Yama Rising

Su Daji had squinted eyes, and there was a massive bulging stretching from the base of her throat right down to her abdomen, almost as though she were a pregnant woman ready to give birth at any time. Her left hand was propped up against what was once a state broadcasting building, while her right hand clung tightly to the broadcasting tower. She looked no different from a demon appearing in the dead of the night.

Soon after devouring the procession of Yin spirits, she lowered her head softly and murmured like a madman, “Hungry… so hungry… so very hungry!!!” Saliva dribbled down the sides of her lips, while her sharp teeth peeked out from the gap in her lips. With her squinty eyes, she scanned the entire city avariciously, “Food… I want more food! Find me food! I’m hungry!!!”

BOOM!! The clouds of Yin energy coalescing near the base of her feet were blown apart with her ferocious roar. At once, a shockwave of Yin energy swept across the city. Qin Hui’s clothes fluttered wildly, while the corpse standing behind him shivered profusely and fell to his knees.

And the corpse wasn’t the only one. In fact, every single Yin spirit across the entire city fell to their knees and lay prostrate on the ground in unconditional worship. They shuddered in fear, not daring to make the slightest peep of sound.

It was hell.

It was hell on earth.

Clack… The Buddhist beads in Qin Hui’s hands suddenly split apart, causing Qin Hui to raise a brow quizzically. At almost the same time, the gargantuan monstrosity standing between the broadcasting buildings glanced over as well.

Their eyes met.

“Su Daji?” Qin Hui asked placidly.

No response.

There was only the sound of endless gurgling and gulping of saliva.

“Su Daji, the lady who once used to be the irresistible beauty of her time, has actually turned into something like that… Don’t you think that Fate has a cruel sense of humour?” Qin Hui chuckled softly to himself.

But before he could go on, Su Daji slowly turned her head stiffly towards and stared intently at Qin Hui. A scarlet tongue slithered out of her mouth like a venomous snake as she licked her lips. And then, she suddenly smiled.

“How… fragrant…”

A split second later, a crimson bolt dazzled across the sky, hurtling straight towards Qin Hui. However, he remained rooted to the ground. Just as the bolt of lighting was about to strike him, a pitch-black body of an infant suddenly burst out of his chest and struck the crimson bolt with an equally powerful black bolt.

Crackle!!!

It was impossible to see how the two monsters were trading blows. That said, it was apparent that the entire space in front of Qin Hui suddenly became a blur, and there was an endless crackle of sounds, almost as though invisible firecrackers had gone off in the sky. This went on for 30 seconds, until it finally subsided.

The black infant slowly retracted back into Qin Hui's body, while the red lightning vanished without a trace. However, the aftermath of their quick altercation left hundreds of trenches tens of meters deep in the ground between where the two Prefect-class Yin spirits were. It was terrifying!

“Haa--...” Su Daji gulped as she licked her lips once more, “I hate it when people talk about my appearances… Do you think I really wouldn’t dare to kill you?”

She stood right in the middle of rolling clouds of Yin energy, towering over the buildings of the city, almost as though she were a demon of the legends.

“I just didn’t expect you to be that hideous.” Qin Hui sneered, “Besides, if you could kill me, you would’ve devoured me a long time ago. Us three daolords are all on equal footing with each other. There’s no need to harbour such unrealistic dreams about consuming each other.”

“How dare you!!” With a furious cry, the waters behind Su Daji suddenly rose up tens of meters high into the sky, and countless hands with exposed flesh emerged from beneath the surface of the waters, each of which was more than ten meters long. It was almost as though… the entire Pearl River was filled with ghastly hands like these!

Boom! The void trembled. If any mortal was around, they would only have noticed Su Daji’s left hand vanishing, followed closely by the roar of a sonic boom that ripped through the air.

She was reaching right across the Pearl River, across a vast expanse of over a thousand meters to give Qin Hui a good, tight slap across the cheeks! The river waters erupted like underwater explosives had just detonated! It was a hundred times more outrageous than the exaggerated films of the 90’s!

However, Qin Hui remained absolutely calm, and simply smiled placidly, “But… what if I told you there’s a way in which you can be restored to your original beauty?”

