Supreme Emperor of Swords

The figures floating on the black river were actually Spirits of the Dead.

These monsters, that had slaughtered nearly 10,000 experts of the Human and the Demon Clans in the Towering Buddha Pagoda, had reappeared here. The only difference was that they were no longer pale green in color, but looked now like living humans. Their eyes and brows looked more distinct, and they were no longer as aggressive as before. They drifted down the river toward an unknown destination.

Gazing out, Ding Hao saw that there were tens of thousands of these mutated Spirits of the Dead floating on the black river.

His heart skipped a beat. “Have all the Spirits of the Dead absorbed by the gray light gate of the Heavenly Samsara Disc reappeared here? So this place must be… the Hell Path!”

At that time, millions of Spirits of the Dead had been engulfed into the Hell Path.

Ding Hao was shocked and suddenly remembered something. Was he in Hell? It was too big a joke. Only the dead would appear in Hell. But was he dead?

“No, I can’t be dead.”

Because in Hell, the dead were controlled by the laws of Hell and would suffer every kind of torture to atone for their sins before they could reincarnate. But here, he could move about freely without being restrained by the rules, and even…

Ding Hao remembered that he had reached the river with a single thought, while another thought had made the lotus platform materialize on the river surface. These meant that he could control everything in this world.

He decided to try again.

“Black river, stop flowing!”

Ding Hao released this thought.

The next moment, time and space suddenly seemed to freeze. The surging black river really stopped flowing. The black waves of the river seemed instantaneously frozen. The Spirits of the Dead in the river also froze, as if someone had immobilized them in the current.

Well…

His guess was correct.

He was shocked and pleasantly surprised.

He released another thought from his mind, and everything returned to normal. The black river surged again. He pulled a frozen Spirit of the Dead directly up to the sky above the river.

A dull gray glow began to swirl around that Spirit of the Dead.

“Where… where am I?”

The Spirit of the Dead actually spoke.

It had regained its consciousness.

This was beyond Ding Hao’s expectation. He just wanted to carefully examine this Spirit of the Dead after its mutation. He did not expect such a thing to have happened. It seemed that once a Spirit of the Dead left the black river, it would slowly develop consciousness and memories.

Ding Hao decided to wait and observe.

“Where am I? I was fighting the invading demons, but I died in battle… How did I appear here? Where am I…?”

The Spirit of the Dead was tall and brawny, clad in a suit of armor. He thought hard, his eyes full of perplexity. Then he finally noticed Ding Hao standing in front of him.

“Who are you?”

The Spirit of the Dead became instinctively wary and wanted to gather its power, but it found that its body was so light that it could not gather any of its Mystic Power. There was no trace of its once powerful strength when it was alive.

“This is the Hell Path. You’re dead,” Ding Hao whispered.

“Me, dead?” The Spirit of the Dead was shocked. Then he remembered something. He gradually calmed down, saying with a bitter smile, “Yes, I’m dead. I died with the invading demons. What happened afterward… I don’t remember… Is this the legendary Hell for the Kings? Haha, so I am in Hell now!”

His memories were fragmentary and sparse.

Ding Hao said nothing.

The Spirit of the Dead in front of him must have been a great man when he was alive. Any ordinary person who was told that he was dead would definitely lose his composure and might even start yelling. But he accepted the reality at once and acted very calmly.

“Are you the god who decides the fate of the deceased in Hell?”

After the Spirit of the Dead calmed down, he looked up at Ding Hao.

Ding Hao nodded gently.

In fact, he was not sure what he was now. If they were really in the world of the Heavenly Samsara Disc, then as its owner, Ding Hao could indeed dictate many things. But what if this place was just a space connected to the Heavenly Samsara Disc?

His previous experiment proved that his will was almost absolute in this Hell Path.

Ding Hao was quite confident.

The Spirit of the Dead lowered its head and saw endless numbers of its kind in the black river below, drifting mindlessly. It sighed. “In that case, what do you plan to do with me? Do you want me to become muddle-headed ghosts like them?”

Ding Hao lowered his head and pondered the questions seriously.

He was just curious at first, so he took the Spirit of the Dead out of the black river for an examination. He didn’t expect such a strange change after the Spirit of the Dead left the river. Ding Hao felt hesitant about throwing the spirit back into the river.

“What’s your name?” Ding Hao looked up and asked.

“My name…?” The Spirit of the Dead gave a wry smile and shook its head. “A dead person needs no name. My surname was Jiang!”

“His surname was Jiang?”

Ding Hao suddenly felt a flash of inspiration.

