Yama Rising

With an injection of Yin energy from Qin Ye, the black wooden box finally sprang open slowly amid a faint click.

This was the black box that had been given to him by the second King Yanluo, and the second King Yanluo had told him to open it when he felt ready. At this point, he felt like it was time. Space exploration was the ultimate objective of the entire plane.

As the wooden box was opened, a string of mechanical clicks rang out, and Qin Ye was staring intently at it. He also wanted to know the biggest secret of this plane. He wanted to see who its biggest enemy and its biggest threat was.

Several seconds later, the box abruptly sprang open. Right as Qin Ye was staring intently at it with full focus, a spring suddenly erupted out of the box, and on the top of the spring was the smiling face of a huge puppet. At the same time, a line of blood-red Yin energy text quickly appeared in the air: "Surprise!"

"What the fuck?!" Qin Ye immediately sprang to his feet as if he had been stabbed in the backside, and his heart was pounding like a jackhammer. Countless profanities instantly rushed to the tip of his tongue at once, and he turned to storm away in a fit of rage.

"Ah, Your Excellency! Where are you going?"

"Don't try to stop me! Ain't nobody gonna stop me today! Where's my sword? Get my sword! How many times have I told you not to misplace my sword? Find it for me right away!"

"Your Excellency, who's gotten you so mad?"

"Shut up! Get the second King Yanluo to come and see me!"

After over 10 minutes of vehement persuasion and consolation from Wang Chenghao, Qin Ye finally gave up on the suicidal idea of challenging the second King Yanluo to a battle to the death. After that, he returned to his office in an enraged manner, and only after massaging his own temples for a long while was he able to calm himself down.

After chugging down a cup of tea, he viciously swatted the clown's head away, revealing a dazzling sapphire lying at the bottom of the box.

In the instant that the sapphire appeared, Qin Ye felt a barely detectable gaze sweep over his own body, and even he couldn't sense exactly where the gaze was coming from.

This was most likely a fragment of the second King Yanluo consciousness that he had left in the box to act as a security measure. The sapphire was giving off bursts of golden light that formed a massive screen of light in the air, depicting a vast galaxy of stars.

Every single star was slowly revolving, and asteroid belts were hovering outside of the stars. Everything was extremely beautiful and orderly. Amid this tranquil scene of ethereal beauty, the second King Yanluo's voice suddenly rang out.

"Earth's underworld plane is located in the seventh spiral of the Yin Space River, which is far away from the first and fourth spirals, which are the ones most heavily ravaged by war. Aside from Earth, none of the civilizations in this spiral are considered to be high-end civilizations."

If it weren't for that surprise from earlier, the voice would've been quite authoritative and majestic.

"Remember that the space seen from the mortal realm is different from the one seen in the underworld. The mortal realm and the underworld are like two pieces of paper that run parallel to one another, never to intersect. They appear to be quite similar overall with only minute differences, such as the configuration of the stars, the distance between the planes, etc. However, these differences are enough to produce two completely different universes. However, the laws of Yin Yang non-interaction do not apply in space. The space of the mortal realm and the space of the underworld will form a strange parallel configuration with one another countless light years away. Here, I should mention that when I say countless light years away, I'm referring to a place known as the advanced nebula. That is an indescribable place."

As soon as his voice trailed off, the screen blurred slightly, following which a vast image appeared amid the Yin clouds.

Qin Ye immediately drew a sharp breath upon seeing this. The impossibly vast space never failed to inspire awe and wonder within the beholder.

Right before his eyes was a sea of asteroids that spread as far as the eyes could see in all directions, filling the entire galaxy!

They were packed together extremely tightly like a wall in space, keeping out everything. All of the asteroids were clustered together seamlessly, and wisps of blue light were filtering out from behind the wall, forming ethereal bands of light that gave the entire scene an incredibly beautiful appearance.

In contrast with the nearby planes, this wall was so tall and massive that its dimensions were impossible to calculate. This was because around a dozen asteroids combined were already comparable with the size of a plane, so it was as if this wall were formed by countless planes!

Even Qin Ye couldn't help but be in complete awe and astonishment at the sight of it.

"This place is known as the eternal corridor," the second King Yanluo's voice continued. "A light year in front of the eternal corridor is where the mortal realm and the underworld come together. Beyond the eternal corridor is the advanced nebula, where only high-end civilizations exist, as well as materials that no longer exist in the outside world and spatial beasts capable of destroying entire planes. That is a place where opportunities and dangers lie hand in hand. The eternal corridor eternally protects a civilization, which is the first truly powerful high-end civilization that most civilizations encounter, the snakeform race. Their civilization has already existed for 75,000 years, and they are responsible for guarding the eternal corridor."

Qin Ye was listening intently, and the more he heard, the more he realized just how important this information was.

Firstly, it clarified to him the direction that he was supposed to develop in. It told him how they were supposed to explore or colonize nearby planes once they achieved space exploration and ventured into outer space.

