Cthulhu Gonfalon

Chapter 986: Sacrificing for a Better Future and a New Day

An instant later, the God of Light's body exploded into countless small spots and broken pieces, scattering everywhere and disappearing. Sui Xiong did not stop this process an instead watched silently as his corpse slowly disappeared.

Areas of death and corpses was not something that Sui Xiong had ever enjoyed.

After settling his business with this evil troublemaker, Sui Xiong stood motionless on the spot and considered his next course of action.

Now, the Great Circulation had already been destroyed. Thousands of worlds were unraveling at an extremely fast speed, and over time, all the worlds would soon cease to exist and be cast back into chaos, like when the Great Circulation had not yet existed.

Perhaps, Sui Xiong could take up his old role as a focal point and use this role to recreate the Great Circulation. However, that would be the start of a whole new era. This whole present era would become smoke and dust and cease to exist.

Was that really the best outcome? The world was already as destroyed as it was. Was it even possible to save it now?

Sui Xiong thought for a long time before he sighed deeply to himself.

"This is tough! This is really tough!"

It was easy to destroy something but hard to build something up. Just like how the God of Light was able to destroy this entire world solo, Sui Xiong was also able to easily kill the God of Light. However, he was unable to save the world that the God of Light had destroyed.

In Sui Xiong's surroundings, countless worlds were crumbling and becoming shooting stars of the Great Circulation. These shooting stars continuously collided and gathered, with this process becoming more and more intense and powerful. Several worlds which were valiantly trying to protect themselves or hide were slowly sought out and destroyed. The Great Circulation's era was clearly coming to a solid end. It would be any moment now.

Sui Xiong glanced at the scene before him and fell back into deep thought. He vaguely felt that there was still hope for this world. Yet… how could he go about saving it?

Just as Sui Xiong was deep in thought, he suddenly saw a beam of white light shoot past. This was the God of Virtue's small world, which contained his temple. It was finding an empty land among the infinite shooting stars and trying hard to escape and isolate itself.

Sui Xiong smiled to himself, reached out his hands and pulled this tiny world to where he was. At the same time, he pushed away the shooting stars surrounding it and created a small and temporary safety zone for this tiny world.

This tiny world flashed with light, and the God of Virtue, still in frog form, stepped out and glanced at Sui Xiong with interest.

"I vaguely sensed that the God of Light, Wuther Rang's soul had disappeared and was confused for a second. Ah, I guess it was done by you… how do I address you?"

Sui Xiong smiled and introduced himself.

The God of Virtue was extremely shocked. Even he did not know that Sui Xiong had been the fulcrum of when the Great Circulation had been born. He also did not know that this fulcrum was not actually the Main Plane, but Sui Xiong himself, who had been in a deep sleep.

"I didn't know that you were such an important figure! Respect, respect!" the God of Virtue replied in awe before asking hopefully, "Since you are strong enough to be a fulcrum and helped form the Great Circulation, can't you do so again? This time, I will not be lazy and I will fulfill the role of a great Divine Power properly. I will teach the youth not to mess around and will not allow this world to be destroyed again!"

Sui Xiong laughed bitterly and replied, "If I want to re-secure the Four Elements and recreate the Great Circulation, well, it is definitely possible. However, I wish to do better, such as… saving this whole world and restoring its original state."

"Is that still possible? Our entire world is destroyed…" the God of Virtue replied in a somber way.

Glancing at the bespectacled frog in front of him, Sui Xiong could not help but sigh. "Yes, even if I wanted to reverse or fast forward everything by a second, how could I possibly do that? Even great Divine Powers can only change the flow of time, but cannot actually supersede time…"

As he spoke, Su Xiong suddenly froze.

Perhaps… he really did have the ability to transcend and supersede time. He closed his eyes in a panicky fashion, closely felt his own powers and stayed this way for a while before reopening his eyes. The scene before him once again changed into the scroll that was formed by several scenes in time. This time, he did not fast forward through the scenes but instead observed them meticulously.

Although he could observe the existence of the past, how could he steal time from the past, reverse the present and move this world back to a time where it had not yet been destroyed?

First, he had to observe and understand. Sui Xiong once again started from when he had crossed over to this world. He watched the peaceful world from the skies till when several races surfaced and gods engaged in battles… Eventually, he saw a transparent shadow appear in the seawater. This transparent shadow was, of course, Sui Xiong himself.

At that point, he had coincidentally woken up. Sui Xiong's soul had left his physical body and somehow, mysteriously, managed to float to the surface of the sea.

