Yama Rising

No response.

All of a sudden, George Stinney began to chuckle silently to himself.

As he did so, more and more blood began to pour out of his orifices, and his mouth grew larger and larger, tearing open his entire body like a wound!

Countless chunks of bright red flesh emerged from beneath the charred-black skin of his body. Electric chairs were capable of instantly drying out one's body, so the end result wasn't a serene and peaceful corpse. Instead, it was a dried-out mummy.

His charred head was tilted 30 degrees to right, as if his neck had been snapped, and his mouth continued to grow wider and wider, forming a grotesque smile that literally stretched from ear to ear, revealing an incomplete set of mutilated teeth that were covered in blood.

“I want…”

A sharp, yet raspy voice rang out from his mouth, much like the sound of a cat scratching at glass with its claws, and it was an extremely unpleasant sound.

With each word that he uttered, all of the lights throughout the entire passageway would flicker erratically. Qin Ye knew that this wasn't some type of special effect. Instead, this was happening because the evil ghost's Yin energy and killing intent were too potent for this illusion to handle.

“you…”

Crack!

His head tilted even further to his left, and at this point, it was already creating a right angle with the rest of his body. At the same time, his eyes, his nose... All of his facial features began to cave in, presenting a horrifying sight to behold.

“to die!!!”

Crack!! His head twisted violently until it was upside-down, and it was also in this instant that his eyes, nose, and mouth transformed into four black holes. Bursts of inky-black Yin energy surged out of his facial features, and the entire illusion was instantly plunged into complete darkness.

At the same time, Qin Ye was suddenly struck by a burst of excruciating pain that came directly from his soul. It originated from his glabella and rapidly spread through his entire body.

He had never experienced this type of pain before, and it felt as if his soul were being torn apart. This was the most special trait of Death Stars: anyone who saw them was sure to die!

"Insolence!" Qin Ye let loose a loud cry as his Yin energy erupted out of his body. His Yin energy was too powerful for the illusion to contain, and massive cracks were already beginning to appear in the space around him. At the same time, he gently raised a hand, and a Soul Shackle shot forth through the air like lightning.

"You must have a death wish if you're attacking me!"

In the instant that the Soul Shackle was about to reach the electric chair, the illusion in the entire carriage suddenly vanished.

It was still the same train carriage as before.

The train had only just emerged from the tunnel, and all of the surrounding passengers were looking at Qin Ye with surprised expressions, wondering why he had suddenly sprung to his feet.

Tezcatlipoca raised an eyebrow upon seeing this. "Did you see him?"

Before Qin Ye had a chance to reply, Tezcatlipoca continued, "To think that such a terrifying creature is at large in Usonia right as we speak... Such powerful Yin energy, such terrifying killing intent! It's as if he resents the entire world! Even though you only entered an illusion, I can smell his hatred on you."

"I did meet him," Qin Ye replied as he sat down with a complex expression, and after a long while, he heaved a forlorn sigh. "What a pity."

He cast his eyes downward, and his beaded bracelet had already slid into his palm.

10 years ago, perhaps he would've had some fun and talked some trash during that encounter, but he just couldn't bring himself to do that now.

It seemed that people really did grow and mature...

"Why do you seem so disappointed?" Tezcatlipoca asked.

"I'm disappointed because I wasn't able to destroy him," Qin Ye replied with a shake of his head.

He cast his gaze toward the window beside him, and he discovered that a faint handprint had appeared there.

It wasn't a large handprint, looking as if it belonged to a boy in his early teens, and it seemed to be a memento of the tragic life that he had led.

"What a poor boy..." he sighed before falling silent.

However, Tezcatlipoca was suddenly in the mood to talk.

He cast a meaningful gaze toward Qin Ye before suddenly chuckling, "I didn't expect the third King Yanluo to be so sympathetic. Your predecessors were always so cold and ruthless. There are countless tragedies that take place in the world every single day, there's no way you can remedy all of them. Among the entire world's population, the majority live in unfortunate circumstances, having to struggle for survival. I had thought that you would've already seen through all of this and rid yourself of your empathy."

Qin Ye replied, "Truth be told, I really miss the days before I became King Yanluo."

"Oh?"

"Back then, I could do whatever I wanted, acting on my sense of justice and delivering retribution to those who deserve it. Isn't this why Hell exists?"

"Pardon me for being frank, but Hell only exists to oversee the cycle of reincarnation. Those who die enter the underworld to be reincarnated, and their past lives are wiped away in order to further human civilization. You are seeing it as something that's far more noble than it actually is."

"Is that what the underworld is to you? No wonder the Usonian Underworld collapsed."

"Then why did you choose to become King Yanluo? Wouldn't it have been much more enjoyable for you to serve as an underworld emissary?" Tezcatlipoca asked with an amused smile. "If you just want to uphold justice and right as many wrongs in the world as possible, then why did you decide to climb to the top? Given the underworld emissary classification of your nation, once you become an Anitya Hellguard, you won't be able to experience any of that. You may be the one in power, but you're actually further away from the people that you want to help."

Qin Ye replied in a calm voice, "It's exactly because I've started from the bottom and seen too much pain and suffering that I came to understand something: perhaps I can save hundreds, even thousands of people as a low-grade underworld emissary, but in order to save an entire nation, I must climb to the top."

