Cthulhu Gonfalon

"Interesting! So interesting!"

While the battle went on at ground level, up in the air, where it was not far away from the battlefield, an invisible Sui Xiong was observing the two sides engaged in battle with great interest.

He was pleased with the performance of the clergymen. Baron Dahl's wise decision did earn secret nods of approval from him. But at that moment, what interested him more, was in fact that gnome tribal chief.

Unlike the normal humans, Sui Xiong had great powers and adequate insight, so he had long seen through the true ability of this fellow—its other abilities were very ordinary, but there was just one aspect that it was very skilled in. That was its ability to suddenly become big.

This ability was not the "Giant Growth" that the spellcasters from the clean-up army had concluded. It was the Giant Worm Spell, another kind of marvelous spell with a specious nature.

Of the senior adventurers, there were some who had fought in battles that involved the extermination of magic beasts like bugs. In those battles, there would be occasional sightings of magic bugs that could execute amazing abilities and instantly become as big as humans, or even bigger than humans. The spellcasters carried out studies on this class of magic bugs, hoping to parse this amazing ability and develop it into a spell. It could then be used on humans or monster statues.

Take a moment to imagine this. Suppose two monster statues that were almost as tall as two people suddenly grew to a size that was ten times bigger. Just imagine how mighty would that be! Even if they could not persevere for long, for them to fight a battle in this state, even if it was only a dozen to 20 seconds, it would be more than enough to hit their enemy's battle array, and at the same time, deal a heavy blow to their enemy's morale. But after a period of research, everyone had to give up on this extremely tempting idea. Because even though they had spent a great amount of magic and resources and lost a great number of experimental bodies, they were still unable to make a crucial breakthrough in transferring this spell to "the humans" or "the monster statues."

Over time, the number of spellcasters studying this class of magic bugs got fewer and fewer. Eventually, this kind of research became research content from an almost forsaken department. Only mages who lost in power struggles against one another would go to such a department. And they did so unwillingly. The supply of resources to study those things was pathetic, and that department seemed fated to never yield any research results—including the study of those bugs.

The only ones who seemed to reap a little success were the druids. They researched on the famous "Giant Worm Spell." This spell could make a specially-bred magic bug almost 10 times bigger, so it only took a short while for them to become reliable comrades.

But today, Sui Xiong saw a living example.

This gnome tribal chief was supposedly of a unique bloodline—according to Sui Xiong's analysis, it not only had a small portion of magic bug's blood, but it also had a lot of giant's blood. With the gnome's blood bridging the two kinds of blood together, the combination would produce a wonderful effect. This ability that should originally have appeared on a bug-type magic beast would be transferred over to the tribal chief.

Although the degree of expansion it induced was much weaker than the original version of the "Giant Worm Spell," it was still a great deal more powerful than the "Giant Growth" spell. If thorough research could be done in this situation, it was possible that a spell that was unique to Sui Xiong's church would appear. Thereafter, when his clergymen went to war, they could loudly roar, "Give me strength, Holy Light," then become a gigantic creature that stood taller than an entire house with an awe-inspiring and aggressive air.

Imagine this: the two armies confronting each other in battle where hundreds of clergymen would put on a show of the "Arrival of Avatar." Even if their enemies were not frightened to death, the clergymen would still swing their weapons, which had also expanded into incomparably huge sizes, and harvest their enemies just like how they would do so to crops in the autumn fields.

In the face of such an army, no matter how brave and tenacious their enemies were, they were still vulnerable to the attacks of the clergymen.

Thinking of this, Sui Xiong could not help laughing more happily.

On the ground, there was no way the gnome tribal chief could manage a smile. On the contrary, it was in an extremely sorry state at the moment.

Being surrounded and attacked by the clergymen of the Church of the Void Mask with their besieging the boss setup made this magic beast, that was in fact not very powerful in its own right, very upset. Its strength, at best, could only tackle two to three Sacred Warriors. When six Sacred Warriors went to attack him at one time, even if it became a giant, it still could not withstand their attacks, not to mention that there were also priests and the bishop helping those Sacred Warriors at the side.

The two paladins that did not attack it were now taking turns raising their bows and opening fire at the Gnome Shaman in an unhurried manner. As seasoned adventurers, they did not expect to use such an ordinary level of attack to bring down that magic beast whose strength was not their match at all. But through this method, they sought to firmly pin down the other side, leaving the Gnome Shaman at the end of its wits. It could do nothing but go on roaring.

More than once, it had tried to cast spells to help the tribal chief, but it was confronted by two paladins whose strength was not any inferior to it. In the face of sharp arrows that might not be extremely mighty but were always spot-on when it came to their ability to shoot at vital points, it had no choice but to hide. There was simply no way it could cast spells properly. Just trying to ward off or hide from the attacks of these two paladins was already exhausting all its energy.

As for the others, it truly could not be bothered.

At the same time, Baron Dahl's army, led by knights, began a large-scale massacre of the ordinary gnomes. Heavily armed soldiers charged to the front with skilled archers following behind, only to see the gnomes falling to the ground successively as though they were wheat being harvested in the fields.

There were some that were relatively stronger among those gnomes—for instance, the gnome warriors, gnome hunters and gnome archers. But their power at best was only matched to those professional soldiers who received combat training all year round. Against the knights and knights-to-be, they were still just as vulnerable. Not to mention that there were spellcasters on the hind of the army, acting as auxiliary support for these knights. Even Bishop Kabbalah from the Church of the Void Mask had lent his support and used a few extensive auxiliary spells.

Among spellcasters that used divine spells, the bishops were considered the ones who specialized in this aspect. They were not like the priests who could go on the battlefield to fight while clad in heavy armor, but more like mages in the direction of divine spells. This made them far more capable in spellcasting as compared to the ordinary priests. Especially when it came to making use of large-scale auxiliary spells, they were even more outstanding.

Bishop Kabbalah used a total of four large-scale auxiliary spells from the beginning until now. The first spell was to boost the army's morale. The next was to provide everyone on the battlefield with a divine armor that could slightly weaken their enemies' attack. The one after that was to append some blessings on everyone's weapons, boosting their ability to do greater harm, and the last was a spell that could allow everyone to slowly recover from any injury.

These four spells were not that superior when used individually. However, when cast as a set, they could enhance the clean-up army's strength and greatly boost their morale—without mentioning the fact that the spell itself was able to encourage the army to keep up their morale level, just the effects of having a shield and blessed weapons were enough to increase the soldiers' confidence. Coupled with the ability to clearly feel their wounds and injuries slowly healing by themselves, the soldiers would feel a great increase in courage. When it was time to fight battles, naturally, the soldiers would be much braver.

As the saying went, "a brave hero always wins the fiercest competition." The clean-up army was much stronger than the gnomes to begin with, and coupled with them being the braver side, the outcome of this battle was in truth already predestined.

Around half an hour or so of fighting, the battle finally ended abruptly by an uncompromising roar of anger from the tribal chief.

"What a… formidable… fellow!" said that burly and bearlike sacred warrior. He had finished the tribal chief off with a final blow by piercing the tribal chief in the chest. There he stood by the corpse of the gnome tribal chief with fresh blood gushing like a spring as he panted and wheezed.

He wasn't the only one tired as the other Sacred Warriors were fatigued as well. In the battle earlier on, the gnome tribal chief had used the Giant Growth Spell three times in total. If not for their tacit cooperation and how well-trained they were, it was highly likely that injury was inevitable.

Now, they were only exhausted but without anyone being hurt. This was already the best outcome.