Sui Xiong could not help but smile to himself as he relived his past from an outsider's point of view. He relived all the dangers he had come across, his many experiences, his encounters with people, the events that had unfolded, his victories and failures, his happiness and sadness… As he flipped the scenes page by page, Sui Xiong noticed many details that he had overlooked before and recalled several events that he had originally forgotten.

As he watched the scenes unfold, Sui Xiong watched how he was beaten into unconsciousness by the Master of Order and had fallen along with his God Kingdom into the Main Plane. Before he had landed on the ground, he had been taken away by the God of Virtue's God Kingdom, which had appeared out of nowhere as a light ball. This tiny world had been mistakenly known as the Old Fairy Temple at that time.

Sui Xiong watched as the allies and friends of the Void Mask's God System gathered in Void City and the God Kingdom's Sanctuary to create a strong front. They had moved all their own strong weapons, giant electric bulbs and bullets into the core of the front. They then accepted all willing followers and citizens from the Republic of Northwest into the front and decided to use this front as the final resistance.

Sui Xiong watched as the severely injured Master of Order had fallen into the Sanctuary and tried to heal under the help of everyone. Afterwards, he had fought with the God of Light yet again over the front. Although his injuries had been made worse in battle and he had lost several of the resistance's weapons, he eventually managed to force the God of Light to retreat.

Sui Xiong watched as the God of Light built up the new order and renamed himself as Supreme Lord. He no longer personally attacked the resistance and instead pushed for the twisted new order which continually invaded the Void Mask front.

Sui Xiong watched as the front was slowly invaded and slowly got destroyed. The gods that were originally in the front as well as those who had fled here all tried their best to defend but were simply forced to retreat over time. The front finally nearly collapsed at the end, and all that was left was the central temple.

Sui Xiong watched as the atmosphere became extremely depressing in the temple's great hall. Everyone was encased in several tiny worlds, and the remaining strongmen were all speechless. In this time of despair and sadness, he watched as Leon stood up and sought out the tired and weary Master of Order to engage in discussion with. They had not talked long and only after three to five minutes, set up a plan and announced it to the masses. The gods were shocked as much as the humans were. Afterwards, everyone had fallen silent in despair as they knew that they had no other option.

Leon had bid farewell to his friends and loved ones. The other Divine Powers had all blamed themselves for being too weak and incompetent and all had tears rolling down their cheeks at that point.

Sui Xiong focused his energy enough to hear the final words and conversation Leon had with his wife and daughter.

"I'm sorry. More than once, I made a promise to you that I would stay by your side forever. In the end, however, I still was unable to fulfil this promise." Instead of having a face of fear at the prospect of facing death, Leon's face was full of regret and sorrow. "Furthermore, I still have to leave you behind and force you to live in a world where I will no longer exist… I… I'm really sorry!"

Kalisa hugged Leon tightly, and her tears caused his armor to be fully drenched. All she could do was cry and no words could be uttered.

Leon lowered his head slightly and glanced at his daughter, who was hugging his thigh. "Elizabeth, I entrust the task of taking care of your mother to you. Alright?"

"Yes, father, I will be a good girl." The little girl's face was similarly full of tears. However, she forced herself to swallow the new tears welling up in her eyes. Instead, she squeezed out a pained smile, which was even more painful to watch than her original crying.

"Good girl! You're strong, just like me." Leon patted his daughter's head as his smile turned even more sorrowful. "Father is proud of you!"

As he spoke, he used his divine power to put Kalisa and Elizabeth in a deep slumber. Next, he continued to use his Divine Power, wrapped them up and temporarily sealed them up.

"I hope there will be a day where you both will eventually wake up. At the point where you wake, I hope it will be to a beautiful new world," Leon whispered under his breath before passing the light ball that encased his wife and daughter to the God of Knowledge, Wall, who was standing to his side. Leon then turned and walked towards the center of the giant lobby.

"Everyone…" Leon glanced around at his surroundings and spoke to all the gods and humans, who had pained expressions on their faces. "I will be on my way now. Although I may not be of much help for long, I hope that all of you will be able to meet our lord when he returns and stay alive till the day where the evilest of evils is finally defeated.

"At that point, remember to inform me that all is well."

Once he finished his speech, Leon plucked out his own sword and stuck it hard in the center of the magic array on the ground. He looked up at the Master of Order, who was pale and stunned and said, "I'm good. Let's start."

With that, the Master of Order nodded slightly. His body trembled slightly, shrunk up and became a flame that landed on the sword.

Leon smiled, waked forward, shrunk his own body and walked into the flame.

The violent flames engulfed Leon tightly, and the immense pain caused him to moan out bitterly. Leon clenched his teeth in anguish and fresh blood trickled out from the corner of his mouth. Nevertheless, he continued to force out a smile and even waved cheerily at everyone, saying his final goodbye.

