Cthulhu Gonfalon

Chapter 913: The Exchange

The fact that there were two new gods, or that Ashes Forest had been purified, or the elimination of the old ancient grim reaper… These were all things that would be the talk of the town and discussed fervently if they had happened in an otherwise uneventful time period. People would discuss these matters for at least three to five years.

However, there now was the battle between the Human God System and the Orc God System. This was to be a battle of life and death, and both sides had even gathered their allies, involving at least three-quarters of all the gods inside the Pantheon Temple into this conflict. With such a huge event looming ahead, the previously mentioned matters paled in comparison and were not really discussed anymore.

On the other hand, since Sui Xiong had already expressed that he would be a neutral party, the entire the Void Mask System expressed that they too would not participate in the war on either side. There were even some human-based gods who stuck to this stance.

Others who similarly chose to abstain from this war included the God of Justice, Yorgaardman. He was also a human by nature and was actually the strongest one out of the all the human-based gods. Many gods were of the opinion that he was one of the contenders in the running for the precious title of “number one of the great Divine Powers.”

Sui Xiong was also another contender for the same role, alongside other gods such as the God of Light, the God of Fate etc.

The Master God of the Orc God System, “Sky Devourer” Lefon was generally not considered to be a contender alongside the aforementioned. Although he was definitely powerful, he did not have the wise and far-sighted vibes that gods such as the God of Fate gave off. He also did not have awe-inspiring battle results such as the God of Justice, making it hard for people to generally consider him for this title.

If the God of Justice entered the upcoming war and stood on the side of the humans, well, the battle would be over even before it began. With the powerful combination of the God of Justice with the God of Light, the Orc God System would actually puke blood while fighting them. Furthermore, the Void Mask was a close brother of the God of Justice, and with the addition of the Void Mask, it would be the top three great Divine Powers coming together. All the Orc God System would be able to do would be to try and run as far away as they could without turning back, lest they be beaten to death in horrific ways.

However, because of the God of Justice choosing to take on a neutral stance alongside the Void Mask, such an ending would not happen. Although the gods all unanimously agreed that the humans had a very big advantage over the Orcs, they also agreed that this advantage was not big enough to predetermine the battle results. The Orcs could still win if they tried hard.

In any case, they all knew it was going to be an intense and callous battle.

“The death toll is definitely going to be high…” Sui Xiong sprawled across the desk in his meeting room and sighed in frustration.

“This is why you used the corpse of an old grim reaper to exchange for a mini underworld with the new grim reaper?” Yorgaardman glanced at the black light ball that was floating before them with interest. With his Divine Power, he managed to see beyond the light ball’s outer surface and its defenses into the desolate, cold and empty world that it held in its core. He also saw the river that led to this world.

Just like how a Chinese saying states that an item could be small but complete, this world was rather small, about three hundred miles in diameter, but it was extremely well-developed.

Although one may be frightened when calculating the total surface area, which was more than 70,000 square kilometers, it was not even as big as a municipality on Earth. Of course, when using municipalities as an example, one was referring one such as Chongqing and not Beijing, Tianjin or Shanghai. However, in this tiny world, there was a River Styx and endpoint as well as several doors that one could use to access hell from other worlds. There were even several magical arrays that could allow one to communicate with souls.

It would not be exaggerating to say that as long as Sui Xiong could break this world down completely, he would have the power to build an underworld himself and link it directly to the Church of the Void Mask and the lives and deaths within it.

Of course, there was little significance in that as this world’s life and death cycle was mainly centered around the fact that souls had to use River Styx to head towards Sea of Souls before going through the Big Circulation to regroup their physical body parts and be reborn. Even if Sui Xiong used his own abilities to recreate a similar cycle, that was widely spoken about on Earth, he would still lack the key parts.

This created cycle would be able to allow for the rebirth of the dead, but it would not be able to solve the issue of the dead’s soul slowly becoming hollow. If it were just once or twice, it may not be obvious, but with more and more conversions through the cycle, one would realize that the converted soul was weaker than that of normal people, and this would cause many issues for that person.

Sui Xiong thus did not intend to create such a cycle himself but merely wanted to conduct some personal research out of curiosity.

“This grim reaper was really rather kind.” As he glanced at a random finger that was floating within the light ball’s world, Sui Xiong laughed cheekily. “Not only did he give me a complete underworld, but he also left me one cut of the corpse of the previous grim reaper. Although this is a small portion of it, since I’m just using it for research, it is more than enough!”

“What do you want to conduct research in this area for, though?” the God of War, Wenner, asked curiously. “I remember you are one who previously mixed around with the Chaotic Good camp. Issues like death seem to be rather contradictory to that!”

Just as Wenner had mentioned, death definitely didn’t belong to the chaotic or the good category. In fact, the previous grim reaper had been a part of the Evil Camp, and the current grim reaper was a part of the Neutral Camp. As someone who was a part of the Chaotic Good Camp, regardless of how much he examined the topic of death, Sui Xiong would never be able to gain a priesthood in this area.

Death was serious and solemn, and it was also cold and cruel. For people like Sui Xiong, who was always smiling and constantly helping the less fortunate, he could possibly harness the power of death, but he would never truly be able to understand the concept of death.

On the other hand, Wenner had carried out research on death before as death and war were two concepts that were closely related. As the God of War, he had a certain level of knowledge on the topic of death after conducting his research. If one did not consider the formal grim reapers, the God of War was possibly the next god in line with the greatest understanding of death.

As Wenner glanced at the black light ball that floated in front of everyone, his eyes shone, and he had already instinctively used his existing knowledge on death to carefully analyze the world inside.

Although he did not want to admit it, Wenner still forced himself to admit aloud that the grim reaper’s abilities were still a level above his. While this world was not big, he was definitely unable to recreate it or make a world of this level.

Wenner was thus even more curious as to why Sui Xiong wanted to possess such a world.

“I don’t intend to use it for much. It’s just like a toy to me.” Wenner didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Sui Xiong’s casual reply. “After all, I don’t have many things that I desire right now. That corpse meant little to me as well. Since he wanted it, I used the chance to exchange the corpse for a world for me to play with.”

With that, Sui Xiong reached out one of his tentacles and permeated through to the empty and hollow world. He carefully touched the surface of River Styx and quickly pulled back. Glancing at his tentacle, which was now black and murky from River Styx’s water, he mused to himself quietly.

“The most valuable thing in this world to me is River Styx. I’ve always wanted to explore it, and now I can.”

“Why can’t you just go directly to River Styx to do that?”

“I think it’s not a very good idea to casually enter others’ territory,” Sui Xiong smiled and replied. “Furthermore, even with my level of skill, I may not be able to defeat the grim reaper if I were to be at River Styx.”

At the end of the day, Sui Xiong was still paranoid about his own safety.

Now that he had a mini underworld of his own, he could explore River Styx without being fearful.

Furthermore, after he had completed his research, he could even renovate this tiny world and embed it within his own God Kingdom.

A God Kingdom could only be said to be fully complete if it had its own underworld!