Yama Rising

Arthis waved her hand and responded calmly, “It’s true. Once your life is on the line, your entire disposition changes.”

She lounged on the bed and put her slender silicone legs together as she yawned gracefully, “There are two things about them that you should know about.”

“Firstly, these things cannot possibly be stronger than a Soul Hunter.”

“Secondly, you’ll be able to sense their existence as soon as you enter your Hell’s Emissary state. You won’t even need the abilities of the shard of King Yanluo’s Seal.”

“The more you know about these things, the more danger you’ll be in. It’s not the right time for you to learn of these things right now. We’re only doing this for your own good.”

Qin Ye sneered as he leaned back on the couch, “You make it sound all fine and dandy… But I’ll die as soon as I enter the Hell’s Emissary state in the First Academy of Cultivators.”

Arthis responded languidly, “Then let me supplement what I’ve said earlier.”

“It would never dare enter this place, much less make a single move against you. At least, not in the First Academy of Cultivators. Therefore, you needn’t worry about your safety.”

As soon as she finished speaking, her hair and clothes immediately began to flutter on its own. Then, with a murderous gaze, she chuckled coldly, “These things… you really don’t need to know about them for now. But the one thing we absolutely need to know is why exactly they’re here!”

“Hang on!” Qin Ye was startled, “They?”

“That’s right.” Arthis glanced out the window and continued in a chilling voice, “They’re creatures of community, and they never move about on their own. At the very least… I’m not sure how many of them have arrived in Insignia Province. Their appearance necessarily means that they’ve discovered something special about this place… but, just what exactly is it?”

“What have they discovered that’s worth them risking everything and returning to these lands… especially after we’d driven these monstrosities away a long time ago?”

Qin Ye sighed as he rolled his eyes, “I hate it most when you whet my appetite like this. Will it kill you to let me have the lowdown on things right away?”

“No.” Arthis took a sip from her cup of tea, “But life wouldn’t be fulfilling if I can’t see you scratching your head in bewilderment.”

In other words, it wouldn’t kill her, but it wouldn’t make her feel good either.

Very good.

That’s just like Arthis.

Qin Ye decided not to linger on the issue any further. After all, it was clear what message was written all over her face - Beg me. If you beg me, I might just relent and give you the lowdown. But why should he allow others to delight at the expense of his own misery?

Qin-egotist-Ye similarly picked up his cup of tea and leaned back on the couch. Then, just as he was about to respond with his repartee, all three in the room suddenly perked up.

“This is…” He shot to his feet and glanced about in astonishment. Just a little while ago, he had suddenly felt… a slight throb in his temples.

“You guys felt it as well?”

The space around them trembled even before he could finish speaking, causing his heart to beat wildly about. Ming Shiyin immediately shot out from underneath the pillow, and a line of text quickly appeared on its surface, “This is… a special receiving order?!”

“That’s right…” Arthis glanced about in surprise, before finally staring straight into Qin Ye’s eyes, “Kid, your luck isn’t half bad…”

But before Qin Ye could say anything in response, everything before his eyes quickly went black, and his soul promptly left his body, descending straight through innumerable levels in just an instant. In other words, he had gone straight to Hell in broad daylight, without having activated his shard of King Yanluo’s Seal at all!

Whoosh! The powerful gale of the underworld rushed past his ears. Then, three seconds later, he saw the dark speck of land grow larger and larger. But… it appeared quite different from the last he remembered it.

Dark clouds enshrouded the entire lands, while greenish-white flashes of lightning snaked across the skies like a majestic dragon’s dance. And right in the middle of the thick cloud cover, exactly where Hell’s Gate was located, a golden pillar of light pierced the darkness of the underworld, puncturing through the roiling clouds like a powerful beam of sunlight that shot straight into Hell.

In the very next moment, and before he could even react with astonishment to the strange phenomenon, he felt his feet touch the ground. He was already in front of Hell’s Gate.

