Yama Rising

Before the Many-faced God had a chance to finish, a shrill howl rang out from the bottom of the pit once again, and it seemed to be imbued with thousands of years worth of resentment and hatred.

"Resentment is about to awaken," the long-haired man sighed. "Let me go and assist him."

As soon as his voice trailed off, he took a step forward, then plummeted toward the bottom of the pit like a dead weight.

It was extremely cold at the bottom of the pit. The Yin wind here had already reached an extreme level of density, causing the temperatures to plummet drastically, and even though it had only been a short time, the walls were already covered with white frost.

However, even the frost was unable to disguise the disgusting texture of the soil, which was only growing more and more hideous the lower one went down the hole. The soil on the surrounding walls were like sliced flesh, with an extremely sticky and viscous texture. Furthermore, there was a type of dark red liquid oozing out of it.

Even for those not well-versed in fengshui, it would be more than apparent that this was not a good place to be, and one couldn't help but wonder what kind of horrifying being had been sealed here.

The long-haired man was descending faster and faster, and upon reaching a depth of around 80 meters, he arrived in a massive cave. There were chains surrounding the entire cave, and the chains were nailed to the walls by a series of branches.

They had already been here for countless years, yet these branches were still lush and full of vitality, without showing any signs of trying or atrophy. It beggared belief that branches that had been underground for so many years could still be so lush and green.

"This is the Starry Forest Array," the long-haired man remarked. "They've truly expended a lot of effort here. However, I bet they never expected that we would be the ones to be revived instead of them several thousand years later! All you can do is lie in the cradle of mythology and watch all of this unfold helplessly!"

With an eruption of sand and dust, he landed violently at the bottom of the pit, where a massive coffin lied.

The coffin was huge, over 10 meters in size, but it didn't appear out of place at all in this massive pit. It was as if a giant were resting in it.

Instead of a wooden coffin, this was a coffin constructed entirely from stone, which indicated that the coffin was more for sealing than for burial.

It was clear that several thousand years ago, someone wanted to seal the being in the coffin away forever.

The coffin seemed to have been constructed from a single rock, and at the head of the coffin was an engraving similar to the eight trigrams. Countless corpses were littered around the coffin, all of whom had blood flowing out of all of their orifices and were wearing construction worker uniforms.

"Qimen Dunjia..." The long-haired man stroked the design with a complex expression, then closed his eyes as he murmured to himself, "After several thousand years, we've finally returned."

As soon as his voice trailed off, the design on the coffin abruptly shattered, and his palm completely sank into it. In the next instant, a thunderous roar rang out throughout the entire pit.

Less than half a second later, the giant coffin trembled violently, immediately following which its heavy lid was forced slowly upward. A massive palm that was covered in white fur with inky-black nails then emerged alongside the aura of a nascent Yama-King.

"So it's you." A hoarse voice rang out. "How long has it been?"

"Maybe 3,000 years, maybe 6,000 years, who knows?" the long-haired man replied with a smile. "We have returned."

A brief silence ensued.

Several seconds later, an indignant voice rang out inside the coffin. "Indeed, we have returned. We have to show them who the real master of this world is! Is our king still alive?"

"I don't know," the long-haired man replied with a shake of his head.

"Then whose orders are you following?" The voice in the coffin was growing very frustrated. "We've already been reduced to this pitiful state, we can't do anything on our own!"

"We are following the orders of a monster known as the Many-faced God," the long-haired man replied.

"Never heard of him," the voice in the coffin scoffed.

A wary look immediately appeared on the long-haired man's face as he urged, "Be careful with what you say, my brother. That monster is no ordinary being. Its powers are comparable with those of our master, and he definitely didn't come after us. He's very familiar with our battles, so he's at least from the same era as us, perhaps even earlier. If we want to revive our king, then we must work with him."

The coffin fell silent again.

A long while later, the coffin exploded violently, and powerful Yin energy erupted forth as a thunderous voice rang out. "What a strange world this is. Never did I think that I would see beings from the same era as myself after thousands of years."

……………………………………

"There are four Yin energy passageways below Yuncheng," Zhao Yun said as he turned around. "We have a total of 50,000 Yin soldiers, so 12,500 troops will be sent to each passageway. If anything happens, these troops will arrive on the scene to reinforce Yanluo Qin as quickly as possible."

This was a spacious conference hall, and Qin Ye, the Harken, Arthis, Liu Qiankun, Mu Shun, all of the high-ranking military and political officials of Taixing Province, and the branch general of the darkfeathers were all present.

Their King Yanluo was venturing into peril alone, and if they couldn't ensure his safety, then they might as well put an end to their own lives.

"The Reincarnation King, the Harken, and I will be leading three of the teams, while the other team will be led by General Li Lang. Yanluo Qin will use messenger birds to inform us of his safety at four-hour intervals. If four hours go by without receiving a messenger bird, then all Yin soldiers are to be deployed immediately."

Liu Qiankun raised a hand, and upon receiving permission to speak, he asked, "Will we have to notify Yuncheng in advance before we deploy our Yin soldiers?"

"No," the Harken replied. "We simply can't do that. If we inform Yuncheng, then they'll make preparations, and the inner demon will catch on to what we're doing."

Sacrifices were required to secure victories.

