Yama Rising

"Arrrrgh!!" In the cafe of the Crown Hotel of Yuncheng, Bai Liangping was clawing frantically at his own head as he knelt on the ground and screamed like a madman.

Behind the counter, all of the investigators of the Special Investigations Department and Li Lianshun were looking on with stunned expressions. In particular, Li Lianshun's legs had already given out from under him, and he felt as if he were in a dream.

However, no one was paying any heed to him. Li Zhengkai was staring intently at Bai Liangping, who was bleeding out of all of his orifices. Veins were bulging all over his body in a grotesque display, giving him the appearance of a gnarly piece of dried wood.

His screams didn't even sound human anymore, and wisps of Yin energy were frantically seeping out of all of his pores. However, right at this moment, his screaming abruptly ceased.

He opened his mouth, and a burst of inky-black Yin energy was expelled, as if he had just swallowed a bomb and was letting out the smoke from the explosion.

The Yin energy transformed into countless screaming and sobbing faces, releasing sharp screeches that sent chills running down one's spine, then dissipated into nothingness.

"What a delicious soul that was…" Bai Liangping burped with a satisfied expression. "I haven't had a soul that delicious since Heshen's. That was a meal that I will savor for a very long time. Honestly, serving as the mayor of a city is a waste of your talents…"

He stretched his body, but he didn't stretch as a human would. Instead, his shoulders suddenly rose up and down in a grotesque manner, as if he had no bones. His head then turned 180 degrees, and his blood-red eyes locked on firmly to the people outside. "Tsk… I thought that there would be some side dishes, but they're not very appetizing at all…"

Right at this moment, he abruptly raised his head, and the bones in his body were cracking audibly from his unnatural movements. Immediately thereafter, a stunned look appeared on his face, and his mouth began to gape open wider and wider.

"This is… the Southern Purple Palace 10-sided Array?!" he screeched in a shocked voice, then abruptly shot out of the building like a speeding arrow, and only the sound of his incredulous voice still lingered in the air.

"The tomb of Lishan Laomu is being opened! How could this be?! It's only taken me less than 10 minutes to possess this body, what could've possibly happened during that time?!"

……………………………………

His body broke through the top of the building with a resounding boom before appearing in the sky, following which he immediately cast his gaze toward the south. Even though he was already mentally prepared, his heart still sank at the sight that he was greeted by.

The effects brought on by the activation of the Heavenly Teacher Seal wouldn't dissipate so quickly, and the entire city was still inundated in mist. Nothing should've been visible in the mist, but clusters of ancient buildings had appeared.

Only the outlines of these buildings were visible, and in front of these buildings was an enormous statue that stood like a pillar between heaven and earth.

It was also not completely visible, but just the sight of its outline struck one with an involuntary sense of awe and reverence. In the instant that the inner demon cast its gaze toward the statue, the latter opened its eyes within the sea of mist that covered the entire sky.

It was a pair of golden eyes, the pupils of which were in the shape of nine-petaled lotus flowers that were in full bloom, with countless complex runes around them. Given the vast size of the statue, even its eyes were over 100 meters in size, and Bai Liangping was being reflected at the center of the lotus flowers.

Amid a string of audible cracking, the gargantuan statue slowly raised its hand.

As it did so, all of the surrounding cloud and mist receded like the falling tide, and in this instant, all of the people in Yuncheng were looking on with dumbstruck expressions.

People were packed in front of an apartment window, filming the scene unfolding before their eyes with their cameras and phones. However, upon witnessing the emergence of the deity-like statue, one phone after another fell to the ground, while their owners looked on with their mouths gaped wide open in astonishment.

In the municipal government building and the Special Investigations Department, all of the public servants and investigators looked up at once, staring at this fantastical scene with dumbfounded expressions. Throughout the entire city, from the main urban area to the outskirts, hundreds of thousands of people witnessed something that they were never going to forget.

The giant statue's raised palm abruptly thrust down toward Bai Liangping, creating a sharp screeching sound as it did so. Layer upon layer of cloud and mist was scattered, and shockwaves spread through the air for several kilometers, making it appear as if the sky were collapsing!

Beneath the descending palm, Bai Lianping's clothes had been torn to shreds, and his face was instantly flattened by the powerful shockwaves, but he was displaying no fear at all as he continued to look up with a cold expression.

In the face of this devastating strike, the inner demon let loose an earth-shattering roar, and Yin energy erupted violently out of its body, immediately following which it also raised a palm.

In that instant, the entire world seemed to have been muted.

All of the white mist was instantly cleared away, then quickly converged once again.

The clash had gone beyond what could be heard by human ears, and the palm of the enormous statue was stopped cold in its tracks, unable to descend any further!

Beneath its palm, Bai Liangping looked up with a vicious expression, and a scarlet vertical eye had already opened up on his glabella. "Lishan Laomu, I am even older and more regal than you are! You think you have what it takes to strike me down?!"

A clear cracking sound rang out, and in the next instant, the entire statue of Lishan Laomu shattered violently.

