Yama Rising

"My god..." Woody fell to his knees as his entire body trembled uncontrollably. "What the hell happened?!"

Under extreme fear and duress, one would often think of things that compounded their fear even further, and Woody's thoughts immediately turned toward the arcane and the supernatural, upon which he became even more horrified.

Had they encountered a legendary ghost ship? Was this even reality?

The only sounds that could be heard were the splashing of the waves and the squawking of the ravens as they flew around the bodies.

In contrast, Qin Ye and Tezcatlipoca were far calmer, but they also wore grim expressions, and Tezcatlipoca remarked, "The killing intent and resentment that I can sense from that ship are extremely powerful..."

"It's the Death Star," Qin Ye said with narrowed eyes. "He's been on this ship. This is both a warning and an act of provocation."

If this was just a warning, then it wouldn't have been issued so early. Qin Ye was confident that the Death Star was situated on Dream Island, and they hadn't even set sail yet, so this would be far too early for a warning to be issued.

The only thing that Qin Ye was rather wary of was how crude and unrefined this provocation tactic was.

The Death Star was able to hide in Chichenhagen and steal something so important from right under the noses of the two ruler death gods, so it had to have some extremely intricate and refined tricks up its sleeve. In that case, why had it chosen to do something so primitive and unsightly?

"It's almost as if someone was telling him what to do while he was at Chichenhagen, but that guiding force has disappeared since then," Qin Ye murmured to himself as the sea breeze gently picked up his hair and robes. "In other words, someone provided him with a bag of tricks, but all of the tricks in the bag have been exhausted now."

Tezcatlipoca didn't say anything. He knew that Qin Ye was only thinking out loud and didn't require a response to his thoughts.

Who could've possibly done this aside from Quetzalcoatl?

With each divine descent, he could issue one set of instructions, but if he couldn't perform a divine descent, then he wouldn't be able to issue any instructions, and the Death Star would have to act on its own.

However, it was precisely because of how obvious everything was that Qin Ye didn't dare to believe that it really was the Plumed Serpent God. If the Plumed Serpent God really was the mastermind behind everything, then this would truly be a spectacular series of manipulation.

"Let's board the ship." With a wave of Qin Ye's hand, all of the bodies fell into the sea, and he strode directly toward the ship.

"No!!" Woody had tears and snot flowing down his face as he frantically crawled over to Qin Ye before throwing his arms around Qin Ye's leg. "We can't! This ship had already been cursed! We don't want to die!"

"No! I'm not going! There's no way I'm going near that ship!!" one of the crewmates screamed. "I'm going home!! My home is in New Jersey, and I'm going back there! I'm never doing this shit again!!"

The other crewmate rose to his feet unsteadily, and his face was deathly pale as he panted heavily. "I'm not going, Woody! You hear me? I'm not going even if you kill me! They must've encountered those things! There's no doubt about it! I'm not going to ever set foot on that ship again!!"

Qin Ye pushed Woody aside before continuing toward the dock. "Each of you will receive 10,000 USD after all is said and done."

"Shut the fuck up!! Did you not hear me?!" The two crewmates were so horrified that they were on the verge of going insane, and one of them suddenly pulled out his gun as he stared intently at Tezcatlipoca with bloodshot eyes. "You've got too much money to spend, do you?! Hurry up and hand over the money right now! I won't hurt you, but I'm not going to throw my life away, either!"

Tezcatlipoca slowly lowered his hood. "Foolish human..."

Before he had a chance to finish, a bullet was fired from the gun, and a hole had appeared on his forehead.

"You made me do this! I'm not throwing my fucking life away for something like this!" The man put down his gun with gritted teeth, and his lips were still trembling. Woody turned to the man with an incredulous expression, then suddenly sprang to his feet before rushing back in horror.

"What are you so afraid of?" the man scoffed. "We've been working together for seven or eight years already, I have no intention of getting into a gunfight with a ruthless bastard like you!"

Right at this moment, his entire body suddenly stiffened as a hand had been placed onto his shoulder.

He reflexively began to turn around, but then suddenly stopped cold in his tracks as his body shuddered as if it had been electrocuted. A horrified look appeared in his eyes as something dawned on him.

There were only five people on this port, and the person standing behind him was the one that had just been shot through the head...

"Is this what you humans call guns?" Tezcatlipoca's voice rang out from behind him, and the man's pupils instantly contracted as all of the fine hairs all over his body stood up on end.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see that Woody and the other crewmate were already backing away with horrified expressions white trembling uncontrollably.

The man's teeth began to chatter with fear, and all of the color was drained from his face as his gun clattered onto the ground. At the same time, goosebumps were raised over his entire body, and cold sweat began to pour down his face.

"It's a bit more powerful than I expected." Tezcatlipoca was smiling, and his mouth had already opened up to over half a meter in diameter.

Right as he was about to bite the man's head off, Qin Ye interjected, "Don't kill him. If they're all dead, we'll have no one to pilot the ship for us."