“Greetings, esteemed King Yanluo.” Su Dongxue’s soft voice came from right behind him. All of the ghosts around half-knelt on the ground as they greeted him in unison.

He could see that Hell was incredibly busy right now. Large forests were being levelled, and machines and equipment were whirring and buzzing. Even though the machinery and equipment in Hell were still somewhat lacking, and there wasn’t enough of them to fill the five square kilometers of land with a symphony of construction works, it was undoubtedly still… a simple foreshadowing of the glorious image of Hell to come.

Countless Yin spirits were shifting logs and other building materials along simple dirt paths, since Hell wasn’t equipped with the requisite gravel or concrete for road construction works as yet. A number of Yin spirits were standing around and patrolling the area as they actively maintained the order around. The management of Yin Construction had their safety helmets on as they barked orders at the workers. All in all, things in Hell looked like they were coming along quite nicely.

That is, if one ignored the massive, swirling vortex overhead.

Qin Ye wasn’t looking at it either. He was simply surveying his surroundings. It was evident that the number of Yin spirits in Hell had increased again.

It was impossible to say just how many of them there were. However… it had to be in the tens of thousands. He noticed many Yin spirits sizing them up as well, and he knew full well that this could never be the conduct and disposition of the Yin spirits who had witnessed his outburst when he had personally quelled the two uprising of Yin spirits.

As he continued to survey his surroundings, he noticed about one-third of the Yin spirits secretly sizing him up. The other two-thirds didn’t even dare to look him straight in the eye as they desperately busied themselves with the work before them.

“Su Dongxue.” He called out.

“Your subject is here.” Su Dongxue bowed softly and responded respectfully.

“How many more Yin spirits do we have?”

Although Su Dongxue was by nature rather unrestrained, it was clear just where her allegiance lay. She answered solemnly, “My lord, we previously had 134,450 Yin spirits. An additional 45,172 Yin spirits arrived just three days ago. We’ve not had the time to completely process their registration just yet.”

Qin Ye had always made it a point to maintain a noble, distant and cold persona whenever he was in Hell. Thus, he simply raised his brows in response, “Are there any unsightly troublemakers?”

Su Dongxue paused, “There are. But Yin Construction’s Fourth Division Head Zhao Guangliang has already promptly led a team of corvees to suppress the uprising. There aren’t many troublemakers - their numbers are only in the region of 200 or so. I haven’t had the opportunity to ask my lord what we should do with them.”

“Kill.” Qin Ye responded mercilessly, “Spare no one.”

“My lord…” Su Dongxue hesitated for a moment, “Who… is to execute them?”

Arthis immediately interjected, “You’re an Emissary of Hell appointed by the future King Yanluo. Do you really need us to tell you? Find a time to dispose of them.”

Su Dongxue nodded and didn’t say anymore. As she stepped aside, Arthis whispered, “Order in the old Hell was practically non-existent before the six paths of reincarnation and the Eighteen Abysses of Punishment were established. You must always remind them from time to time who’s the master of this place.”

She swept her gaze indifferently at the multitude of new Yin spirits that had just arrived. It was obvious that they had little contact with the earlier residents of Hell. In fact, there were at least ten thousand of them that had gathered in one place.

This was the result of the manifestations of human instinct and vigilance.

“Today’s a better day than any other. Let’s stop by on the way and teach them who they need to wag their tails at.”

Qin Ye nodded his head. And it was only at this moment that he looked up and noticed the swirling dark clouds in the sky.

Rumble… A faint golden figure hovered in the midst of the rolling black clouds, and yet its appearances were vague and blurry.

Many of the Yin spirits that were idling about glanced up at the sky as they discussed nervously about its existence.

“What’s that?” Qin Ye asked softly after inspecting it for several moments.

“That’s the special receiving order.” Arthis explained softly, “Do you still remember the things I’ve told you about the soul induction platform?”

Crackle… crackle… Flashes of lightning arced across the sky in a threatening fashion, while the golden figure trembled slightly as though it had come to life. Qin Ye raised his brows quizzically, “That’s a special Yin spirit? Isn’t the stage a little bit too majestic for its existence?”

