Yama Rising

A sea of Yin soldiers was stationed at the foot of the skeletal wall. At the center of the army, a massive tent had already been set up. Inside the tent, Qin Ye was inspecting a map through narrowed eyes while tracing a finger gently over the map.

This was a map of Yuncheng, and it was so detailed that every single village was annotated on it.

Zhao Yun was right, there were secrets in this city that had to be uncovered. The inner demon had already been forced into a corner, and they had to know everything up its sleeve before they could proceed any further.

"There are a total of 12 counties in Yuncheng, and this skeletal wall runs from the right side of Yuncheng, namely the border of Xiaxian Province and Pinglu Province, then extends all the way to the border of Sheshan Province and Hejin Province in the left, thereby splitting the city up into two."

He pointed to the upper right section of the map and continued, "This is where we are, and the lower left is where the inner demon is."

The tent was around 20 to 30 meters in size, and it wasn't exactly luxurious, but it had everything that was needed. Zhao Yun, Arthis, and the Harken were also in the tent, alongside Su Daji, Qin Hui, and the other commanders of the army, but they didn't have a right to speak here.

"It's already been six hours since our Yin soldiers have arrived in Yuncheng, and all of the missions that everyone has assigned have been completed. Now, I want everyone to share any opinions or insights you might have on this current situation, and we'll begin with the Reincarnation King."

Arthis was seated lazily on her reclining chair as she said, "There are three officials in Yuncheng involved with the inner demon, namely the mayor, and the director and vice-director of the Ministry of Land and Resources."

She was looking more and more like she fit her status as a Yama-King as she continued with a cold expression, "This should be something that only concerns the mortal realm, but during my interactions with them, I discovered some interesting things."

She curled a finger, and a document flew over to her, upon which she sat up straight and adopted a serious expression. "Yuncheng is situated on the border of the provinces of Jiangxi and Shanxi, and since the beginning of the republic era, someone had already approached them."

She raised her head as she continued, "That someone is the Jiang Family. At the time, they were a merchant family, but in the wake of the reforms in the national system, they've already become the Jiang Group. They've been extremely generous with their investments, particularly in the several decades after the national reform, investing at least several billion into Yuncheng. Out of interest and curiosity, I did some digging into the Jiang Group, and I discovered that not a single one of them is on the Book of Life and Death!"

"So it's a company of dead people?" the Harken asked as its eyes narrowed slightly.

"With the inner demon's powers, if it's the one controlling the company, then it's not unexpected that the Special Investigations Department wasn't able to discover anything amiss," Arthis said. "That's not important, the key is the CEO of the Jiang Group. Would anyone like to guess who it is?"

A name suddenly flashed through Qin Ye's mind, and he asked, "Is it Ye Xianguo?"

Arthis nodded in response.

So the Yiguandao is behind this...

The puppets of the inner demon had already made their move several decades ago, but they were caught off guard and vanquished by the national government. However, it was clear that some of them had managed to escape, and they had gathered in Yuncheng.

This made Qin Ye even more convinced that there had to be some type of astonishing secret hidden in Yuncheng. Otherwise, there was no way that the inner demon would've picked up this trail again after its failed Yiguandao experiment.

For a being as cautious as the inner demon, the Yiguandao simply attracted too much attention, and it definitely wouldn't be doing this unless the potential rewards far outweighed the risks.

Arthis seemed to have gleaned his thoughts, and she continued, "During the past few decades, the Jiang Group has only done one thing in Yuncheng, and that is to dig holes. They haven't constructed anything. All they've done is dig holes at all costs. They've even gone as far as to pay exorbitant sums to prominent, existing businesses, only to raze them to the ground and dig holes on the site."

She made a pinching motion, and several photographs fell into her grasp.

They were three photographs depicting the wreckage of construction sites.

The photographs each depicted a different construction site, but what was identical in all three of them was that they each featured a massive, bottomless hole.

"The locals refer to them as bottomless holes," Arthis said with a cold smile. "According to current national policies, land is worth its weight in gold, yet these holes have never been filled."

She gently flipped over the photographs to reveal some writing on the backs of them, which she read aloud, "23rd of May, 1962. Journalist Wang of the Shanxi Provincial Paper, who had taken a photograph of this bottomless hole, suddenly walked toward the hole and spread his arms open before falling into it. His body was never recovered."

"28th of August, 1982. A certain construction worker with the surname of Li was working overnight at a construction site with his crew. The next morning, the entire construction crew disappeared without a trace."

"30th of March, 1959. Teacher Zhao of Yuncheng's Wutong Middle School took his class of students to learn about geography and the bottomless holes. Within an hour, the teacher and all of his students jumped into the hole together."

She stacked the three photographs neatly one on top of one another, then continued, "No one has survived after getting within 10 meters of these wreckage sites. Since the first day the Jiang Group began digging these holes, a total of 234 residents of Yuncheng have gone too close to the holes, and not a single one of them have survived."

The entire tent fell silent.

It was clear that the Yiguandao was very interested in whatever was beneath Yuncheng, so much so that they were even willing to risk being discovered again. However, aside from the fact that it was home to the tomb of Lishan Laomu, they couldn't think of anything that was special about Yuncheng.

"This is where the interesting part comes in," Qin Ye said. "The Reincarnation King went to the municipal government, while I went to the Special Investigations Department, and in their files, I found something very interesting."

