Chapter 526: The Seven Regions

Lian heard that title, the man was clearly calling him by it, as if he had realized some truth and that was why he called him this.

But why? Why did he call him this? Where did this title come from? And based on the priest’s reaction, it seemed to be related to the Child of Light as well.

What exactly was going on? It seemed there were many things they did not know about.

"Why did he suddenly become like this?" Kain also had not understood anything.

"I don’t know." This time the answer was completely honest, and Lian looked at the Region Three priest.

The man was still kneeling, but his head was no longer lowered, and the color of his face had also changed slightly.

"You know what he meant, don’t you?"

But the old man did not answer immediately.

"You know that title?"

The priest remained silent for at least a few more seconds, finally he sighed and started speaking.

"It’s from the prophecy of Region One."

"What prophecy?" Kain frowned.

"The one that announced your coming, Your Highness." The man kept his eyes on him.

"Then what is the rest of it?"

The priest remained silent.

"Why aren’t you talking anymore?"

"For the same reason all six other Regions want to destroy us." The old man pressed his lips together.

"All six Regions?" Lian gave him his full attention this time, why would six Regions want to destroy one Region?

"Yes."

"Why?"

The priest looked at Lian for a moment, very briefly, if it had been someone else, they might not have even noticed.

But Lian saw it, and that look gave him more information than the first answer, it was the same kind of look that the commander of Region Six had given him before his death.

A look full of fear and terror, as if he was the embodiment of doomsday or something like that.

"The prophecy is not only about the descent of the Child of Light." The man took a calm breath.

"When the Child of Light comes... he will not come alone."

Kain turned his head toward Lian and his friend also said nothing, but an unpleasant feeling appeared inside him.

"With me? Who is coming with me? And why does it sound like something bad?" He only knew one person who could come with him and always stay by his side, and that was his best friend.

"I cannot say more than this." The priest slowly shook his head.

"You can’t or you don’t want to?" Kain frowned even deeper.

The man looked directly at him, this time there was no hostility in his eyes, but there was a boundary that he was not willing to cross even for someone he considered the Child of Light.

"Both."

Lian also told him not to insist, at least for now, what they had learned was already big enough.

A few moments later, Kain looked at the priest who was still kneeling on both knees.

"One more thing."

"Yes, Child of Light." The man immediately lowered his head.

"Stand up first."

"But—"

"I really can’t talk to someone while they’re kneeling in front of me, I’ve already seen enough strange things today."

The man stood up hesitantly, his legs shaking slightly.

Lian noticed that if he did not lean against the broken wall beside him, he would probably fall down again.

One of the two Region Three soldiers stepped forward to help him, but the priest stopped him with a movement of his hand.

He himself sat beside a piece of a pillar and used his teeth to tear off part of his clothes, then tied it around his half-burned arm.

A few minutes ago he had been a prisoner in front of them, and now?

His behavior was more like someone who had finally been allowed to believe a piece of news that had always only been a distant promise after many years.

It seemed it no longer mattered to him that the Child of Light was an outsider.

"Now that things are calm and there is no one bothering us anymore, how about you start from the beginning? What is this Region One? Which Divine do they follow?" Lian finally spoke.

And after thinking for a moment, he added,

"And explain why the six Regions want to destroy your Region."

The man rested his head against the wall behind him and closed his eyes for a few seconds.

"We waited for decades.....waiting for the signs."

"When Region One announced the prophecy, many people in Region Three celebrated. Some thought it meant the period of misery was over. The Child of Light would come, the sacred relics would return, and we could live outside the walls of the Region again."

His smile disappeared.

"Then the other Regions reacted."

"First, trade became smaller. Then several roads were closed. Caravans that had traveled for years without problems disappeared, they wanted to isolate us."

The fingers of his good hand closed over his knee.

"Then the killing of our priests began."

The two soldiers beside him lowered their eyes.

"Every time there was news about a relic belonging to the Divine of Light, someone else was already there before we could reach it. Sometimes Region Six. Sometimes forces from Region Two. Sometimes..." He paused. "People we could not even understand which Region they worked for."

"So you were basically surrounded." Kain looked at the bodies of the four Region Six soldiers.

"Not in the usual way."

"Because they can’t enter Region Three, right?" Lian asked.

The priest turned his head toward him.

"That’s right, you have probably realized by now why the seven Regions still exist after all these centuries."

"The Regions are not just cities, long before we started calling them Region One, Two, or Three, they were seven shelters, each one was built by one of the seven Divines for the people under their protection."

Lian already knew this to some degree, the seven Regions had survived for centuries against attacks from monsters and even Demons.

But now the full picture was becoming clearer.

"No one can enter a Region without the permission of that Region’s Lord."

"So instead of attacking your home, they took away everything outside it from you." Lian concluded.

"Yes."

"And they are waiting for you to become weaker."

"Yes."

"Or they want to finish the job before your descent, but why? What exactly is this prophecy that makes them want to destroy you this much?"

"This....I cannot tell you the prophecy without permission."

The young Vorhelm remained silent, what exactly did this prophecy say that it had been able to make six Regions turn against one Region?

What had caused the natives, when this world was already dealing with the apocalypse, to want to destroy one Region instead of working together?

He also understood why the natives of Region Three had been so harsh and cold, for decades they had been treated differently among humanity and had been rejected and isolated by their own race.

"And about which Divine Region One follows....the order we use today actually starts with Region One."

"They follow the Divine of Fate."

"The same crazy people who made the prophecy?" Kain said.

"I would not use that word in front of them." The priest gave him a short look.

"But isn’t it wrong?"

"It is not completely wrong, Region One is the smallest of all the Regions. As far as I know, today their population does not even reach a thousand people, maybe only a few hundred."

"That is all?"

"Those few hundred people caused the other six Regions to change the path of their next decades, they control the narratives, and all the Regions more or less follow their prophecies..."

"They almost never leave their Region. They do not have an army like Region Two, their trade is limited, and even we have very little information about what is inside their land. But when they announce a true prophecy...no one ignores it."

"Why? What made them have so much credibility?"

"They predicted the apocalypse, at that time no one believed them and everyone saw the result...after that they made dozens of other prophecies and all of them turned out to be true, to some extent, it is also because of them that humanity has not gone extinct yet."

The young Vorhelm remained silent, the Divine of Fate and its followers were the most mysterious among all seven Divines and their religions, even in the former Ruined Realms, there had not been much information about them.

The priest continued his explanation.

"Anyway, Region Two follows the Divine of War and Destruction."

"It is the most military Region among the seven Regions. Most of their children receive combat training from a young age. Power, competition, and victory are not just tools for them, they are part of their faith."

"They fight most of the wars against monsters?" Lian asked.

"For the past few centuries, yes. Whenever a very powerful monster gets close to the safe routes, Region Two is usually the first place to send a large force."

"So at least they have some use." Kain said.

"As long as they don’t decide that you are the problem." The priest gave him a short look.

"I understand." He stopped his smile.

The priest moved slightly.

"Region Three...is our Region." His expression became slightly softer for a moment.

"Followers of the Divine of Light and Life."

These two words together caught Lian’s attention, until today they had seen most of the relics of this Divine from the aspect of "Light", but apparently Life was also a major part of its domain.

Even in the former Ruined Realms, it was mostly called the Divine of Light.

"Most of our abilities are focused around Light, healing, purification, protection, and growth. Even the farming lands inside the Region are fed by old Mana networks. That is why famine and medicine were never our biggest problems."

"Of course, we also have very strong offensive abilities...but we are not the best in this field...."