Countless chunks of stone rained down from above, and inky-black Yin energy inundated heaven and earth as a voice that seemed to belong to a deity echoed throughout the entire city. "I existed before the Buddha. I existed before the patriarch of Taoism. I've seen the entire progression of human history. I've watched you rise up to take over the world, and I've witnessed the history of civilization. How dare you disrespect me?!"

The inner demon's Yin energy fully erupted, and a series of massive cracks spread over the surface of Lishan Laomu's statue like wildfire. Boundless Yin energy erupted out of the cracks, and in a span of less than three seconds, the entire statue had completely shattered.

Right in the instant that the statue shattered, the inner demon's smile abruptly stiffened.

Instead of falling down upon the city as a destructive storm of stone, the massive statue gently drifted down as a shower of flower petals.

Bai Liangping reached out a trembling hand, allowing a flower petal to land on his palm, then immediately looked up at the sky.

Amid the mist and the shower of flower petals, a holy voice akin to the singing of angels rang out, reverberating throughout heaven and earth.

The treasured decree of Lishan Laomu was being recited!

At the same time, a pillar of dazzling radiance erupted into the sky above the indistinct tomb of Lishan Laomu, and in the instant that it came into contact with the sky, it transformed into countless specks of white light that rained down from the heavens.

The specks of light were drifting down very slowly, and in the instant that they landed on the ground, countless pristine white lotus flowers bloomed across the land!

All of this had taken place in the span of less than a minute, and tens of thousands of giant paper figures wielding longswords had already appeared.

These were the Divine Heavenly Guardians!

In contrast with the paper figures that Qin Ye had encountered earlier, each of these was around two meters in size, and they were folded in an extremely meticulous and intricate manner, looking no different from the heavenly soldiers and generals depicted on the comic strips from the 70s and the 80s. They were wielding all types of different weapons, and in the instant that they appeared, they pointed their weapons directly at the inner demon before letting loose a thunderous war cry in unison.

Countless pillars of light erupted into the heavens around Yuncheng, completely surrounding the city and transforming it into an arena for gods!

How did this happen?

The inner demon was stunned to see this, and it knew that it wouldn't be able to get away.

The Southern Purple Palace 10-sided Array was the original form of the Array of the Nine Gods. Who could've anticipated that Lishan Laomu would've set up such an array in her own tomb?

The array was incapable of killing the inner demon, but it had well and truly trapped the inner demon here.

Who activated this formation, and what objective do they have for trapping me here?

His questions were quickly answered.

A resounding boom erupted through the heavens, and an extremely disharmonious burst of crimson appeared within the white mist. It was like a sword of blood that threatened to slice through the entire world, tearing through the heavens and the boundaries between the three realms.

It was a scarlet netherfire phoenix!

A trail of scorching netherfire was left in its wake, and upon reaching the apex of the heavens, the phoenix turned around in an elegant manner, then converged toward the center to form a blood-red cape that covered half of the entire sky. Standing in front of the cape was none other than Zhao, who was wearing a white robe and holding a silver spear.

He pointed his spear directly at the inner demon's head as he declared, "I am here to slay you once and for all!"

With this thunderous declaration, a burst of Yin energy that wasn't much weaker than the inner demon's spread through the entire city. All of the trees in the city were violently flattened, and cracks ran through the ground nearest to the center of the city, while advertisement signs between the city's tall buildings flew through the air like discarded flyers in the wind.

However, this was only the beginning.

Amid the roars of countless ghosts, a red netherfire lotus flower bloomed in the sky, illuminating the heavens like a giant lantern. Gusts of Yin wind howled as a massive white bone fountain emerged, forming a skeletal vortex in mid-air. Finally, a skeletal throne was formed amid the countless specks of scarlet netherfire.

On the throne sat Arthis with Soul Shackles clasped in her left hand, and a soul guiding lamp in her right hand. Her legs were casually crossed, and there was a faint smile on her ruby red lips as she gently knocked on the armrest of her throne.

In the next instant, all of the bones burst into bleak, white netherfire as they screeched in unison, "The Reincarnation King is here! All hail Her Majesty!"

However, this was still not the end.

Right between Zhao Yun and Arthis, a burst of nine-colored Yin energy tore through the boundaries between the mortal realm and the underworld, forming a dazzling nine-colored galaxy. Within the galaxy was a giant foot standing atop a Yin cloud with nine-colored light revolving around it. In the next instant, an enormous figure burst through into the mortal realm before letting loose a deafening roar toward the inner demon.

The roar scattered the clouds and eradicated the mist. Behind them were hundreds of thousands of specks of netherfire, forming a spectacular light show, and with each speck of netherfire that emerged, the Yin energy in the air would become fractionally more formidable.

The Yin soldiers had arrived.

A speck of netherfire descended before transforming into a Yin soldier clad in a suit of black armor, wielding a long spear, and this was immediately followed by a second speck of netherfire, before the rest of the netherfire began to fall one after another in rapid succession.

All of a sudden, hundreds of thousands of Yin soldiers had appeared above the Yin clouds, forming a sea of black in front of the inner demon before aiming their spears directly at him.

In the sky above was a formidable army of Yin soldiers led by three Yama-Kings, while the ground below was littered with Divine Heavenly Guardians.

There was no way to escape whether by land or through the sky, and the inner demon was well and truly trapped!