The right strategy definitely wasn't to just venture blindly deeper. One could imagine that the deeper one ventured into space, the more dangerous the civilizations that they encountered would be. All of them were civilizations powerful enough to have entered the eternal corridor and set foot into the advanced nebula. Given the current power and technology of Earth, there was no way that it would be able to contend with those powerful civilizations. Thus, forging ahead blindly and recklessly would only leave a trail of breadcrumbs for those high-end civilizations to track down the underworld plane.

The Dark Forest theory was only a fictional theory, but it was one that made a lot of sense.

Exploration of space was something that had to be advanced in a cyclical fashion. The underworld plane had to strengthen itself and colonize several dozen planes before it could even begin to think about venturing into the eternal corridor, and these were massive projects that would take thousands of years to complete.

Due to the unpredictable nature of space, every single underworld could potentially be blessed by unimaginable opportunities during this time.

Small underworlds could encounter multiple planes suitable for colonization and rich in resources, thereby rapidly elevating them to become underworlds as powerful as the four pillars, while the four pillars could lose their advantage over the rest of the world simply due to a sequence of ill-fortune in their space exploration endeavors.

It was truly an exciting prospect.

If the four pillars refused to take this step, then they would forever reign supreme over this plane. However, in doing so, they would be reducing the underworld plane to sitting ducks for extraterrestrial planes. In a century, the planar scale was going to be opened, and they would have no choice but to face the outside world!

As opposed to waiting passively, it was naturally best to seize the initiative.

He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down, then continued listening.

The second King Yanluo's voice continued, "Now that you understand the structure of space, what I have to tell you next is that all underworld civilizations are born from chaos. As I'm sure you're aware by this point, prior to reaching the eternal corridor, the distance between underworld planes isn't that far. It's roughly equivalent to the distance from Earth to the moon. With two underworld civilizations located in close proximity to one another, it's very easy for them to discover each other. In order to fight for the right to survive in space, the two civilizations will inevitably have to go to war. This type of situation is not uncommon."

In reality, perhaps there was no reason for the two planes to go to war, but once again, it came down to the Dark Forest theory.

With two neighboring planes, both of which had their own civilizations, both sides would be careful not to reveal themselves, but they couldn't ensure that the other side would do the same.

What if the other plane had already forged an alliance with other planes?

What if the other plane had already completed mass migration of all of its civilizations?

No one in the entire universe could be trusted or relied on aside from oneself!

Thus, there was only one possible outcome for neighboring planes.

"Earth's underworld is both fortunate, but also unfortunate," the second King Yanluo's voice continued. "It's unfortunate in that within the same distance between Earth and the sun, there are six planes around the underworld plane, and there just so happens to be another underworld civilization among them. Furthermore, that civilization has also been in existence for over 7,000 years. However, what's fortunate is that their level of development is quite comparable to that of this plane, and they primarily prioritize strengthening their physical bodies. This will be your first extraterrestrial opponent: the canter civilization. All underworld civilizations evolved according to their corresponding mortal realm civilization. At the moment, the canter underworld possesses three major alliances. When translated into the language of Earth, they can be read as the Eye of the Thousand Hands, the Tongue of the Thousand Throats, and the Heart of the Thousand Eyes. The canter underworld has a theocratic government system, and this is a result of the constant stream of divine miracles projected by their god of creation, Ansotlini, during the past several thousand years of the plane's existence. The three major alliances were all left behind by Ansotlini, and they're split up into his body, his heart, and his spirit. Their plane has a total of three beings above the Yama-King level, placing them at the pinnacle of the underworld civilizations in the chaotic region. On top of that, they have roughly 65 Yama-Kings, as well as roughly 10% more Abyssal Prefects and Infernal Judges than on Earth. However, their overall netherworldly citizen population isn't as high as ours. Here is the information I have on their core members."

Lines of text that were accompanied by images quickly appeared on the screen of light, and Qin Ye faltered slightly upon seeing this, then discovered that he could pause and resume the procession of text and images on the screen as he pleased.

However, the question on his mind was why the second King Yanluo was so familiar with this plane.

Before he had a chance to ponder this question any further, the second King Yanluo's rang out again. "I am quite familiar with this plane because I know their god of creation, Ansotlini. He's in the advanced nebula, but he's not doing so well there. In fact, he's not even a true god."

In typical fashion of the second King Yanluo, phrases like "he's not even a true god" sounded extremely natural when they were spoken by him.

"Make sure to study this information carefully." The second King Yanluo's voice was beginning to fade away. "Regardless of whether you can overcome the canter civilization or not, I'm going to leave Earth. I've already stayed here for long enough and lost interest in it. I hope to see you all again in the advanced nebula, even if that's going to be thousands of years in the future."

The screen of light slowly vanished, and Qin Ye was silent for a long time before closing the box.

After a brief moment of contemplation, he opened the box again before stuffing the spring-loaded clown into it.

He then cleared his throat, and Secretary Yuan immediately appeared in a wraith-like manner before extending a slight bow. "What are your instructions, Your Excellency?"

"Contact the three pillars," Qin Ye instructed with a contemplative expression. "Tell them that I have important news from the world's gate, and that I'm willing to share it with them."

"Yes!"