Yama Rising

"Master, are you alright?" Inside a high-end restaurant, an elderly man was trembling uncontrollably as he drew the curtains shut in a panicked manner, and his teeth were chattering audibly.

The man was very old, looking to be in his eighties, and he was wearing a simple black Taoist robe. No matter how his disciple tried to help him to his feet, he didn't dare to stand up. Instead, all he did was frantically cover his own nose and mouth.

"Is there something wrong with the air here?" His disciple was in his twenties, and he was quite perplexed. His master, Chang Kongzi, was one of the three founding fathers of the Zhengyi Dao, and he had been paid handsomely to hold a Dao seminar. A presidential suite had also been arranged for him in a five-star hotel, so there shouldn't have been any problems with the air here.

Also, he wasn't aware of any history of heart problems with his master.

Right at this moment, Chang Gongzi suddenly gripped onto his wrist, then silently mouthed the words "don't move! get down!" to him.

For some reason, even though all the windows were tightly shut, an extremely cold gust of wind abruptly swept through the room, and the light fixtures began to flash and zap unsteadily. Some blurry shadows had appeared between the flickering lights, and an inexplicable sense of fear permeated throughout the room.

Cold sweat began to flow down the disciple's forehead, and he immediately laid low onto the ground. Almost as soon as he did so, the window in front of them was violently shattered.

In the face of this startling turn of events, the two of them desperately clamped their hands over their mouths and noses in silence while their eyes were also tightly shut.

There was no sound to be heard.

The cries of insects, the sound of the wind, of the cars outside... Everything seemed to have faded into silence. It wasn't winter, but the Yin wind blowing in through the shattered window chilled one to the bone. The curtains were flapping wildly, and immediately thereafter, a nose extended into the room.

It was an extraordinarily long nose, much like the nose of a witch depicted in western mythology. At the base of the nose was a patch of long, white hair, and the face was riddled with what appeared to be ulcers in the shape of human faces. The giant nose was gently inhaling, as if it were trying to sniff out something.

From the light reflecting off the floorboards, the disciple could see the reflection of the giant nose up above, and he was biting down onto his own lower lip with such force that he was drawing blood, yet he didn't dare to make a single sound. Instead, he clamped his hands even more tightly over his own nose and mouth. He knew that in the face of these things, releasing any Yang energy would spell certain death!

Sniff sniff... Sniff sniff... The entire room was deathly silent, and only after a full 20 seconds had passed did the nose withdraw out of the room. At the same time, a voice that seemed to be capable of captivating one's innermost desires rang out from outside. "What happened to you?"

"I caught a whiff of a familiar scent," replied an extremely unpleasant voice that sounded like cat claws scratching over a blackboard. "I recall that their sect seemed to have captured me once several decades ago. I guess it must've been my imagination..."

The voices gradually faded into the distance, and only after a full 10 minutes had passed did Chang Kongzi and his disciple get up from the ground. Both of them were deathly pale and panting heavily.

Only now did the disciple realize that his back was already drenched in cold sweat, yet he paid no heed to that as he asked in a trembling voice, "What was that, Master?"

Chang Kongzi made a quieting gesture, then silently made his way over to the window before taking a look outside. In the next instant, he abruptly drew a sharp breath, and he stumbled back several steps with an ashen complexion.

The entire city was still brightly lit, yet there wasn't a single person out on the streets.

Instead, there were giant figures several dozen meters tall prowling the city with Yin energy revolving all around them, making the entire city appear as if it were a hellish nightmare.

Each one of those figures was around 20 to 30 meters tall, and they came in all types of different shapes and forms. They were traversing through the streets and the tall buildings, releasing boundless Yin energy that converged toward the Oriental Pearl Television Tower from all directions. The entire ground was covered in dark Yin energy, and even the light of the moon had been completely obscured.

Chang Kongzi wiped away the cold sweat on his forehead, then slumped onto a chair. He poured himself a glass of water before downing it one go, and his chest was heaving violently. "Have you heard of the regulation prohibiting one from becoming gods after the republic era?"

The disciple nodded in response. This was actually originally an ironic attack on the Department of Cultural Affairs for its excessive policing of the cultural sector. It stemmed from the actual regulation prohibiting the spread of feudal superstitions after the republic era. The Yiguandao and the Falun Gong had caused the government immense trouble prior to that, and that was what had led to the establishment of that regulation.

"Is there something wrong with that, Master?"

A wry smile appeared on Chang Kongzi's face as he cast a complex gaze toward the giant figures prowling the city. "You thought that was just a joke, right? In reality, the true meaning behind that is that there is no longer any space for cultivation after the founding of the new Cathay. Demons are born from belief, and once the general public became educated, they learned to discern reality from mythology, and thus, it became impossible for new myths and legends to emerge. Thus, the history of mythology drew to a conclusion there. However, what about all of the demons that emerged prior to the founding of the republic?"

Before the disciple had a chance to reply, he answered his own question. "A large proportion of them were taken by Hell. However, we all know that a major revolution took place in Hell close to 100 years ago, and it became impossible to get into contact with Fengdu. The Yiguandao took advantage of this window of opportunity to establish itself, then nurtured the final batch of demons prior to the founding of the republic."

The disciple drew a sharp breath upon hearing this, then cast his gaze out the window as he said in a trembling voice, "Are you saying that they're..."

"That's right." The reply came from another voice, a female voice that sent chills running down the listener's spine. "Those demons are the 73 immortals."

