Yama Rising

There was no reason for the three pillars to turn down the Cathayan Underworld's invitation, but the location of the meeting was naturally set at the headquarters of the Coalition of Underworlds.

Half a month later, the ruler death gods of the four pillars were gathered in a conference hall of the highest caliber. Information regarding the world's gate was about to be shared, and no outsiders could be allowed to hear it.

The styles of the four pillars were very pronounced in this conference hall, and at its center was a massive round table. This was the private conference hall of the four pillars. Beyond the Coalition of Underworlds, the Six Eyes Conference, and other international organizations, there was an organization of an even higher level, one that could only be joined by the four pillars, and that was the Coalition of Rulers.

This was the conference hall for the Coalition of Rulers, and under normal circumstances, it could easily go decades, perhaps even centuries without ever hosting a meeting. However, every time it was opened, there was definitely a major event afoot.

The ruler death gods of the four pillars pressed their palms against the locking mechanism at the entrance in unison, and the doors of the conference hall swung open, following which all of the Yin soldiers behind them extended respectful bows.

There was not a single Yin spirit in the hall, not even any recorders or servants. The only ones in here were the four most powerful ruler death gods of the underworld, and after taking a sip of tea, Yamaraja smiled and said, "This is the first time you've initiated a meeting between the Coalition of Rulers, Yanluo Qin. I hear that you would like to present some news regarding the world's gate?"

"That's right," Qin Ye replied as he set down his teacup. "However, prior to that, I have to raise something that's been quite perplexing to me. Even though I inherited the black box, it was passed down to me by the second King Yanluo, so everything was viewed through his perspective. As such, it's not a true record of history, and he didn't detail the history of the world's gate, nor the main distribution of forces in there."

"Those aren't secrets to the ruler death gods of the four pillars," Anubis replied. "You can find answers to all of those questions in this very room."

There was no animosity or tension at all between the four ruler death gods on this occasion. After all, the four pillars were on a united front when it came to the world's gate.

"Do you know what's behind here, Yanluo Qin?" Anubis asked as he casually indicated around the hall. There were no windows in the hall. Instead, the entire room was completely sealed, and abstract reliefs of death gods were carved onto the walls. The reliefs mostly depicted what humans imagined death gods to look at, so there was quite a large disparity between their appearance and the appearances of actual death gods.

Without waiting for a reply from Qin Ye, Thanatos gently flicked a finger through the air, and a burst of Yin energy was sent flying out. Immediately thereafter, a string of mechanical clicks rang out all around them.

Qin Ye turned around with a curious expression, and in the next instant, all of the surrounding walls rose up in unison to reveal a giant skeleton.

Qin Ye stood up from his chair before making his way over to the skeleton, then began to carefully inspect it.

This was an enormous skeleton. This conference hall had a radius around 10 meters, and the skeleton spanned the length of almost the entire wall, so it had to have been at least 50 meters in length. Furthermore, it didn't belong to a human!

Qin Ye made his way around the room, and upon seeing the skeleton's lizard-like skull and giant bone wings, as well as its long tail bone, he raised an eyebrow as he asked, "Is this a dragon? A western dragon?"

However, his brows then immediately furrowed tightly as he approached the skeleton and looked carefully at its bone wings. "Hold on, this is a bone dragon? One that's at the Yama-King level?"

"Oh? What makes you say that?" Thanatos asked with a smile.

Qin Ye pointed at the skeleton's wings as he replied, "These bone wings. If this is the skeleton of a normal giant dragon, the wings of its bones would only form an outline because the wings of normal giant dragons are predominantly formed by flesh. In contrast, there's a membrane growing from the bone wings of this dragon."

He reached out to stroke the skeleton's wings, then continued, "The membrane is very thin and also very brittle, but that's only because no Yama-King level Yin energy has been injected into it. With an influx of Yama-King level Yin energy, the wings should be able to support it on short-distance flights through space."

The ruler death gods of the three pillars nodded in unison. As for how Qin Ye was able to identify the creature as a Yama-King level being, that was a question that didn't need to be asked. Death gods could always sense other death gods, even in the form of remains.

"So it really did come from space?" Qin Ye asked as he turned around to face the three ruler death gods.

"Your observation skills are as sharp as ever, Yanluo Qin," Yamaraja replied with a smile.

He then pointed at a certain part of the giant dragon's bone wings as he continued, "That is indeed the case."

In the direction that he was pointing toward, there was a slightly charred section on the giant dragon's wings. That could've only been the result of flying through the atmosphere. Otherwise, nothing would've been able to harm the body of a Yama-King.

"So it came from another plane all the way to our underworld?"

"It failed to anticipate that this world isn't weaker than its home world," Anubis said. "We immediately sensed it as soon as it entered our world, and that was 500 years ago. It was very fortunate in that it landed in the Australis Underworld. At the time, the Australis Underworld was only inhabited by a bunch of Aboriginal Yin spirits who didn't know how to cultivate at all, so it thought that it was invincible in this world. While we were still observing it, it had already taken over the entire Australis Underworld."

