Yama Rising

This was something that a ruler absolutely could not tolerate!

Treason and establishing a nation within a nation were the reverse scales of a ruler. [It's said that dragons have something known as a reverse scale, and that they'll fly into an uncontrollable rage if anyone dares to touch it. As such, reverse scale has become an analogy essentially for a line that cannot be crossed.] Qin Ye didn't think that he would be infuriated by this, but to his surprise, in the face of this situation, his fury was unbelievably fierce!

His voice rumbled over Mirage City like a furious thunderclap, and the voice within The Mirage fell completely silent. Never did the owner of the voice think that he would be met by such scorching fury.

It didn't make sense! Mirage City had an extremely good foundation. If the Cathayan Underworld had discovered it, shouldn't it be considering attempting to absorb and assimilate Mirage City rather than to destroy it?

Mirage City housed so many troops and powerful beings, and it was supported by a Yama-King. Was Hell really just going to destroy it without considering the potential consequences?

Even setting all that aside, they were all brethren from the same nation!

"Your Excellency, we're all citizens of Cathay!"

"How dare you?!" Qin Ye interjected in a thunderous voice that was brimming with killing intent. "If you really considered yourself to be a citizen of Cathay, then you should be serving Hell as a loyal subordinate! Instead, you're presiding over this treasonous city, and the only thing you haven't done is leak the current state of the Cathayan Underworld to the rest of the world! Even after all of this, you dare to refer to me as brethren of yours?! Is this what you do to your fellow brethren?!"

"Your Excellency, this area of the sea isn't within the territory of any nation!!"

A cold smile appeared on Qin Ye's face as he replied, "You think Hell would be stumped because of that? No one can escape King Yanluo's decree of death!"

As soon as his voice trailed off, a brush suddenly shot out of his sleeve before inscribing the character for "kill" in mid-air in a free-flowing font.

This was his origin Yin artifact.

Progressing up the ranks, there was the demonhead sabre he had used as a Netherworld Operative, the soul shackles he had used as a Soul Hunter, the spirit streamer he had used as an Anitya Hellguard, the Judgment Pen he had used as an Infernal Judge, and the Abyssal Prefect's token he had used as an Abyssal Prefect. Now, as a Yama-King, it was a brush, one that was capable of deciding one's life or death. 

Its name was Fate.

Never did Qin Ye think that Fate would automatically accept him as its owner and become his origin Yin artifact once he reached the Yama-King level.

In the instant that the character was completed, it immediately began to expand, turning a bright red color before instantly devouring half of the entire sky. Every single stroke was like a giant rift that had appeared in the heavens, and immediately thereafter, countless Yin ghosts flooded out of the strokes amid bursts of sharp screeching.

None of the Yin ghosts possessed substantial bodies. Instead, they were skeletons formed by Yin energy, wearing tattered suits of armor with scarlet netherfire shimmering in their eyes. The Yin ghosts were wielding all types of different weapons, including sabers, spears, swords, halberds, axes, staves, hooks, tridents... As they descended from the heavens, boundless Yin energy came crashing down with them.

The entire sky took on a blood-red hue, and all of the stars faded out of existence.

"My god..." An evil ghost looked up in a slack-jawed manner at this doomsday-like scene with his mouth wide agape, looking as if he had been turned into a stone statue.

The dim yet boundless light devoured everything in all directions while stars fell like rain, presenting a stunning spectacle that firmly ingrained itself into the minds of all of the evil ghosts that beheld it. These "stars'' were imbued with immense killing intent, and they were crashing down directly toward The Mirage. Right at this moment, a loud yell rang out from within The Mirage, and a figure rose straight up into the sky.

The figure was wielding a longsword that he slashed through the air in a circle around himself, releasing a virtually substantial shockwave that swept forth in all directions. As a result, several hundred Yin ghosts were instantly eradicated, and immediately thereafter, he brought his palms together before pulling them apart again, releasing several dozen talismans that flew up into the sky, where they formed a spherical protective barrier with him inside it, along with the indistinct projection of a buddha.

This was a tall and thin middle-aged Taoist priest with a longsword strapped to his back, and a horsetail whisk held in his hand. He was an advanced Abyssal Prefect, only one step away from reaching the Yama-King level.

After eradicating several hundred of the evil ghosts closest to him, he immediately said, "I am Gongsun Yang, the vice-captain of The Mirage! Your Excellency, do you really insist on killing your own brethren in cold blood?!"

