Yama Rising

Boom!!! As soon as he appeared, he was immediately overwhelmed by the powerful rush of sound that enveloped him from all directions. He was standing at the entrance of Hell’s Gate, and he could tell that the protective barrier had already been activated. An eerie nethergale swept through the lands. Rows of gleaming Sanskrit texts flowed slowly along a dazzling barrier right in front of Hell’s Gate that was pulsing with innumerable little ripples.

“What the hell is going on here?!” Qin Ye turned his head abruptly, only to be greeted by over two hundred Death Inquisitors who had already risen to their feet. As soon as they heard Qin Ye’s furious cry, all of them knelt to the ground respectfully. Su Dongxue knelt right in front of all of them and explained with a pale expression on her face, “Your subject… your subject isn’t sure either… It all happened just half an hour ago. It sounded like someone was quarrelling, and then… a scuffle broke out. When the Yin Construction division heads attempted to mediate the situation, they got embroiled in it as well…”

“Kneel properly!!” Qin Ye’s cry was just as thunderous. The eerie netherflames on the sculptures flickered dangerously, casting a dark shadow over the grand hall.

“Look at yourselves.” Qin Ye chuckled coldly, “Death Inquisitors… You’re representatives of Hell. And yet not a single one of you is able to react properly in the face of a Yin spirit riot! Are you no different from a rabbit that has passed out?!”

A gutsy reprimand was surprisingly effective in calming the hearts of the Death Inquisitors. Qin Ye noticed that everyone’s palpable breaths had calmed down substantially. He could tell that the protective barrier was still rippling endlessly due to the barrage of Yin spirits, but he didn’t care. He turned to Su Dongxue once more and lifted his chin, “Continue.”

Qin Ye nodded, “Are all of the division heads of Yin Construction back here? And what about Mr Gu? Did Mr Gu suffer any injuries?”

He glanced about the hall and discovered that a one meter square shelf had been erected to hold up an engineering drawing, and there were several pens strewn all over the side. It seemed that Gu Qing had already begun working on a grand design plan for Hell.

“Yin spirit riot.” Yin energy converged in mid air and transformed into a vortex from which Arthis stepped out. She sighed, “This is an issue that is faced by all new hells alike. In fact, you can say that until Hell has properly established itself, we can expect this to become a common phenomenon. But don’t worry. With us around, all who incite riots and rebellions are dead meat. That said…”

“It’s…” Hu Feng was just about to speak up when he happened to lock eyes with Qin Ye. He immediately lowered his head, “It’s your subject who has been incompetent…”

“Whether or not this was a result of your incompetence is for us to decide.” Qin Ye tapped on the table lightly, “Speak. Truthfully. If you conceal any details…”

Qin Ye hadn’t expected the Yin spirit riot to arrive so quickly. But because it did, there was all the more reason to urgently establish his firm authority right here in Hell. After all, there can only be one voice in Hell!

“My lord… it was all because I’d failed to manage my teams properly. They’ve been idling about for far too long. The second team was originally rostered to the use of the excavator today. But it so happened that the first team hadn’t completed all that they had set out to do, so I had thought to let them finish up their work before handing over control of the excavator to the second team. Who would’ve thought that the second team leader grew upset at the decision, and rallied his entire team to create a ruckus at the work site. I don’t even know who began to cuss at the other’s mother, but the entire situation quickly devolved into an altercation…”

Qin Ye furrowed his brows, and his heart sank.

The internal compass of morality and virtue quickly unravels and disintegrates into nothingness in the absence of law. And this process was only expedited by the growing idleness and lethargy of Yin spirits around. Nobody had any worries, whether for food, or for clothes. Everyone simply sat under trees wondering about their bleak future all day long. They were once blazing with passion about the Qin Gardens Phase 1 project. But after a few months of lukewarm progress, the raging inferno of passion quickly grew tainted and black. Anyone could guess just how displeased the Yin spirits were towards his leadership.

That was exactly like how humans behaved. Man never suffers from scarcity, only inequity.

Nobody could stand long hours of boredom. This was why everyone was fighting for the use of the excavators - they needed something to do. They needed something to enrich their lives. And this seemingly inconsequential and unimportant thing was the final straw that broke the camel’s back - the spark that lit the fuse.

He went over the details in his mind, and then sighed as he stood up, “Stay here. Don’t leave Hell’s Gate. I’ll go sort things out on the outside.”

Countless netherflames flew about in the skies, while a sea of Yin energy with waves as high as twenty meters filled the lands! It was impossible to see what lay within its midst, save for the occasional red leaf or branch peeking out of the sea, as well as… a flicking, lantern-sized golden eye.

“What is that thing?” Qin Ye exclaimed in dismay. He had never seen a creature like that before!

Right there, in the heart of the tide of Yin energy… was a giant skeleton, approximately forty to fifty meters long. It crawled along the ground, shrieking and screaming as it slammed its fists wildly into the protective barrier of light around Hell’s Gate!

The barrier of light trembled again. Qin Ye could clearly see that there were countless Yin spirits swimming along every crevice of the giant skeleton’s body. Netherfire immolated around its entire being. The skeleton only had the upper half of its body, replete with golden eyes. With every shriek it cried out with, a wave of illusory Yin spirits would pour out and strike the barrier of light.

Arthis picked up from where Ming Shiyin left off, “All sentient Yin spirits have their own desires. When these desires intensify to its peak, the Yin spirit’s feeble illusory body would no longer be able to cope with it. Think of it this way - a Yin spirit’s body is composed of the dualism of souls and his seven emotions and six desires. The agglomeration of these factors constitute a type of ‘spirit’ without a corporeal being. When any particular one of these aspects grows beyond what the spirit can bear, it would explode with a particular indicia, also known as a mark of dao. The burst of light which Su Dongxue was talking about was precisely the manifestation of one of these indicia.”

Qin Ye gasped.

“So what do we do now?”

“Riots of this scale happen every year across the vast lands of Hell. This is why a security force is an indispensable department in Hell. Things are still alright for now. But once Hell begins to expand, and Yin beasts start to appear… Trust me, those things are just as pervasive as mercury - they get everywhere. Without a strong army and a powerful commander, Hell would sooner or later be scourged and scarred by these skirmishes.”

She gazed deeply into Qin Ye’s eyes, “Now, do you understand why I was so excited to see the Obsidian Heaven’s Eye Bowl?”

1. This is the concept of hun and po, which correlate with Yang and Yin respectively. The ethereal hun soul is the one that leaves the body after death, while the physical po soul is the one that remains with the corpse. Taoism believes that all living humans have three hun and seven po in their bodies.

2. This is a reference to another concept of the seven psychological or emotional states, namely joy, anger, anxiety, grief, thought, fear and fright, as well as the six physiological needs or desires of one’s eyes, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind.

3. The author actually names them each after the words 魑魅魍魉魊 (chi mei wang liang yu). The phrase 魑魅魍魉 (chi mei wang liang) actually has its origins in ancient chronicles, and was used to refer to monsters of the mountains and monsters of the river, with the former half of the phrase referring to monsters of the mountains and the latter half referring to monsters of the river. 魊 refers to a ghost child. However, given that the author’s intention was to refer to each of these words separately as a different class of monster, I’ll just label them as X-fiend for now.