First Court of Hell

A hearty slap on the back of Alex made him jump, but he already knew who it was. Alex stared at his hands and legs. No signs of visible injuries, but only a heavy sense of fatigue. Whatever those thirteen figures were, they healed him completely.

Arahabaki wrapped his arm around Alex's neck while leading him down the passageway as Horse-face and Ox-face cautiously gave him a wide berth by walking ahead with Kanghui, who did not utter a word.

"Look, I don't know what happened if you want to ask," Alex laid it out straight.

"Celestial crow, that's what happened," Arahabaki said casually.

"Celestial what?" Alex studied his expression.

"You know, the one who helped you?"

"In fact, I don't. I do not know who it is," Alex protested as the other ghosts tried to move away from him.

"A celestial crow doesn't just help anyone," Arahabaki stated matter-of-factly. "You really do not know what they are?"

Alex hung his head and shook it. The hidden dimension was too complex to understand. All the terms and ranks, together with their ways, confused him more the longer he spent in their world.

The more he knew, the more he didn't know.

"Yatagarasu- heard of the name?"

Alex nodded. He heard of the legends of Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow, a divine creature which interfered in human affairs, specifically instrumental in the rise of the Yamato in Japan.

"Now I really hate that bastard, but that's a celestial crow."

"Okay… and is he the one who helped me?"

"No, it was Jinwu, or Kinu to Takamagahara, who helped you," Kanghui said. "Think of the Chinese legend of Chang-E, where Houyi killed nine sun crows. Jinwu is one of them."

"That makes Jinwu the sun because the tenth crow is a reference to the sun," Alex mused. "And that makes absolutely no sense."

"Because humans twist the story. In reality, Houyi is not Chang-E's husband and the nine sun crows are still around. Celestial crows are not real crows."

Alex pricked his ears at her explanation. "So who is Houyi to her?"

"Houyi is a what. Not a who. One of our weapons when we warred with the celestial crows a long time ago."

"Wait, weapons, devices… why would you need the material when you said that we are all energy?" Alex asked.

"We manufacture the devices through the manipulation of energy waves. All have to be controlled and powered by our own waves and through different methods," she replied as she flip him a soul stone that he caught.

"Eat that to re-energise after your fight. The crow only repaired your soul's core," she changed the topic to him.

Alex studied the soul stone, hesitant to pop something so strange into his mouth.

"It isn't poison," Arahabaki nudged him.

With slight hesitation, Alex ate the stone, only to find it melting inside his mouth instantaneously. A gush of warmth rushed through his body, making him feel lighter, followed by a strange tingling in his extremities.

"How did that human soul know a celestial crow?"

Alex heard Horse-face's voice with clarity, yet they were far ahead.

"Who cares? Best not to go near him. I sent the First Court of Hell a message to warn them about him."

That was Ox-face's reply.

Alex could hear the other whispers and conversations of the ghosts with such clarity that he felt like he was eavesdropping right next to them.

Even with each stride he took, following Kanghui, it was easier to follow her speed with ease. So the soul stone sharpened his senses.

"Soul stones are like fuel. More you consume, the sharper your senses are," Kanghui commented, noticing the astonishment on his face as he kept looking around.

Then Kanghui stopped behind Horse-face and Ox-face, and Alex nearly walked into her. So distracted he has been by the new sensation of swallowing the soul stone, he didn't notice the two guards clad in the old Chinese style armour with pole arms in front of two large closed doors, standing stoically by each door. Or the frightened ghosts ahead in the head of the queue, cordoned off by a strange fire barrier.

Alex could hear pleas from within, beyond the closed doors, and a great booming voice was saying something muffled. A cry and another string of words from a booming voice. Finally, there was silence.

The doors yawned open, revealing a neatly dressed man in a black suit with a pair of sunglasses and a long ponytail.

"Special case," Horse-face gestured to Alex. "Not regular route."

The man gave Alex a once over, then at both Kanghui and Arahabaki. With his hand, he signalled for them to follow.

"So the First Court of Chinese Hell," Arahabaki stepped through as Alex timidly followed them inside a plain waiting room. Plain marble walls surrounded them.

Alex figured out that a hidden door was somewhere as he studied the area. A sound of the entrance doors slamming shut made him swing around. The doors vanished, along with the doorman, leaving them trapped by walls.

