Yama Rising

The memory concluded here, dissipating into cloud and smoke that converged toward the center of the image from all sides, then quickly vanished altogether.

Almost at the exact same moment, Qin Ye cast his gaze toward the door of the apartment, then vanished on the spot as a gust of Yin wind.

Half a second later, the door was violently kicked in amid a resounding boom, and several bodyguards in black suits rushed in. Their mouths were already split open to their cheeks, revealing sets of sharp canine fangs, and their eyes were glowing with bloodlust. Furthermore, they weren't even walking on two legs anymore. Instead, they were crouching on the ground like dogs, and some of them had even rushed onto the ceiling.

A portly black man entered the room behind them and at the same time, the door was closed. He raised a hand, and a black handgun was placed into his grasp.

In the next instant, a string of unbroken gunfire rang out as the black man shot several rounds at the bed, then extended a hand into the bedsheet and lifted up the entire mattress in one fell swoop, but there was nothing there.

"Damn it..." He took a deep breath before casting his gaze toward all of the bodyguards. "Release wanted notices across the entire city! Master DuPont has instructed us to kill Edward on sight regardless of the setting or his motives! Master DuPont himself will deal with all of the consequences!"

Right at this moment, the door was pushed open again, and one of the elderly bishops whom Qin Ye had met once at the Masonic Temple, was already standing at the doorway.

Behind him were around a dozen wraith-like witch hunters with shimmering silver crossbows strapped to their arms. It was as if their bodies had completely fused as one with the shadows, and their crossbows were aimed directly at all of the monsters in the room.

"Fels..." The bishop cast a disdainful glance at the black man, then said in a cold voice, "The lord allows you to be here, but you're only welcome to stay as long as you don't go around destroying the city! Supernatural events are happening all over Philadelphia right now and we don't want to engage in senseless conflict with you, but you better keep your people in check!"

He stepped forward and looked into Fels's eyes with a cold expression as he continued, "This is Philadelphia, one of the oldest cities in Usonia. It was once the capital of Usonia and is home to the Declaration of Independence, as well as one of the largest followings of catholicism in any city in Northern Usonia! This isn't Columbia, where you can do as you please!"

Fels didn't back down in the slightest as he returned the bishop's hostile gaze, and intense figurative spars were flying between their eyes. Only after a long while did Fels give a cold harrumph as he said, "This is a special case. We'll do our best to ensure that no harm befalls the city as a result of our actions."

"That's something that you must do," the bishop replied in a cold voice. "Cardinal Fernando is currently on his way here, accompanied by 500 paladins. If you can't refrain from damaging the city, then we can help you keep your men in check."

"Are you trying to start a war?"

"The holy battle has already been raging for several centuries, I wouldn't mind ending it all here."

Fels was struggling to contain the urge to lash out as he cast one final vicious glance at the elderly bishop, then commanded in a fierce voice, "Let's go!"

All of the monsters in the room immediately vanished as gusts of Yin wind.

The room fell silent again as a result, and several seconds later, a witch hunter asked in a low voice, "Your Excellency, why didn't you take advantage of this opportunity to take them down?"

The bishop shook his head with a concerned expression as he replied, "Philadelphia is currently under extremely severe threat of supernatural disasters, and we still haven't found the source of all of this. At a time like this, it would be downright idiotic to spark a battle against them. On top of that, they're not alone, they have other more powerful forces standing behind them. Let's leave this place as well. Please repress your anger, everyone, it's still not time for the final showdown against those monsters."

The door was opened before being closed again shortly thereafter.

After another hour, another gust of Yin wind appeared before quickly transforming into Qin Ye.

He had been right outside the window this entire time, but unless Brando were to come here in person, no one would be able to detect him.

He was confident that those people wouldn't come here again. They had already searched this place and a conflict had just erupted here, so all of them would be quite reluctant to return to this place.

With a wave of his hand, the bed returned to its original state. It was riddled with bullet holes, but it could still serve adequately as a bed.

Qin Ye lied down on the bed with his hands acting as a pillow behind the back of his head, looking up at the ceiling with a contemplative expression. He had no intention of sleeping at all, and his mind was already racing.

He felt like he had grasped the crux of the situation, but he still needed some concrete evidence. However, he didn't really care about what was going on here, all he cared about were Xu Fu's notes.

Once he obtained the notes, what happened to Usonia wouldn't matter to him in the slightest.

"Saint Peter's Church, eh?" He pulled out his phone and ran the term through a search engine, following which a smile quickly appeared on his face. "The underground church is right beneath this church! Everything started from there, but that's not important to me at all. I was worried that this incident would hinder my mission to obtain Xu Fu's notes, but looking at things now, all I need to do is sneak into the church and take the notes in secret, then sneak out of Northern Usonia, and nothing would happen."

Northern Usonia was already in a state of complete chaos, and the only thing that could detect high-grade Yin spirits was the Eye of the Night Star at Xolotl's Screen, but Xololt's Screen had just been demolished by Kraken. In addition to that, Qin Ye had been hiding his own Yin energy very cautiously this entire time and was mostly traveling through the mortal realm. Unless he intentionally revealed himself, it would most likely only be discovered that a Yama-King had visited the new continent once he left through Xolotl's Screen.

