"Lucifer..." Lin Qiye still hadn't surfaced from the flood of information Zhao Kongcheng had dumped on him, and stood dazed for a long moment.
"So you're saying... ever since the Mist appeared, the gods of mythology have just been inexplicably showing up, one after another?"
"Exactly. The higher-ups have been probing the reason behind it all along, and they've arrived at two possibilities." Zhao Kongcheng held up two fingers.
"First: these gods never existed—but when the Mist appeared, some mysterious change occurred and made them manifest, given concrete form straight out of mythology.
"Second: mythology was never the fantasy of the ancients. The gods were real all along. As humanity flourished, they went into hiding somewhere on Earth for reasons of their own—and the sudden coming of the Mist woke them."
Lin Qiye nodded. "Then what did you mean before—that not all gods exist?"
"The number of gods present on Earth isn't large. Not every mythological being has descended here; the ones that have appeared are only a small fraction of the vast systems of myth. We don't know why it's these ones. It has nothing to do with strength, nothing to do with how widely their stories spread, nothing to do with good or evil, nothing to do with borders. There seems to be no pattern to which of them appear—it's as if they simply occurred at random.
"And it's not just the Bible. Greek myth, Norse myth, the Cthulhu mythos... among the gods humanity currently knows of, every mythological system is represented."
"If every system is represented, then what about our gods—the gods of Great Xia?" Lin Qiye asked, curious. "The Great Sage Equal to Heaven, Third Prince Nezha, the Four Heavenly Kings, the Jade Emperor... where are they? If they existed, they could beat the Western pantheons senseless with one hand, surely?"
After a brief silence, Zhao Kongcheng shook his head. "Everything you're thinking, we've thought too. For a hundred years we've searched Great Xia's territory again and again, trying to find any trace of them...
"A full century—and we found nothing. Not so much as a village earth god.
"Some say it's because the Mist hasn't swallowed Great Xia, so Great Xia's myths won't appear.
"And some say..."
Lin Qiye couldn't help himself. "Some say what?"
"Some say... they've been here all along."
"Here all along?"
"Why do you think the entire Earth was devoured by the Mist, and only Great Xia survived? The Mist reached Great Xia's borders and was simply held there—not one inch of ground yielded?"
Lin Qiye's mouth fell open. "You mean..."
"It's only a conjecture. Or perhaps... a beautiful wish." Zhao Kongcheng shook his head. "Whatever the truth, we have never found a trace of Great Xia's gods."
"I see."
The sheer volume of what he'd heard tonight had already collapsed Lin Qiye's entire worldview. If he hadn't personally witnessed the seraph's existence, he might have walked out and called the asylum to come haul Zhao Kongcheng away.
This man's case was worse than his had ever been!
"Then last night—the pillar of golden light that came out of me. What was that?" Lin Qiye asked his next question.
"A Forbidden Ruins," Zhao Kongcheng answered. "After the Mist enveloped the Earth, the changes weren't limited to the appearance of gods. The Mist seems to work some mysterious effect on the human body as well.
"It never entered Great Xia's territory, but it appears to carry within it some energy akin to radiation—a catalyst for certain human bodies. Children born after the Mist's coming have a chance of developing a strange power inside them.
"Under certain specific conditions, that power is triggered, forming a special force able to influence physical reality—like a domain. Its characteristics differ from person to person.
"And this transcendent domain, projected from the self to influence the world around it, is what we call a 'Forbidden Ruins.'"
Lin Qiye turned it over thoughtfully.
Put simply, a "Forbidden Ruins" was the superpowered domain of a lucky few.
By that logic, his ability to perceive everything within a twenty-meter radius through something like mental perception, his freakish dynamic vision, and his use of the seraph's divine majesty—all of it was his Forbidden Ruins expressing itself.
"Can a Forbidden Ruins grow?"
"Yes. Its power, range, and special properties all increase as its owner's mental power grows. Mental power is the key measure of a Forbidden Ruins' strength.
"By mental power, we divide Forbidden Ruins into six great realms.
"Mental power like water in a small cup—scant and still—is the first realm, the 'Cup' realm.
"Like water in a pond—plentiful but still—is the second realm, the 'Pond' realm.
"Like water in a flowing river—plentiful and moving—is the third realm, the 'River' realm.
"Like the waters of the ocean—vast and boundless—is the fourth realm, the 'Sea' realm.
"If mental power approaches the inexhaustible, mighty and immense, that is the fifth realm, 'Boundless.'
"And if mental power is truly endless, drawing without limit, breaking the very dimensions of space like a Klein bottle—that is the sixth realm, 'Klein.'"
"And me? What realm am I now?" Lin Qiye asked.
"You? You're a 'Cup.' A rookie who can barely use his Forbidden Ruins at all." Zhao Kongcheng seemed to relish deflating him. "You count as... hmm... a slightly impressive ordinary person."
Lin Qiye was rendered speechless.
So that was it. The reason he'd been able to open the asylum gate in his mind last night must be that he had broken through into the 'Cup' realm—and that was also why Nyx's ward door had opened.
Did that mean that every time he broke into a new realm, he'd be able to release one more patient?
"What about you, then? Strong as you are—what realm are you?" Lin Qiye asked, looking at Zhao Kongcheng.
Zhao Kongcheng's weathered face reddened, and he turned awkwardly toward the window. "I... I don't have a Forbidden Ruins. So naturally, no mental power either."
"You don't have a Forbidden Ruins?" Lin Qiye's eyes went wide. "Then how did you kill that monster?"
He was genuinely stunned. Even with his freakish dynamic vision, he had barely held his own against one of those things—and Zhao Kongcheng had utterly dominated his. A man that fierce didn't have a Forbidden Ruins?
"That thing is called a Ghost-Faced Man," Zhao Kongcheng corrected. "I killed it on years of training and hard combat experience, nothing more. Before I joined the Night Watchmen, I was special forces—the close-quarters kind.
"There are three ways to obtain a Forbidden Ruins," he went on. "The first is what I just described: a small number of lucky ones are born with the gift.
"The second is to wield an object that possesses a Forbidden Ruins. Humans aren't the only things the Mist can touch—by strange chance, certain objects can come to hold a Forbidden Ruins too. These are exceedingly rare and exceedingly strange, and if a human can master one, they can borrow its power.
"I belong to this second kind. Except the Forbidden Object I carry isn't a weapon—it's the Night Watchmen's standard-issue support-type Forbidden Object, the 'Signboard.' And it does exactly one thing...
"It deploys 【Unrestricted Airspace】!"