Cthulhu Gonfalon

"You came at a bad time. It's a little early, or rather, a little late."

Sui Xiong was led into the God Kingdom by the God of Diplomacy where he met with the God of Light in one of the side chambers. When he was alone with the God of Light, this King of Human Gods said this to him.

"Coming too early, I can understand. But what do you mean by late?" Sui Xiong asked curiously.

The God of Light shook his head and said, "Now, it's meaningless to talk about this. Since you are here 'at the moment,' then we shall talk about things 'at the moment.'"

He paused for a few seconds. Then the next thing he said was world-shaking.

"Which greater Divine Power do you wish to challenge?"

Sui Xiong was shocked by him. He froze for a long time, then hesitantly, he asked, "You… how did you know?"

"If I say it's just a guess, that would be an insult to our intelligence. But to say that there was some reliable evidence, then it would be an insult to your friends and followers," the God of Light said. "By contrast, I'll choose the former. I don't have any evidence. All of this is pure speculation."

"The way you speak today sounds so strange. It gives me a feeling that doesn't sit right with me," Sui Xiong said with a frown. Then he asked, "Could it be that something has happened?"

The God of Light smiled. His expression was somewhat gentle, which made Sui Xiong feel even stranger.

In his impression, the priesthood that this King of Human Gods had obtained when he was ordained a sealed god was "revenge." His doctrine said, "There is no need to be bothered about what is right or wrong in the world. What is real is only the sturdy sword that one holds in one's hand and the sincere feelings one holds in one's heart. The destruction of what was valued and loved should naturally be avenged. Only fresh blood can douse the flames of anger, and only battle can protect the things of value. If anyone wishes to stop or deter enemies from further hurting them or what they value, then there is only one thing they had to do: kill all the abhorrent enemies, and at the same time, use the cruelest and fiercest means to make any potential enemy retreat in fear."

A god who could produce such a doctrine would definitely not be a saint. He would never be associated with adjectives like "gentle,""soft" and the likes of them. Throughout the years, Sui Xiong had met the God of Light several times. But he had never seen him with such an expression. It was truly… take the panda for example. Though it was such a strong and powerful animal, it was especially good in showing its adorable and cute side. If the ferocious and terrifying Godzilla also attempted to act adorable and cute like the panda, what would happen?

At that moment, the God of Light was like a Godzilla trying to act all adorable and cute. So he felt an inexpressible strangeness.

Sui Xiong wondered in his heart but did not find it appropriate to ask too much. So he buried all these thoughts at the back of his mind and instead asked about things pertaining to the "greater Divine Power."

"There's a total of four greater Divine Powers in this world. The God of Virtue gave up his priesthood and has not been heard of since. His power was said to have been inherited by the Goddess of Life. Then when the Goddess of Life failed in her attempt to become a greater Divine Power, she turned into a great enchantment that guarded the Main Plane. And this power has since disappeared," the God of Light said lightly. "The God of Evil hatched a plot to secretly harm the Master of Chaos and devoured him. Yet in the end, he had overestimated his own capability. Not only did he fail to improve, he even brought about the fusion of 'chaos' and 'evil,' which completely annihilated his rationality. He became a terrifying beast that remained hidden in the deepest part of the abyss. Therefore, he triggered a possible occurrence of the destruction of the world with his birth as a so-called 'demon.' As of now, the only greater Divine Power who still exists alive in this world is the Master of Order.

Sui Xiong froze for a moment, then out of curiosity, he asked, "What about the Dragon of Chaos? Isn't it a remnant of the Master of Chaos as well?"

"Just fragments, that's all," said the God of Light as he smiled. But his smile was somewhat disdainful. "Previously, when Teacher and I went together to seek trouble with him, we fought with him several times. His ability seemed extremely amazing and profound, but he lacked in strength, and his endurance was poor. The first time we fought him, we lost. Thus we fled and returned to reflect. The second time we fought him, we won. The third time we fought him, we directly struck him down, and he was so severely injured that he fell into a deep slumber—if it was not out of worry that his death might profit that thing in the abyss, we would have killed him directly."

