The sobs were growing louder and louder alongside the gusts of Yin wind, and all of the surrounding shadowy figures also seemed to be swaying and flickering, as if they had been resurrected as evil ghosts. If a living human were standing here, they would be terrified even without the need for any special effects.
Arthis's eyes narrowed slightly as the anguished howls and wails traveled into her ears. Initially, the sound was very faint, but after only several seconds, it had already become extremely loud and insistent.
"Save me..."
"I don't want to... I don't want to become a part of that thing!"
"Help... Help!"
"Where are the Emissaries of Hell?! Why aren't they here to save us?!"
"Grandpa! Are you alright? Grandpa..."
There were voices of both genders and different age ranges, and Arthis closed her eyes in silence as she clenched her fists tightly.
She was overcome by a sense of responsibility.
She stood above countless underworld emissaries, but it certainly wouldn't be right for her to simply rest on her laurels. Instead, she had a duty to ensure the safety and prosperity of the Cathayan Underworld's citizens.
These voices belonged to the netherworldly citizens who had perished by the hands of the inner demon. Regardless of what they had done during their lives or whether they had committed sins or not, the fact that they were here meant that they had already atoned for their crimes. Thus, they were citizens of the Cathayan Underworld, and as such, they were deserving of Hell's protection.
However, there was no way for her to protect them! Their souls had been taken by an evil ghost right under their noses, and this was no different from a vicious slap to the face for both Qin Ye and Arthis.
After a full minute, Arthis opened her eyes, and she turned to Qin Ye, who was also looking at her. "Have you found any leads?"
"I have," Qin Ye replied with a contemplative expression. "The fact that they've managed to leave this information behind is a sign of just how attached they were to the Cathayan Underworld, and thankfully, this information has allowed me to grasp some traits of the inner demon. Firstly, the entire mutation process took place extremely quickly. Within a span of no more than 20 minutes, all of the netherworldly citizens of the entire village were under the control of the inner demon."
He strode forward as he spoke, arriving in front of a giant footprint, which was still extremely clear, even though it had already been three years.
Most of the roads in the village were unpaved, so the footprint was able to leave a deep indentation on the road, which was around a foot in depth and four to five meters wide.
It was shaped like a human footprint.
"The footprints lead toward Copper Flower City," Qin Ye mused. "The riots that have taken place during the past three years seemed to be completely unrelated in terms of time and location, but why is it that it insisted on destroying all of the villages even though it was clearly on a tight schedule?"
No one could answer that question.
Several seconds later, a faint smile appeared on Arthis's face as she suggested, "Why don't we ask the things here?"
As soon as her voice trailed off, her long, purple hair erupted violently, stretching for several dozen meters in all directions like the purple canopy of a giant peacock.
A gust of fierce Yin wind swept past, causing her clothes to flap wildly, and she slowly raised her hand in a regal gesture. Within her grasp was a bright, blue sword.
"This sword..."
As soon as Arthis opened her mouth to speak, Qin Ye interjected in an expressionless manner, "I know, it's the Frostmourne. Can we move on now?"
Arthis rolled her eyes at Qin Ye in a dismayed manner.
How did you know what I was going to say?!
Having had her attempt to boast completely shut down by Qin Ye, she was no longer in the mood to show off, and she abruptly slashed her sword downward.
As a result, boundless netherfire instantly rose up from the ground.
"All souls, heed my call," she declared in an authoritative voice.
All of the netherfire seemed to have heard her, and they converged toward her in frenzy, forming a netherfire vortex around her in the blink of an eye.
Qin Ye's eyes narrowed slightly upon seeing this. He could sense that these specks of netherfire were too weak to be the souls of people.
"Are these... the souls of animals?" he asked.
Arthis nodded in response. "You didn't know we could summon the souls of animals?"
"Ah... Ha... Of course I did, I just didn't think of that..." Qin Ye replied in an awkward manner.
Arthis turned to him with a derisive smile, and her expression was conveying the words "uneducated scum".
She gently waved a hand through the air, and the netherfire danced around her in response, giving her the appearance of a fire goddess. "Human souls aren't the only ones who can heed our call. If animals want to enter the cycle of reincarnation, there's basically no way for them to do that. Only when they encounter opportunities like this will they have a sliver of hope. Thus, all of them are eager to heed my call, and this also confirms something. You are correct in that the inner demon didn't have enough time to prey on the desires of animals. It came quickly, and it left in even more of a hurry. Otherwise, there would be no way for the animals here to have survived. It seems that it's... avoiding something."
It's avoiding the Heavenly Dao...
