"The sky held no sun, no stars. Blood-red clouds and mist shrouded the world. Hurricanes raged everywhere, earthquakes could strike at any moment, meteors fell day and night, and a volcano might rise from nowhere at any time, utterly wiping out every living thing within ten thousand miles."
The young man gave Lin Qi a strange look and said calmly, "Still, in those damned times, there were some places where people could barely scrape by without worrying about food or clothing. But the lesson drilled into us from childhood was this: we could die, but we would never go to the shelters built by those god-stick charlatans."
Lin Qi narrowed his eyes at him. "So that means..."
The young man smiled. With both hands resting on his knees, he lightly patted them as he spoke unhurriedly. "It means that ever since childhood, our elders taught us again and again that those gods, and their followers, were our mortal enemies. If you could get your hands on the most ancient core scrolls of those god-stick charlatans today, you'd find many records of 'demon followers' attacking the 'chosen of the gods.'"
He pointed at his own nose and let out a cackling laugh. "The demon's followers—us! Well, from their standpoint, that isn't really wrong. We don't worship demons, but neither do we worship gods. We worship only ourselves! We struggled to survive through those damned years, bore children and multiplied, until we finally reached this day."
Lin Qi remained silent for a long while, and the young man too sank into deep silence.
The two stared wide-eyed at each other for a while. Lin Qi rubbed his face in frustration. "What exactly is going on with the Forbidden Regions? Why do the Twelve Ancient Clans suppress them? If it were up to