him to strike down a great Divine Power, such as Sui Xiong.

Just as the two gods were in the midst of a confrontation, the Church of the God of Aristocracy had finished laying out the entire formation of their Divine Positions. They couldn't be bothered with sending people out to make a resounding announcement to challenge their opponents. Under the lead of the Archbishop, over 200 clergymen headed towards the middle of the formation, where they knelt before the statue of the God of Aristocracy and then started to recite their prayers.

There were more than 200 people reciting together, yet their voices were so neatly synchronized without a hint of clutter at all. This fully displayed the high level of training they underwent.

With the sound of recitations, a fluctuating wave started to appear, and it disrupted the calm evening air. Just rippling waves in water, this fluctuating wave spread towards the Divine Positions of the Church of the God of Knowledge.

This wave might seem gentle, but it actually had an irresistible force. The moment the fog that shrouded the Divine Positions of the Church of the God of Knowledge came into contact with this wave, it was utterly destroyed. It was as though it had met with a strong gale of wind that sent it scattering all about like stars. Within a fleeting moment, the majority of this fog had dissipated. The followers stationed outside the formation stumbled about; they felt like they had just gotten punched in the face. There were even some who could not stabilize themselves and thus fell to the ground with blood oozing out of their noses and mouths.

However, at that very moment, the Church of the God of Knowledge started their retaliation.

Led by a high-level priest, hundreds of clergymen prayed together, and then, magic roused their Divine Power, transforming it into a black blade mounted with gold trimmings. This blade flew out of the residual fog and effortlessly penetrated the layers of waves, where it then headed right to the core of the opponent's formation. If not for the few high-level clergymen from the Church of the God of Aristocracy who intercepted it by casting a spell together to stop it, it would most likely have shot its way right to the statue of the God of Aristocracy.

The moment both sides started to attack, it was an unceremonious exchange of strong methods deployed by both parties.