Qin Ye nodded in response as an enlightened look appeared on his face.

Only with people could there be faith, and only with faith could a religion arise.

On the Australis Continent, the Aboriginal population was originally very spread-out. Only in 1770, when the Britannian voyager Captain Cook discovered the east coast of Australis, which he named New South Wales, was the continent of Australis declared to be a colony of Britannia.

After that, Australis became a place for Britannia to ship its convicts off to.

On the 18th of January, 1788, Captain Philips arrived with a fleet of six ships carrying 1,530 passengers at Botany Bay of Australis. This fleet was known as the First Fleet. 736 of the crew members were convicts, and they were eternally banished to Australis. Eight days later, they officially established the first Britannian colony at Jackson Bay, which later went on to become the number one city in Australis, Sydney.

At the time, the Aboriginal population was still at a hunter-gatherer stage of society. There were over 500 tribes, and there was already a considerable population of over 750,000, but they were spread out far and wide.

In the face of the Britannian colonizers, the Aboriginal population had no advantages to speak of. At the time, Britannia was at the height of its powers. As time passed, more and more of the Aboriginal population was wiped out until the nation's population consisted almost exclusively of only Caucasian Britannians.

That was why Australis was in a tropical region of the world, but their people were completely different in appearance from those in the nations around them, including the nearby islanders and the Indonesian. Otherwise, it would've been impossible for Caucasians to have appeared in places with that type of climate.

This death god was extremely fortunate in that it had arrived on perhaps the most vulnerable continent in the entire underworld plane. Without a true death god like the Plumed Serpent God present on the continent, the probability of Mythic Spirits emerging were downright negligible, so as an extraterrestrial death god, it automatically became the most powerful being on the entire continent.

However, it was naive enough to believe that the entire world was in the same state as the Australis Underworld, and it was no surprise that this false assumption led to its eventual demise.

"Is this why the world's gate was established?" Qin Ye asked.

"That's part of it," Yamaraja replied. "Back then, it was I who confronted the creature. It was a mid Yama-King, so the battle didn't take long at all. However, right before its death, it unleashed some type of ability similar to a bloodline curse. We've never managed to gather much information on the plane that it came from. This ability allowed a wisp of its soul to escape, and its spiritual energy spread to all parts of the Australis Underworld, making it no longer suitable for netherworldly citizen habitation."

"How is that possible?" Qin Ye asked as his brows furrowed slightly.

Even the more powerful external force would eventually be assimilated by the planet.

Even radiation from nuclear bombs would eventually clear up after several decades, and it had already been several centuries since the incident on the continent of Australis.

"It became an anchor point," Anubis explained. "The entire Australis Underworld was corrupted by the power of that extraterrestrial god, forming a giant rune that we are unable to erase. Once you enter the world's gate, you'll constantly hear the voice of a death god, and all beings at or below the Abyssal Prefect level that enter the world's gate will perish without any exceptions! Care to guess what the voice says?"

A contemplative look appeared on Qin Ye's face, following which a harrowing thought surfaced in his mind. "Could it be the coordinates of our underworld plane?"

"As expected of someone of your intellect, Yanluo Qin," Thanatos said with a cold smile. "Indeed, that's exactly what it is. Through the Australis Underworld, it's been constantly transmitting the coordinates of our plane into outer space. Prior to 200 years ago, we hadn't seen any extraterrestrial gods aside from this one. But recently, starting from around 160 years ago, to be exact, we clearly felt five or six instances of extraterrestrial gods inspecting our plane."

This meant that after a span of over 300 years, its message had reached its home plane, and the other death gods from that plane had arrived!

Qin Ye fell into deep thought upon hearing this. This was a lot of information, and it once again confirmed the fact that the other plane was extremely advanced when it came to space exploration, leading Earth's underworld plane by at least 500 years!

500 years ago, the skeletal dragon had to have been a part of the canter underworld's first attempt at extraterrestrial exploration, and the reason for that was very simple: Yama-Kings would've only been used for the initial forays into outer space.

Even Yama-Kings couldn't fly for long distances in space, but they had to scout out the unknown. Only by sending out scouts would they be able to gather information on the universe, thereby allowing them to map out where they were supposed to go next. However, this skeletal dragon was quite unfortunate. There was no way that they could've anticipated that there would be two almost evenly matched underworld civilizations in the same star system.

In the beginning, sending out Yama-Kings as scouts was the most economical and appropriate course of action. In contrast, it would be far more idiotic to invest massive amounts of resources into constructing a space fortress, then wandering aimlessly through space without any purpose or direction.

"I see." Qin Ye returned to his seat, then reached out to push the black box across the table. "Take a look, everyone. This is the opponent that we'll have to face and the amount of time that we have left."

A 500-year lead in space exploration was a very terrifying prospect, but it wasn't completely decisive because the second King Yanluo had revealed through this message that the other plane didn't possess any forbidden arts.

Nuclear weaponry was going to be their final trump card!