Silence.

Half a second later, the crewmate felt a gentle pat on his shoulder. "You're a lucky man."

Even though it was only a gentle tap, he immediately collapsed to the ground as if all of the bones in his entire body had suddenly vanished.

He wanted to scream, but he was too horrified to find his own voice.

He wanted to stand up, but his legs were like literal noodles, and he couldn't inject any strength into them.

This man is a monster!!

He was screaming with all his might internally as he curled up into a ball on the ground, sobbing in a broken manner into his own arms.

"Get on the ship. Do I need to repeat myself?" Tezcatlipoca asked as he turned toward Woody and the other man.

The two of them nodded in a mechanical manner in response, then made their way toward the ship.

The ship was already completely stained by blood.

There were streaks of blood all over the deck, and one could imagine how the crew had been dragged over the deck, then hung up on the mast. There were so many people on the ship, yet there wasn't any sign of resistance. At the end of the deck, there was a message inscribed in blood that read: "Welcome to hell".

Woody's trio was trembling uncontrollably as they stood on the ship. Everything that they had seen thus far went beyond their wildest imaginations, and even the most terrifying nightmares they had endured hadn't been anywhere near as frightening as this!

"What a joke," Qin Ye mused as he glanced at the message in blood. "A Yin spirit who hasn't even ever been to hell is welcoming me to hell? The true hell is far more terrifying than you could ever imagine."

After that, he entered the ship's cabin, as did Tezcatlipoca.

Even without any instructions, Woody's trio knew what they had to do if they didn't want to die.

Thus, Woody entered the captain's room, almost in a trance, and he stood in front of the helm with his hands resting on it in a dazed manner.

All of a sudden, he began banging his own head viciously against the helm over and over again.

This is a nightmare! It has to be a nightmare! It hurts so much already, why am I still not awake?

The door was opened, and the two crewmates made their way into the room. One of them said in a voice that was so hoarse that it didn't sound like it even belonged to a human anymore, "Captain, sh, should we set off?"

Woody closed his eyes as he accepted the fact that this wasn't a dream, and he said in a trembling voice, "Let us pray that we can come back alive... We set sail for Dream Island!!"

……………………………………………………

A day had already passed since the ship had set off, and Qin Ye was sitting in the spacious and lavish cabin. He poured himself a Corona beer before taking a sip.

"You don't seem to be worried at all," Tezcatlipoca remarked.

He was sitting across from Qin Ye, swirling a glass of red wine.

"I'm thinking about something right now," Qin Ye replied as his brows furrowed slightly. "The Plumed Serpent God told me that five people are required to open the treasure vault, and there just so happens to be five of us left. Isn't that too good to be a coincidence?"

"Maybe." Tezcatlipoca took a sip of his wine, then said with a serious expression, "I've also been thinking about a lot during the past day."

"Oh?"

Tezcatlipoca picked up a cigar, but instead of lighting it, he was playing with it absentmindedly as he said, "Quetzalcoatl told you that he doesn't want anything from the treasure vault aside from the sword of the sun god, right?"

Qin Ye nodded in response. That was indeed what the Plumed Serpent God had said.

A cold smile appeared on Tezcatlipoca's face as he continued, "So he's trying to use the power of a god of creation to sever his ties with the Heavenly Dao. That is the only possibility. However, what if I told you that our parent god never used a sword?"

Qin Ye's expression changed slightly upon hearing this.

Tezcatlipoca continued, "Not only did They never use a sword, They never used any weapon, nor did They bestow their power upon any object. I've never heard of this so-called sword of the sun god. Also, you've already told him that you've met me, and he and I are sworn enemies. In his absence, he should be aware that there's a very good chance that you would approach me to track down the treasure vault of the Aztec gods together. Suppose that this sword does exist. If I were to enter the treasure vault, there would be no way that he would be able to get his hands onto the sword!"

Indeed, the power of the Aztec parent god, Ometeotl, was creation. With that power, one could even create a brand new religion, so how could Tezcatlipoca possibly hand it over to the Plumed Serpent God?

"What are you implying?" Qin Ye asked.

"I think that he only wants us to enter the treasure vault. As for why, I don't know," Tezcatlipoca mused with tightly furrowed brows. "On top of that, it looks like this treasure vault really does exist, but it's not a treasure vault of the Aztec gods. At the very least, my treasures aren't stored in there."

In that case, to whom did this treasure vault belong, and what did this have to do with the disappearance of the new continent's space exploration information?

There were too many unanswered mysteries, and both of them fell silent again.

Right at this moment, both of them abruptly raised their heads before turning to the wall of the cabin as if they could see through it.

An icy-cold aura of death that didn't belong to the sea at all had just washed over the ship, as if they had just crossed the boundary between life and death an instant ago.

At the same time, the sound of door-knocking rang out, and Woody carefully pushed open the door before informing in a respectful voice, "We've already entered the vicinity of Dream Island, and we'll be able to reach it in one more hour at most."