Chapter 94: The New Underworld

Whoosh! In the misty expanse of cyan and white, the boundary between two worlds, Qin Ye channeled his Yin energy with every ounce of his strength. The vortex in his hands spun faster and faster, spiraling into a frenzied blur.

Click-clack, click-clack… Golden characters, incomprehensible to Qin Ye, began to emerge from the void in every direction, slowly merging into the vortex. Arsaces stood stunned for a moment before bursting into ecstasy. "Heavenly Dao Certification! This is the Heavenly Dao Certification!"

Qin Ye had no breath to spare to ask what that meant; the veins on his arms were bulging with the strain.

Arsaces, of course, understood. She spoke immediately, "The establishment of the Underworld must be sanctioned by the Heavenly Court. And now... the Heavenly Court has responded to you! The Heavenly Dao is watching you! This is supreme merit!"

Hum... Golden characters proliferated from all sides. In the center of the vortex, infinite scenes flickered by as if on a screen—a river of flowing flames, antique yet ghostly houses, trees with crimson leaves—all vanishing in a flash.

"Roar... ROAR!" At the same time, the cries from the Di-ting below grew louder, its eyelids trembling violently. It was fighting to force its eyes open.

It sensed it. A few petty thieves were stealing the Yin energy it had gathered. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have cared; its reserves were so vast that a little theft was but a drop in the ocean. Yet, an instinct told it that these thieves wouldn't stop at one attempt. If it didn't wake up, they would continue to steal indefinitely!

"Hold on..." Arsaces was incredibly tense, her heart filled with complex emotions. She had started by wanting to kill this little ghost, but having witnessed him succeed in initiating the Underworld, her mindset had completely shifted.

If she could really assist him in building the Underworld, could she perhaps return to her former position as a Judge? With fragments of the Yama Seal and the Book of the Underworld in hand, she had never seen an Underworld Emissary start with such potential. No—as a founding hero, maybe she could rise even higher... or perhaps, when this lazy Yama decided he didn't want to rule anymore, she might even taste the supreme power of speaking the law into existence?

She couldn't help but worry for Qin Ye. "You must hold on! Lord Di-ting is waking up—try to finish before it does!"

The moment her last word fell, the entire vortex erupted with a deafening boom! The earth shook, and the heavens trembled! Throughout the Netherworld, endless wails of ghosts arose. A ring of pure black light surged from the Yama Seal fragment like a sun, shooting toward the sky until it truly became a black sun!

"It's done... it's done!" Arsaces' voice turned shrill. But at that instant, a hoarse, desperate, and earth-shattering roar erupted from all sides.

"ROAAAAR!!!"

Qin Ye, exhausted to the brink, forced his eyelids open to look down. Arsaces, too, was stunned, her gaze darting downward. The Di-ting had managed to drag its tiger head, buried within its dragon-like body, out with great effort. It opened its golden eyes, staring directly at the two figures in the sky.

One man, one orb, and one beast—staring at each other across the distance. Even though Qin Ye didn't understand the beast's cry, he read a profound, searing rage in its eyes.

There was no time for hesitation. Arsaces turned and bolted. "Run!"

Qin Ye didn't think twice. He shot upward at full speed!

The Di-ting didn't move. If one were close enough, they could hear the grinding of its dense, sharp teeth. Then, using every bit of its remaining strength, it unleashed a cataclysmic roar!

"SCREECH!"

Before the sound faded, all the scales on its body stood on end and shot toward the Yama Seal in the sky like lightning!

The Di-ting’s reverse scales!

Swish, swish, swish... Wherever the scales passed, the sky echoed with the sound of shattering glass. These golden scales tore visible, jagged black fissures into the sky that refused to heal.

"Tearing the void..." Arsaces gasped, diving straight into Qin Ye's pocket. "Faster!"

"You... get the hell out!" Qin Ye gritted his teeth.

"No! If I'm going to die, you're dying first!" Arsaces raged.

Like ten thousand golden fireworks, trailing dark arcs of light, the attack exploded across the Netherworld. But at that exact moment, the black sun in the sky trembled and... bloomed.

Yes, it bloomed. Like a black lotus, layer upon layer, petals made of condensed Yin energy unfurled, growing larger and larger until it became a massive spider lily a square kilometer in size, swaying beneath the firmament, right under Qin Ye.

Boom, boom, boom! The golden scales smashed into the petals of the spider lily. Infinite, ghastly green ghost fire filled the sky, but the Yin-energy-forged lily remained unaffected. Within it, a patch of floating land materialized out of thin air.

"Roar... SCREECH!" The Di-ting’s golden pupils were fixed on the lily in the sky. But with this final exertion, golden blood sprayed from the wounds on its back, causing its body—which had just struggled to stand—to collapse with a pained howl.

Boom... a cloud of dust rose. Yet, its eyes remained locked on the black sun, never wavering. Its limbs kicked helplessly, desperate to rise.