"Looks like neither of us will be able to convince the other," Tezcatlipoca said with a smile. "I just think there's no need for us to right the wrongs of the mortal realm. Our job is to oversee the cycle of reincarnation, and that is the purpose of the underworld's existence. Aside from the four pillars, no other underworld has a reward and punishment system for the dead, yet the underworld is still operating just fine, is it not?"

"That's why those underworlds will never be able to become part of the four pillars," Qin Ye scoffed. "You're just a sun god, and you only share some of the power of a death god due to the special nature of the Aztec religion. You don't even know the purpose for a death god's existence, what right do you have to debate me on this topic?"

Tezcatlipoca raised his hands in surrender, then downed the rest of his coffee in one go before setting the cup down. He then asked, "What do you think about the Death Star?"

Qin Ye didn't immediately reply. Instead, he was silent for several minutes before replying with a grim expression, "He's trying to lure me somewhere."

He massaged his own glabella in a slightly frustrated manner, then pulled an old magazine out of his pocket. The color on the cover of the magazine was extremely faded, and it looked to be something from at least a decade ago. On the cover was written the English headline "The Truth Behind a Grave Miscarriage of Justice Revealed After 70 Years? This is the Most Egregious Tragedy in the History of the Usonian Legal System!"

"This magazine was rather difficult to track down, but this is an extremely important event, so I did my best to track down some information from back then," Qin Ye said as he flipped open the magazine to the article that he wanted to see.

"In 1944, George and his family were living in the small town of Alcolu, located in Clarendon County of South Carolina. He had an elder brother, a younger brother, and two younger sisters. Discrimination against blacks has always been prevalent in the south of Usonia, and the town of Alcolu epitomized that discriminative culture. The white district and the black district was separated by a railway, and each community had their own schools and churches. The whites and the blacks in the town rarely ever interacted with one another."

"You didn't know about this before?" Tezcatlipoca asked with a surprised expression.

Qin Ye shook his head in response. This wasn't an incident that had taken place in his own nation, and it had happened too long ago, so he never learned about this tragedy.

"On the 23rd of March, a priest discovered the bodies of two white girls in a ditch in the black district. The bodies belonged to Betty June Binnicker, age 11, and Mary Emma Thames, age 7. The police discovered that the two girls had been beaten by a blunt metal object, and Betty had also been sexually assaulted. According to witnesses, the last time these two girls were seen were when they had set off on their bikes to search for flowers. They passed by George's residence, and they asked George and his seven-year-old sister, Katherine, where they could find passion flowers. The police immediately arrested George and his 17-year-old brother, John, but John was later released. After that, the sheriff declared that George had already confessed to the crime of following, attacking, and sexually assaulting the girls, and that they had found a rail spike that he was hiding."

Tezcatlipoca's expression remained unchanged as she said, "The past is always filled with unnecessary bloodshed and injustices. They should be blaming Christopher Columbus for this tragedy. Come to think of it, I should be blaming him as well. If it weren't for him, the three religions of the new continent would still be at the height of their powers."

Qin Ye ignored Tezcatlipoca and continued reading aloud from the article.

"George was convicted for first-degree murder, and he was locked in a jail cell where he was interrogated alone, without permission for any lawyers or family to visit him. On the 24th of April, his trial took place in the Clarendon County Court. Blacks didn't have the right to vote, so the entire jury consisted of whites. Over 1,000 white people attended the court hearing, but no blacks were allowed to enter. The defense lawyer that had been assigned to George didn't gather any witnesses, nor did he interrogate the witnesses of the prosecution, and he barely made an attempt to defend his client at all. The jury only took 10 minutes to arrive at a guilty verdict, and the judge declared, there and then, that he was to be executed by electric chair..."

"Given how sympathetic you are, are you not saddened by what you're reading?" Tezcatlipoca asked.

"These are just words on a piece of paper," Qin Ye replied in a calm voice.

Reality was far crueler than words could ever be.

"However, words can often reveal some hidden truths." He offered the magazine to Tezcatlipoca and said, "Take a look."

Tezcatlipoca's eyes narrowed slightly as he read through the section that Qin Ye was pointing at. After just a brief glance, his brows furrowed slightly as he asked, "Haiti?"

"That's right, they were Haitians who had immigrated to Usonia not long before the incident." Qin Ye downed the coffee in his cup in one go as he turned to Tezcatlipoca with a serious expression. "It can be said that Haiti is the center of the Caribbean Sea."

"What does that mean?"

Qin Ye's eyes narrowed slightly as he asked, "Where are we going?"

A hint of enlightenment appeared in Tezcatlipoca's eyes upon hearing this. "The treasure vault of the Aztec gods."

"And where is that?"

"At the center of the Caribbean Sea," Tezcatlipoca replied.

"And where is Haiti?"

Tezcatlipoca didn't reply, and there was no need for a reply because the answer was obvious. Haiti just so happened to be at the center of the Caribbean Sea as well!

"The Death Star is definitely serving someone," Qin Ye said in a serious voice as he tucked the magazine away again. "The mastermind behind this has to be a death god, one that's extremely powerful. At the very least, they must have considerable power and influence over the Usonian Underworld. They're luring us to the Caribbean Sea, which just so happens to be our target destination anyway."

He paused momentarily before asking with a smile, "A name just popped up in your mind, didn't it?"

Tezcatlipoca gritted his teeth as he replied, "Are you referring to the Plumed Serpent God?"