Cthulhu Gonfalon Chapter 1

Sui Xiong groaned a little before opening his eyes.

Headache, a terrible headache!

"It is just drunkenness. How come my heart hurts so bad like this!" He moaned, then turned his body around to sit down.

When he lifted his head, looking around, all he could see was the immense blue sky and the endless blue sea. There was a white seagull flying in the sky. A mild breeze, which was full of salty sea scent, blew across. Sea waves slightly rippled.

This scene was so beautiful.

But... How could he lie on the beach right now?

Sui Xiong started to recall his memory.

Last night, he and his friends played an online game. They barely managed to reach the high level of difficulty and get their dream top equipment. Then, because everyone all wanted that equipment, they all lost the game while fighting over that.

He was really upset !He almost threw the mouse. As he was too lazy to continue playing, he pulled out the plug and turned off the computer. He then ran straight to the grocery store downstairs to buy some beers, snacks and a bottle of wine.

And what happened after that?

After that... he didn't remember anything else.

It was obvious, wasn't it? Who could remember anything after being drunk?

However, he always stayed in an inland city. Not to mention the sea there was not even a lake around where he lived. He was just drunk a little bit, so how could he get on the sea? There wasn't even a small trace of land around him.

Wait a minute! If there wasn't a trace of land.... so where was he sitting right now? On the sea?!

Sui Xiong was abruptly aware of this point, which was not as funny as the ones in the cartoon . He didn't drown in the sea, instead, floated on the surface of the sea. This made him relax a little bit.

No matter what happened, as long as he didn't drown, everything was fine because he didn't know how to swim.

However, he suddenly felt that something was wrong.

Where are my legs?! Where is my body?!

Normally, when people lowered their heads, they would see their bodies. He supposed he was the same; he should have seen his body if he did that. However, he didn't see anything.

Frankly saying, it wasn't that he didn't see anything. He could vaguely see a hazy silhouette of a translucent body, which somewhat looked a little bit like human. Anyway, underneath his body was clear sea water and numerous fish.

But, what does this have anything to do with him? Where are his legs? Why was there a silhouette of thisbody?

Siu Xiong fuzzily swung his arms around and realized that there was a silhouette of a translucent body indeed.

Maybe, generally, more than half of.... his entire body had changed into this kind of translucent body?

Maybe this translucent form was basically not his body but his... spirit?

"Fine, right now, I have known two things. Firstly, I am in the sea. Secondly, I don't have a body. Instead, right now, I am perhaps in a spirit state."

At this moment, he surprisingly discovered that the terrible headache that he had experienced not too long after he woke up no longer existed.

This was probably matter-of-course. Then how could his headache also vanish after his body was gone?

But the strange thing was that even without a body, he could still hear, smell the stinky sea scent, stick his head out of the sea surface to lick and even taste the sea water.

He thought again. If he really didn't have a body, then he didn't need to worry that he might drown. In a spirit state, he had a feeling that he didn't need to worry about becoming deaf and blind. Therefore, the situation right now was not that bad either...

"No doubt, everycloud has a silver lining. No wonder why in comedy, someone would often say a sentence like this 'I have two news for you, one is bad and another is good'."

Sui Xiong talked to himself. Suddenly encountering such a huge catastrophe like this was out of his imagination. Even he himself didn't think that he wouldn't panic but remain calm under such circumstance.

"Maybe because I don't have a body, there will be no pain. There will be no such things as kidney hormones that will affect a creature's thinking?"

After talking to himself, he then tried to move a little bit.

He stood up, looking at the sea surface and observing around. His height happened to have some little changes.

Then he laid down and discovered that his height, indeed, had some changes.

"Fine, I can now be really sure that a spirit surely has a specific shape. It is not like what is said in the myths that it is just air, or a ball... I will definitely get a Nobel Prize with this discovery."

He muttered to himself, then attempted to walk to see if a spirit body can walk or not.

If he couldn't even walk, it would then be really tragic.

Luckily, he could normally walk as usual. Running and jumping were also not a problem. Although the speed didn't seem to be faster than when he was still alive, he at least didn't need to worry about being trapped in the endless ocean and being a lonely ghost which was tied to his spirit for his entire life.

"This is really a fortune out of misfortune!" Sui Xiong exclaimed. He then stopped and started to think about what to do next.

As for the matter, 'How could he become like this', he had already given up investigating this.

This kind of situation was beyond his imagination. This was absolutely not something that a small and ordinary officer could clearly think of. If he wasted his time in a spirit state here, he would then become like those ancient scholars, who had spent their entire lives studying the links between the stars and a mortal emperor's fate.

It was a good idea but it didn't make sense anyway.

The first thing coming up in Siu Xiong's head was to go on shore.

He was a human; or it could be said that he was a human spirit, not an aquatic animal. This was not his territory.

Hence, he wanted to find the shore first, then get out of the sea.

After coming out of the sea, he wanted to find a living human being to determine where the hell he was.

He didn't dare to state that he was still on earth. He also didn't believe that he was still in the beginning of a new century. He doubted that maybe he had come to another space, he just didn't know exactly where he was.