High above, Qin Ye and Arsaces felt the shift. They had already cleared the Yama Seal fragment, but the light below had vanished, leaving behind a dark, deep ocean.

"Damn it!" Qin Ye couldn't help it. This was his life's work, his nation! He had to look—just one glance!

In his mad dash, he gritted his teeth and looked back.

Where his gaze landed, a piece of land had formed from nothing. There was a river of flowing flames, trees with blood-red leaves, and several antique Chinese buildings. Tiny green ghost fires drifted about like fireflies on a summer night. Blood-red lanterns hung from the eaves of every building, and one could faintly discern the black character "Qin" on them.

A kingdom of the dead. A paradise for lost souls!

He could see about fifty meters of it; the rest remained shrouded in black fog, yet to expand. Arsaces screamed, "Go! Within a week—at most a week—it will finish expanding itself! If you don't leave, stay here and feed the Di-ting!"

"Hum..." Suddenly, the spider lily of Yin energy slowly closed, like a night-blooming cereus, a fleeting glimpse of beauty. Within seconds, it formed a vortex of Yin energy that was visibly expanding!

Below, the Di-ting’s heavy body lay on the ground, watching the two fleeing figures in the sky with eyes full of hatred.

*Hateful... so hateful!*

With the Underworld newly formed, the prestige it projected was protected by the Heavenly Dao; the beast couldn't harm the Underworld in the slightest. That was the only reason those two thieves had escaped.

"A tiger falls to the plains..." it hissed through its sharp teeth, breathing like a broken bellows. Watching the two figures grow smaller in the distance, it opened its mouth once more, and a beam of pale light erupted!

This strike seemed to drain its final strength; the gold on its body dimmed. Its eyes closed quietly, unable to stay awake long enough to see the result.

Fast. Extremely fast. Beyond words. The spider lily of the Underworld had already folded, no longer there to block the blow for Qin Ye. By the time he realized it, the pillar of light, ten meters thick, was less than a hundred meters away!

It wasn't that he had just noticed it. It was that he couldn't react in time!

An aura of destruction pressed down, nearly suffocating him. Wherever the beam passed, a charcoal-black scratch appeared in the Netherworld itself. In that instant, he smelled death for the first time. He didn't fear death, but he hated it—if he reincarnated, he would never remember this life again, forced to start from scratch. He cherished his past.

"Damn it!!!" He roared as he turned, knowing he couldn't escape. He tightened his grip, his Emissary robes dancing like a dragon. He poured every ounce of his remaining Yin energy into his blade and swung with a roar.

A soul-catcher less than two meters tall. Facing the desperate, full-force strike of a dying Di-ting. From afar, it looked like a mayfly shaking a tree.

"Break for me...!" Veins burst, his eyes bloodshot, he screamed, "BREAK!!!"

But someone was faster.

A ball appeared in front of the light beam before Qin Ye could react. Time seemed to freeze; the beam was only twenty meters from Qin Ye.

A colorful figure appeared, her long black hair like a nest of snakes, her tongue hanging to the ground, manifesting in her shadow form outside the Soul-Sealing Orb.

"Alosaksa..." Qin Ye stammered, unable to believe his eyes. At a time like this... Arsaces had actually come out...

"Heh..." Arsaces gave a cryptic smile. "I suppose I've acted impulsively, haven't I?"

"Little ghost... it seems you'll have to walk the path of rebuilding the new Underworld alone..."

As her final word fell, endless ghost fire ignited around her, spanning a full hundred meters, like stars surrounding a moon. Far outshining the tiny sparks of Qin Ye’s energy, it was a prairie fire of heavenly flames!

In this ghostly moment, in Qin Ye's eyes, Arsaces looked like the Holy Bodhisattva, the stars laid out behind her like a game of chess.

Ghosts, too, have human hearts. She, too, understood emotion.

Facing the surging white light below, Arsaces opened her scarlet eyes. She said softly, "Myriad Ghosts Devour the Soul."

0.1 seconds. A mere 0.1 seconds.

Behind Arsaces, thousands—no, tens of thousands—of green, skeleton-like spirits gathered and charged madly at the light beam below!

Rumble!!!

The moment they collided, the Netherworld trembled. Every creature within the realm felt the head-on clash between these two great Emissaries. If the Di-ting’s strike was the splitting of a world, Arsaces' strike was the overturning of the galaxy.

Judge versus Yama!

"Pfft!" Qin Ye spat out a mouthful of blood, his consciousness fading instantly. The impact was too intense; he knew nothing more, flying upward like a broken kite.

No one knew. At the very moment the Yama Seal was formed, the Fengdu City that had existed for a thousand years—the city buried beneath the Three Gorges—collapsed in a silent, muffled thud.

The old Underworld passed away. The new Underworld was born.

From then on, there were no Ten Courts, no Eighteen Hells, no Six Paths of Reincarnation. There was only one small village... named the Underworld.