Cthulhu Gonfalons

Chapter 8

A few days later, when the first morning light touched the ground, the vines that became as thick as a child's wrist suddenly trembled. Their leaves begin to change color quickly, turn yellow, and fall off. For a moment, the farmland surrounding the village was full of fallen leaves.

As the leaves fall off, the green vines begin to change color. They began to glitter as if they had absorbed and condensed sunlight for a long time. Just looking at these golden vines brought warmth to the hearts of anyone who saw them.

The villagers cheered and started to harvest. They cut the grapes into pieces along half an arm, leaving only a root the size of a palm. A golden white powder fell from the piece of wine, and many villagers bit it during the harvest. It seems to be their staple food.

However, Sui Xiong noticed that no child took and ate the cut vines. Therefore, he considers vines do not taste good – because children are the most innocent, usually they will happily eat wild fruits even if they are 80% it is sour and only 20% sweet. Since children are not interested in these vines, they must feel very boring.

Obviously harvesting grapes requires a lot of labor: the woodcutter who does the harvest is exhausted and covered by sweat. The women and children were busy collecting the yellow leaves, grinding them with stones, turning them into pale yellow starch, and moving them to the stone house with buckets. Sui Xiong did not know what this was for.

There are many vines around the village, and the harvest lasts for three days. When only the last row of vine near the village was left, the villagers no longer reaped but began to prepare for other things.

They gathered the elderly and children who lacked combat effectiveness, wore clothes soaked in yellowish-gray starch, and gathered them in some relatively strong wooden houses. In front of them were statues that resembled unsettling statues on the roofs of stone houses, and around them were several barrels of pulp with an unknown purpose.

However, young adults, men, and women are busy eating and drinking. This time they did not eat dough made from vines powder, but dried chicken that had been removed from the stone house. It seemed that the chicken was not tasty, as all were frowning while eating, yet everyone tried to eat more. Maybe they did it to ascertain their physical strength.

“It seems like the fight is near,” Sui Xiong said to himself secretly. He thought about it long and hard: he had to present himself as a large friendly monster that was not unusually strong. To do that, he needed to deliberately suppress his strength, a more practical approach compared to scaring the villagers by appearing extremely strong.

Suppressing his strength was simple as long as he subtly changed his muscle structure to reduce his maximum strength. He was not afraid of experiencing danger: so far in the black forest, he had not found anything that could be considered dangerous. Not to mention that the most powerful resource was not a powerful body, but ice magic. With ice magic as his last option, it didn't matter if his body was a little weaker.

After everything was well prepared, it started to get dark. The villagers closed the gate of the wooden fence, and some very strong villagers were holding weapons, waiting near the gate. Some excited villagers went up to the house and were tasked with guarding there as well. Inside the village, at every step, there was a bonfire burning around the fence. Next to each campfire, there was a villager guarding it.

The blazing bonfires brighten up the environment, giving the village warmth and, more importantly, a sense of security. At night, the black forest was cold and dangerous, and for the villagers fire was indispensable.

As the moon slowly rose, Sui Xiong, who was hiding deep within the forest, felt a hint of weirdness. Under the empty space near the village, chaotic and murky magic was gathering. Although the dark fog formed by magic would gather in the black forest every night, tonight was the first time he had seen such powerful magic. In the black forest, the miracle of cohesion would turn the underground bones into a mobile skeleton. So, with such powerful magic, what could possibly happen?

His answer immediately revealed itself, as he sensed that countless skeletons were slowly forming underground. It wouldn't be long before they broke through the ground and appeared.

“Aneh ... how could there be so many bones underground around the village? Where did these bones come from? I didn't find them before, ” Sui Xiong said to himself suspiciously. He was not worried that the skeleton would pose a threat to him. He just doesn't understand.

Could the bones of the dead still be able to move underground? This world is really weird!

After a while, the skeleton formed and floated slowly to the ground. This was also completely at odds with physics: the earth was not water, and the skeleton was not a fish, so how could they possibly pierce the ground as if they were swimming?

