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Wrongful-Death City.

The colossal city had stood deep within the nether reaches since time immemorial, but today, it carried an even grimmer, heavier air than before.

Its pitch-black walls towered like mountains. The resentment and deathly intent wreathing them had almost taken tangible form, and now and then, ghostly figures drifted along the walls with skin-paper lanterns in hand, seemingly serving as patrol guards just as in the mortal world.

Deep within the city stood a jet-black hall, the most silent of them all.

The hall was vast and shadowy, but it no longer possessed the dreadful gloom of the days when a true "Black Mountain King" had occupied it, when bones torn from vicious spirits had adorned its walls and living souls had been refined into oil to fuel its ever-burning lamps.

Naturally, at this point, no demon or ghost dared linger in the hall without permission.

Only a few palm-sized golden lotuses of unknown origin hovered in midair, slowly turning.

Every petal of every lotus unfurled with a warm yet unquestionable golden radiance. The light was not remotely dazzling, yet it seemed to hold the true weight of mountains, rivers, and earth, bearing all things and anchoring the entire space with absolute stability. Even the sinister yin energy permeating the surroundings had stagnated.

As the ancients said: yang earth is firm and weighty, centered and upright. Still, it gathers; moving, it opens, governing the lives of all things.

That was precisely the principle at work.

Only upon closer inspection would one notice that beneath each golden lotus, a "shadow" lay silently suppressed.

These figures took all manner of forms.

Some exuded towering demonic energy, black and crimson vapors rising around them like signal smoke. Even pinned down as they were, their savage nature remained unmistakable.

Some were eerie