Cthulhu Gonfalon

“Your Majesty, the great Void Mask, you’re the protector of all the newly-arisen things in the world, the advocator of change and improvement. You’re the creator of new life and the king who presided over a great covenant. Please allow us to pay you our highest respect!”

Sui Xiong sat on the throne, feeling somewhat uncomfortable as the entire body of high-level officials of Grey Tower City, led by old Mr. Hart, worshipped him as their way of paying tribute to him.

Originally, he did not want this. But the Hart family always did things by the book. Their patriarch, Mage Hart, said that since His Majesty had come to see them, then everyone was obliged to follow the necessary protocol in welcoming him. It did not matter what Sui Xiong intended to do after the reception for him was done.

Sui Xiong pondered for a while and felt that what Mage Hart said made sense. Although he really did not fancy such formality and red tapes, if it was only a welcoming ceremony, then he should also accept it even if it was only out of politeness.

So he sat there, all prim and proper, as he accepted the worship of the entire body of Grey Tower City’s high-level officials, or rather Grey Tower City’s high-level officials of the Church of the God of Knowledge and Culture.

After they were done with the salutation, Mage Hart asked about Sui Xiong’s purpose of the visit out of curiosity.

“I don’t really have any ‘purpose of visit,’ I was just wandering about, that’s all,” Sui Xiong said without much thought. He waved his tentacles and said, “Earlier on, I’ve been to Geerteng Hill and Keane Hill. I still plan to visit Garth City after leaving here.”

Mage Hart nodded gently and was thoughtful for a while before he said, “Great existences will not have such thoughts out of the blue and without any reason at that. Because they themselves were so tightly bound to fate. Your Majesty, why the sudden desire to go on a trip?”

Sui Xiong was slightly taken aback, then said, “I’m usually quite casual in the way I do things. So I don’t think this sudden desire to go out would go to the extent of signifying some wonderful signs?”

“Such things are better believed as true than not,” Mage Hart said. “You can try to recall, were there major events occurring whenever you went extremely quiet to think of your course of action in the past?”

Sui Xiong thought about it and shook his head.

“Extreme quietness to think of course of action” was not really applicable to him. Throughout the year, the time he spent in quiet was not a lot, while the time he spent on the move was much more in comparison.

Of all the gods, other than the God of Justice, Yorgaardman, who often sent out his clones to the Thousand Worlds to roam about doing acts of justice, Sui Xiong was most likely to be the “liveliest and most active” one. Creating a few clones of himself, he would roam about. To him, this was simply something that was so commonplace that it was nothing unusual to him.

However… on second thought, he felt that Mage Hart’s speculation was also not entirely baseless.

Although he usually enjoyed roaming about, he seldom did so with the intention of conducting a purposeful inspection of the various territories.

Honestly, this was not his style. Sui Xiong was neither lion nor dog, and he was definitely not a poodle. He did not have a strong sense of territorial dominance and was not keen on things like “ruling” and “occupying.” To say that he was on a trip to inspect territories, this matter itself seemed like a little… deviation from his usual practice.

If he really cared that much about the territories, he would have pushed for a massive expansion of the Republic of Northwest long ago. If nothing else, following the logical course of events, it was perfectly reasonable to transcend the deserted and barren mountains and expand his sphere of influence to Northern Iceland. And then, he could seize all the barbarians of the north and make them subjects under his command.

He had the chief of the Snow Bear tribe, Jose, under his command. It was not difficult if he wanted to expand his sphere of influence to the great iceland. Also, he had a bad relationship with the most powerful God System of the Northern Iceland, the Arctic Federation, mainly because he had a very bad relationship with the Goddess of the Northern Snowfield and Blizzards—who was commonly known as the “Queen of the North.”

The main reason for their strained relationship was due to the conflict of priesthoods. Even though Sui Xiong had already decided on development and progress as his priesthoods, if he was really sealed god, due to the thousand years of cultivation in the freezing cold trenches, he would naturally acquire priesthoods like “coldness” and “freezing”—priesthood was something that anyone could simply request for. Also, it could not simply be discarded as one pleased. Especially for anyone who was being sealed god, it was almost impossible for them to reject the priesthoods that would be naturally given to them.

Of course, Sui Xiong had not intended to have such a priesthood himself. Even if he did obtain such a priesthood thereafter, he would most probably give it to one of the demigods under his command to help them become gods corresponding to their priesthoods. He did not even mind ceding the relevant part of his priesthood to the Queen of the North so long as the conditions were suitable. But the gods of the Arctic Federation were all crazy. The Queen of the North was no exception. They would most probably charge towards Sui Xiong the moment he obtained the priesthood. So unless Sui Xiong abdicated the priesthood immediately, a war was inevitable.

Sui Xiong certainly was not afraid of the Arctic Federation. However, an important reason to why the Arctic Federation was so terrifying was that they did things without logic and without a baseline. They paid no heed to acts or behaviors that were considered taboo by most gods, like attacking humans. And they had gotten so used to these that everything was so natural to them.

If both sides were to fight one another, it was highly possible that the Arctic Federation would directly send an extremely cold blizzard bellowing at the Republic of Northwest. Thereafter, it was also possible that they would also vent their anger on other unrelated parties on such a massive scale that they would bring grave disaster to every country and race on the entire northern part of the Main Plane.

Sui Xiong was not afraid of confronting that extremely cold blizzard that was directed at the Republic of Northwest. He was confident that he would not lose to anyone or any god if they were all going to fight. But if the Arctic Federation wanted to strike with a massive cold snap in the North, one that would hit the entire northern Main Plane indiscriminately, then there was really nothing much he could do.

Although he was also confident that via his capabilities, he had no problem measuring up to the Arctic Federation if they were to take him on altogether—and even this was established on the premise of not using his ultimate hidden large killing tool, the “Two Consecutive Explosions of Self-Destruction.” But every skill and tool had their own specialized area of use. If the other party was to release a cold snap, there would be nothing he could do to stop them.

Just because of such a minor contradiction, just for a single priesthood that he did not care about, he might possibly bring such disaster to all the people of different races on the entire northern part of the Main Plane. This was truly something that he could not bring himself to do.

So if he really had the intention to tread the path of becoming a sealed god, then it was destined that he was going to put up a fight against the Arctic Federation.

But even so, Sui Xiong had never thought of wanting to extend his sphere of influence all the way to Northern Iceland. This was naturally because he was indifferent to fame, did not have any appetite for power and was not a territory-maniac. To him, there was absolutely no way statements like “Our country might be big, but there isn’t a single inch of soil on the ground that is useless” could be formulated and established. Thoughts such as, “Every piece of land under the sky belong to the king, and all men on Earth are subjects of the king,” would never exist in his mind. The future of society that he had envisioned was probably similar to that of the Peach Blossom Garden, minus the clause on “cutting off all ties and contact with one another.” People should stay close to one another and neighbors should live in harmony. With everyone living in peace with one another and not be bothered by differences like country, race and so on, this would give rise to the perfect society.

This showed that he was, undeniably, an artist and a thorough advocator of humanism.

Now, a humanist artist had come to roam the world to inspect territories?

Sui Xiong pondered deeply for a moment and felt that the painting style seemed a little wrong. Honestly, this really did not seem like his own style.

But… exactly what was the problem?

Sitting on that wide chair that was specially designed for him, Sui Xiong was absorbed in thought…