A serious look appeared on his face as he continued, "All of the holes were dug at sites where supernatural events have taken place at one point or another. On top of that, during the 10 years of supernatural disasters, several hundred hunting areas appeared in Yuncheng, and that number was over 1,000 at its peak!"

Everyone drew a sharp breath upon hearing this.

Yuncheng had a total of 12 counties and a territory of 14,000 square kilometers, which meant that there had been almost one hunting area per 10 square kilometers! This density far exceeded even the cities that were most heavily impacted by the supernatural disasters!

The Harken took a deep breath before asking, "Could it be that all of these hunting areas were ruins of construction sites left behind by the Jiang Group?"

Qin Ye nodded in response with a serious expression. "That's correct. Back when I was at the Special Investigations Department, I never heard anything about Yuncheng. Theoretically speaking, with so many hunting areas in the city, the entire city should've been evacuated right away. However, not a single evacuation was staged in Yuncheng throughout the period of natural disasters. According to the records of Yuncheng's Special Investigations Department branch, 1,742 hunting areas were found in Yuncheng, but not a single one of them ever erupted!"

Everyone fell into deep thought upon hearing this.

The supernatural disasters had taken place 20 years ago, but the inner demon had already begun searching for something in Yuncheng three to four decades before the beginning of the supernatural disasters.

It was clear that it had found what it was looking for, and it had done so with unerring accuracy, with an evil ghost in slumber beneath every bottomless hole that was dug. However, why had they only appeared now?

Had they been unable to or unwilling to appear before this?

With the inner demon's powers, there should've been no array in the world capable of trapping it with the exceptions of top-tier arrays such as the Array of the Nine Gods or the Southern Purple Palace 10-sided Array. However, the higher the caliber of an array, the more runes and cores would need to be inserted, thereby increasing the amount of area taken up by the array. The problem was that judging from the photographs of the bottomless holes presented by Arthis, they were no more than 30 meters in size each, and there was no way that top-tier arrays could be set up within them.

"The inner demon could've destroyed these arrays, but it didn't do that," Zhao Yun said.

"Why not?" Qin Ye immediately asked. "Why didn't the inner demon destroy the arrays? And why has it decided to release them all now?"

"Could it be because it wasn't confident before this?" the Harken asked.

Zhao Yun shook his head in response. "No. The inner demon is more powerful than I am, and it wouldn't even fear Lishan Laomu herself. I can't think of anyone in this world that it would fear aside from the second King Yanluo."

"In that case, they must've failed to reach a compromise in their negotiation prior to this point," Arthis theorized. "No outcome was achieved during decades of negotiation, and one was only reached recently."

She turned toward Qin Ye before asking, "What major events have taken place in the world recently?"

Qin Ye's brows furrowed tightly upon hearing this.

So many major events had taken place recently. The new Hell had been founded, Mictlantecutli and Mictetikasiwa had begun their research into space exploration... Hold on...

His eyes abruptly lit up, following which he immediately drew a sharp breath.

There was something that had been taking place in the underworld for the past 10 years, and its impact was becoming more and more severe!

It was the arrival of extraterrestrial gods!

The inner demon had made a clear attempt to try and lure him into siding with the extraterrestrial gods.

His mind was racing rapidly as he quickly made sense of the situation.

Several decades ago, the inner demon's Yiguandao experiment had failed, but due to the fact that it had discovered the being buried under Yuncheng, it had decided to pursue this trail again, but no agreement was reached between them.

That was until recently, when he obtained the assistance of the extraterrestrial gods, thereby giving him better chips to bargain with.

Longmas couldn't be captured in this plane, but there was no guarantee that extraterrestrial gods from other planes wouldn't be able to accomplish that feat! After all, through the Omeyocan telescope, Qin Ye had clearly witnessed the runology prowess of the opposing plane was far superior to that of the underworld.

He gently massaged his beaded bracelet as a series of statistics that he had recently seen in the Special Investigations Department surfaced in his mind.

Among the hunting areas that had been discovered in Yuncheng, there were four major hunting areas that contained Yin energy exceeding the Abyssal Prefect level. Due to the ridiculously high numbers and the fact that no large-scale supernatural disaster had taken place in Yuncheng, it was thought that there had been an equipment malfunction, so the situation wasn't reported.

However, four completely unidentifiable Yama-Kings had just so happened to appear in Yuncheng!

With that in mind, a cohesive theory took shape in Qin Ye's mind, and he immediately declared, "All commanders, heed my call!"

All of the underworld emissaries in the tent immediately stood up and cupped their fists in salute in response.

"Gather an army of 17,000 Yin soldiers and split them up into 1,742 groups to enter and investigate every bottomless hole in the city! Get them to take image capture crystals with them, and tell them to gather the most detailed records possible!"

"Yes!"

"As for the four hunting areas that were suspected to have belonged to beings above the Abyssal Prefect level, I'll investigate those myself. Begin right away!"

If his theory proved to be true, then the inner demon's trump card wouldn't just be limited to all of the evil ghosts buried under the city, it would also include the extraterrestrial gods!

The only question was why the inner demon had failed to reach an agreement with these evil ghosts for so long.

Who were these evil ghosts and what was their agenda?

Uncovering this information could be crucial if they wanted to succeed in the upcoming battle!