Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

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Along the way, Princess Jiang Hai transformed into a diligent student of Jiang Hai, asking Yan Yu about every ghost they encountered, as if she were truly earnest in her studies.

"What's that?" She pointed at a headless ghost ahead and asked.

"A headless ghost. It's searching for its head everywhere. If you don't hit it, it won't hit you," Yan Yu replied.

Even if it's head is lost, it's not worthy of entering my banner, Chen Lingyun thought to herself, then pointing at a green-throated ghost, she asked:

"And that one?"

"A hanged ghost, you can see the marks on its neck," Yan Yu explained. "Its method of attack is strangulation, very weak."

"So they're all just small fry?" Chen Lingyun asked with a slight smile.

"What else?" Yan Yu looked at her helplessly and said, "If we could encounter a formidable ghost every few steps, would we still be able to make it through this mysterious realm? Use your brain, will you?"

"It's normal for them to be small fry," Zhao Yuanzhen also put on the airs of an experienced person and said solemnly, "You haven't seen a truly formidable mysterious realm!"

"Don't talk nonsense if you don't understand," Yan Yu interrupted her, "with the Spiritual Energy Resurgence, low-difficulty mysterious realms appear first, followed by the high-difficulty ones. So, as long as the progress of your cultivation can keep up with the upper limit of Spiritual Energy concentration, the mysterious realm won't be too difficult to handle."

Zhao Yuanzhen suddenly had an epiphany: In her Cultivation World, there was no such thing as a Spiritual Energy Resurgence, so whether cultivators could handle a mysterious realm after discovering it was entirely a matter of chance.

But this place had gone through the Era of Dharma Extinction and was now in the early days of the Era of Resurgence. The emergence of mysterious realms was gradual, so there was no worry about the difficulty of exploration. The main issue was the scarcity of mysterious realms— but why don't I feel it? Zhao wondered.

If Chen Lingyun knew what she was thinking, she would definitely start talking about something scary like "exclusive rights." But luckily, Zhao Yuanzhen didn't ask anything absurd this time, she just pondered quietly to herself.

The group traveled through the long mountain path and dealt with a number of ghosts blocking the way (most of which were slain by Lin Ning, who was responsible for clearing the path), and finally they reached the middle of the mountain.

"How much True Yuan do you have left?" Yan Yu suddenly asked.

"About seventy percent," Lin Ning replied.

"Let's rest for a while then," Yan Yu instructed.

"Aren't you afraid that they won't be able to find us and will charge straight to the depths of the mysterious realm, killing the gatekeeper and taking down the control center?" Chen Lingyun asked with a smile in her eyes.

"I don't mind," Yan Yu said, "I have a hunch."

"What hunch?" everyone asked curiously.

"Xiao Zhou will be waiting near the gatekeeper for me," Yan Yu replied indifferently, "It's a tacit understanding between us team leaders!"

"Tsk!" The girls scattered. They had hoped the team leader would say something serious, but it seemed they had expected too much from him.

Lin Ning quickly sat down on the spot, breathing in and out to regulate his breathing and restore his True Yuan.

Chen Lingyun took out her Soul Summoning Banner and started to pour True Yuan into it, refining the five ghosts inside.

Standing at the edge of the mountain path, Yan Yu saw Su Yunjin approaching and whispering:

"Captain, are you sure Zhou Hongyu's Team won't use a rush strategy in the mysterious realm, and what's your reason?"

"Why don't you think about it first?" Yan Yu asked with a smile.

"Hmm," Su Yunjin pondered seriously. "First, I observed that Ningning's sword light is relatively easy to identify from a distance in this poorly visible environment."

"But we have not seen any unfamiliar sword lights along the way, which means our two teams must be far enough apart that we cannot observe each other," she continued.

"The Zhou Hongyu's Team must have realized this as well. Therefore, they have two choices: one is to quickly take down the control center of the mysterious realm, and the other is to stop at a certain point and wait for us to come over," she reasoned.

"If they were to lie in wait," Yan Yu leisurely asked, "where do you think they would choose to be?"

"At the location where the gatekeeper guards," Su Yunjin answered. "Because no matter where our two teams start from, our destination is the control center of the mysterious realm."

"Exactly," Yan Yu encouraged her. "Also, what would happen if they were attacking the gatekeeper up ahead and we suddenly arrived from behind?"