Whoosh! Su Daji’s left hand abruptly stopped just one meter away from Qin Hui’s face. The violent rush of wind accompanying her attack uprooted the decaying trees around her, and even turned the corpse coachman standing behind Qin Hui to disintegrate into ashes. Qin Hui’s clothes fluttered wildly, but, even then, he remained completely still.

“We’ve all managed to survive the massive upheaval in Hell, so what’s the point in struggling against each other like that?” Qin Hui stretched out his hand and gently pushed Su Daji’s colossal scarlet hand away, “That said, this isn’t the best place to be talking about these things. Will you come here, or should I go over?”

Silence.

Qin Hui didn’t rush things. Seconds later, a human-shaped bulge appeared on the surface of the colossal hand. It squirmed and writhed for several moments, following which a high school girl dressed in Cathayan school uniform burst out of the skin.

She was beautiful. Qin Hui was a man who had seen countless beauties in his lifetime, and even he couldn’t help but be dazzled by the beauty of this girl.

It was indescribable. It would be doing her a disservice attempting to describe her beauty with words. Every feature was splendid on its own, and the culmination of her features seemed to elevate her beauty to that of a completely different realm altogether. At the very least, she was peerless - even among the top beauties in Daehan.

But if one looked closely, her stomach appeared to be sunken in.

It was almost as though… she had no internal organs at all.

“Perfect complexion. I believe you must have personally handpicked her as your avatar, haven’t you? What’s the matter? Not hungry anymore?” He beckoned, and the golden Buddhist beads that were scattered all over the ground immediately flew back into his hands and formed a string of beads once more.

“I hope the message you bear won’t disappoint me. You’re wasting precious feeding time.” The young lady’s breaths were slightly ragged. A foot-long tongue hung out of her lips, and she licked her lips greedily.

“Are we going to continue with our discussions here?”

“Right here.” The young lady walked slowly ahead of Qin Hui, “I’m the master of Pearl River!”

Qin Hui followed closely behind her without saying a word. After 300 meters, he finally spoke, “The new Hell has just been established. You should’ve detected it.”

“Yes…” Su Daji didn’t like beating about the bush, but this was a topic of discussion that she couldn’t help but respond to.

After all, certain fears were etched deep into the marrows of their bones.

She could never forget the circumstances surrounding her death, especially when she first heard the words - “By Hell’s Dictum, all rabble shall disperse”.

“Who’s the current King Yanluo of Hell?” She didn’t even notice how her body was trembling slightly when she spoke of these things, “The fact that it’s just established… means that it probably wouldn’t be too strong. Should we--...”

“Don’t even dream about it.” Qin Hui cut her off right away, “If we had the guts to do so, we would already have joined forces and acted a hundred years ago.”

Silence.

Both of them knew far too well why they hadn’t done so.

It was fear.

That was the reason for which they decided to split up and carve out their own path. The first one to get dragged back into the depths of Hell would have no choice but to count it against his or her own dumb luck, while the other two daolords would be able to make their quick getaway. Staying together would only mean falling prey to Hell in one single operation.

Qin Hui’s next statement made Su Daji look up abruptly in shock, “I’ve seen the new King Yanluo of Hell.”

“There’s no need to stare at me like that. The fact that I’m alive says a lot.”

“To be honest, the situation in the new Hell is even worse than you think. Hell is practically starting from scratch. That said, I bring three pieces of information I believe you want to know more about.”

Qin Hui stopped walking, turned, and looked Su Daji straight in the eye, “Firstly, the Harken is still around. However, he’s not made his presence widely known. I believe that he might be grievously wounded. However… he might still be able to deliver one powerful blow if he truly desired. You should know full well what a Yama-class attack is like. It can track you down anywhere you are in Cathay. Unless we leave this place… we’re completely at the Harken’s mercy.”

Su Daji’s lips trembled, “But… there’s the problem of the Array of the Nine Gods…”

Qin Hui didn’t respond to that. Instead, he went on, “Secondly, the new King Yanluo… is likely going to advance to the ranks of an Abyssal Prefect on his current expedition out of Hell. Do you know what that means to an evil ghost of the same rank?”

Su Daji gulped nervously. All thoughts of her hunger had already gone out of her mind by now.

