Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

Everyone followed Liu Longtao's gaze, and immediately felt a chill run through their hearts.

When had this person arrived?

Clad head to toe in dark greenish-black hues, one would think he'd be easily spotted against the pure white backdrop of the blizzard, but in reality, he had brazenly appeared beside them without any of them noticing...

Considering that audacious act of corpse eating, it was clear he was not human but some kind of malevolent creature.

Liu Longtao didn't speak, only quickly made a hand signal, indicating to Colonel Zheng to quickly lead the men to scatter.

The cultivators of the Dingbei Army entering this mysterious realm were not here to die; they were to provide Liu Longtao with numerical superiority, to overwhelm and swiftly crush the Goryeo cultivators—what the Lord Master pursued was not merely victory, but also a neat and flawless, beyond reproach, perfect victory.

But since this creature was able to sneak in undetected, that indicated it moved stealthily and incredibly fast. If the Goryeo cultivators still couldn't defeat this monster, then the ordinary Dingbei cultivators stood even less of a chance.

Hasn't the state invested heavily in training us warriors precisely to deal with such dangerous enemies?

Colonel Zheng was also astute, quietly issuing orders in the channel, and the soldiers rustled as they quietly stepped back, leaving the battlefield to the Zhenghai and Dragon Soar Teams.

Throughout this, the zombie squatted beside the corpse, quietly consuming its heart, as if seeing nothing but his meal.

Liu Longtao gave Yan Yu a look that said, "Shall we make a move?"

Yan Yu nodded.

Without drawing attention, each of them commanded their Huang Tingjian and Ying Long Swords to rise, then suddenly thrust towards the terrifying zombie.

The zombie, feasting upon a human heart, suddenly rose to avoid the cleave of the Huang Tingjian, while with its left hand swatted the Ying Long Sword away, and continued chewing its bloody meal. Within its murky irises, blood swiftly seeped through, soon dyeing its eyes a deep red.

With "iron" in the name Iron Corpse, its level was naturally different from ordinary zombies, having been solemnly refined by ancient malevolent cultivators, and thus innate was its counter to Sword Control Technique.

It swept its sinister gaze over everyone, finally fixing on Su Yunjin.

She would be the tastiest, eat her first!

The Iron Corpse staggered, vanishing from its spot almost as quickly as if utilizing the Shifting Technique. Aiming to devour, it pounced towards Su Yunjin with a voracious posture, targeting her delicate and vulnerable neck.

Yan Yu finally remembered: right, the Iron Corpse loved the flesh of women and children, the younger they were, the more tender the skin, and the more the corpse demon liked to strike!

He was about to command the Huang Tingjian to save her, but he saw Su Yunjin raise her arm like lightning, already forming the magical hand gestures.

If this had been the former Secretary Su, she certainly wouldn't have been able to react in time. But, having been ruthlessly "drilled and drilled some more" during this period, her normal "eye-brain-hand" sequence had been forcibly twisted by Yan Yu into "eye-hand-brain", much like Lin Ning's conditioned reflex; whatever it is, before you see clearly, I'll strike first!

Jiaochong spouted a large volume of water, instantly washing the Iron Corpse into the air. Followed swiftly by Coral's Tears, the azure sword light transformed into a full moon, cleanly slicing towards the chest of the Iron Corpse with a dull thud akin to burst leather.

I... hit it? Su Yunjin came to her senses after the fact, disbelief written all over her face.

Her combo, which involved using Jiaochong to wrap and trap the opponent, followed by Coral's Tears for the slash, was designed to counter the team leader. However, thus far, it had never succeeded—Yan Yu would deliberately let her Jiaochong hit, then casually escape before Coral's Tears could strike, as if the disorientation caused by the flood meant nothing to him.

So why did it hit the Iron Corpse?

While she was still in disbelief, the Iron Corpse in the air had already freed itself from the water, landed unharmed, and, reviving its speed, turned and pounced towards Chen Lingyun.

Chen Lingyun, without a change in expression, slightly shook the Soul Summoning Banner, and five ghosts rushed towards the Iron Corpse. But with a mighty effort, it shook them all off, and in the blink of an eye, pounced in front of her, fiercely tearing at her throat.

Just as this woman was about to be decapitated, a burst of light descended from the sky—it was Ye Jun using the Xuan Guang Ruler, attempting to trap the Iron Corpse. The latter, without hesitation, abandoned its prey, retreated swiftly from the Xuan Guang Ruler's light flower, and turned again to attack Lin Ning.

Lin Ning, however, showed no fear as the Green Bamboo Sword transformed into a streak of green light, thrusting towards the Iron Corpse's dark chest.

In the barely visible speed of this lightning exchange, the Iron Corpse had already switched targets three times. It seemed that it couldn't catch any of them, but Liu Longtao knew very well: with its speed akin to that of the Shifting Technique, and defense strong enough to withstand the strikes of Flying Swords, the situation was extremely perilous.

After all, the enemy could withstand countless setbacks in its attacks, but if any of them made a single mistake and were caught by its claws, that would mean an instant decapitation, nearly impossible to save!

"Old Yan, aren't you joining in?" he turned towards Yan Yu, who seemed content watching from the sidelines.