Qin Ye didn't articulate his thoughts. On the previous occasion, the inner demon had already committed a grave offense by barging its way into the Heavenly Dao's divine art, and now, it was trying to instigate a war with one of the powerful nations in the underworld. If it were to allow itself to be tracked down, then it would lose its greatest advantage.
With a casual wave of her hand, Arthis scattered the netherfire around her, then clasped her hands behind her back as she asked, "Who saw everything that happened here and can give me a complete account of the events that took place back then?"
All of the specks of netherfire faltered momentarily, following which around a dozen specks jumped out at once, revolving frantically around Arthis in an attempt to catch her attention.
"Alright, one at a time." Arthis couldn't be more familiar with this process, and with a wave of her hand, seven or eight of the specks of netherfire were sent flying toward Qin Ye.
Having lived for so long, Arthis had learned the value of caution. She was concerned that some of the animals would say that they knew something, even though they didn't know anything, then provide false information in order to curry favor with underworld emissaries.
By sending half of them to Qin Ye, they could verify the accounts provided separately to ensure that the stories matched up.
Sure enough, upon seeing this, three of the specks of netherfire silently backed away, and Arthis and Qin Ye didn't punish them for that. All living beings had desires, and it would be ridiculous for lofty figures like them to stoop to punishing animals.
Qin Ye spread his hands open, and several specks of netherfire flew into his palm. He then closed his eyes before picking up a speck of netherfire and pressing it into his own glabella.
Countless images instantly appeared in his mind, and at the same time, a skeletal sparrow that was perched on a branch in the village silently fell down from the branch, bringing a conclusion to its afterlife.
Yin beasts were unable to speak the human language, so in order to see the information in their netherfire, the best way was to devour them. However, not only did the sparrow not regret its decision, it was extremely glad.
Perhaps it would be able to enter the cycle of reincarnation and be reborn as a human!
Qin Ye naturally wasn't going to pay any heed to its thoughts. His consciousness was already quickly browsing through its memories, and several seconds later, his eyes abruptly lit up as he rushed toward a small lake in the village.
Arthis did the same thing, and soon, the two of them were standing beside the lake, staring intently at its surface.
There was nothing to be seen there, but both of them had another image in their minds.
It was an image that was enshrouded in Yin clouds, and all of the surrounding shadows were strangely elongated, much like looking into an ancient copper mirror. However, it was still possible to see what was in the image.
Beside the lake was a female netherworldly citizen.
She was wearing a faded cheongsam, and she had a head of short hair. Her appearance and accessories were all very typical of a style that was popular in Shanghai back in the early 1900s, and in the image, she was grooming herself while looking at the surface of the lake as a mirror.
Mirrors already existed in this era in the underworld, but she seemed to prefer this method. Seated beside her was an elderly man who was also dressed in clothing from the same era, and he was watching her with a smile.
"That woman is a virgin," Arthis remarked. "She has a virginity mark on her arm. It seems that she belonged to a relatively affluent family during her lifetime, but it's clearly only a lower-middle-class family that did slightly better for itself than the average person."
Qin Ye nodded in response. Indeed, there was a red virginity mark on the woman's arm.
Right at this moment, the woman turned around with a smile, combing her own hair as she cast her gaze toward the elderly man. "What do you think of today's look, Uncle Liu?"
"You look beautiful every day, Young Mistress," the elderly man replied with a genuine smile.
The woman cupped her own face as she put on a beautiful smile. "Unfortunately, the specific makeup that I like is only sold during the chop hand festival, and it's too expensive... I'm getting married, so I have to put some extra effort into my look, but top-end makeup is simply too expensive. I can't believe the male side is only offering such cheap and low-quality makeup. Are they really that poor? I had to chase them up several times before they finally bought the ebony coffin and Burberry makeup box that I asked for, but those foreign brands nowhere near as good as what we have available locally."
The elderly man offered a wistful smile in response. "That is indeed a pity."
Qin Ye raised an eyebrow upon hearing this.
Many Yin spirits had formed new families after arriving in the underworld, so that was nothing strange. However, no one in the underworld ordered coffins, and Burberry was a brand that only existed in the mortal realm, not in the underworld.
As such, these were very strange requests. What did they entail?
Before he had a chance to think about this any further, dense Yin clouds suddenly appeared overhead, gathering in the span of less than two seconds, immediately following which a bolt of crimson lightning crashed down directly upon the woman.
Everything had happened far too quickly. It had only just registered with the woman that the sky had fallen dark, yet before she could even raise her head, she had already been struck by that bolt of lightning.
A scream rang out as boundless Yin energy enveloped her body, following which the image fell dark.