Gongsun Yang? Qin Ye had never heard this name before. However, just the fact that he was the vice-captain of The Mirage alone was enough to warrant a death sentence.

"What right does an insubordinate traitor like you have to refer to yourself as my brethren?" A cold smile appeared on Qin Ye's face as he made a grabbing motion, and the "kill" character in the sky abruptly exploded, erupting into boundless sword energy that came crashing down in a frenzy!

"ARRRGH!!!" Gongsun Yang was truly desperate now, and he frantically slashed his sword through the air. In the sky above, countless sword projections were releasing bursts of scintillating light to illuminate the dark sea of Yin energy.

Pristine white sword projections occasionally peeked through the vast expanses of dark clouds before immediately fading again. Within the span of less than five minutes, the sword projections had become noticeably sparser.

Qin Ye swept a hand through the air, and Fate immediately flew into his grasp before transforming into a golden spear. He then took a deep breath and moved backward, lowering his center of gravity like a predator about to pounce before launching himself through the air like a speeding arrow.

Boom!!  Even the space behind him shuddered violently, and he shot forth through the air as a blinding streak of light. Before any of the evil ghosts even had a chance to react, he was already standing on the other side of the Yin energy vortex.

He was still the same person, and nothing had changed about him, but the tip of his spear was stained with blood.

At the same time, the Yin energy vortex that had been rapidly revolving just a moment ago abruptly stopped. Immediately thereafter, the dark clouds that enveloped Gongsun Yang from all sides slowly dissipated, revealing a stunned Gongsun Yang standing at the very center.

The horsetail whisk in his hand had transformed into a pristine white lotus flower with its petals facing downward to keep all of the Yin ghosts at bay. However, a large hole had been punched through the flower petals directly in front of him.

His entire body shuddered slightly, and his horsetail whisk disintegrated into countless specks of white light. As a result, it was revealed that a fist-sized hole had been punched through his chest. His face was extremely pale, and blood was gushing out of his mouth.

"My god..." a Yin spirit exclaimed in a trembling voice. This was a battle between high-grade cultivators.

No one had been able to clearly see what had happened, so no one knew exactly what had taken place.

They could only see the outcome, and it was one that filled them with despair.

"He lost... It's over for us..." A female Yin spirit looked up at the sky in a slack-jawed manner, seemingly trying with all her might to convince herself that what she was seeing was nothing more than a hallucination. Crippling fear began to well up in everyone's hearts. With the stand-in mayor dead, who was going to be able to protect them?

"No... I don't want to die..."

"I want to be granted amnesty, but I haven't been to the Cathayan Underworld even once..."

"I've finally become a Count after so long, how could I die here?!"

Everyone seemed to be frozen in time as they faced their inevitable fate. As Gongsun Yang swayed slightly up in the sky, time seemed to resume, and all of the evil ghosts yelled in unison, "Spare us, your Excellency!"

"Spare me! I don't want to die!!"

"I haven't done anything detrimental to the Cathayan Underworld!"

"We've only ever thought about it, but we've never actually done anything! Your Excellency, please!"

"Spare me! I'm willing to serve the Cathayan Underworld as its most loyal servant!"

At this point, all of the Yin soldiers had already surrounded what remained of the evil ghosts in the city, and Qin Ye looked on in an expressionless manner before issuing a calm order. "Kill them all."

"Yes," Qin Hui replied in a respectful voice, and immediately thereafter, all of the Yin soldiers, hungry ghosts, and skeletal dogs pounced toward the evil ghosts in a frenzy.

Qin Ye didn't even bother to oversee the rest of the proceedings.

There was no Yama-King here aside from himself, so a crushing victory was ensured, and the rest of the clean-up job was nothing more than a formality. In the underworld, it was often the case that the top-end powerful beings could sway the entire battlefield, and that was the main difference between battles in the underworld and those in the mortal realm.

With Gongsun Yang gravely wounded, everyone else was completely at the mercy of Chu Renmei, Huang Jiansen, and Qin Hui. From the very beginning, Qin Ye had never intended to spare even a single evil ghost in this city.

He turned toward the deathly pale Gongsun Yang and said in a calm voice, "You still have 20 seconds left to live. Tell me where Xu Fu and the Peach Blossom Spring are, and I can promise you that your soul will be spared the torture that would otherwise await it. Otherwise, I'm sure you're aware of what the Cathayan Underworld is capable of, we can put you through the most excruciating torture for thousands of years. Don't expect to be able to escape from the six paths of reincarnation and the 18 abysses of punishment, you'll be put through them countless times over."