Sui Xiong watched the situation develop and thought for a while. As the skeleton neared the ground, the roots of the vines left in the farmland began to emit a golden light, forming a protective shield that stopped the skeleton in its path.

“No wonder they have to keep a vine circle near the village, which seems to be for defensive purposes,” murmured Sui Xiong. “The inhabitants of this village are indeed the type of people who are ready to live in the black forest.”

With this thought, he couldn't help but be a little worried. If the villagers could easily defeat this powerful magical enemy, then he would have no chance of presenting himself to them. If he could not wait for the right opportunity, his first contact with the villagers would be much easier.

However, Sui Xiong soon realized that his fear was unnecessary. The magic power gathered around the village grew stronger and thicker, and more skeletons emerged from underground. Soon there were tens of thousands of them. Looking at this terrifying amount, it was clear that no matter how comprehensive the defense the village had prepared, it would definitely face a bitter fight. His opportunity to present himself in the village was coming soon.

Tens of thousands is an amazing word. When it appears in the storybook, the children will not dare. But when faced with this number head-on, even the strongest warrior would be shocked. When followed by the word “enemy”, it makes people desperate.

The thick magic power continued to condense and erode the shield formed by the row of vines closest to the village. Unharvested vines form a much better protective cover than those formed only by the roots. Despite this, it was defeated immediately after facing the endless magic powered by the black forest, and it also turned into black wood chips. In fact, it lasted less than the shield formed by the roots.

Perhaps this was the reason why the villagers only left behind a small circle of vines: the black magic would fuse faster and faster and defeat them no matter what. Even if all the vines were left intact to form a shield, they would not last long, so there was no point in preserving all the vines in the farmland (and depleting all their food). For villagers far from wealthy, this waste is clearly not allowed.

Although a failed battle would mostly mean death for them, the lack of food in the strange black forest had apparently also resulted in death. If the only consequence is death, then it is far more pleasant to die in battle than to die of hunger. If one could only choose between the two, surely most of the people wanted to fight to the death after eating and drinking like heroes, rather than being exhausted from hunger and cold and eventually dying in despair.

As the ancient Chinese said, if people are not afraid of death, then why scare them with death? When ordinary people can only choose between starving to death or fighting, the threat of government oppression by military means is no longer an effective deterrent to them, and their next plan of action will be much more revolutionary.

This sign of wisdom, no matter which world it comes from, is universal.

Due to blind and chaotic speculation, Sui Xiong discovers that he has been distracted for some time. When he regained consciousness, he discovered that the battle had already begun.

Countless skeletons, like black waves, flocked to and surrounded the entire village. They continuously attacked the wooden fence that protected the village. Although the strength of each punch was small compared to a solid wood fence, it was only a matter of time before the fence collapsed with the accumulation of so many hits.

Villagers constantly attacked the skeletons with burning firewood. The wood itself caused negligible damage; it was the flame that actually injured them. Every time the flames struck the skeleton, they would retreat as if they were badly burned. If they could not escape, their bodies would tremble slightly, and the burning parts would fade slightly. It felt like it was burning by the sun, though much worse.

Over time, a thick layer of bone builds up in the ground around the fence. The bones are light gray. This meant that the magic motivating them to stand up and act as skeletons had disappeared, and at least for a short time, they would not turn into that terrifying creature.

Judging from the number of bones, the fight of the villagers was still very effective. However, when Sui Xiong looked at the entire battlefield, he could not help but feel pessimistic about their situation. The number of skeletons did not seem to decrease at all.

He used his psychic perception to observe the underground area and discovered that the skeletons were actually still continuously producing, constantly appearing one after another. With endless dark magic power behind them, the only thing that could limit their quantity was the space that housed them.

What was fought by the villagers was not “thousand enemies”, but “thousands of enemies with countless reinforcements”.

Simply put, their opponents were endless enemies. There was no chance of victory in this battle.