Yefutidaolu

Chapter 399 Ridiculous
Yes, Takami discovered that the ghosts here didn't chase him or raise their voices at him; on the contrary, he could communicate with them and even observe their punishments!
Gao Jian continued forward.
Dozens of people sat on red-hot iron beds, their flesh charred and reeking. They were bound by heavy shackles that bound their hands, feet, and necks, and by shackles made of some kind of enormous stone that pressed down on them. The stone seemed to be exceptionally heavy, crushing their bones and twisting their souls.

Gao Jian, now familiar with the place, stepped forward and asked, "May I ask what brings you here?"

One of the executioners, a Yaksha, raised its head. Seemingly of higher status, it grinned and said, "This is one who indiscriminately slaughters the innocent and harms all living beings. We send venomous snakes to gnaw at its flesh, and hungry eagles to peck at its marrow, causing its bones and flesh to rot completely, in unbearable agony. Then we sprinkle it with divine water and blow it with karmic winds, restoring it to its original form, forcing it to endure the same torment once more. These beings are gravely sinful; though they endure countless eons, they will be endlessly cycled, never to be reborn."

After recounting this cruel punishment, the yaksha seemed to take an interest in Gao Jian. It looked Gao Jian up and down, sniffed with its huge nostrils, and a hint of doubt flashed in its eyes. It asked in a muffled voice, "Strange! You have a Buddha-like aura around you, so you must have great supernatural powers or great merits protecting you. You are not a sinful soul... What are you doing in this hell?"

"I have Buddha's light on me?" Gao Jian subconsciously pointed to himself upon hearing this, raising his eyebrows in surprise. He looked down at himself; his blood and energy were flowing smoothly, and his skin was radiant, but he looked like a normal cultivator. Where was the extraordinary phenomenon of Buddha's light shining and chanting surrounding him?

"Yes." The yaksha who was carrying out the execution spoke with certainty, his huge hand casually flipping the screaming sinner on the iron bed over, frying him until both sides were golden brown: "Although it's very faint, mostly masked by your vigorous blood and energy, that self-righteous, grand ambition to save the world is unmistakable. After staying in this hell for a long time, we may not be good at other things, but we are most sensitive to this kind of aura."

A slight tremor ran through Gao Jian's heart. Just because he couldn't see it himself didn't mean it didn't exist. Reflecting on his own experiences, he indeed had an inextricable connection with Buddhism and the celestial beings.

In the past, he was connected with the goddess of the underworld by the celestial being "Feixiang" through supernatural powers, and his soul foundation was strengthened by her power. In the battle that destroyed the Zuo family in Cangzhou, he also witnessed the true manifestation of Buddha's light. Moreover, in the depths of the pagoda in the divine capital Yangjing, he personally felt the completely opposite yet equally terrifying power of the enemy of the Desire Realm and the celestial beings.

Even in the construction of his own martial arts divine will, in order to balance the dangerous desire realm power within his body, he also drew upon and incorporated the meaning of Buddha's light in suppressing evil spirits and purifying the universe.

He truly believed that he was protected by Buddha's light or that he retained the imprint of great Buddhist supernatural powers. However, this "Buddha's light" was not a radiance visible to the naked eye, but rather a mark or inclination deeply ingrained in the essence of his soul.

Gao Jian stopped dwelling on it and nodded, "I see, I understand now." He then asked, "May I ask, brother, what kind of hell is this place? I am a living person, why have I fallen into this place?"

Upon hearing this, the Yaksha frowned, revealing a hint of surprise: "You dared to jump down without knowing anything? Did your elders not explain things clearly before sending you down here to gain experience?"

Gao Jian's mind raced. He thought the "experience" excuse seemed like a good way to blend in without arousing too much suspicion, so he vaguely replied, "I guess so." He continued to probe, "I jumped down from the Yellow Springs and came straight here. You don't seem surprised at all. Do people often come down like me?"

"Heh!" Yaksha grinned, revealing a terrifying smile, and casually sprinkled some "ingredients" on another sinner, causing the other to scream even louder. "This is near-hell, the edge of hell. The pain here is truly excruciating, but the rules are relatively 'lenient.' Dying isn't a big deal; your soul just floats to the Bridge of Helplessness and waits. For those powerful figures up there, bringing the dead back to life and retrieving their own disciples' souls is incredibly easy! So, we're used to it. Every now and then, 'young masters' and 'young ladies' like you are thrown down here to 'experience life' and temper their will."

