Yama Rising

This was a question that no one could answer.

Thinking back, the Plumed Serpent God had always been concealed behind a shroud of mystery from the very beginning. No one knew exactly what he was doing, and all of the information gathered on him was collected through his own verbal accounts.

He had helped Qin Ye in the past. During the conference for the re-signing of the treaty on the non-proliferation of forbidden arts, he had performed a divine descent in front of all of the underworld's death gods, thereby swinging the momentum toward the Cathayan Underworld. However, Qin Ye had returned the favor. If it weren't for that drop of blood of a divinity, the Plumed Serpent God most likely still wouldn't be able to appear in the underworld of his own accord.

However, on the international political stage, there were no true friendships.

Neither side owed the other any more favors, and they were both on the same starting line. However, this wasn't what Qin Ye was truly focused on.

He had never gotten too closely involved with the Plumed Serpent God because of his personality traits.

Out of the four suns of the Aztec religion, he was directly or indirectly responsible for the collapse of three of them. Furthermore, he wasn't someone who could be content with what he had. On the contrary, he was extremely ambitious. Otherwise, he wouldn't have dominated the Alkebulan Underworlds with the intention of returning to the new continent someday.

Qin Ye didn't like an ambitious and sinister character like him. Furthermore, the Plumed Serpent God was going to be one of his future potential competitors for supremacy over the new continent once Mictlantecutli and Mictetikasiwa from this world one way or another.

In contrast, he much preferred working with Tezcatlipoca, who was a victim of history and far easier to control.

Having arranged all of his thoughts, he turned toward Woody again. "Continue."

Woody gulped nervously before doing as he was told. "I'm sure someone like you is aware that there are some things in this world that we can't come into contact with."

At this point, he was sorely regretting his decision not to keep quiet and hide the fact that he knew about Dream Island.

These people... No, these monsters were not beings that he could afford to get involved with! Why had they appeared at a bistro of all places? Did they not have anything better to do?!

"I have received divine edicts from Leoric in the past. However..." He gritted his teeth before continuing, "Leoric hasn't appeared for close to 10 years now. Even though Dax took over his followers and undermined his authority, he didn't reappear, and I only received one piece of divine edict during the past decade."

A reminiscent look appeared in his eyes as he recounted, "One morning, I woke up on my ship, and I discovered a parchment scroll placed beside my bed. The scroll had a black wax seal adhered to it, and that's a symbol unique to Leoric. Enclosed on the scroll was a map. It was a map of the Caribbean Sea, but that was a Caribbean Sea that I had never seen before!"

A hint of horror crept into his eyes as he spoke, and his voice was beginning to tremble. "At the center of the Caribbean Sea was an island in the shape of a pyramid, and what's even stranger is that there were countless monsters drawn around the island!"

Monsters?

Qin Ye turned to Tezcatlipoca and asked, "Does your treasure vault have guardians?"

"No," Tezcatlipoca replied. "The treasure vaults of gods cannot be reached by mortals, so there's no need for guardians."

They were conversing with one another, and Woody could see their lips moving, but he couldn't hear what they were saying, and that only made him even more horrified. The fear in his heart made him involuntarily spill all of his secrets. "What's even stranger about the map is that around the island, the entire Caribbean Sea is taken up by a massive sea monster!"

Tezcatlipoca abruptly raised his head upon hearing this, and Yin energy was beginning to seep out of all of his orifices as he stared intently at Woody. "What does the sea monster look like?"

Woody couldn't see the Yin energy, but he could instinctively sense that the white man standing before him had suddenly become countless times more terrifying. It was as if he was standing in front of a sabertooth tiger, one that had been starving for several days!

"I, I can't explain it..." His voice was beginning to tremble, and he unconsciously sank deeper into the sofa in a bid to search for a sense of security. "It, it seems to have 1,000 mouths, 1,000 eyes, countless tentacles... And its head looks a little like a sea anemone! I had never seen anything so terrifying in my life! Even though it was a rather abstract drawing and I only took one glance at it, I had nightmares for a month straight! All of the nightmares were about that sea monster... It would chase after me, and no matter how I tried to get away, I would always be devoured by it."

Tezcatlipoca raised his head as a twisted smile appeared on his face, and his eyes were already bloodshot as he ground his teeth together furiously.

Qin Ye raised an eyebrow and asked, "Are you alright?"

No response.

Several seconds later, Tezcatlipoca sat back down onto the sofa and nodded in response. "As I'm sure you're aware, the fifth sun god was once the sea monster, Cipactli."

Qin Ye's pupils contracted slightly upon hearing this. "You're not saying..."