Sui Xiong was greatly taken aback. If it was not for the fact that a jellyfish did not have any jaws, at the moment, his jaw might already have fallen to the ground.

The Dragon of Chaos was so powerful and mighty. And yet he fell into a deep slumber after being severely injured by the combined force of a mere teacher-disciple duo consisting of the God of Knights and the God of Light? And also, the God of Evil, who was transformed from the remnants of the Master of Chaos, barely managed to escape alive because they had shown mercy?

This… this… he truly did not know what to say.

"But that fellow was indeed a worthy opponent. He was powerful and cautious. The important thing was that he was also timid. In a challenge against him, it doesn't matter if you were to lose. You'll still be able to escape easily," the God of Light said. Then he added, "You're probably stronger now than I was then. Roping in that worthless disciple of mine, with two versus one, there should be more than 80% chance of victory."

"Only 80%?" Sui Xiong frowned. He felt that, according to what the God of Light said, victory should be well within his grasp.

"Back then, though I was not strong enough, Teacher was," the God of Light said. "If he had not constantly been weakening his own strength all these years, would those flocks and herds of the Orc God System even qualify to stand before him? Where would they find the guts to look him straight in the eye!"

Sui Xiong froze again, then could not help asking, "The God of Knights, he… he has been weakening himself?"

"I am the one who's been weakening him. But he was the one who put forward this notion," said the God of Light. It was obvious that he no longer intended to keep this a secret. With a smile, he said, "Teacher has already attained perfection on his path of priesthood. The power that he had when he reached the peak was at least the equivalent of ten great Divine Powers put together—not like the kind of worthless good-for-nothings such as the Goddess of Wealth, Manissy, but like the God of War, Wenner, who was a great Divine Power through and through. Given how powerful he was, he should have long stepped up to the level of a greater Divine Power. But somehow, for whatever unknown reason, he just couldn't make it to that stage."

"Why?" Sui Xiong asked.

"At first, we wondered, was it because the seats of greater Divine Powers were all filled and thus, there was no room for anyone else? So we went to find trouble with the Dragon of Chaos. We intended to kill him then completely annihilate the Master of Chaos so that Teacher could occupy that seat."

"But why let him go?"

"Because when the Dragon of Chaos was severely injured and thus fell into a deep sleep, we sensed a looming threat coming from the Negative Plane of the world. At the same time, the Master of Order has sent us a message to tell us about the dangers of our approach," the God of Light said quite regretfully. He went on to say, "The most important thing was, Teacher's position honestly did not tally with 'chaos.' Even if we killed the Dragon of Chaos and completely annihilated the Master of Chaos, Teacher was still unable to occupy that seat."

It was then that Sui Xiong understood and nodded repeatedly.

"If we had to tread the path of 'snatching for seats,' then there were only two suitable seats for Teacher—the seat of Virtue or the seat of Order. The whereabouts of the God of Virtue was untraceable. We could not find him even if we wanted to kill him. And the Master of Order was simply too powerful. We have challenged him once and were clear that there was absolutely no chance of winning him. So we had to give up on this path."

"Huh?! So my older brother, he… hasn't he also challenged the Master of Order?"

"I don't know much about the relationship between Yorgaardman and the Master of Order," said the God of Light. "Perhaps he's the chosen successor of the Master of Order? I may find it a little ridiculous, but in this world, anything is possible, no matter how ridiculous it can be…"

"Alright. Let's not talk about that. Let's get down to business. Since Teacher couldn't get a seat by means of killing a greater Divine Power, he had to find another way. And the idea that Teacher came up with was… give up all his priesthoods and return to the level of a god-to-be. Then he would make another breakthrough via the path that he was on. This time around, he would not choose to achieve a breakthrough via the path of a particular priesthood. He would head straight for a breakthrough of the World's Origin and step up to an even higher level!

"That battle of 'Sun's Death Day' was the ultimate practice of this path that he had to fulfil."