It would be even better if he could jump back to the ancient times. His spirit would not then have the concept of life and death and slowly wait until he could come back to the modern times. But, if he had come to any eccentric planet, then it would be really bad as he would never be able to come back to his previous life.

"No, that thing doesn't really matter."

He put that thought aside really quickly. It didn't matter anymore if he had turned into a illusionary spirit or if he had jumped across space to land at any given planet or time.

The most important thing right now was to survive!

Despite what being told in any kind of myths or legends, the spirit was not some kind of strong and unbeatable creature. The eastern myths had claimed that a group of sun rays or a gush of wind could almost shatter the fragile spirit. Even though he didn't, temporarily feel scared of the sunlight or the sea breeze, if he neglected his spirit and let it be in undefended state , it would be absolutely unsafe!

Especially, as soon as he was aware of this thing, he instantly felt cold.

This kind of cold was not that unbearable. There was a kind of wet and cold feeling which was similar to the one under the winter rain. This kind of cold was morelike a damp, sticky one, which made people feel disgusted from the inside.

So what should I do?

Sui Xiong was deep in his thoughts.

The simplest solution right now is to find a shell for my spirit or a flesh.

But after having searched everywhere exhaustively, he still couldn't find anybody.

In fact, finding a flesh was not really a good solution either. Having grown up in an inland city, Siu Xiong basically didn't know how to swim. And even if he could find a flesh to possess in this vast ocean, it would be half dead of drowning.

But after considering, he had to at least find a shell to hide in.

He was wondering, looking around all directions.

In the range that normal eyes could clearly see, he literally couldn't find any solid things, which could be used to hide.

He made an attempt to go deep into the sea to search.

As soon as he went back to the sea, a thought came across his mind. At the moment when I woke up, I had a headache. This means I can possibly still have a body. It is just that after I woke up, for an unknown reason, my body has drowned in the sea, and my spirit floats on the surface of the sea.

That means if I come back to the sea, I might have a chance to find my body back?

After thinking about this, he immediately felt motivated again and tried to dive deeper into the sea.

But just a few seconds later, he discouragingly found out that he basically had no way to go deeper into the sea. As he dived into the sea, he realized that the sea wasn't more than two-meters deep.

However, it was still good. As a spirit, he would not have drowned. Staying in the water wasn't a problem.

Oh ho, this time, he had no hopes to get his body that was in the sea, back...

Well, right now, he didn't know whether or not his body was really in the sea. There was no need to be depressed. The most essential matter at the moment was to solve the safety issue.

Maybe it was a delusion, or maybe it was pretty safe in the water. Staying in the water somehow gave him an inexplicable sense of security. He was like a naked man, who could finally put on a thin coat.

The coat was not thick or warm, but he at least didn't need to rely on his fat to compete with the cold.

"In the myth, there are always mountain monsters and water demons. Is staying in the water, perhaps, pretty safe?" Sui Xiong murmured to himself then decided to stay in the water, except when he went out to look for land. Normally, he wouldn't have come out of the water.

"Eat and 'wear' problems are temporarily solved. The transportation, well I can somehow handle eleven bus routes, then the next is, eat and live."

Sui Xiong muttered, looking at the living creatures underwater.

He could see some fish but they were quite far away. There were only a few jellyfishes close to him.

Jellyfish.

Its body was translucently white. Its tentacles were slender, which looked like a typical ordinary jellyfish.

"According to my memory, I can eat most of jellyfishes. Even though there is a little poison on its tentacles, this kind of poison can have no effects on a spirit." Sui Xiong spoke to himself, "but a spirit doesn't seem to be able to eat anything..."

But he still felt like he needed to eat something.

"Eat" this thought once was brought up, immediately became more intense. He then felt hungry very quickly.

He unconsciously reached out his hand to catch the nearest jellyfish.

The translucent hand comfortably caught the jellyfish. To be exact, he was putting his hand into the jellyfish's body, catching something.

Got it, now I can finally eat!

Then he brought that jellyfish over. Or in other words, he put the edible stuff that he had just caught into his mouth.

With a closer look, that stuff was like a light spot, which was weak and insignificant. This was not like what he had imagined about the translucent shape of the jellyfish. When he brought it close to his mouth, he carefully observed for a long time before he determined this was just a small light spot.

He paid attention to the body of the jellyfish, which wasn't short of even a tentacle. What I've just caught is something invisible.

It must be... a spirit jellyfish?

As the hunger was getting stronger in his stomach, he ate up that stuff entirely in one try.

It was not much, just a little bit, but it could somehow fill up his stomach.

He turned his gaze on that jellyfish and discovered that it had lost its vitality, floating along the current in the sea.

"Indeed, I've eaten up its spirit."

After he thought for a while, he went on catching the other jellyfishes.

After a moment, as he still felt hungry, Siu Xiong completely ate up the dead jellyfish.

"Right now, I can proudly announce that I am no longer a commoner, who is placed in the lowest position in a food chain but a dangerous predator in the sea, or we could say, a water ghost."

After studying these dead jellyfish corpses, Sui Xiong suddenly burst into loud laughter then charging toward those fish far away.

He was no longer hungry.

Chapter end