The inner voice that had stuck to him since after his death and resurrection became more pronounced. It was a cold ominous whisper.
/You have consumed the eye of a dead god, Yanluo. Ruler of Hell./
Zero paused, shocked by the news. Yanluo was only a myth. A horrible story told to children to get them to behave. An untouchable feat. A fantasy. It was like saying he had met the bodhisattva, Ksitigarbha. Or that he had transversed through the entire six realms of samsara.
Entirely unbelievable.
He couldn't think much of it because he was immediately attacked by a burning pain. Thousands of voices flooded his ears, and it as though he could hear every word uttered by humanity. Zero clutched at his head, fighting the familiar pain.
There was something burning inside. The familiar heat of that void. It started off as a chilling feeling that gradually scorched.
His lungs burned from every breath he took. The organs were filled up with hot, turbulent air. His fragile ribs strained and groaned. Even the acid in his stomach bubbled from the heat and putrid air escaped his orifices.
Hell was inside him. Incomparable pain. Countless tortures. The very nature of evil itself. Zero was trembling. Zero was burning.
It was a fire not even the roaring snow could chill.
The worms and maggots in him began to wiggle and squirm as his body temperature rose beyond what was normal. He held back a groan not wanting to bring attention to himself. It was pitch dark and only the sound of the cold wind could be heard.
Zero could feel himself slipping under again. He was being summoned by the void, he could feel it. It was the same terrible feeling. He fought it. He tried to hold it off. The claws of the otherworld caressed his soul, promising eternal peace. A false call. He resisted.
'I can't go back. I won't!' he thought, hoping he was strong enough. He knew he wasn't. The void was all powerful. The heat was all encompassing.
Outside the vomit ridden cage, the world welcomed the winter.
And alas, Zero fell back under, into the deep waters of oblivion.
/You have been marked with the symbol of hell. Choose your class, Son of Naraka./
Back in the void, he felt the same longing for eternal peace. This time he refused to be swallowed by the decietful call of the dark. He held on to his sanity by a thread, listening to the inner voice that spoke to him.
'Chooe my class?' Zero wondered. He waited for a bit before the voice returned.
/Ferryman/
/Soup ladle/
/Yin/
Before Zero could pay any attention to this new development, a sudden and powerfully raw power clutched strongly at his soul.
It felt like a chain had been wound around his very being. Like he had been trapped.
Fear consumed his mind. It was a primal reaction.
Something heavy thumped where his heart was supposed to be. He didn't know what it was. But it seemed like it would be a great fortune to die than to live with such a presence within him.
Again the voice came, calling him back to his situation. "Choose your class. "
So Zero went over the three that was given to him, still disoriented.
' How am I to know what any of this means?'
He thought about it for a while. There was no way he would be going for a soup ladle. So he was left with the Ferryman and the Yin Class.
He had seen a ferry only once in his life. When an imperial representative came to their village during the spring festival to collect ten young maidens for the emperor. It was a grandly decorated boat.
He wondered what would happen if he chose the Ferryman Class but after another round of deliberation, he decided to go for the last option. The Yin. As soon as he made his decision, the voice spoke.
/You have made your choice/
/YIN CLASS: As a Yin spirit, you are a fickle entity hanging on by a thread to remain in existence. Cursed to wander the entirety of Naraka in search of reincarnation. The mortal plane cannot support your being and the Heavenly Dao is furious at your existence. 7 strict quests stand before you and your next rank. You hang between life and death, a danger to yourself and those around you. The tribulation above watches you and alters your fate against your favour. You cannot survive unless you feed/
/Time remaining before disintegration: Three days/
/Quest 1: find the nearest Yin source and feed before disintegration/
Zero struggled to understand what he was hearing. He had no idea what a Yin spirit was as he was mostly uneducated. It was a being of legends. Ghosts and whatnot. A hell denizen. He had an even less idea what a yin source was but it clear he had only had three days to find it. Disintegration did not sound like a beautiful experience.
' The heavenly dao is against me as well?'
The sea of darkness became turbulent once more and Zero braced himself for the impact of revival.
With a throaty cough, he awakened. Spluttering away, he tried to regain his five senses.
When he came to, he noticed something was grandly different. For one, he had a left arm. That alone was enough to shock the senses out of him.
"What—"
He couldn't care less now whether or not he had two more days or even a year to live. His only question was the origin of this magical scroll. He had heard little of cultivation and the wonders of mana in the air. So of course he was ignorant to the powers that resided in the world. His lost limb was back. It was right there. And all he had to do was swallow a decaying eye.
The second thing Zero noticed was the firmness of his lower limbs. He was still a fragile thing, yes. But he finally had the bearings of a normal human being. The maggots were also gone, he could see them. All dead and horrid on the cage floor.
Then, there was the change in his vision. The night that was once pitch dark, was as clear as a full moon night. Not enough to see much, but quite an improvement.
Suddenly, he noticed a movement in the cluster of trees some distance away from the cage.
He held his breath, hoping it not to be the liquid shadow once more. Gratefully, it wasn't. Horrifyingly, however, it was a ten meter tall monstrosity with a hollowed mid section and a grand tongue that fell to the earth.
The creature had no ears. But it had eyes that covered the entirety of its slimy blue-black head. Zero heaved and rose. His shackles made clanging noises, awakening his cellmates.
"Do not move."
Hairy girl and Three-armed woman were the only ones to wake. Zero couldn't tell and didn't even care if the blob had woken or not. The deaf boy remained asleep, oblivious.
The girl and the woman looked at themselves in confusion, wondering what had gotten into their newest addition's head.
"Can you not see it?" Zero asked, unable to take his eyes off the creature. It didn't seem to care about the cages filled with strange humans and animals, yet it seemed to sniff the air about with something that protruded from its mouth. Slimy, dark substance escaped it's wide, toothless oral cavity.
It was searching for something.
"What are you talking about? How—" the Three-armed woman paused, pointing in surprise at his newly grown arm and straight legs. Zero could not be bothered with her surprise. He backed away once more, shackles clanging loudly.
The creature let out a shrill cry, furiously sniffing at the air with its oral nose, mouth still dripping with viscous liquid.
Zero was more than frustrated. So many things had happened to him in just a short span of days. Was his brother right then? When he declared loudly as Zero left their wooden shack of a home— that he would never survive three days on his own out in the wilderness? Technically, his brother was right. He died the very day he left.
Now, months later, would he be faced with the same humiliation by dying once more?! Even at a second chance, no matter how twisted this second chance was?
Zero thought hard, trying to find an escape.
Meanwhile the two females watched him in awe, not seeing the creature. Only pondering on how he had become a normal human being. As far as normal went. They looked upon him, greedily searching for anything that vaguely resembled a precious magical treasure of healing. They couldn't spot anything precious.
If he had something magical on his person, they'd certainly kill him to have it. As they needed normality as much as anyone.
Zero, however, was in a dilemma. The creature had gotten much closer. It was only a few feet away now. The snow fell heavily to the ground, blanketing everything in pristine white. This soggy monster's slime dyed the white snow black.
/A rank one Hellbeast, Soul Ceaser has caught the scent of Yin essence/
/Unlike the many horrors of hell that now roam the land of the living, Soul Ceaser prefers the taste of Yin over Yang and was banished to the mortal lands where yin is scarce. Centuries of hunger trouble this creature. Cannot be seen by the mortal eye/
/Son of Naraka. Reeks of Yin essence. The Hellbeast will not rest until he sniffs you out of existence/
Zero felt his eyes twitch. Was this the price for rebirth?