"Young master, young lady..." Gao Jian was taken aback when he heard this address, then shook his head with a wry smile, "I'm afraid I don't qualify as a young master or young lady."

Yaksha, however, was unimpressed. While skillfully "flipping" the sinner over, he said in a gruff voice, "That's just your opinion! To be able to accurately reach out and pull someone back in the vast cycle of reincarnation, one must be at least a powerful being of the fifth rank or higher! In your own world, you may have more powerful ancestors, but in the context of the endless heavens, being able to reach the fifth rank already makes you a great figure who can roam freely across a region! Be content, kid. At least you are born stronger than us poor wretches in hell. You lot can't even die, and even if you do, someone will pull you back. Tsk tsk."

As he spoke, the Yaksha seemed to use a bit of magic to add more heat to the iron bed, making the screams of the sinners on it even more "even and clear".

Gao Jian keenly sensed the fleeting fluctuation of the other party's magical power, and his pupils suddenly contracted!
This aura... was vast and boundless, carrying the chill and cruelty unique to hell, but its essential level was far beyond his imagination!

This seemingly lazy and decadent Yaksha actually possessed a cultivation level of—the eleventh realm!
A storm raged in Gao Jian's heart!
The eleventh realm! What does that mean? In the Divine Dynasty, this is already a top-tier giant capable of establishing a sect and suppressing a state or even several states! Even a powerful true dragon like Lord Jingjiang is only at the peak of the ninth realm! He is about to break through to the tenth realm.

And this seemingly lazy Yaksha is actually a super strong man at the eleventh realm? And he's just casually carrying out the lowest level of punishment here?
What shocked him even more was the casual way the other party referred to themselves as "fifth rank" and "eighth rank".

Wait... Fifth rank? Eighth rank?

Gao Jian suddenly remembered that when the Dragon King and Lord Jingjiang were talking in the East Sea Dragon Palace, they had mentioned terms like "eighth rank"! At the time, he had been puzzled, but had nowhere to look into it.

He suppressed his shock and asked calmly, "Brother, in your opinion, what rank am I now?"

Amidst her busy schedule, the Yaksha glanced at him and casually said, "Aren't we the same? Both of us are eighth-rank. But we've been suffering in this near-hell for so many years, accumulating merit through these meager tasks, and we're finally close to reaching the seventh rank! Once we officially advance to the seventh rank, we can escape this drudgery and become proper ghost servants! Instead of being a lowly ghost like this, constantly having to watch people's faces and doing dirty and tiring work like frying and cooking."

His tone carried a weariness accumulated over the years and a faint hope for the future, so frank it was almost numb.

But to Gao Jian, these words were like thunderclaps!

He, a seventh-realm martial artist, and the eleventh-realm ghost demon, were actually classified as the same level in this "rank" system—both were eighth-rank!
This completely overturned Gao Jian's understanding!
In the Divine Dynasty, the difference between the seventh and eleventh realms was like heaven and earth, an insurmountable chasm! But here, this strange "rank" system seemed to completely ignore the difference in individual cultivation levels, instead measuring things by a standard he couldn't understand!

Moreover, this Yaksha actually calls himself a "little devil"? A little devil of the eleventh realm?

What terrifying beings must the real ghost messengers and ghost generals be? And how powerful must the "fifth-rank" powerhouse he spoke of, who could "traverse the universe," be?
Gao Jian felt his head was buzzing; the amount of information was too much for him to process.

He also noticed another remark from Yaksha: "...But things are much better lately. No one's come for years; you're the only one for many years." No one's come? Why?
Gao Jian decided to temporarily set aside the mind-bending questions about the different ranks and start with more practical information. He looked around at the unchanging dark red hues and asked, "Um... bro, do you guys in this hell... ever get off work?"

Yaksha paused for a moment, seemingly finding the question rather novel, and scratched his coarse hair: "Soon, according to the earthly calendar, the shift change will take place in about an hour. Why?"

"I'd like to invite you for a drink, and also... to talk more about the situation here," Gao Jian said, trying to build rapport.

"Drinking?" He waved his huge hand. "Drinking is against the rules, so there's no need. I don't want to ruin my path to the seventh rank. But chatting is fine. No need to wait for the shift change, let's do it now! We're so incredibly bored in this godforsaken place, we've almost forgotten how to talk to living people. You don't know, no one has been here for years. It's good to have someone to talk to, very good!"