Arthis didn’t respond to his remark directly, “All Yin spirits that enter Hell through the soul induction platform would enter Hell in a suppressed state, but only if the six paths of reincarnation have already been established. You don’t have that right now, so the effect of the soul induction platform would only last a single day.”

Qin Ye suddenly realized that he had seen something like that in the topological map of the old Hell that Granny Meng had earlier given to him.

“However, the greatest function of the soul induction platform is to receive special Yin spirits. Special Yin spirits are people of great fame, at least within their counties or cities. These are people who have accrued great merits through deeds and virtuous works, and there’s simply no way they can enter Hell without the transformative effects of the soul induction platform. And as soon as such talents show up, the relevant prefectural branch would automatically issue a special receiving order to remind Hell to properly receive these guests.”

Qin Ye’s eyes lit up as he looked at the blurry figure in the sky with great avarice, “Are you able to tell where this man’s talent lies?”

What was the most important thing in the twenty-first century?

Talent!

Hell lacked manpower… It lacked common labourers, but what it lacked even more was talented intellectuals! The situation was so bad that even a college graduate like him had no choice but to cross over into the fields of construction. His talent tree in this regard was completely non-existent to boot! Thus, Qin Ye couldn’t care less if the golden figure was a talent in management, or in engineering, or even electricity or infrastructure. He was simply thirsting for talents!

“I don’t know.” Arthis furrowed her brows and shook her head, “Talents are divided into five different grades, namely county-level, city-level, provincial-level, district-level, and national-level. No matter who it is that passes on, the signs in Hell would be exactly the same. Although I’ve not heard of any great talents that have passed on in the City of Salvation recently, but… who’s to say that this isn’t some national academician who’s departed from the world and returned to the ground?”

“Now’s not the time to be discussing these things in any event.” She turned back to Qin Ye after a few seconds of silence, “How did your redemption of the spirit stones go?”

Qin Ye nodded, “Everything has been sorted out, and it’s stored in the box back in the mortal realm.”

“Very good.” Arthis sighed and gazed deeply into the sky. With the slight wave of her hand, a talisman shot to the sky with a soft swishing sound. Three minutes later, the box of Yin spirit stones back in the dorm room within the First Academy of Cultivators vanished without a trace, and quickly began to hurtle towards Hell’s Gate like a meteorite.

“Watch and learn. You’ll be building the next structure on your own next time.” She stretched out her hand and tapped on the box, and the one meter cube metal box opened up like it was tofu.

The scent of refined lunar essence immediately wafted out into the surroundings like a spider lily blooming in the middle of the night. Stacks of rectangular shaped Yin spirit stones lay atop each other, each of which was engraved with the mark of the Special Investigations Department’s Insignia branch office. The spirit stones were crystal clear, save for a stream of darkness which appeared to flow ceaselessly on the inside.

Gulp… All of the Yin spirits within a kilometer radius looked up at Hell’s gate at the exact same time. After all, a Yin spirit’s thirst for lunar essence is akin to human beings’ primal desire for water and food.

It was almost instinctive.

One Yin spirit stood up and gulped greedily as he began to walk over involuntarily. And then a second, a third… one hundred... one thousand! Some were old residents of Hell, but most of them were the new residents of Hell! In just a blink of an eye, there was already a massive throng of Yin spirits crowded around the entrance to Hell’s Gate. Even the Death Inquisitors who were half-kneeling behind Qin Ye and the rest began to heave greatly to the rise and fall of their chests. They licked their lips and began to rise to their feet softly.

Qin Ye stepped forward without a single word. Having already experienced two Yin spirit riots, he was already wary and vigilant of the situation at hand. Arthis ignored the situation and muttered indifferently, “Remember, they’re not humans. They’re ghosts; Yin spirits. The best way to communicate with them is through a display of your strength.”

“Strength that they’ve never witnessed before… strength that is out of this world.”