Kanghui's hands moved as though typing or pressing on something invisible while Arahabaki tapped on the walls to examine them.

A large holographic greenish ring descended through the ceiling and rotated around them from head to toe, performing some sort of scan, Alex guessed.

Then it rose upwards and disappeared. The right wall started rising, revealing a white plain layout with a hideous looking man dressed in the old Hanfu of his time with the head-dress of swinging pearls, seated at the front on a dais. The man's eyes were cat-like and reddish, giving him a frightening appearance.

A clerk was at the side, also dressed in a suit, typing away into a holographic screen, like those in the control room.

"Busy time, Qinguang?" Kanghui asked as she walked ahead.

"Pardon the dressing. It's easier if I don't have to change my appearance," Qinguang yawned, revealing the vampiric canines in his mouth.

"Change?" Arahabaki raised his eyebrow.

"Ah, a guest from Takamagahara," Qinguang sighed. "I guess I have to change after all… to give a quick tour."

A blink and a pleasant looking man in his late 20s with long hair tied behind, dressed in a suit, appeared in place of the formerly hideous Qinguang. The only tell tale sign was the cat-like reddish eyes.

Alex narrowed his eyes. The man could almost pass off as Arahabaki's older brother. Is that Qinguang?

"The other appearance is to scare the living hell out of the ghosts," Qinguang said.

A quick wave of Qinguang's hand caused the room to expand into a large dimly lit hall in an ancient Chinese style with skulls around the cornices and a mist-filled ground. Cries and screams of agony emanated from the walls, amplified into echoes by the size of the hall.

Qinguang transformed back to his horrifying appearance, seated on a grand dais with fearsome, monstrous goblin-like guards standing beside him.

"Full horror show, huh," Arahabaki replied as he patted the pillars with snakes curling around it that made Alex jump away.

"Stuff of nightmares," Alex mumbled, then he felt something cold slithering over his feet, causing him hop around to get rid of whatever it is.

"Yeah," Qinguang grabbed a few soul stones from a box and popped it into his mouth.

"No need to switch back," Kanghui said quickly.

"I have to, for him." Qinguang pointed at Alex, who was now looking around his feet frantically. "He still thinks there are real snakes around his feet. Need to do some severance in the other setting."

With another wave of his hand, the hall disappeared along with the illusions and Qinguang re-assumed his better looking self in a suit.

"Man, that was cool," Arahabaki said. "Better than those human made haunted houses."

"Thanks dude, but this will be cooler for… um…," Qinguang tilted his head at the clerk.

"Alex Fu-Tales, death at aged 25. Six days ago. Soul - intact components, Elemental fire presence. Mundane ties - present," the clerk recited from the holographic screen.

"Six days?" Alex exclaimed.

"Time is a tad wonky in the Courts of Hell, well at least we have a day, more than enough time to get things over with," Qinguang replied.

"Just in time for the 7th day and 49th day after your death - you may return to your world," he added.

Arahabaki snickered and said, "First time is to see who bothered about you enough to turn up at your funeral, and perhaps communicate with them although most humans will shit their pants. Second time is for you to scare the living daylights out of the —"

*SMACK*

Kanghui's hand sent Arahabaki lurching forward as Qinguang raised his eyebrow.

"… HEY!"

"Don't sprout nonsense," Kanghui chided.

"Well, it's actually a good way of explaining the process," Qinguang rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Alex never understood why his mother scattered rice powder near the offered food on the seventh after his grandfather died. Or how she went to a Buddhist temple to chant a prayer on the 49th day. Both his father and he laughed at her for being superstitious.

Until now.

He wondered if his mother will do the same. Or will his dad insist on a church funeral instead? A part of him yearned for their comforting presence, yet he had accepted the fate which cards had dealt him.

"The Mirror of Truth is ready," the clerk announced.

"Well, Alex, ready to sever your ties to the human world?"

Alex furrowed his eyebrows. "What type of ties? I thought going through the soul shearing whatever you call it process had fully severed my soul from my body."

"Body only. Not other ties. Think of it as an extraction of… what are those teeth called?" Qinguang turned back and looked at his clerk for an answer.

"Wisdom?" Alex said.

"No, milk teeth," the clerk replied. "Unnecessary when your adult teeth are coming out."

"The Mirror of Truth will release you from the bonds of Earth and allow you to function like us. Might scramble your senses though, and maybe some of your memories," Qinguang added.