Watching Yan Yu with the Huang Tingjian levitating in front of him, always ready to save someone yet paradoxically motionless, Liu Longtao suddenly recalled something:

In fact, whether it was Deputy Leader Ye Jun or the Pingxi Army's Huofeng Team's Zhang Huaide, they had both analyzed the biggest weakness of the Zhenghai Team:

That was Yan Yu acting as the tactical core was always detached from the team, usually fighting alone.

Though Yan Yu's own strength was overwhelming to the extent that this flaw was largely overshadowed, the problem didn't vanish—the pace of his strikes was too fast for anyone to keep up, let alone coordinate with him.

If we want to resolve this issue, Yan Yu either needs to "slow down" to integrate into the team system, or we wait for the girls to grow up. There's no other way.

"Old Yan, you've got it tough," Liu Longtao suddenly remarked.

Yan Yu was startled by the comment. What?

The reason he hadn't made a move was partly to let the girls practice, but mainly because he was keeping an eye on the surroundings.

That was because Yan Yu finally remembered that iron corpses typically don't appear alone. For the Corpse Cultivation Sect, refining one iron corpse is refining; refining ten is still refining. The resource consumption isn't much different—it mainly costs in setting up the corpse-refining pool. So they usually start refining in batches of dozens. Anything in single digits is a waste of time.

If you think about it, using iron corpses as the gatekeepers of the first layer of Changbai Mountain's Mysterious Realm seems highly unreasonable.

Who uses cannon fodder as gatekeepers?

Liu Longtao, of course, was unaware of this. However, now that the pressing threat of enemy cultivators was gone, there was no need to rush. Letting the teammates practice wouldn't hurt.

The two captains stood on the perimeter, acting as hands-off supervisors. However, their team members were all fully focused, not daring to be the least bit lax. After all, the iron corpses were too fast, leaving no margins for distraction.

Lin Ning's Green Bamboo Sword was swift in motion. When the iron corpse reached with its left hand, the sword struck the left hand. When it swiped with its right, the sword struck the right... Repeatedly cutting off the attacks, she fought with a sense of swordsmanship combat, rendering the iron corpse unable to strike back and pushing it into retreat.

Yan Yu's teachings of "fighting at a distance, defending up close" had indeed reached Sister Lin, who utilized the flexibility of short-axis defense to great effect.

The iron corpse, unable to breach her defenses, turned to attack Zhao Yuanzhen. How could the Demonic Sect Enchantress hold herself back? If Lin Ning could do it, why couldn't she?

Kill, kill, kill!

The Yin Wind Sword sliced towards the iron corpse's neck. The opponent did not dodge, relying on its defense to absorb the blow directly.

But unexpectedly, although Zhao Yuanzhen pretended to be a newbie, she had actually recovered a fraction of her cultivation. And with the iron corpse's invulnerability to blade and spear, she temporarily forgot to hold back her power in the strike (perhaps subconsciously afraid of embarrassing herself by not affecting it) and decided to unleash a surge of True Yuan.

The sword light tore through space like thunderous lightning, dazzlingly filling everyone's entire field of view in a flash.

As the sword light circled back, the iron corpse's head fell to the ground, and its body collapsed soon after, with not a single drop of blood from the severed neck.

Everyone was stunned.

Members like Ai Lu and Guo Feiyun had even prepared to face the enemy in turn, but then they saw the iron corpse being one-shotted by Zhao Yuanzhen—wait, is this girl that formidable?

Others struck with their sword control but left no wound on the iron corpse, yet her single strike detached its head? Enjoy new adventures from empire

Zhao Yuanzhen also knew she was in trouble; had she accidentally revealed a tip of her iceberg of strength and terrified these country bumpkins?

Oh no! She was going to get cursed to death by the little thief!

Though internally shaken and fearful, the Demonic Sect Enchantress was quick-witted. She burst out laughing on the spot:

"That's it? A piece of cake! Not even satisfying to kill. Why not send more, huh?"

Zhao Yuanzhen, stepping on the iron corpse's body, laughed nervously, not daring to look at Yan Yu, whose eyes were on her.

But Yan Yu's gaze did not linger on her, instead focusing on the iron corpse's neck—although there was no blood, a dense black vapor began to seep out, taking on the appearance of flowing tassels in the wind and snow, slowly drifting toward the stone gate on the mountain wall.

Uh, let me think, something similar in my memories...

"Back off!" Yan Yu suddenly shouted, "Stay away from the stone gate!"

While the Dragon Soar Team and Dingbei Army cultivators were still dazed, the girls didn't hesitate and immediately followed Yan Yu in activating their Shifting Technique, moving away from the direction of the stone gate.

The next second, the stone gate, which had been tightly closed, suddenly pulled open to each side.

Liu Longtao looked towards it and could no longer maintain his composure. He also cried out urgently:

"Retreat! Everybody, retreat!"

From the open stone gate emerged a large mass of densely packed corpses, quickly estimated to be in the hundreds.

These iron corpses moved rapidly, exuding a fierce manner, their skin and hair pitch black, eyes blood-red, sharp teeth fully exposed, with a ferocious look, swarming out of the stone gate like a tide, aggressively rushing toward the Rikoku cultivators.

Seeing this, everyone was shocked and quickly turned to retreat with Shifting Technique. Amid the chaotic rushing footsteps, someone's frantic shout rang out:

"Ahhhh, Sister Zhao, you jinx!"