The legends on the Earth in his former life claimed that there were Ten Halls of Yama in Hell. The king of the first hall was King Qinguang. He would judge the souls for the merits and sins of their former lives. Any soul that was led to Hell had to be tried by him at once. Those who were more good than evil, or those who had done as many good deeds as wicked ones, were sent to the tenth hall for reincarnation. The rest who were more wicked than good would be sent to the second hall for torture.

He did not know if the legends about Hell in his former life were related to the Hell Path in this world.

At this moment, Ding Hao could not quite know.

But he suddenly had an uncontrollable impulse to nurture and expand his powers.

“Since I can dictate everything here, so… hehe!”

The idea arose in his heart and he tried it.

A 330-meter-high lotus platform suddenly rose up from the black river, supporting a mirror as large as a divine eye. The mirror was smooth and swirling with divine radiant mists, like a magistrate’s eye, overlooking the boundless earth and the black river.

A divine light shot out of the mirror, illuminating the 360-meter wide river. The Spirits of the Dead in it were also swept by the mirror’s light.

Three ancient seal script characters appeared on the lotus platform—

“The Karma Mirror!”

As soon as these three characters appeared, a rumble suddenly resounded in this realm, sounding like spring thunder, the paean of living beings, or the commendation of gods and devils. Suddenly, there seemed to be a kind of tenderness— an indescribable god-like vigor—in this dark, cold and lonely world.

It was a truly amazing scene, like the creation of the world.

The Spirit of the Dead surnamed Jiang was originally depressed because he was dead, but what he was witnessing now seemed like a miracle. He was utterly flabbergasted.

The teal-robed young man in front of him seemed calm and gentle. In the living world, could even a God Realm being be more powerful than him?

Was this young man really the God of the Dead?

Ding Hao nodded and was satisfied with his performance.

According to the legends on the Earth in his previous life, a Karma Mirror existed and it could reflect the merits and evil deeds of deceased spirits. As its light swept across their faces, everything would be revealed.

He created this mythic object in the Hell Path with his mind alone.

The huge lotus platform was sacred and solemn, with a hallowed aura that did not match this dark and gloomy world. Its huge eye swept down, and a beam of divine light enveloped the body of that Spirit of the Dead surnamed Jiang.

All of a sudden, a lustrous light reflected from that Spirit of the Dead’s body.

“Eh?”

Ding Hao was a little surprised.

The Karma Mirror could distinguish between good- and evil-doers in their previous lives. The bodies of the good would be transparent like jade, flawless and pure. The bodies of the wicked would be black, filthy and fetid. The more crystalline a soul’s spiritual body was, the more merits it had accumulated in its previous life. The blacker and more foul-smelling its body was, the more evil it had done in its previous life.

99% of this Spirit of the Dead’s body was crystal clear like jade, shimmering with a divine light. There was only a speck of unstable grayish black, but it did not smell at all. This meant that it was one of those rare good people in its former life, or that it had done many meritorious deeds.

It was simply too rare a phenomenon.

Ding Hao’s initial reaction was one of shock. Then he thought that his Karma Mirror might not be working. He quickly aimed the divine light on the black river, only to see both light and dark on these tens of thousands of Spirits of the Dead. Some were more good than evil, others more evil than good. They were a motley bunch, without any of the strange phenomenon seen on this Spirit of the Dead before him.

It meant that the Karma Mirror was working.

“Could I have fished out a Spirit of the Dead from the black river that was once an extraordinarily good man?”

Ding Hao also felt a little amazed.

But this outcome was exactly what he had hoped for.

“If you’re willing, I can grant you great powers to take over this land of the dead. Even as a Spirit of the Dead, you can still cultivate and accumulate merits. You can reach a higher realm and return to the world of the living some day,” Ding Hao said quietly, looking at the Spirit of the Dead in front of him.

“What?”

The Spirit of the Dead surnamed Jiang was shocked. It thought it had heard wrong.

“You have accumulated great merits in your life, so you can avoid the pain of Hell and are offered this opportunity,” Ding Hao said solemnly. “Of course, if you don’t want to, you can still go through the samsara, but…”

“I’m willing.” The Spirit of the Dead finally understood. It suppressed the ecstasy in its heart and immediately agreed.

Ding Hao smiled a little.

He had not explained everything. The Hell Path was the only path opened in the Heavenly Samsara Disc. The other five paths had not been opened. The Six Paths of Reincarnation were not complete, so Ding Hao did not know how to start him on his journey to reincarnation. Those Spirits of the Dead in the black river under them might have to drift mindlessly forever.