Yama Rising

The daolord of the asura instantly rebuffed the initial thoughts on his mind.

That said, it remained an ironclad fact that Emissaries of Hell no longer roamed the surface of the mortal realm after Hell’s great collapse!

K-k-k-k-k… The daolord tightened his grip around the handrail, instantly digging deep grooves into it. If this weren’t the case… then wouldn’t I be digging my own grave right now?!

Perhaps Hell simply didn’t have the time to attend to us for the time being. But if that were the case, what in the world would Hell have been busy with? … The change of dynasty? That’s right! Hell must have been busy handing matters over to the Third King Yanluo of Hell!

Crack! The daolord of the asura practically crushed his armrest, and his soul was filled with turbulence.

Back to the three eastern provinces?

Are they telling me the truth or not?

It was a familiar feeling. It was a feeling of fear and reverence for the immutable authority that was known as Hell. That said… he wasn’t fully convinced.

Because such claims would be no more than mere hearsay. Seeing was believing!

…………………………………………….

There was a video conference today that all Infernal Judges must attend remotely. He was seated right in the midst of the Special Investigations Department’s conference room, dialing into the conference call together with Wu Wenqing and the others at the same time. Naturally, he had his notebook opened on the table in front of him in order to keep up the pretenses.

However, Qin Ye simply shook his head. Fortunately, it was breaktime, and Qin Ye promptly slipped out of the conference hall and made his way to the bathroom.

Buzz… The shard vibrated as soon as he touched it, and he stared intently at the shard’s unprecedented response.

But he knew better. In that instant, he saw an image of two monsters surrounded by countless evil ghosts. He could tell that these weren’t even Cathayan evil ghosts, because the ghosts came from a completely different set of folklore, including succubi, spirits of snow, Nurarihyon, Ibaraki Child, Yamauba, Long-haired Seductress, and so on and so forth. All of the Yin spirits appeared to come together in a terrifying vortex of Yin energy, ravaging the mortal realm and leaving a trail of bloodshed and destruction in the wake of their passage.

He squinted at the shard, before furrowing his brows even deeper, “That’s not right. We’re talking about the Voyage of a Hundred Ghosts in the mortal realm… The shard must be showing me an image from a psychological thriller anime, right? How else could we possibly explain something like that?”

It was an image of Lee Jung-sook, otherwise known as Xia Jinse, aiming a gun directly at her own head and firing without hesitation!

Qin Ye abruptly shot to his feet as he stared at the shard in his hands - What the hell is going on?!

It was a man dressed like a Song Dynasty official, with two specks of red where his eyes should have been. The man had a look of respect plastered all over his face. It looked like a calm and harmonious sight. And yet, Qin Ye couldn’t help but tremble in horror.

Then, just as he was about to turn to the next facet of the shard, someone in the next cubicle suddenly knocked on the wall.

“Brother… sorry to trouble you, but do you... happen to have any tissue paper to spare?” The man in the next cubicle spoke with great embarrassment. Qin Ye rolled his eyes as he passed a packet of Kleenex to the man from the gap beneath the cubicle walls.

Then, Qin Ye promptly sat back down onto the toilet seat with furrowed brows, mulling over the images he had just seen.

Xia Jinse’s going to die?

And who’s that terrifying existence that was following me?

What he didn’t realize was the fact that all of the cubicles that were still locked right now were in fact occupied by men in black suits. They weren’t using the washroom proper. Rather, just like Qin Ye, they simply sat on the lid of the toilet bowl, silently glancing at a slim laptop that lay open on their laps.

The interface in their screens displayed a software for communications. That said, it was neither Slay nor Momo. There were only slightly over ten people in the chat group they were in, each of whom were codenamed ‘A’ through ‘H’, as well as Zhou Xianlong, Mo Changhao, and the ID of the big boss who was also the administrator of the group.

“Detected true energy fluctuations. He wasn’t using the washroom. Instead, he sealed his cubicle with his true energy. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t dare attempt to peer beyond the domain established by an Infernal Judge for fear of alerting him to our surveillance.” -- C.

Zhou Xianlong finally chimed in, “Well done.”

Several seconds later, a single word appeared on the chat group, “No.”

Naturally, Qin Ye was completely oblivious to everything that had just happened. Instead, he went straight to Limbo. The Harken could tell from a mile that he was coming, and it promptly tapped its finger and caused Fate and the words written by Fate to vanish into thin air.

… How materialistic. Sometimes, I truly wonder why I actually tremble before the Harken. Qin Ye rolled his eyes at the Harken, before rubbing his hands with a flattering smile on his face, “Well, about that… the shard of King Yanluo’s Seal revealed a series of images to me earlier. Do you happen to know what this might mean?”

No wonder it’s called a divine artifact of Hell. Notwithstanding the fact that it’s merely a shard, it could still sense that someone has manipulated Fate, and has thus revealed its suspicions to its owner? No… perhaps this has nothing to do with suspicions at all. Perhaps it’s just reminding its owner of potential dangers from time to time… That’s only to be expected of a divine artifact of Hell after all…

“Don’t know?” Qin Ye raised his brows and glanced at the Harken. For some strange reason, something told him that there was something fishy about the Harken’s response.

Qin Ye grew silent. He was once again reminded of the terrifying images he had just seen, and he was deeply unsettled by the fact that these were going to happen in the near future.

Qin Ye’s suspicions only grew stronger. It felt almost as though the Harken… didn’t want him around at all.

“There’s still one thing.” Qin Ye massaged his temples and pinched between his brows, “The Hungry Ghost Festival is coming right now, and Hell is going to celebrate it with a grand festivity. So… there are some things that I was hoping to enlist your help with.”

The Harken’s pupils narrowed.

It simply couldn’t wrap its mind around how Fate was going to turn Qin Ye into a more competent King Yanluo of Hell in just over ten days.

Impossible. As far as I’m aware, anyone who has consumed the taisui fungus could potentially appear anywhere in Cathay as soon as he perished. Things are still manageable if Lee Jung-sook dies, since Daehan only has a population size of just over 50 million. But Qin Ye’s death would require us to search through 1.5 billion people to locate him once more! That would be akin to searching for a needle in a haystack!

But it’s just ten days… How is it possible to cause someone to have a complete change of heart in just ten days?

And to that end, how many more stellar folks is Fate going to involve?

1. I’ve added some links here to the Nurarihyon, Ibaraki Child and Yamauba in case you might be interested to read more. They’re basically demons of Japanese folklore.

2. A World of Warcraft/ Warcraft 3 reference.