He casually searched up information on Saint Peter's Church, and he quickly discovered something very encouraging, which was that just like the First Usonian Bank, there was extremely limited information on this church.

If it weren't for the fact that it was a renowned tourist attraction, it most likely wouldn't even have appeared in the search results!

It was clear that efforts had been made to make the church as discreet and secretive as possible, and that was a very good sign. Qin Ye smiled as he murmured to himself, "Now that Matthew's disappeared, they'll most likely immediately realize that the secret they're hiding under the church is at risk of being unveiled, which means that the underground church has already been surrounded by Brando's men. In that case, how do I secure the notes without revealing my identity?"

His mind was racing as he analyzed the situation. Firstly, the church and the Freemasonry weren't on good terms with one another, and the same applied to the Freemasonry and the three death gods, while the church could be completely unaware that the three death gods were even involved. Otherwise, the bishop just now would've referred to the three death gods directly by name. In fact, if they knew about the three death gods, then there was no way the church would've allowed them to establish their new religion.

The power of the church and the Freemasonry had already been openly revealed, and only the power of the three death gods still hadn't been displayed yet. However, Qin Ye wasn't particularly worried about them. Perhaps they were the ones who had instigated all of this and convinced the Freemasonry to join them, but in reality, they're the weakest of the three parties with only three Abyssal Prefects among their ranks.

He sat up on his bed with his legs crossed, and Yin energy seeped out of his fingertip as he slowly wrote on the bed: "The Freemasonry has 12 Master Masons, of which Brando possesses power close to the mid Yama-King level and he should be the patriarch of the werewolf clan that Lee Jung-sook had been referring to. Another one is Lee Jung-sook, who's consumed the Taisui fungus and attained immortality. I wouldn't be surprised if there were three to five more Yama-Kings among the remaining Master Masons."

This was truly an incredibly powerful organization!

Qin Ye didn't know how the three death gods had managed to convince the Freemasonry to collaborate with them, but were they not taking a massive risk by collaborating with an organization so much more powerful than them? Did they think that they would be safe because the members of the Freemasonry couldn't enter the underworld?

Before reaching the Yama-King level, one could never truly know just how fearsome a Yama-King was. However, this wasn't something that he needed to worry about, and he continued writing: "Catholicism is the most powerful of the world's top three religions, and I've heard that there are seven catholic cardinals in total, all of whom should be at the Yama-King level, so it shouldn't be any less powerful than the Freemasonry. Due to the supernatural disasters ravaging Philadelphia, a temporary truce has been agreed upon by both parties. Looking at the current situation, there can only be one of those parties with forces stationed at Saint Peter's Church."

The reason for this was very simple: the elderly bishop had just said that the holy war had been raging for several centuries, making the Freemasonry and the catholic church sworn enemies. In the wake of Matthew's death, Brando would definitely be sending his men to protect Saint Peter's Church. If the catholic church were to get involved and also send their forces there, there was a very good chance that they would end up battling one another.

"Hence, Brando would've definitely convinced the church not to get involved in this. Perhaps he promised them financial compensation using his identity as a Master Mason. After all, the DuPont Consortium is one of the world's top 10 consortiums. Alternatively, he may have promised them some other type of compensation. In any case, it's most likely the case that I'll only be faced with the werewolf army at Saint Peter's Church."

He stopped writing there, and his brows furrowed ever so slightly.

There was still one unanswered question in his mind, which was the supernatural disasters.

He had initially thought that they were stemming from the grand script of death written by the three death gods, but he wasn't so sure about that now as Brando seemed to be completely oblivious.

If he were in the know, then his attitude toward the church wouldn't have been so ambiguous. Instead, he would be doing everything in his power to convince the church to vacate Philadelphia. With the enormous wealth that the DuPont Consortium had at its disposal, he could easily donate 100 large churches to the catholic faith. It was extremely costly to run such a massive religion, so such a donation would certainly be extremely welcome.

However, he hadn't done that, and this begged the question: where were these supernatural disasters coming from?

Qin Ye couldn't think of an answer to this, and it didn't have anything to do with him anyway. After a moment of contemplation, he focused on the question that actually mattered to him: how could he obtain Xu Fu's notes without revealing his own identity?

He sat still on the spot in deep thought for a full 20 minutes before heaving a long sigh. "It's going to be very difficult... I'll have to go all-out against a Yama-King, and in that case, there's no way my identity won't be exposed. In that case..."

He began to write on the bed again. It was a habit of his to write down his thoughts in case he forgot them later.

"How do I not reveal my identity as King Yanluo? I can reveal the fact that I'm a Yama-King. At the very most, I can only reveal to them that the Cathayan Underworld is involved, but if my identity as King Yanluo gets exposed to them, the consequences will be completely different."

It wouldn't be a surprise for one of the four pillars to become involved in the affairs of the new continent. After all, the other three pillars were already doing the exact same thing.

However, if the ruler of one of the four pillars had to get involved in person, then that would be a sign of weakness.

The only forces he had at his disposal was the Dusk Legionnaire. Only at times like this would he lament his own laziness when it came to cultivation. If he had known that this would happen, he would've worked harder so he could sweep aside these enemies with ease.

In any case, there was no point in thinking about what-ifs now. The important thing for Qin Ye was to figure out how he could use the Dusk Legionnaire to stall Brando while he entered the underground church without having his identity revealed.