The Past Was Bleak, Advance and Retreat Without Worry (Part 2)

"If there weren't so many demons lying inside, it wouldn't be our turn to chat idly here today..."

Taking up Su Che's thread, the Yin-Yang Dharma King began reminiscing about the past.

Back in the Primordial Era, those who ruled this world were the Primordial Demon Race, practitioners of the so-called Saint-Annihilating Path. Their core leaders were known as Demon Gods, every one of them a terrifying being possessed of heaven-shaking divine powers, deathless and indestructible.

Beyond these Demon Gods were their dependents and servants—the Primordial Aberrations of later generations. The deathless and indestructible Demon Gods and their dependents formed the core of this world's rule, while beyond that core stood demons of every size and stripe.

As for humanity's status at the time, they were food, tools, servants, and property.

Lion-Camel Ridges covered the mortal world—where could one seek Spirit Mountain?

It could be said that the entire world was one enormous Lion-Camel Ridge. Had Dao Sovereigns and Buddha Ancestors not manifested in this realm and passed down their lineages, humanity would have sunk into eternal damnation.

Yet the world did not improve after receiving Buddhist and Daoist inheritances. It even began to grow worse.

For quite a few cultivators felt that, rather than fight their former masters—the unfathomably powerful, utterly irresistible Demon Gods—they might as well cooperate with those rulers. And quite a few Demon Gods opened their arms to embrace these cultivators, admitting them into their inner circle of rule.

An age even more despairing had arrived.

Human cultivators had not become rebels. They had become part of the persecutors, even becoming jailers.

It was under such circumstances that a very small number of people chose to establish the so-called Grotto-Heaven Paradises, seeking places beyond the influence of the Primordial Demon Race where humanity could multiply and