Right at this moment, all of the lights in the room were instantly snuffed out. Immediately thereafter, countless specks of netherfire were ignited in the room, and all of the doors swung shut violently. All of the mirrors in the room then seemed to flash briefly, following which a third figure appeared in the room, and they were seated directly across from Chang Kongzi!

This was a woman who appeared to be nothing more than a sack of skin and bones. She had a head of black hair and was wearing female attire from the republic era. Through her thin skin, her bones could be clearly seen, and she had no flesh, blood, or internal organs.

She was just a sack of skin wrapped around a skeleton from several decades ago. In the instant that Chang Kongzi caught sight of her, he immediately charged toward the broken window. At the same time, he raised both hands in unison, releasing a flurry of talismans that instantly formed a giant paper crane, which burst into flames before crashing directly toward the female skeleton.

"It's been close to 60 years since we last met, shouldn't you be giving me a friendlier welcome?" Right as Chang Kongzi sprang into action, the woman's hair erupted forth like a black waterfall, and in the instant that it came into contact with the giant paper crane, the latter was instantly reduced to tens of thousands of sparks that quickly faded into nothingness.

During this brief moment, Chang Kongzhi had already rushed over to the window and jumped down without any hesitation.

Despite the absence of wind, his clothes swelled up like a balloon, and he flew through the air as if he were completely weightless.

"You're not getting away!" the woman chuckled coldly, and in the next instant, her head of black hair spread open like the wings of the death god before she set off in pursuit.

She was far faster than Chang Kongzi, and in the blink of an eye, she was no more than 100 meters away from him. Chang Kongzi's eyelids were twitching violently as he had already identified the woman's cultivation rank.

She was an Infernal Judge...

In contrast, he was only an Anitya Hellguard, and there was no way he could escape from her.

Furthermore, if he were to unleash his full speed, he would attract the attention of all of the other hellish beings in the city, and that would certainly spell his doom.

Is there no escape? Am I really going to die here?

A sense of despair was rapidly stripping him of his fighting spirit. However, right at this moment, the woman behind him suddenly stiffened in mid-air, following which she was instantly reduced to ashes amid a sharp scream!

Time seemed to have fallen completely still in that instant.

Chang Kongzi could hardly believe his own eyes!

What just happened?

He quickly received an answer to his question.

The clouds in the sky seemed to be dispersing, and all of the surrounding buildings were trembling slightly. Chang Kongzi didn't even have a chance to register the relief of escaping from certain death before he was struck by an indescribable sense of horror.

He immediately drew a sharp breath, and his legs gave out under him, sending him tumbling to his knees.

He raised his own hands with a bewildered expression to find that his fingers were trembling violently. Just now, he had sensed the heavens.

It was an indescribable feeling. He had sensed something more vast than the earth and higher than the heavens!

He didn't even know whether this was a living being or a Yin spirit. All he could see was an almighty group arriving on the scene amid a boundless expanse of Yin energy.

It was only a fleeting glance, but that was enough to remain his memory forever.

At the same time, for some reason, he was struck by the urge to see the time. Perhaps this would be his time of death, and he instinctively cast his gaze toward the large clock in the distance.

It was 7:30 PM at night.

He wasn't the only one.

In this instant, all of the demons in the city turned toward this direction, where there were several hundred figures standing within the vast expanse of Yin energy.

They were Yin soldiers who were clearing the path ahead!

Chang Gongzi was trembling uncontrollably as he kowtowed heavily to the ground, and at the same time, the melodious toll of a bell rang out across the entire city alongside the sound of peaceful chanting.

"Make way for King Yanluo!"

That announcement seemed to have been declared by a eunuch.

It was quite a frail voice, but it was somehow clearly audible despite the chanting and the sound of the marching Yin soldiers. Right after this declaration, the sound of long horns rang out, and Yin energy converged toward the city from all directions, while paper money fell from the sky like snow.

At the forefront were graceful women in elegant silken clothing. They held hollow golden lotus flowers in their left hands and skeletal netherfire lanterns in their right. The word "Everburn" was clearly written on all of the lanterns, and there were a total of 12 rows of these women.

Behind them were black-armored Yin soldiers. The surface of their armor was gleaming under the glow of the netherfire, and there were demonhead sabers strapped to their waists. Each row contained 100 Yin soldiers, and there were eight rows in total.

Accompanying the Yin soldiers were monks and Taoist priests who were chanting Ksitigarbha's Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra. Behind them was an entourage of several dozen Yin soldiers, holding banners of different colors and more skeletal lanterns crafted from Yin beast bones. The netherfire in their lanterns combined to stretch for over 100 meters in length.

The entire group advanced in silence like an inevitable force of nature, and despite the large number of Yin soldiers, their footsteps were extraordinarily synchronized. Their march struck the beholder with a sense of asphyxiation, and they were all giving off boundless killing intent that was rearing up from the depths of hell.

Deathly silence ensued.

All of the 73 immortals in the city exchanged a few glances, then involuntarily retreated several dozen meters. Right at this moment, all of the footsteps drew to a halt at the same time, despite the lack of a clear instruction to stop. Several seconds later, a loud and melodious voice rang out.

"Yanluo Qin of Hell has arrived in the mortal realm!"

This was immediately followed by three more announcements.

"The Reincarnation King of Hell has arrived in the mortal realm!"

"Ghost King Zhao of Hell has arrived in the mortal realm!"

"The God of Nine Energies of Hell has arrived in the mortal realm!"

Four balls of netherfire of different colors rose up in unison from the east, the west, the north, and the south, glowing like suns in the night. At the same time, boundless Yin energy erupted into the heavens, and everything fell deathly silent as the entire city was instantly transformed into a hellish abyss.