The flames increased in intensity over time and continued to burn Leon. Regardless, the smile never left Leon's face.

Up till the point where his body became a blur and he was not able to hold on for much longer, Leon's smile remained intact. Then, he finally let out a regretful and apologetic expression as he sighed in the air under his breath.

"Lord, I'm sorry that I was unable to live up to your orders. I was unable to secure Void City, and I was unable to wait till you came back…"

Just at this moment, he suddenly felt his heart skip a beat. Vaguely, he saw someone he did not recognize yet who still felt extremely familiar. This figure of a young man was floating in the distance and sobbing violently at the sight of Leon burning. As the figure cried, he apologized as well.

"No, no… You fulfilled my orders perfectly… I'm sorry, it was me who returned too late!"

Leon's body then slowly disappeared and joined the ground as ashes. The God of Justice, Yorgaardman, then slowly walked into the flame in his place.

"Ah! It really hurts!" He yelled out loud and clenched his teeth. "That fellow Igor was smiling this whole time, and I assumed that it would not hurt at all. I was cheated, I guess!"

Although the God of Justice complained out loud, he did not make any action to escape. Instead, he sat down within the flame.

"Ahhhh, I'm so big and strong, exactly how long is it going to take for me to finish burning? What a dilemma… I'm not sure whether it'd be better for me to burn faster and be rid of the pain or to burn slower and buy more time for the rest…"

With that, his eyes suddenly lit up and he smiled. "Brother, is that you? Are you back at last, or…"

His smile slowly faded and the God of Justice was silent for a long time before he sighed deeply.

"Ahh, it was all just in my head. I can't believe I hallucinated… Clearly, I did not train hard enough, and even when I'm dying, I'm still a weak figure!"

Sui Xiong lowered his head silently and could not bear to match the God of Justice's gaze.

The third to enter the flame to burn was the Goddess of the Ocean. She was still as dainty and pretty as before and was full of cheeriness. However, just as the God of Justice was almost finished and burnt to the core, she suddenly beat all the other gods and jumped into the flame before they could.

"My mentor, my father, I can finally do something for you!" The mermaid, who was being burnt alive, shut her eyes, and her tears rolled down like gems on her face, joining the flames as they rose steadily.

Afterwards, Sui Xiong witnessed numerous gods enter the flame, one after another, continuing to protect the sacred temple. Some remained cheery and smiley, some were calm and peaceful. Others were indifferent, some were extremely upset and cried out. Some spewed a string of vulgarities as they endured the pain and the injustice, others said nothing at all as they slowly burnt to death.

There were also other gods, evil gods as well as demigods who were unable to accept this slow and painful way of dying. Those who no longer possessed any hope for the future at all followed the lead of the two master gods of the Natural God System, rushed out of the temple and launched attacks against the enemies. However, in the extremely skewed ad disadvantaged environment of the new world order, they were only able to use about one-tenth of their usual strength to attack once or twice feebly. Towards the oppressive enemy troops, these gods quickly fell, and blood flowed everywhere at the battle scene.

Upon watching this, Sui Xiong clenched his teeth and yet was unable to do anything more to help them. This world was already destroyed by the God of Light. Everything was a big blur.

Sui Xiong watched on quietly till he saw the last god, the old and frail salt-maker, Fira Kenji, enter the flame. At this point, all the people had already been sealed up in light balls. In the entire sacred temple, only Fira was still conscious and awake.

"Finally, it's my turn." Fira had an extremely somber expression on his face. Just as he prepared to walk towards the flame, he paused slightly and then proceeded to follow the pattern that the God of Vagrants had started. Fira walked to the giant scroll and left behind some words from his heart as well as the story of his past experiences.

Fira then shook his head and sighed, mumbling to himself, "After all this, we can't even be sure that our lord will be able to see what we have written…"

As Fira spoke, he walked into the flame.

Sui Xiong shut his eyes, and the "scroll" suddenly paused in time. He raised his head, and tears rolled down his cheeks, although he was unable to make out any sound in his anguish.

"All your hard work, all your efforts, all your pain and sacrifice… I saw it all!"

"You have already done more than enough for me. Now, it's time for me to do something for all of you in return!"

Sui Xiong snapped his eyes wide open.

"Although I do not have a lot of confidence, it's worth a shot!"

Sui Xiong reached out both his hands and grabbed the scroll before him.

"For the brave and the sacrificed, I will try to work towards a better future. I swear on all your efforts that I will save it all. I will not let this world perish just like that so easily!"