"Zhong Kui, do you know this copycat of Artemis?" Hermes asked the demon hunter.

'That doesn't make any sense, Hermes...' Alex puzzlingly observed the scene.

​​

A man was drawing out his bowstring and was clearly ready to send an arrow flying their way.

Suddenly, Zhong Kui exclaimed, "Hou Yi, you can see me, that means you finally-

"Don't remind me, Zhong Kui!" An arrow flew towards Alex and the demon hunter.

However, a heavy spear parried the arrow.

The force from the arrow pushed Alex back a few steps and threw him off his feet into a backflip.

'That was strong!' Alex remarked internally.

Zhong Kui waved his hand and frantically exclaimed, "Hey, hey there, stop that, I have helped you so much in the past, and the reward I receive is an arrow flying towards this weak body of mine?"

Hou Yi harrumphed and replied, "Our karmic debts can be spoken of later."

"Now then, why are you with criminals? They both match the descriptions issued by the imperial court," Hou Yi commented as Alex returned to his original appearance to fully utilize Prometheus.

"We'll only talk if you put down that bow," Zhong Kui harrumphed back even though he didn't exactly have the higher ground here.

"I'll stay on alert," Hou Yi put down his arrow but crouched next to it.

Zhong Kui cleared his throat and said, "The reason I'm with these two is....

"....."

"....."

The demon hunter stopped speaking as if he wanted to build up a cliffhanger.

"That imperial court member was an atrocious ghost king-

"Don't mix up the sacred court with rural superstition! You blasphemer!" Another arrow made its way for the demon hunter.

Alex parried the arrow once again, but his arms were numb from the overwhelming force of the attacks.

"What do you mean, rural superstition? Yan Wang, our very own King, knows of their existence!"

"Yan Wang was never right in the mind anyway! Hmph!"

"Is that why you begged him to chase you out of the Underworld every time you died?" Zhong Kui sneered.

Hou Yi gritted his teeth and stated, "I need evidence, or I am going to eliminate these two right now."

Alex gulped.

They didn't have any evidence.

Unexpectedly, Zhong Kui rashly replied, "The evidence is all around you!"

A strange silence befell the group.

Hermes, Alex, and Hou Yi all felt confused at the scary man's words.

Zhong Kui detected the awkward atmosphere and softly said, "The floods of the Yangtze and Yellow River have likely been caused by a ghost king...."

"Preposterous! The higher concentration of yin qi around here is simply a result of the casualties and grim state of the local residents and animals!" Hou Yi stubbornly refuted.

However, Alex was the one who interjected this time.

"Z-Zhong Kui actually has a point."

"Don't you think the yin qi around here could act as a cloak to the hideout of a possible ghost king?"

"R-r-right!" Zhong Kui backed up his statement.

Hou Yi frowned and fell silent.

"I'll believe it when I see it, but I still can't believe that an imperial court member was a malevolent creature."

"Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt, Hou Yi, we've shared a long friendship," Zhong Kui smiled, albeit with a creepy smile due to his 'underworldly' appearance.

Hou Yi pointed his finger at the former and said, "It's only because it's you, I'll take care of these two as you as soon as this is proven untrue."

With that, they forged a temporary and fragile alliance.

However, they had to prove the existence of the ghost kings, and that the imperial court member was one of them to avoid the wrath of this archer.

__________

After that, Zhong Kui and Hou Yi explained their shared backstory.

"Hou Yi was the strongest of the mortals, and the most courageous, but he died often because of his mortality."

"Every time he died, his wife, the moon goddess, would go on a rampage and Yan Wang had to chase him out every time."

Zhong Kui coughed and said, "As you might know, Yan Wang hates-

"When people leave his realm?" Alex finished the sentence.

"Exactly."

"Zhong Kui, stop with that backstory, it's embarrassing, and I'm an immortal now."

Whenever Alex tried to speak to Hou Yi, the latter simply said, "I can't speak to you, if you two turn out to be pleasant people, I won't be able to eliminate you."

Since they were together, they helped with the evacuation effort from the flood plains and saved some of the villagers.

"Why were you so rash as to kill a court member in his own territory?" Hou Yi asked Hermes with a strange look on his face.

"Exactly, we didn't kill a 'court member'," Hermes replied with resolve.

With the help of three more powerful gods, they saved most of the villagers.

"Now then, prove to me that this ghost king exists."

Truthfully, they didn't know where to start.

"Do you have a yin qi detection talisman?" Alex asked Hou Yi.

The archer searched through his pockets and took out a golden piece of paper.

They had to search manually for the places with the highest concentration of yin qi.

Alex flew out into the sky and began his survey.

The talisman glowed a red color mostly everywhere due to the natural disaster, but there had to be exceptions and standout areas.

"Bingo."

The talisman in his hand shined with a blinding light, and if there was a ghost king who hadn't abandoned his ghostly form like the imperial court member, he was likely to be here.

Suddenly, his expression took a sour turn.

He was over a hilly area, and it was likely here, but the talisman gradually lost its shine.

As he moved slightly to the west, the talisman regained its brightness again.

"The yin qi is...moving?" They did not encounter such an occurrence last time.

He looked around at anything that moved west around here.

There wasn't anything, except...

"The clouds?" Alex found it unlikely, but he memorized the formation of the cloud around this area and went back to his group.