Chapter 638: Treasures of the Great Ming Dynasty

“I want you guys to make a complete inventory list of everything that you find in this place, right from the first floor all the way to the ninth floor. Record it clearly, and classify them accordingly.” With a wave of his hand, the two evil ghosts flew downstairs and got started at once. Meanwhile, he turned to the eight scrolls suspended in mid air.

“Are you looking down on me?” The Harken grunted with frustration, “Do you know how long it has been since they’ve last maintained these formation arrays? Would I really be fit to call myself a Yama-King if I couldn’t even take down these things?”

He didn’t face any sort of resistance whatsoever. It didn’t take long before the scroll was in his hands. He promptly unraveled them, only to find golden words revealing themselves against the white backdrop of the parchment.

No. In fact, it was even more than that! Far beyond that!

As soon as Qin Ye saw it, his consciousness was immediately drawn to a completely different place, almost as though he were located in the heart of thousands upon thousands of soldiers. A terrifying, bloodthirsty aura exploded around him and bore down on him like a suffocating vortex, stimulating his nerves and stirring his soul. At once, Qin Ye forcefully shut the scroll and recovered from his momentary stupor. The hairs of his body were trembling as though they were overcharged with static electricity. His heart was thumping wildly against his chest.

“Wu (武) represents might and excellence, stability and order, the willpower to overcome, and the ambition to rise to new heights, while Mu (穆) represents the reverence of virtue and justice, and unending loyalty.”

The Harken stared at the scroll, “As far as military formations are concerned, Hell had always sub-divided them into superior, intermediate and lesser formations. To put things into better perspective, Hell had only ten different types of superior military formations, all of which were used and wielded by the Yama-Kings of the Ten Palaces. I’d always thought that these have been lost to us together with the sudden ascension of the Yama-Kings of the Ten Palaces. Who would’ve thought that the Eight Great Clans were actually able to get their hands on such things…”

That said, their power and influence turned out to be one of the greatest blessings to the new Hell right now. After all, if not for them, it would’ve taken the new Hell’s brightest talents decades upon decades to come up with something like that.

“Let’s put it this way. The lesser military formations would imbue 50,000 regular Yin soldiers with might equivalent to that of an Infernal Judge; intermediate military formations would imbue 500,000 Yin soldiers with the might equivalent to an Abyssal Prefect; while superior military formations would imbue 1,000,000 Yin soldiers with the might equivalent to a Yama-King! Don’t underestimate these military formations just because of the sheer number of Yin soldiers required. The power of a Yama-King is well beyond your imaginations! If left unopposed, it wouldn’t even be out of the question to have them wipe out an entire continent!”

Qin Ye fervently suppressed the excitement in his heart as he began to consider the possibilities.

After all, they had made a request that Hell absolutely had to consider and give an answer to. It was a request that was built upon Hell’s regional influence, and the difficulty lay more in how he should reject and suppress the Russian Underworld, as opposed what he should do with the Resentment Crystals Mine.

And to that end, suppression on such magnitude would unfortunately require more than shouting louder than the other side. Hell would need to back its words with commensurate actions and threats.

Meanwhile, Qin Ye had only managed to delay his negotiations with the Russian Underworld thus far, because he knew full well that Hell didn’t have anything to match such a show of force with!

Fortunately, this scroll has now given Hell a way out of what earlier appeared to be a dead end.

What was one resource that Cathay was best known for?

If a million Yin soldiers could already display the same might as a Yama-King… How strong would Hell’s forces be in just a hundred years’ time? How many Yin soldiers would Hell have? This was the key to putting Hell back on the map of the netherworld again!

Qin Ye took a deep breath, and then turned to the second scroll. He did likewise and pulled it into his hands, before finally opening it up slowly.

It was an incredibly detailed map, and the focal point of the map was clearly Lotus Peak of Huangshan, otherwise known as the Yellow Mountain!

“It’s normal. The direct descendants of the Zhu Clan probably have their own means of internal communication. If they could omit certain things from their written records, then there was no reason why they wouldn’t do so. But whatever this might be, I’m pretty sure it would be on the same level as the Wumu military formation…” The Harken’s eyes narrowed slightly, “If you ask me, I’d guess that this would be a rare treasure, or perhaps even the nascent form of a Yama-class Yin artifact in the making!”

“And whichever it is…” It licked its lips, “This only goes to show that the Eight Great Clans have contacts in the mortal realm. After all, they would definitely need someone to safeguard the treasure or watch over the forging process of the Yin artifact. In other words, doesn’t this mean that they might have made contact with some of their direct descendants back in the mortal realm?”

The next few scrolls were also maps devoid of much particulars or details. It would seem that the Zhu Clan were clearly being careful not to place their eggs all in one basket. Such a realization filled Qin Ye with both curiosity and dismay. He was also filled with some measure of disappointment.

Have you never considered the possibility that your descendants might be idiots who cannot unlock the mysteries of the maps you’d left to them?

What kind of a person are you?!

Forget it. It’s not too bad to have these maps either. It’s only going to be a matter of time before we reclaim and unify the Cathayan Underworld after all… With a soft sigh, he slowly unravelled the eighth scroll, bracing himself to see yet another map again.

He froze for a moment, and then immediately took a closer look at it.

Regular words… constitute the last and final scroll?

“Year 1801. First contact with Unkulunkulu. Traded 100 kilograms of Grade A materials, and 10,000 pieces of Yin jade for the right to develop a port at the netherworld’s Cape of Good Hope.”

They were absolutely floored by what they had read because it was incontrovertible evidence that the Zhu Clan had been frolicking with foreign underworlds!

Nevertheless, these words instantly began to set in motion a train of thoughts in Qin Ye’s mind, and he mused, “Cape of Good Hope… That’s in Alkebulan. Doesn’t this mean that… they’d been in touch with the Alkebulan Underworlds?”

“No… We can’t really consider them selling us out either.” The Harken shook its head and immediately qualified his earlier statement, “After all, it’s an open secret that the Eight Great Clans have always been colluding with foreign underworlds and gaining private benefits from these transactions. The Cape of Good Hope… Does this mean that… the Zhu Clan had planned to open a sea port for their use? Are they… smuggling?!”

“How well received are the ‘made in Hell’ goods in the rest of the netherworld?”

“No wonder… no wonder the Zhu Clan is so well off! The Sixfold Ghost Kings had roamed the entire East Continent, and yet found no evidence of them establishing diplomatic relations with any of the countries there. To think that they’ve actually extended their reach this far! Keep reading. I want to know just how many countries they’ve managed to extend their influence to!”

“Year 1832. With the aid, recommendation and introduction of Mythic Spirit Unkulunkulu and another, we paid a hefty price to establish the Alkebulan Rift Valley Access.”

“Year 1900. With the aid, recommendation and introduction of five Alkebulan Mythic Spirits, the Zhu Clan was finally allowed to dock our ships at the major Alkebulan ports. We made contact with the Mythic Spirits of the lands, and also brought ambassadors back to Hell for the very first time.”

Almost as though it understood what was going through Qin Ye’s mind, the Harken shook its head, “It’s not as bad as you think.”

“Yin and Yang do not intersect, but there are still ways of circumventing this so-called ironclad rule. For one, Alkebulan is a land that believes in ancestral spirits, and some of the Alkebulans living in Cathay right now could very well be proxy scouts of the Alkebulan Underworld--…”

The Harken looked over immediately, and his eyes immediately gleamed brightly.

“A complete list of Alkebulan missions in Cathay, where each of them are stationed, the means of communicating with each of them, and the date on which contact was previously made.”