He appeared quite enthusiastic, even temporarily pausing his "work," which seemed to dampen the screams of the sinners.

Seeing this, Gao Jian stopped being polite and asked directly, "Then I won't stand on ceremony. Brother, you just said this place is near hell, what exactly does 'near' mean? And how is it different from real hell?"

The Yaksha seemed pleased to have someone listen to him and immediately explained, "The 'nearby' part, as the name suggests, means it's close to the core hells. Next to us are the eight hot hells; those eight hot hells are the real places of suffering. What we're here is just a place to stroll around the entrance. Each hot hell has four walls and four gates, and outside the walls is an iron city, and each iron city also has four gates. So, one hot hell can lead to sixteen near-side hells. Eight hot hells, eight times sixteen, you do the math, that's a total of one hundred and twenty-eight near-side hells!"

"Then there are the Eight Cold Hells, the Solitary Hell, the Wandering Hell, the Blade Plain Hell, and so on. There are more than 84,000 individual hells, and each of them has its own surrounding hells. So there are millions, even tens of millions of hells in a small place like ours. The vastness of hell is unimaginable, and we are just one of them!"

He spoke in great detail, even with a hint of showing off his "professional knowledge".

But then his tone turned somber, tinged with confusion and disappointment: "However... I don't know what's wrong with our Nearby Hell. Maybe it's because it's too remote? It's been such a long, long time... since we've seen any other hells. There was only one Blade Plain Hell that passed by before, but it disappeared quickly."

Takami listened silently to the Yaksha's words, understanding every single one. But when put together, the grand and chilling picture of the structure of hell, its hierarchy, and the numerous 128 near-border hells that it depicted filled him with an unprecedented feeling...

absurd.

It's truly absurd.

He had thought the Divine Dynasty was bizarre and suffocating enough. But the "common sense" that this Yaksha demon spoke so casually was an even more powerless absurdity.

This sense of absurdity didn't stem from fear, but from a feeling of powerlessness. His own seventh-realm cultivation, achieved through sheer effort and countless battles, was now ranked only as "eighth-grade" alongside this eleventh-realm Yaksha under this bizarre "rank" system? And what kind of being was this "fifth-grade" powerhouse who could freely rescue people from reincarnation and was considered to "traverse the universe"?
Faced with such unimaginable grandeur, individual efforts, struggles, and even the rise and fall of the world seem insignificant and unworthy of mention.

For a moment, he was completely at a loss for words, unable to find the right words to express the shock he felt.

All the words he wanted to say were reduced to a silent sigh and a dry reply: "I... I understand for now."

Looking at the eleventh-realm yaksha demon in front of him, who was unusually "talkative" due to years of boredom, he suddenly felt that the other party's decadent and numb attitude was perhaps the most normal reaction to this absurd reality.

“Well, buddy,” Gao Jian shook off his chaotic thoughts and decided to seize the moment, “I’ll stay here and keep you company for a while. You seem pretty bored. You’ve been doing all the talking, now it’s my turn to talk about something up here to cheer you up?”

"Great! That's wonderful!" Upon hearing this, the Yaksha demon's enormous bull eyes lit up, and he excitedly slapped his thigh with his fan-like hand. "We've been doing nothing but frying and roasting people here for hundreds of years! Tell us, tell us!"

So, Gao Jian gathered his thoughts and began to recount some events of the Divine Dynasty. He spoke of the power struggles among aristocratic families in Cangzhou, the changes in the Grand Canal, the border troubles in Liangzhou and his own experiences, his observations in the capital, the atmosphere of the Imperial Academy, and even some interesting anecdotes from the common people. He deliberately omitted many things, treating it as just storytelling.

The yaksha demon listened with great interest, nodding his enormous head from time to time. When he heard certain stories, he couldn't help but interject, commenting in the professional tone of a hellish civil servant:

"This kind of person deserves to go to the hell of having their tongue pulled out."

"Tsk tsk, this guy should be tortured in the Iron Bed Hell for a few cycles before being sent to Avici Hell to have a taste."

"Oh? There's another lovelorn soul? It's a pity he used the wrong method... Alas, love is the most hurtful thing, both to others and to oneself. I'm afraid he won't escape the torment of the City of the Unjustly Dead."

His comments struck Gao Jian as quite novel, as if everything in the world had already been prepared in hell.

(End of this chapter)