That was only to be expected. After all, these Yin beasts wouldn't dare to approach such a fearsome eruption of Yin energy.
Qin Ye raised his head with a contemplative expression, and Arthis just so happened to be looking at him as well.
Neither of them said anything as they quickly analyzed what they had just seen, and after a full minute had passed, their eyes lit up in unison as they exclaimed at the same time, "That was a posthumous marriage!"
"It's dictated by the laws of Hell that any attempt made by the mortal realm to communicate with the underworld is not to be reciprocated! Anyone who breaks this law will immediately enter the six paths of reincarnation!" Arthis said.
A cold smile appeared on Qin Ye's face. "However, a posthumous marriage would allow one to return to the mortal realm..."
The correct way to arrange a posthumous marriage was to exchange the date of birth and eight characters of a horoscope of the other party with that of the deceased. Only virgins would be able to sense this, and the other party had to prepare a coffin, as well as a recently deceased body with the same date of birth and eight characters of a horoscope.
If this could be successfully done, then the deceased party would be able to use their soul to possess the body, thereby allowing them to live again!
This procedure and all other procedures through which one could illicitly return to the mortal realm were all strongly despised by underworld emissaries. Once a deceased soul possessed a body, they would be concealed by Yang energy, and there would be no way for underworld emissaries to tell whether they were truly alive or not. An underworld emissary would have to at least be at the Anitya Hellguard level before they could discern this correctly, and this situation was very prone to creating artificial evil ghosts!
Thus, this was made strictly illegal long ago, but the temptation of returning to the mortal realm was too great, and some were still willing to take the risk.
Qin Ye gnashed his teeth together as he clenched his fists tightly.
He finally understood how the inner demon had managed to descend into the underworld.
Prior to completely fusing with Qin Zhongguo's soul, it would still be unable to descend into the underworld.
However, if it were to discover someone communicating to the underworld from the mortal realm, and someone reciprocated this communication despite its illegal nature, it would be able to use this as an anchor.
It couldn't enter the underworld on its own, but it could do so through various ceremonies held by living humans in the mortal realm.
Qin Ye heaved a forlorn sigh as he looked up at the heavens.
"There is not just a sword hanging above our heads... Instead, there is a sea of swords! We don't know when and where those swords could come falling down to strike chaos and destruction into the entire Cathayan Underworld!"
The sobs were growing louder and louder alongside the gusts of Yin wind, and all of the surrounding shadowy figures also seemed to be swaying and flickering, as if they had been resurrected as evil ghosts. If a living human were standing here, they would be terrified even without the need for any special effects.
Arthis's eyes narrowed slightly as the anguished howls and wails traveled into her ears. Initially, the sound was very faint, but after only several seconds, it had already become extremely loud and insistent.
"Save me..."
"I don't want to... I don't want to become a part of that thing!"
"Help... Help!"
"Where are the Emissaries of Hell?! Why aren't they here to save us?!"
"Grandpa! Are you alright? Grandpa..."
There were voices of both genders and different age ranges, and Arthis closed her eyes in silence as she clenched her fists tightly.
She was overcome by a sense of responsibility.
She stood above countless underworld emissaries, but it certainly wouldn't be right for her to simply rest on her laurels. Instead, she had a duty to ensure the safety and prosperity of the Cathayan Underworld's citizens.
These voices belonged to the netherworldly citizens who had perished by the hands of the inner demon. Regardless of what they had done during their lives or whether they had committed sins or not, the fact that they were here meant that they had already atoned for their crimes. Thus, they were citizens of the Cathayan Underworld, and as such, they were deserving of Hell's protection.
However, there was no way for her to protect them! Their souls had been taken by an evil ghost right under their noses, and this was no different from a vicious slap to the face for both Qin Ye and Arthis.
After a full minute, Arthis opened her eyes, and she turned to Qin Ye, who was also looking at her. "Have you found any leads?"
"I have," Qin Ye replied with a contemplative expression. "The fact that they've managed to leave this information behind is a sign of just how attached they were to the Cathayan Underworld, and thankfully, this information has allowed me to grasp some traits of the inner demon. Firstly, the entire mutation process took place extremely quickly. Within a span of no more than 20 minutes, all of the netherworldly citizens of the entire village were under the control of the inner demon."
He strode forward as he spoke, arriving in front of a giant footprint, which was still extremely clear, even though it had already been three years.
Most of the roads in the village were unpaved, so the footprint was able to leave a deep indentation on the road, which was around a foot in depth and four to five meters wide.
It was shaped like a human footprint.