Gongsun Yang observed Qin Ye with a calm expression, and he suddenly smiled before replying in an extremely strained voice, "If I tell you... will you... spare... my soul?"

"I never go back on my word."

"Alright..." Decisions made on the brink of death were always snap decisions as there was no time to hesitate. Gongsun Yang continued in a trembling voice, "THe Peach Blossom Spring... can only be summoned... by a..."

He coughed up a mouthful of blood before continuing in an urgent manner, "By a beacon... Once the beacon is discovered.. the island will travel to it on its own... The island... is alive... and the beacon is..."

Right at this moment, his facial features suddenly became extremely twisted.

He opened his mouth wide as he frantically clawed at his own throat, and something seemed to be bulging out of the top of his head, as if there were some type of living being residing within his skull. In the next instant, the object tore through the top of his head before spreading its wings and flying away, revealing itself to be a cicada.

This was a pristine white cicada that was covered in blood, and it was flying extremely quickly.

"Xu Fu!!!" Gongsun Yang roared with what little remained of his strength, and his eyes had already rolled into the back of his head. With that final hateful cry, his body abruptly exploded into a storm of blood.

Damn it! 

Qin Ye heaved an internal sigh of relief, but he then immediately became extremely cautious again. He was already prepared for the possibility that a restriction had been placed on Gongsun Yang's soul, so this was only to be expected, but what he didn't expect was that Gongsun Yang's soul had completely disappeared.

It was as if that cicada had devoured Gongsun Yang's soul, and he was completely unable to sense it anymore.

"Beacon?" He gritted his teeth as he lowered his head and quickly processed Gongsun Yang's final words in his mind.

Where was this beacon?

He was on the verge of learning the beacon's location!

So it really is you, Xu Fu! How could you be so cruel? This is your right-hand man that's followed you for so long, how could you kill him in cold blood like this? Hold on... 

His eyes suddenly lit up as a thought occurred to him.

It wasn't necessarily the case that Gongsun Yang's soul had been destroyed.

Perhaps he had no soul in the first place!

The reason this possibility seemed likely to Qin Ye was because there was a very good chance that he was a living dead.

If Gongsun Yang really had been Xu Fu's right-hand man from the very beginning, then he would've also lived for over 2,000 years. In other words, he had to have also eaten the Taisui fungus!

However, when Xu Fu first met Bu Wantian, the former had told the latter that Bu Wantian was the first person he had met to have eaten the Taisui fungus and survived.

This meant that prior to Bu Wantian, he hadn't ever seen anyone who had consumed the Taisui fungus and survived!

That cicada was the link that connected Gongsun Yang and Xu Fu, and it had to contain Xu Fu's true energy!

With that in mind, Qin Ye felt as if a layer of mist had been lifted from his mind, and he hurriedly set off in pursuit of the white cicada.

"My Lord!" Qin Hui immediately extended a respectful bow at the sight of Qin Ye rushing directly toward him. "We've gathered all of the Yin spirits of Mirage City that are at or above the Infernal Judge level. In total, there are 15 Infernal Judges and two Abyssal Prefects. What would you like to..."

No response.

Qin Ye was entirely fixated on chasing down that cicada.

It was the key to uncovering the truth about the Peach Blossom Spring, which had been hidden in the cracks of history for 2,000 years!

He had to catch it! If he missed this opportunity, then it would become extremely difficult for him to track down the true Peach Blossom Spring!

Thus, a high-speed chase ensued. The cicada was extraordinarily fast, and even after chasing it at full speed for a minute, Qin Ye was still three meters away from it. Furthermore, no matter what arts he cast upon the cicada, it remained completely unaffected.

This was clearly the creation of another Yama-King.

Right at this moment, the cicada abruptly changed directions, plunging directly down into the darkness.

Qin Ye immediately drew to a halt. At this point, he had already flown out of the city, and a giant black hole was situated right ahead of him.

It was roughly 100 meters in size and extended straight down with no bottom in sight. Right as he reached the air above the black hole, it abruptly shuddered.

Immediately thereafter, a powerful pillar of water erupted out from within. At the same time, a thunderous roar rang out within the deep sea.

It was as if a giant beast had been awakened.

In the next instant, two massive sources of light slowly appeared on the inky-black seabed several dozen kilometers away.