Mu Shun took a deep breath, then asked with a serious expression, "When do we set off for Yuncheng?"

"As soon as all of you are prepared," Qin Ye replied. "One of the Yin energy passageways is situated in Zhaozhou County, and my plan is to enter the mortal realm through that passageway. The darkfeathers in Zhaozhou County are still alive, so that means that it's still a relatively safe place."

"Don't forget that the inner demon has seen you before," the Harken reminded in a serious voice.

Qin Ye nodded in response. "It's alright, I have a way around that."

"Your Excellency." Right at this moment, a darkfeather entered the hall, and as soon as he did so, he immediately extended a respectful bow as he reported, "The Yin Yang Mezzanine of Yuncheng is currently in the process of vanishing."

Everyone immediately turned toward the darkfeathers, and Liu Qiankun was so startled to hear this that the netherfire in his eyes flickered erratically.

Never had he heard anything like this before.

All underworld emissaries could only access the mortal realm through Yin Yang Mezzanines, and they had never exhibited any changes in the past, so how could one suddenly disappear?

"Your Excellency!" He and Mu Shun immediately stood up at the same time, then cupped his fist as he said in an urgent voice, "I've never heard of anything like this before. Yin Yang Mezzanines are unable to close, and they're constantly being watched by Yin soldiers."

They were completely oblivious to the fact that the Yin Yang Mezzanine was disappearing, and that was unacceptable.

Qin Ye shook his head in response. This wasn't the time to be pointing fingers. No Yin Yang Mezzanine had ever disappeared in the past, so the disappearance of this one clearly had something to do with the inner demon.

What exactly could it be doing in Yuncheng that was worth taking such a massive risk for? Was it not concerned that Hell would notice the abnormal activity taking place in Yuncheng?

The inner demon was certainly not an idiot, so the only possibility was that it felt like whatever it was doing in Yuncheng was worth the risk.

Furthermore, there was a very good chance that it would leave Yuncheng very soon. There was no way that it was foolish enough to stay in Yuncheng for much longer, so it had decided to close the Yin Yang Mezzanine in order to buy itself time. It seemed that the arrival of the darkfeathers had made it wary and suspicious after all.

What should they do?

If the inner demon were to leave, did they pretend as if nothing had happened or did they search the entire city to try and find what it was that had convinced the inner demon to take such a massive risk?

He had a feeling that this was the inner demon's true objective. The inner demon had already existed for far too long, most likely dating back to the beginning of human existence. It had even witnessed the birth of Hell, and through thousands of years of observation, it should be aware that Hell was definitely more powerful than what was displayed on the surface.

Even with the addition of the 73 immortals, it wasn't powerful enough to directly oppose Hell.

Hell and the inner demon were locked in a race against time, and whichever side completed their preparations first would be the first to revoke the verbal agreement. Whatever the inner demon wanted to do was definitely not going to be good news for Hell, and with that in mind, Qin Ye was determined to stop him.

He swept a hand through the air, and a page appeared out of nowhere. In the instant that it appeared, all of the underworld emissaries below the Yama-King level present shuddered involuntarily before falling to their knees.

It was the Book of Life and Death.

Qin Ye's gaze quickly roamed over the Book of Life and Death, inspecting the entries of Yuncheng.

Complete silence descended upon the hall, and only after close to a minute had passed by did Qin Ye exhale as he clenched his fists tightly.

Luck was on his side.

According to the Book of Life and Death, the mayor of Yuncheng, Bai Liangping, had taken over the responsibility of attracting business and investments to the city three years ago. One of the businesses that he had attracted to the city was a relatively unknown company called Hong Fa Real Estate, and this business had invested a total of 1.2 billion into the city's Mount Tianmu project.

Hong Fa Real Estate was only a shell company that was directly controlled by Yuncheng's Teng Fei Greenery Corporation. There were a total of four controlling shareholders in the Teng Fei Greenery Corporation, all of whom were relatives of Bai Liangping.

Hong Fa Real Estate didn't possess the qualifications required to carry out the project, so its parent company, Teng Fei Greenery, had to step in. Due to cutting corners in materials and costs in the project, Bai Liangping's family had profited to the tune of hundreds of millions.

Thus, Teng Fei Greenery had made massive earnings from the project, and it was already inviting tenders for the project. Furthermore, there just so happened to be some people who had contacted them during the past few months.

This was an extremely fortunate development for Qin Ye.

He took a deep breath, then immediately turned to Zhao Yun as he said, "Go to the mortal realm right away."

"Yes." Zhao Yun didn't ask why as he knew that Qin Ye would tell him.

"Inform Director Rao that we require the mortal's realm's full cooperation." Before Zhao Yun had a chance to reply, he turned toward the darkfeather who had just delivered the report, then asked, "How much longer will it be until the Yin Yang Mezzanine disappears?"

"Less than 12 hours, Your Excellency."

Qin Ye nodded in response with a grim expression. The education industry had only been rolled out in the Cathayan Underworld for a few years, so even Infernal Judges were very rare in the nation. As such, they were naturally unaware of the fact that Yin Yang Mezzanines could be closed.

A single Yama-King would possess the power to close a Yin Yang Mezzanine on their own, and with four Yin Yang Mezzanines in Yuncheng, it meant that there were four Yama-Kings in the city working together to close the Yin Yang Mezzanines.