"They would be caught in a pincer attack!" Su Yunjin realized, "Just like the Annan Army's Team was worried about in the last Dragon Spring Mountain Mysterious Realm!"

"That's right," Yan Yu said with a smile. "In simulated combat, which simulates hostile cultivators competing for the control center of the mysterious realm, we would definitely opt to kick them while they are down, rather than help them besiege the gatekeeper."

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"To avoid this situation, if they arrive at the endpoint in advance, they will most likely wait at the gate and ambush us as we pass by, settling things once and for all. This is obviously the safer option—it's a conclusion that's easy to arrive at," Zhao Yuanzhen said.

"Most likely, yes... What about the small chance?" Su Yunjin asked.

"The small chance is that the gatekeeper looks weak or Zhou Hongyu loses his cool and wants to go all-in," Yan Yu said languidly, "Neither scenario is very likely. If we really run into that, then we just have to accept our bad luck."

Su Yunjin nodded her head, then continued to silently ponder.

The gatekeeper was set up by the previous master of the Mysterious Realm, and since this is a ghost-type Mysterious Realm, it implies that the original master was a heretic cultivator who raised ghosts, so the probability of setting up a weak gatekeeper is indeed not high.

As for Zhou Hongyu getting hot-headed, it's not impossible, but the deputy commander, Zhang Huaide, seems to be a very rational type; he probably wouldn't be so arrogant as to think that after they had gone through great pains to defeat the gatekeeper, they would still have the strength to deal with us waiting in ambush, right?

With this thought, Su Yunjin secretly breathed a sigh of relief and then looked toward the direction of the mountain.

After looking for a while, she hesitated and asked:

"Yan Yu, do you see that over there... Does it look like there's a palace?"

Yan Yu followed her gaze, pondered for a moment, then turned to ask:

"Are you all ready?"

"I am ready," Lin Ning stood up, hugging the Green Bamboo Sword in her arms.

"Shall we go?" Chen Lingyun picked up the Soul Summoning Banner.

The group continued to climb along the mountain path, and as the team ascended higher, the silhouette of the mountain top buildings gradually became clear in the darkness—a complex of palaces built along the contour of the mountain, but upon closer examination, it seemed somewhat strange.

Rather than a palace complex, it looked more like...

A cluster of tombs?

Just as Chen Lingyun had said earlier, if there were man-made structures in the Mysterious Realm, the control center was very likely inside them.

Everyone braced themselves and quickly reached the buildings, only to see a statue standing in the central courtyard.

The statue was humanoid with the head of a bull, about five meters tall, hefty and well-built with developed muscles, and wielding a wolf-toothed club over three meters long, which it held with both hands resting on the ground, motionless.

"Be careful," Zhao Yuanzhen suddenly said, "This isn't a statue, it's a ghost cultivator."

"A cultivator who commands ghosts?" Lin Ning asked curiously.

"Not a human," Yan Yu stated, "It's a lonely ghost that got lucky and inherited a named legacy, starting on the path of cultivation—it appears to have received the Bullheaded legacy out of the Bullheaded and Horse-faced ones."

"It seems he is guarding the main entrance to the palace," Su Yunjin said cautiously, "If we want to enter the palace, we will surely clash with him."

"So this is the gatekeeper?" Lin Ning exclaimed, "Is the control center inside then?"

"Not necessarily," Chen Lingyun said with a smile, "But at least it's certain that no one has come this way before."

If Zhou Hongyu's Team really had come here, they would have definitely started fighting with the bull-headed statue in the courtyard... So they hadn't been here, a simple deduction.

"To fight or not?" Chen Lingyun asked Yan Yu.

"Of course, we fight," Yan Yu pondered for a while, "But we don't necessarily have to fight here."

Everyone was taken aback at his words, but only Chen Lingyun immediately understood his intent and said with a smile:

"Lure it inside to fight?"

The outside of the courtyard was open terrain, very suitable for such a large ghost creature to exert its brute strength, swinging its wolf-toothed club all around.

But if they could lure it into the cramped space of the palace, the long weapon of the bull-headed ghost would be hampered, and Yan Yu's Team could save a lot of energy.

"How do we lure it?" Lin Ning was still more concerned about the actual operation.

"Oh, simple," Yan Yu said, "I'll hold it off, you guys go into the palace and wait, then I'll draw it inside."

"That's the same as not saying anything at all!" Lin Ning said angrily.