“Thirdly…” Qin Hui’s expression turned grave, and his voice even trembled slightly, “I saw… the Second King Yanluo of Hell…”

“Although it was just a glimpse, I’m pretty sure it was him.”

SSS!!! At once Su Daji reeled back with a terrified shriek. The previously beautiful avatar of Su Daji instantly aged dozens of years. Her hair scattered about wildly, while her jaws dropped as though words of taboo had just been spoken.

“He’s… still around?!”

“Why didn’t he follow Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva?! How… how is he still around?!”

As she spoke, she began to retreat madly. However, Qin Hui promptly held her back by the hand, “What are you doing?”

“Run… I’ve got to get out of here! He’s a demon… He’s the true demon among Yin spirits! I’ve got to get out of here!!”

“What’s the hurry!!!” It was only when Qin Hui bellowed at her that Su Daji finally came back to her senses and composed herself once more.

She looked back with ragged breaths, almost as though her bones were on the verge of collapse.

“I’m here on the instructions of the Third King Yanluo of Hell, Yanluo Qin. He instructs me to relay a message to you.” Qin Hui’s heart burned with passion as he stared at Su Daji, “Return to Hell and serve him faithfully, and he might just spare our lives. However, we… may never return to the mortal realm again.”

“Impossible!!!” Su Daji’s screamed with trembling lips, “That’s impossible… We’ve committed heinous crimes… I-I refuse to believe Hell! I… never want to live beneath the six paths of reincarnation ever again!”

“They can’t be trusted!”

“But you’ve got no choice!” Qin Hui grabbed Su Daji by the neck and gently ran his finger across her cheeks. The pupils in her eyes quivered violently, “Hell is already starting to reclaim all of the land that it has lost. Eastmount Province has already been reclaimed. Do you know who Kong Mo is? Perhaps you don’t. He’s an important pawn belonging to the Confucian Family. However, I’m sure you would’ve heard about the Mythic Palace of Reflections, haven’t you?”

“The Mythic Palace of reflections has duplicated the Shanhai Pass, and yet the new Hell has managed to seize it from right underneath Kong Mo’s nose! They were defeated by Hell! We’re talking about a battle between hundreds of thousands of yin soldiers! Hell is now ironing out the creases and taking the rest of Eastmount with it, before moving down along the coast. Do you know what that means? You’re next! Pearl River Delta! How far away are you? How far away is Eastmount Province from this place?!”

“Run? Where can you go? Are you faster than the Harken? And are you not afraid of that man? We’re like birds trapped in a cage! There’s simply no escape!”

Smack! Su Daji smacked his hand away with a maddened frenzy in her eyes, “Surrender? What if we get sentenced to an eternity under the six paths of reincarnation again? Have you ever considered the possibility that even if we help him recover all the lost land and restore Hell to its former glory, he might still sentence us to the depths of the six paths of reincarnation?”

“Are you going to make him swear it on oath? Don’t be naive! That’s the King Yanluo of Hell - a master of one of the Three Realms! Even the Heavenly Court has to look him in the eye as an equal when they speak! Are you really going to make a figurehead like that swear an oath to you? How important do you think you are? You’re nothing more than a meagre Prefect-class Yin spirit! You’re nothing more than a dog in the eyes of the old Fengdu Necropolis!”

“How can you guarantee that we won’t go back to that dark place?!”

She was practically screaming at the top of her voice.

The three daolords were all different in their personalities. Naturally, they each had their own perspective of Hell and the rest of the world.

Qini Hui was the one who seized every opportunity to curry favour with the emperor. He was both timid and cowardly, but these traits were all borne out of his fear of his imperial master. Likewise, it was also this fear that enabled him to fervently move up the ladder in his time.

And it was for this reason that he was here today.

Su Daji, on the other hand, was hailed as the demon queen of a thousand years. She was favoured by the kings, regardless of who the incumbent might be. She never cared much about the authorities and their regulations, because she always lived above it. Naturally, her concerns were only limited to the politics within the harem of the incumbent. She considered her own safety and security of paramount importance. All in all, she didn’t have as much foresight as Qin Hui did.

Therefore, she wasn’t able to steel her resolve and make up her mind.

She wanted to seize the opportunity, but she was afraid of commitment. The indelible marks that Hell had once left on her would never fade away from her mind.