Cthulhu Gonfalon

Chapter 908: Purification (Part 1)

Winter was drawing to an end, and spring was approaching.

Spring was the season of life where all things were rejuvenated. The earth would be covered with green, where there would be flowers and verdure, mountains and rivers. Even the animals were completely reinvigorated after the long winter and began to reproduce. And once again, they were starting a new cycle of life.

But this spring was different.

It was very cold.

The cold was not only in the air but also in the hearts of the humans.

The calendar of the Main Plane was similar to Earth in that it divided a year into four seasons. That particular day with the shortest period of daylight of the year—the winter solstice—was made New Year's Day. This calendar was simple and crude. It was extremely convincing.

The winter solstice was the midpoint of winter. One and a half months after the winter solstice marked the start of spring. And during this one and a half months, the first half month was more or less the coldest period.

Generally speaking, if they had to fight wars, the humans would mostly choose winter. This was mainly because during winter, the farmers had nothing much to do and were idle.

But for the Orcs, fighting a war in winter could consume many lives, thus allowing them to save food and optimize the population of their race. This was a political strategy that was worthy of recognition and praise.

Sui Xiong floated above the terraced on the rooftop of the Void City's town hall and looked at the eastern sky.

The cloud of war had almost condensed into a solid substance, an iron-gray patch that made it uncomfortable to look at.

"I wonder how many people will die in this great war!" he said. With a deep sigh, he shook his head.

"Ultimately, this is the choice they make," Leon said calmly as he came to stand beside Sui Xiong. "We can try to protect the refugees and stop the slaughter. But we can't stop them from going to war. If the people themselves want to die, then there's nothing the others can do to help them."

Sui Xiong nodded. But still, he could not help sighing.

He loved life and hated war. The acts of betting the lives of thousands of people over the struggle of land, wealth, power, status and the likes of them, was blasphemies against life itself.

But he could not stop this war because both sides wanted to fight.

Just as what Leon said, this was the choice of both the humans and the Orcs.

Even if only one side did not want to fight this war, Sui Xiong would still have to take the side of the party forced to fight and use force to convince the aggressors to give up on this war. However, with both sides wanting to fight till the rivers were stained with blood and dead bodies were strewn all over, there was simply nothing Sui Xiong could do.

These days, he had been appealing for peace and for the people to withdraw from this war. Be it the humans or the Orcs, or other races that had been implicated in this war, so long as they were willing to pull out of this war, Sui Xiong was willing to protect them so that they could be safely distanced from war. They could live in the Republic, which was like a retreat away from the turmoil of the war.

But everything that he did had not reaped effective results.

Indeed, there were many mortals who believed in him and decided not to join this war. They were brought to the Republic of Northwest from all over the world where they had settled down. But there was a much greater number of people who were willing to go to war—for the mortals, beliefs were important, but their lives, their family and what they loved and hated… these were just as important.

The Kingdom of Eagle, for example, had fought the Orcs for years. Almost every family had an elder who died on the northern battlefield. There was practically no one willing to back out of this war, just for the sake of defeating the Orcs completely. Many of Sui Xiong's clergymen, after praying and confessing to Sui Xiong, had taken off their robes emblemed with the holy symbol of a jellyfish. They put on their armor, picked up their arms and went to the battlefield.

On the side of the Mifata Federation, even in the Alliance of Four Cities with Grey Tower City as its core, there were many scholar mages making their way out of their studies. They picked up their rarely-used wands, took off their scholar robes and donned their mages robes, then went to assemble at the military base.

These scholars were very knowledgeable, thus all the more, they were filled with a sense of responsibility for the whole of humanity. Even if they had to disobey the orders of the gods, they would still join this war and fight for the future of humanity.

It was needless mentioning places like Garth City, where large numbers of strong youths were heading north to the Kingdom of Light to fight in the battlefields of blood and fire. Leon had tried to use strong measures to stop all this but was rejected by Sui Xiong.

"Rain will fall, and ladies will have to get married. Just let them be," said Sui Xiong. At that time, he spoke in a most open-minded manner. "So long as they themselves don't regret."

"These fellows are not devout believers at all!" Leon said unhappily.

"People live for themselves, that's first and foremost. Then, for others," Sui Xiong said with a smile. "No matter what choice they make this time, so long as they don't point their swords at their fellow church members, I'll still welcome them back in the future."

"Your Majesty… you're too magnanimous! Being so magnanimous to them will not do!"

"Why not?" Sui Xiong said with a smile. "The reason why I want to become as powerful as possible is just so that I'm able to say to be able to say 'because I want to, so why not,' isn't that so?"

Leon was at a loss of words. Finally, he chose to move all the people who did not wish to take part in this war from Garth City to live in the Republic of Northwest for the time being.

Of course, it was impossible to move a city, but so long as they took everything important along with them, whatever things they left behind did not matter.

The place where the people of Garth City resided was where Garth City was. Without them, it was nothing more than an empty city.

All this, naturally, depended on Sui Xiong's incredibly multitudinous Divine Power. When the immigrants saw a city that was exactly like the Garth City where they used to live in amidst the frozen ash forest, they were all stunned.

In fact, this was all very simple for Sui Xiong. It was just scanning the appearance of the entire city, then finding a place where the earth could be shaped into a corresponding appearance. That was all.

Although it was a massive amount of work, it only took him about ten days to bring the whole process to completion.

There were a few other territories belonging to the Republic of Northwest that did not choose to move because they were, after all, very far away from the battlefield. Geerteng Hill was in the central-eastern part of the Commonwealth of Gold Coins, adjacent to the Ashes Woods. Dahl Hill was in the southern part of the Commonwealth of Gold Coins, though slightly more towards the east and was next to the Great Marsh. Keane Hill was in the prosperous region located in the central-southern part of Duchy of Thunder. The Alliance of Four Cities of Grey Tower City was located in the central-northern part of the Mifata Federation, near to the Ancient Forest.

Compared with Garth City, which was a major commercial port on the whole continent that was not far from the Kingdom of Light, these places were considered as safe havens located far enough from the battlefields. Of course, there was no need for the people of these places to move.

Even so, there were large numbers of people from various places who still believed in Sui Xiong. So these people who refused to fight the war headed for the Republic of Northwest instead. A majority of them, of course, were from the Kingdom of the Blue Moon.

This particular population brought the Republic of Northwest under enormous pressure with regards to housing. It also caused more distress to this land that had already been exploited.

The people of this world were not used to living in "pigeon-cage" apartments. And besides, neither the Void City nor the other cities of the Republic of Northwest were able to accommodate so many inhabitants.

They needed to open up more land so that more people could have houses to settle down. Not only did they require places for accommodation, but they also needed places for work, recreation and entertainment.

So something that had been planned for a long time and that had mobilized many pairs of hands to prepare for it was finally about to be implemented.

The purification of the entire Ashes Woods!