Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

The eastern border county town was now deathly silent.

Suddenly, furious dragon roars erupted, and a massive explosion burst from the main road in the center of town, the shockwave toppling many surrounding houses.

Liu Longtao stood amidst the dissipating dust, looking coldly and silently at the many mutated wolf-like creatures in the pit.

Ye Jun hurried over from afar and quickly said,

"The east side has been cleared. Found three survivors, all old people who couldn't walk. I told them to hide at home and not to go out."

"Hmm," Liu Longtao paused for a moment before asking, "What about the others?"

"Ai Lu and Fei Yun are still escorting the civilian convoy, and they haven't been attacked yet," Ye Jun continued. "Lin Hui is sweeping the net in the north and hasn't encountered any enemies..."

She looked towards the corpses in the pit and said,

"These should be the last of the enemies."

"How could these be the last enemies?" Liu Longtao sneered, "As long as the chaos in the north doesn't stop, there will always be Transcendents heading south to make trouble. To make trouble, damn it all!"

With a flick of his finger, the Ying Long Sword plummeted down like a meteor, piercing directly through the remains of a car on the other side, emitting a piercing and deafening noise.

Ye Jun silently looked into the pit and saw a werewolf creature with its guts ripped open. From the torn stomach, a bloodied little hand emerged—it must have belonged to a four or five-year-old child.

She knew why Liu Longtao was so angry.

"The border won't be safe anymore," Ye Jun sighed. "It's better to have everyone retreat to the inland."

"Better my ass," Liu Longtao cursed. "If it were up to me, I'd have the Dingbei Army sweep outside the border, kill every day, kill every month, and slaughter every Transcendent in sight. Then we wouldn't have all this crap!"

He took a long breath out, then quickly fell back into deep thought.

After the upper limit of the Spiritual Energy Resurgence increased, these Rakshasa werewolves' resistance to attacks and self-healing ability were greatly enhanced. Explosives that used to kill could no longer do the job, which caused immediate turmoil at the border.

The Dingbei Army is urgently refitting the entire forces with more powerful heavy weapons, but it's clear to anyone with eyes that this is a stop-gap solution—the Spiritual Energy Resurgence shows no sign of stopping, and Transcendents can level up just by lying there, while on our side, we have to increase military industry input to keep up with them in terms of military strength.

The "arms race" between the two sides is completely unequal.

If one day the Spiritual Energy Resurgence reaches the point where a single Transcendent can destroy heaven and earth, could the Dingbei Army really expect its soldiers to each carry a nuclear warhead? Impossible.

The reason Lord Master spoke such furious words, "slaughter all the Transcendents in the north," was because his father had inadvertently revealed to him that in an urgent and dire situation, it would be necessary to "clean up" all human settlements in the north that might harbor Transcendents, and currently there are "enough" of them.

But such action would affect a large number of innocent mortals, shock the world's nations, and therefore was not something that couldn't be done, but shouldn't be done.

A feasible plan is the one proposed by that person from Jianghai: support the largest Transcendent power in the northern border—the Amur Witch Coven, thereby shifting the burden of law enforcement to the witches and preventing spillage.

Opponents believe this is not easy to operate, since a horizontal comparison with the rest of the world reveals that the leadership of Transcendent powers changes very quickly. You may have agreed on a peace treaty with the leader today, but tomorrow the leader could be killed by a quicker-promoted deputy, who then suggests that we negotiate again... which would be quite pointless.

They prefer negotiating terms with the Rakshasas and joining forces to deal with the Siberian tumor.

During the time of endless debates in the court, the Dingbei Army was also fighting to maintain public order.

Ordinary Transcendent disturbances were handled by the troops; for more severe cases, military Cultivators were called in, and if they weren't sufficient, it was necessary to deploy battle teams—the Dragon Soar Team was stationed in the east, and the Flying Dragon Battle Team went to Mongolia, leaving no one to contest the Mysterious Realm within the country.

This has resulted in the full implementation of the battle team system, urging other collegiate Cultivators to step up quickly.

After standing by the pit for a while, Liu Longtao pulled himself out of his thoughts and said,

"Let's go, find Lin Hui."

There's only a thief for a hundred days, not a guard against thieves for a hundred days, right?

If the court can't see clearly, then let me clear the fog with my Flying Sword.

————————

While Lord Master was voicing his lofty aspirations in the north, Yan Yu was disinterestedly dealing with his mother-in-law in the south.

"Yan Yu, try this," Chen's mother earnestly offered food and soup to Yan Yu in the restaurant's private room, "The chef Lu who made this dish used to cook for state banquets. He retired, and I managed to poach him after a lot of effort. You can't find this anywhere else."