The twisted smile on Tezcatlipoca's face became even more pronounced as he said, "The place where we slew Cipactli was the center of the Caribbean Sea! The sea monster on that map is none other than Cipactli! Cipactli was known as the Eternal Devourer, and it resides in the abyss. It devours everything around it, including space, so no one is able to track it down. This is most likely why Dream Island is able to remain hidden to everyone!"

Qin Ye was silent for a long while before turning to Woody. "When did you receive that divine edict? I need the exact time."

"Nine years ago," Woody replied without any hesitation. "There's no way I would misremember something so important, and we were able to track down Dream Island using the coordinates on the map..."

"I'm not interested in hearing about how you found the island," Qin Ye interrupted, and the room fell silent.

Neither Qin Ye nor Tezcatlipoca said anything as both of them realized that things were becoming more and more bizarre.

Dream Island was located at the place where Cipactli had perished, yet the treasure vault of the Aztec gods was also there? How did Leoric know about this?

Everything was pointing in the Plumed Serpent God, and it seemed a little too obvious.

Even more importantly, the three death gods of the Caribbean Sea had been taken by the Heavenly Dao 10 years ago, so why was it that a death god that had been taken by the Heavenly Dao was able to send a message to one of his followers?

"This is impossible... Even the Plumed Serpent God needs my help to descend into this world, there's no way Leoric would've been able to send out that message! In that case, who could it have been?"

Coincidentally, all of the signs seemed to be pointing toward the Plumed Serpent God once again.

How interesting...

Qin Ye stood up and put on his hood as he said, "Take me to your ship tomorrow night."

Regardless of what the underlying truth was, everything would be clear once they found Dream Island, and it was very likely that the Death Star was there as well.

……………………………………

Time passed by very quickly, and Qin Ye and Tezcatlipoca arrived at the port the next night.

Even at night, the port was still very busy. After all, the arrival of ships wasn't going to be delayed by the time of day. However, this was quite a chaotic place, and there weren't even any instructions on the map.

This port was named "Owl", and the asphalt road here had virtually been entirely worn away.

There was a short wooden bridge that had been crudely constructed next to the shore, and one could tell that this port had been standing for at least several centuries. In fact, it could even be a relic from the golden era of Caribbean piracy.

However, it was still usable.

At this moment, there were already five people standing at the port.

They were Qin Ye, Tezcatlipoca, Woody, and two burly white men, both of whom were looking at Woody with puzzled expressions, wondering why their captain had been silent this entire time when he was normally much more talkative. Furthermore, he seemed a little... afraid? Afraid of those two?

What was there to be afraid of? For pirates like them, guns were the only thing that they feared. One of them laid a hand onto the gun strapped to his waist, then turned to look elsewhere.

At this moment, Woody had his palms together and was praying to the heavens, something that he very rarely did. If he could turn back time, he would definitely go back to the previous day and give himself a few vicious slaps to the face. At this point, there was nothing he could do aside from pray.

12 AM.

Finally, a dim yellow light appeared on the inky-black surface of the sea in the distance.

Woody repressed the fear in his own heart as he gritted his teeth and stepped forward. He knew that turning back wasn't an option at this point, and he had to put on a strong front as the captain to do everything in his power to ensure the survival of his crew.

"Get ready to board the ship!"

The sound of splashing waves was growing louder and louder, but it was becoming more and more apparent from Woody's expression that something was wrong.

"What's wrong?" Qin Ye asked.

Woody shook his head in response. Under normal circumstances, the ship should've already been accelerating at this point. However, it was still drifting slowly toward the port at a steady pace, and the signal light had been ignited on the ship.

In order to avoid run-ins with the government, some lights had to be switched on. However, whenever a ship approached a port, the signal light had to be switched on, both to herald their arrival and to allow others to identify the ship.

The fact that the signal light hadn't been switched on meant that something had happened...

Everyone remained silent, and it took the ship a full hour to finally reach a point where it was clearly visible to the naked eye from the shore, and thus, everyone was finally able to see what had happened on the ship.

"My god..." One of Woody's crewmates fell to his knees with a dull thump, and cold sweat was pouring down his entire body as he stared at their ship with bulging eyes.

Beside him, the other crewmate was also looking up with trembling lips, and his breathing had already unconsciously ceased.

Woody's mouth was also gaped open with incredulity, and he was staring at his own ship with a furious expression, but he didn't dare to take even a single step forward as his fear far outweighed his fury.

Their entire crew, consisting of several dozen men, were hanging from the mast!

Their bodies were completely charred black with blood flowing out of the orifices, and they were all hanging from the mast like kites, while countless crows flew around the mast incessantly. The only light that was switched on on the ship was an old searchlight that was giving off a dim yellow glow.