"The footprints lead toward Copper Flower City," Qin Ye mused. "The riots that have taken place during the past three years seemed to be completely unrelated in terms of time and location, but why is it that it insisted on destroying all of the villages even though it was clearly on a tight schedule?"
No one could answer that question.
Several seconds later, a faint smile appeared on Arthis's face as she suggested, "Why don't we ask the things here?"
As soon as her voice trailed off, her long, purple hair erupted violently, stretching for several dozen meters in all directions like the purple canopy of a giant peacock.
A gust of fierce Yin wind swept past, causing her clothes to flap wildly, and she slowly raised her hand in a regal gesture. Within her grasp was a bright, blue sword.
"This sword..."
As soon as Arthis opened her mouth to speak, Qin Ye interjected in an expressionless manner, "I know, it's the Frostmourne. Can we move on now?"
Arthis rolled her eyes at Qin Ye in a dismayed manner.
How did you know what I was going to say?!
Having had her attempt to boast completely shut down by Qin Ye, she was no longer in the mood to show off, and she abruptly slashed her sword downward.
As a result, boundless netherfire instantly rose up from the ground.
"All souls, heed my call," she declared in an authoritative voice.
All of the netherfire seemed to have heard her, and they converged toward her in frenzy, forming a netherfire vortex around her in the blink of an eye.
Qin Ye's eyes narrowed slightly upon seeing this. He could sense that these specks of netherfire were too weak to be the souls of people.
"Are these... the souls of animals?" he asked.
Arthis nodded in response. "You didn't know we could summon the souls of animals?"
"Ah... Ha... Of course I did, I just didn't think of that..." Qin Ye replied in an awkward manner.
Arthis turned to him with a derisive smile, and her expression was conveying the words "uneducated scum".
She gently waved a hand through the air, and the netherfire danced around her in response, giving her the appearance of a fire goddess. "Human souls aren't the only ones who can heed our call. If animals want to enter the cycle of reincarnation, there's basically no way for them to do that. Only when they encounter opportunities like this will they have a sliver of hope. Thus, all of them are eager to heed my call, and this also confirms something. You are correct in that the inner demon didn't have enough time to prey on the desires of animals. It came quickly, and it left in even more of a hurry. Otherwise, there would be no way for the animals here to have survived. It seems that it's... avoiding something."
It's avoiding the Heavenly Dao...
Qin Ye didn't articulate his thoughts. On the previous occasion, the inner demon had already committed a grave offense by barging its way into the Heavenly Dao's divine art, and now, it was trying to instigate a war with one of the powerful nations in the underworld. If it were to allow itself to be tracked down, then it would lose its greatest advantage.
With a casual wave of her hand, Arthis scattered the netherfire around her, then clasped her hands behind her back as she asked, "Who saw everything that happened here and can give me a complete account of the events that took place back then?"
All of the specks of netherfire faltered momentarily, following which around a dozen specks jumped out at once, revolving frantically around Arthis in an attempt to catch her attention.
"Alright, one at a time." Arthis couldn't be more familiar with this process, and with a wave of her hand, seven or eight of the specks of netherfire were sent flying toward Qin Ye.
Having lived for so long, Arthis had learned the value of caution. She was concerned that some of the animals would say that they knew something, even though they didn't know anything, then provide false information in order to curry favor with underworld emissaries.
By sending half of them to Qin Ye, they could verify the accounts provided separately to ensure that the stories matched up.
Sure enough, upon seeing this, three of the specks of netherfire silently backed away, and Arthis and Qin Ye didn't punish them for that. All living beings had desires, and it would be ridiculous for lofty figures like them to stoop to punishing animals.
Qin Ye spread his hands open, and several specks of netherfire flew into his palm. He then closed his eyes before picking up a speck of netherfire and pressing it into his own glabella.
Countless images instantly appeared in his mind, and at the same time, a skeletal sparrow that was perched on a branch in the village silently fell down from the branch, bringing a conclusion to its afterlife.
Yin beasts were unable to speak the human language, so in order to see the information in their netherfire, the best way was to devour them. However, not only did the sparrow not regret its decision, it was extremely glad.
Perhaps it would be able to enter the cycle of reincarnation and be reborn as a human!
Qin Ye naturally wasn't going to pay any heed to its thoughts. His consciousness was already quickly browsing through its memories, and several seconds later, his eyes abruptly lit up as he rushed toward a small lake in the village.
Arthis did the same thing, and soon, the two of them were standing beside the lake, staring intently at its surface.
There was nothing to be seen there, but both of them had another image in their minds.
It was an image that was enshrouded in Yin clouds, and all of the surrounding shadows were strangely elongated, much like looking into an ancient copper mirror. However, it was still possible to see what was in the image.
