Yama Rising

In the rented apartment, Qin Ye had already adopted his Hell's Emissary state. Right in front of him was Matthew, who was unconscious and tied to a chair.

A soundproofing restriction had already been set up in the room, but he still didn't immediately awaken Matthew. Instead, he was still considering how to proceed. Under these circumstances, he had to be extra careful in everything that he did.

In the end, he had poked this hornets' nest after all. The queen of the hornets wasn't the scary thing, what was truly threatening was the enraged hornet swarm. They were definitely going to be searching all over the city for Matthew.

Furthermore, if Matthew really were the key to the underground church, then the opposition would definitely already have been in the process of bolstering the underground church's defenses as much as they could. If he were to rush in without developing a clear understanding of the situation first, he would be met by the fiercest retaliation the opposition was capable of putting up, and he would most likely only have a single chance to succeed.

What questions should he ask? Should he spare Matthew's life to not completely make enemies out of the opposition? Countless questions were flashing through his mind as he tried to consider all of the possible directions that things could take, and only after a full hour had passed did a cold light flash through his eyes.

Seeing as he had already made a move, then there was no point in doing things halfway.

With that in mind, he immediately sprang into action. He reached out with one hand and rested it on top of Matthew's head. Matthew was still unconscious, but his head suddenly raised up and his entire body began to tremble incessantly. At the same time, wisps of his soul seeped out of his orifices and drifted into Qin Ye's outstretched palm.

No one below the Yama-King level would be able to resist having their soul apprehended by Qin Ye.

However, right at this moment, Qin Ye's pupils abruptly contracted, and he hurriedly shot back in retreat while withdrawing his hand as if he had been electrocuted.

He cast a stunned gaze toward his own hand, then turned to Matthew with an incredulous expression. The ropes around him were slowly unravelling, and his unconscious body began to float in mid-air. At the same time, bursts of golden light were radiating out of his pores as if he were the embodiment of the sun!

"Is... a divine duty?" he murmured to himself as he stared at Matthew with a bewildered expression, and only after a long while did he withdraw his gaze to look at his own hand.

A divine duty was, as the name suggested, the duty of a god. For example, the divine duty of the Cathayan Underworld's King Yanluo was to oversee death. However, King Yanluo wasn't the only one overseeing death. Perhaps this was the case in Cathay, but this was dependent on how the death god was depicted in different religions.

In nations outside of Cathay, this was often different in that the god of death and the god of the underworld were separate beings.

For example, Hades was the Argosian god of the underworld, but Thanatos was the god of death. Furthermore, his twin brother, Hypnos, also had the duty of overseeing a part of death because his divine duty was slumber. Eternal slumber was equivalent to death, which ws why there was some overlap in their divine uties, and that was why the Argosian Underworld was ruled over by the twin gods.

Another example was the god of the night, who also held a part of the god of death's divine duty.

Never did he think that Matthew would be carrying a divine duty. This divine duty was frantically rejecting him, and it was also a divine duty that represented death!

"How is this possible?" He stared at Matthew, who was hovering in mid-air and glowing like the sun, as he shook his head and murmured to himself, "Does this mean that he's evolving from an evil ghost into a death god? Could it be that he's creating a legend on his own? If so, then why is his cultivation rank so low? Even if he's unable to reach the Yama-King level due to limited territory and followers, he would still at least be an Abyssal Prefect. How could a mere Anitya Hellguard possibly create a legend on his own? Also, is this why so many people are determined to protect him?"

Right at this moment, everything around him began to levitate up into the air as if gravity were malfunctioning, and a series of eerie green patterns began to spread from Matthew's glabella, rapidly reaching all parts of his body.

All of the levitating objects only remained hovering in mid-air for about three seconds before dissipating into bursts of light, filling the entire room with dazzling odlen radiance.

Amid the golden light, Matthew began to raise his head in an unsettling manner. His body then twisted around 180 degrees while his head remained still, and he pressed himself against the wall like a spider while staring intently at Qin Ye. An eye that was around half a meter in size opened on his back, and it had a golden pupil around which were countless runes. Immediately thereafter, the wall violently exploded, unable to withstand the fearsome Yin energy any longer.

However, following the explosion, they were no longer in the apartment.

Qin Ye looked down with a surprised expression to find a sea of light beneath his feet, and he looked up to discover more dazzling golden light.

This was a golden space of indeterminate size, and he discovered that he had been taken by Matthew into the world of his consciousness. The fact that he was able to do this indicated that the soul hiding in his body was definitely not below the mid Yama-King level!

Matthew was like a sung god incarnate, hovering in mid-air with boundless golden light around him and as the countless green runes appeared all over his body, his skin began to crack open, and out of those cracks emerged a series of feathers. The bottom halves of the feathers were golden in color while the upper halves were green, and every single feather was around a meter in length. It was as if he were a phoenix spreading his wings, presenting a spectacular sight that was as entrancing as it was astonishing.

In this miraculous space, an ethereal voice slowly rang out. "Who are you?"

As the voice spoke, golden light gushed forth in a frenzy. Qin Ye didn't immediately reply. Instead, he was watching Matthew with a grim expression as his mind raced rapidly to analyze everything that was unfolding before his eyes.