Yan Yu was also very irritated. Do I look like I don't have hands or feet, needing you to wait on me, mother-in-law?

Hmm, it tastes not bad.

Chen Lingyun watched from the side with a beaming smile that made it impossible to guess what she was really thinking.

Yan Yu continued to eat without speaking. On the other side, Su Yunjin noticed and frowned to herself.

"Sister Zhao," she whispered secretly into the hidden channel, "that dish seems really tasty, huh."

"Which one, which one?" Zhao Yuanzhen immediately perked up like a vigilant meerkat, quickly craning her neck.

She glanced at where Su Yunjin's chopsticks were pointing, then skillfully rotated the large plate to bring the dish in front of herself. With three ruthless stabs of her chopsticks, half of the dish was gone.

Mother Chen from across the table was burning with frustration. She couldn't even continue serving Yan Yu and could only quietly ask her daughter beside her,

"Where did that girl come from? She's so ill-mannered?"

"Mom, Sister Zhao is very straightforward," Chen Lingyun said with a smile, "But as a cultivator, she's quite formidable."

Mentioning the identity of a cultivator, Mother Chen indeed dared not complain any further, but she doubted,

"Even so, is she as formidable as Yan Zhanlong?"

"Perhaps put it this way," Chen Lingyun said with a gleaming smile, "Her manners are so unattractive at eating, yet Yan Yu tolerates her. Doesn't that prove that even Yan Yu has to give her face?"

Mother Chen had a great deal of faith in her daughter, and these words immediately stirred doubts in her mind.

From the perspective of country folks, a good appetite indeed signifies a strong body and a knack for hard work. Considering that cultivators are a martial occupation, this girl's capacity to eat and put on weight might surprisingly mean she is good in a fight!

"Better than you?" Mother Chen asked uncertainly again.

"If it's a head-on fight, she's definitely better than me," Chen Lingyun responded.

At this, Mother Chen had no choice but to take Zhao Yuanzhen seriously. Of course, being the type to judge people based on first impressions, once she had formed a bad opinion upon first meeting, it would not waver easily, so she merely upgraded Zhao Yuanzhen in her mind from "country bumpkin" to "country bumpkin not to be offended."

Let it go, let it go—it's just one meal. Since she's a cultivator, let her eat how she wants.

Mother Chen's gaze shifted, landing on Xie Ruoxi sitting nearby.

Xie Ruoxi, after all, was from Lu Country. She had been raised by her parents since childhood, without the wild mannerisms of a Demonic Sect Enchantress. But she too was just eating away, her cheeks puffed out, not speaking a word—as if eating was the most important thing at the dining table, which in Mother Chen's view was worse than those from Jiangbei.

"And the girl with the tied hair over there?" she continued to ask her daughter.

"Not as good as me now," Chen Lingyun answered with a smile, "But definitely better than me in the future."

Mother Chen was a bit distraught. How could these two country girls, as cultivators, be better than my precious daughter!

"Then Yan Zhanlong..."

"Of course, he's still not as good as Yan Yu," Chen Lingyun said confidently, "After all, he's the team captain."

"One sentence, 'He's the team captain,' immediately gave Mother Chen a reassurance.

She finally remembered that her husband, Chen Tianming, had indeed mentioned before that Lingyun's talent for cultivation wasn't very good; it was just that Mother Chen was always protectively biased and hadn't really listened.

Now, with two peers for comparison, Mother Chen finally understood what "not very talented in cultivation" meant.

Thank goodness, at least the son-in-law is formidable, better than them...

Mother Chen's anxious heart was slightly relieved, but she was definitely still disgruntled and lost the mood to cozy up to Yan Yu anymore, starting to lower her head and busily send messages on her phone.

Seeing that she had finally stopped 'bothering' the captain, Su Yunjin breathed a sigh of relief, picked up her cup, and took a leisurely sip of tea—only to hear Lin Ning's voice coming through,

"Yun Jin, well done."

"What do you mean well done?" Su Yunjin played dumb.

"Sister Zhao took a look at you first before she turned the plate of food," Lin Ning said.

"Ning Ning, you're overthinking it," Su Yunjin laughed and said, "Sister Zhao was just hungry and looking for something to eat, that's all."

"I see," Lin Ning did not pursue the matter any further but instead asked, "Then how can we make Auntie 'just happen' to want to return to Jianghai Prefecture?"

Su Yunjin lowered her eyelids, and after a long pause said,

"That's a question for the captain." Continue reading at My Virtual Library Empire