Beside the lake was a female netherworldly citizen.
She was wearing a faded cheongsam, and she had a head of short hair. Her appearance and accessories were all very typical of a style that was popular in Shanghai back in the early 1900s, and in the image, she was grooming herself while looking at the surface of the lake as a mirror.
Mirrors already existed in this era in the underworld, but she seemed to prefer this method. Seated beside her was an elderly man who was also dressed in clothing from the same era, and he was watching her with a smile.
"That woman is a virgin," Arthis remarked. "She has a virginity mark on her arm. It seems that she belonged to a relatively affluent family during her lifetime, but it's clearly only a lower-middle-class family that did slightly better for itself than the average person."
Qin Ye nodded in response. Indeed, there was a red virginity mark on the woman's arm.
Right at this moment, the woman turned around with a smile, combing her own hair as she cast her gaze toward the elderly man. "What do you think of today's look, Uncle Liu?"
"You look beautiful every day, Young Mistress," the elderly man replied with a genuine smile.
The woman cupped her own face as she put on a beautiful smile. "Unfortunately, the specific makeup that I like is only sold during the chop hand festival, and it's too expensive... I'm getting married, so I have to put some extra effort into my look, but top-end makeup is simply too expensive. I can't believe the male side is only offering such cheap and low-quality makeup. Are they really that poor? I had to chase them up several times before they finally bought the ebony coffin and Burberry makeup box that I asked for, but those foreign brands nowhere near as good as what we have available locally."
The elderly man offered a wistful smile in response. "That is indeed a pity."
Qin Ye raised an eyebrow upon hearing this.
Many Yin spirits had formed new families after arriving in the underworld, so that was nothing strange. However, no one in the underworld ordered coffins, and Burberry was a brand that only existed in the mortal realm, not in the underworld.
As such, these were very strange requests. What did they entail?
Before he had a chance to think about this any further, dense Yin clouds suddenly appeared overhead, gathering in the span of less than two seconds, immediately following which a bolt of crimson lightning crashed down directly upon the woman.
Everything had happened far too quickly. It had only just registered with the woman that the sky had fallen dark, yet before she could even raise her head, she had already been struck by that bolt of lightning.
A scream rang out as boundless Yin energy enveloped her body, following which the image fell dark.
That was only to be expected. After all, these Yin beasts wouldn't dare to approach such a fearsome eruption of Yin energy.
Qin Ye raised his head with a contemplative expression, and Arthis just so happened to be looking at him as well.
Neither of them said anything as they quickly analyzed what they had just seen, and after a full minute had passed, their eyes lit up in unison as they exclaimed at the same time, "That was a posthumous marriage!"
"It's dictated by the laws of Hell that any attempt made by the mortal realm to communicate with the underworld is not to be reciprocated! Anyone who breaks this law will immediately enter the six paths of reincarnation!" Arthis said.
A cold smile appeared on Qin Ye's face. "However, a posthumous marriage would allow one to return to the mortal realm..."
The correct way to arrange a posthumous marriage was to exchange the date of birth and eight characters of a horoscope of the other party with that of the deceased. Only virgins would be able to sense this, and the other party had to prepare a coffin, as well as a recently deceased body with the same date of birth and eight characters of a horoscope.
If this could be successfully done, then the deceased party would be able to use their soul to possess the body, thereby allowing them to live again!
This procedure and all other procedures through which one could illicitly return to the mortal realm were all strongly despised by underworld emissaries. Once a deceased soul possessed a body, they would be concealed by Yang energy, and there would be no way for underworld emissaries to tell whether they were truly alive or not. An underworld emissary would have to at least be at the Anitya Hellguard level before they could discern this correctly, and this situation was very prone to creating artificial evil ghosts!
Thus, this was made strictly illegal long ago, but the temptation of returning to the mortal realm was too great, and some were still willing to take the risk.
Qin Ye gnashed his teeth together as he clenched his fists tightly.
He finally understood how the inner demon had managed to descend into the underworld.
Prior to completely fusing with Qin Zhongguo's soul, it would still be unable to descend into the underworld.
However, if it were to discover someone communicating to the underworld from the mortal realm, and someone reciprocated this communication despite its illegal nature, it would be able to use this as an anchor.
It couldn't enter the underworld on its own, but it could do so through various ceremonies held by living humans in the mortal realm.
Qin Ye heaved a forlorn sigh as he looked up at the heavens.
"There is not just a sword hanging above our heads... Instead, there is a sea of swords! We don't know when and where those swords could come falling down to strike chaos and destruction into the entire Cathayan Underworld!"