The opposition would have no chance against him in a battle as there was no way that such a fragile body could support such a powerful soul. As such, as soon as he tried to attack Qin Ye, Matthew's physical body would instantly be destroyed. A soul without a vessel, particularly an ancient soul like this one, would be no match for Qin Ye and would be easily taken care of in a battle.

With that in mind, Qin Ye was immediately instilled with a sense of confidence and he stood up ever so slightly straighter.

Thank goodness I haven't encountered something more powerful than myself. Looks like I can continue to flex my way to the top!

"You have no right to know my name," Qin Ye replied in an indifferent voice as his robes flapped amid the waves of golden light. "You're at my mercy and I'm going to be the one to ask the questions. Who are you and what state are you currently in? Have you been sealed away? Is this divine descent? Have you possessed this body?"

Matthew offered no response, either, and the two of them continued to watch one another with wary expressions. It was as if the air between them had congealed, and all of a sudden, countless ripples surged through space, following which a series of strange golden bone daggers emerged out of thin air alongside a burst of ferocious killing intent.

"Die!"

With that thunderous roar, the golden bone daggers converged toward Qin Ye like a lethal storm.

From Qin Ye's perspective, he felt as if he could see countless pear blossoms blooming at once. The golden light transformed into a radiant tsunami that came surging toar dhim from all sides alongside the storm of golden daggers, and in the blink of an eye, Qin Ye found himself caught amidst a fierce assault.

A series of inky-black halos erupted out of Qin Ye's body, and in this dire situation, a weapon appeared in his hand before releasing a burst of golden light, forming a barrier to keep out all of the golden daggers.

The entire space trembled violently in the face of their clash, and only after a full five minutes had passed did the storm of daggers fade into nothingness, following which Qin Ye was finally revealed.

He had already adopted his Hell's Emissary state and Yin energy was surging out of his body in a frenzy. There was a golden spear in his grasp and time seemed to have fallen completely still.

Several seconds later, Matthew exclaimed in a stunned voice, "That's Fate! You're the Cathayan Underworld's..."

Before he had a chance to finish, all of the golden light within the space congealed for a split second before surging back toward him like the receding tide!

A blood-curdling howl rang out from the center of the space and the golden light slowly faded, revealing a stretch of pure darkness underneath. At the same time, Matthew's body began to twist and writhe incessantly.

"No!!!" he roared in a voice that was filled with shock and horror as he looked at his own withering body with an incredulous expression. "It shouldn't be like this... It shouldn't be like this!"

He grabbed his face with his own hands as an extremely agonized look appeared on his face, and he was screeching with all his might. However, the changes taking place in his body were irreversible, just like the passage of time, and as more and more golden light flowed back toward him, the darkness around him became more and more overwhelming. All of the green patterns all over Matthew's body began to converge rapidly toward his glabella, revealing his original physical body again.

What on earth is going on?!

Instead of approaching Matthew, Qin Ye retreated to several dozen meters away, where he continued to observe Matthew with a grim expression.

The apartment in the mortal realm was already beginning to appear around them, indicating that the space formed by Matthew's consciousness was in the process of collapsing. Only under three types of circumstances would this happen.

Number one: he had opened the space himself.

Number two: he had gone insane.

Number three: he was about to die and his soul was on the verge of destruction.

Qin Ye was completely gobsmacked by this situation. A divine duty had only just appeared on Matthew's body, and he couldn't understand why it was leading to his destruction.

Never had he seen a god emerge before falling in such a rapid sequence and he simply didn't know what to make of it.

Right at this moment, a hand suddenly reached out from the center of the golden light.

It was a wizened elderly hand that was twisted in agony, and it was frantically reaching out toward Qin Ye.

"Save me... Save me!!" Matthew was trying to escape the golden light with all his might. In no more than 20 seconds, he had transformed from a middle-aged man who was over 180 centimeters tall to an elderly man who was roughly only 145 centimeters tall. His eyes were completely bloodshot, and he howled in a desperate voice, "Save me... I'll give you anything you want!!"

This was far too bizarre a scene and Qin Ye didn't dare to step in recklessly. Instead, he asked in a calm voice, "Who are you and how did you become like this?"

"My name is..."

Before he had a chance to reply, all of the golden light transformed into a radiance flower that enveloped his entire body while also drowning out his final desperate roar. The all-encompassing golden flower began to close itself around Matthew, and Matthew looked up at the sky with a despairing expression as he roared with all his might, "I am the sun! I am a true god, not like those fake gods you've seen before! This shouldn't be happening to me..."

The flower's petals were completely shut, drowning out the rest of his words. Immediately thereafter, the flower shuddered before dissipating into countless specks of golden light, and at the same time, faint ripples surged through the surrounding space, following which Qin Ye found himself back in the mortal realm.

He had only been in that golden space for a very short time, and he was still reminiscing about what he had just seen. It was such a bizarre sight that he couldn't find the words to describe it.

However, this wasn't the time to be thinking about such things.

He cast his gaze toward the spot where Matthew had been tied up before, and there, he discovered a finger hovering in mid-air.

It wasn't a skeletal finger. Instead, it was complete with flesh and blood. The fingernail was black and around an inch in length. Countless Yin runes were inscribed on its surface, and just the mere sight of it was enough to strike the beholder with a rush of dizziness.

The aura of a death god was surging out of the finger alongside fearsome Yin energy in a frenzy, and Qin Ye was immediately able to tell that this was the finger of a death god!