Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

The atmosphere of the Ghost General clearly wilted after the mysterious realm transitioned from night to day; it didn't even charge at Yan Yu immediately, instead choosing to silently recover its strength.

Yan Yu wasn't in a hurry to make a move either. He simply stood there, hands clasped behind his back, calmly circulating his True Qi to refine the medicinal power within his stomach, fiercely recovering the True Yuan he had expended before.

Of course, through the lens of the drones hovering in the sky and in the eyes of the clueless national audience, it seemed as if Yan Yu, much like a hero from a Louis Cha novel, was standing alone and posturing, intimating the Ghost General with his mere aura and deterring it from advancing.

The might of Yan Zhanlong was that terrifying?!

Even though the audience seemed to enjoy Yan Zhanlong's posturing according to the barrage of comments, the live broadcasters couldn't afford to keep the camera fixed on Yan Yu. It would appear as if the signal was interrupted and the screen had frozen, which wouldn't look good.

After the two professional commentators praised Yan Yu for a few moments, they instructed the director to switch the view to the intense team confrontation elsewhere.

It wasn't until the Flying Dragon Battle Team's defeat seemed certain that Yan Yu had almost finished refining the medicine's power, and he nonchalantly asked:

"What are you waiting for?"

The large figure of the Ghost General offered no reply. The obtuseness brought on by death had long robbed him of the ability to speak; even maintaining consciousness was a struggle, barely preserving emotions like anger, pride, restlessness, and a bloodthirst from life.

"To die yet not fall, how pitiful," Yan Yu sighed deeply, his hands skillfully forming a sword technique, and the Huang Tingjian sword floated up steadily, "Allow me to relieve you of your suffering."

The Ghost General silently tightened the reins, and the warhorse beneath him anxiously pawed at the ground, as if asking its master whether to flee or fight.

Yan Yu suddenly realized something was off; he looked down at his chest… Ah, the camera had been destroyed in the earlier Yin Demon's explosion.

Then what's the point of me posturing? The drones above can't hear my cool lines!

Yan Yu immediately sneered, thinking that, in that case, he wouldn't waste any more time.

Fight!

He suddenly dashed towards the Ghost General, with the Huang Tingjian sword moving even faster, aiming straight for the warhorse's head.

The Ghost General finally made up its mind; the horse spun around instantly and fled away from Yan Yu towards the distance. The long halberd in its hand came swinging back, forcefully knocking away the incoming Huang Tingjian sword.

Retreat!

The tides of attack and defense had quickly reversed; now it was Yan Yu pursuing relentlessly from behind, but the Ghost General's warhorse was faster, quickly widening the gap, not looking back as it rushed towards the distant area—the direction seemed to be heading toward the palace north of the ancient city.

Now that the team confrontation had been decided, the directors wanted to switch the view back to Yan Yu, only to see the Ghost General charging into the palace, with Yan Yu, without any hesitation, following closely behind, crossing the palace gates as well.

And then… there was no follow-up, the outdoor drones couldn't capture the indoors.

"Huh?" Zhou Erhe asked in confusion in the studio, "Yan Zhanlong's wearable camera was damaged during the earlier BOSS attack, and we currently can't view his first-person perspective. So, can we direct the aerial drones to follow him inside for additional coverage?"

"As per the rules, the aerial drones are only allowed to perform fixed-route cruising shots; they're not permitted to follow the battle teams around," Xu Dongming explained to the viewers, "because in team confrontations we need to ensure fairness.

Some teams might use stealth and ambush tactics, but if your drones are filming them, the opposing team will see there are drones in the sky and know that your team is ambushing nearby. This would result in the OB being accused of leaking secrets, so it's definitely not allowed."

"However, since the confrontation between the teams has ended, and what follows is the fight against the goalkeeper boss, whether we can follow Yan Zhanlong for filming will depend on the relevant regulations from the Dingbei Army," he glanced at the crew with an inquiring look and continued, "So we will also try to communicate with the Dingbei Army to see if we can better ensure everyone's right to watch the match…"

Ten Swift indeed had reached out to the Dingbei Army for a discussion, after all, they had spent real money on the internet broadcasting rights; how could they accept not being able to fully showcase the program's effectiveness?

After consulting with their superiors, the Dingbei Army's response was a firm "no."

It wasn't that the rules were set in stone forbidding it but rather that the current technology only allowed for transmitting information from the inside out, not from the outside in.

Inside the mysterious realm, the Dingbei Army's medical, broadcasting, and security teams, not having received any orders from the outside headquarters, didn't dare to make unilateral decisions about controlling the drones.

The outside headquarters, considering that more than half of the second daylight period inside the mysterious realm had passed and it would soon undergo another change from day to night, found it inconvenient to send sentries into the realm again to physically relay orders… at least they'd wait until the next darkness had passed and the third daylight emerged.
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As for Yan Yu, who followed the goalkeeper into the palace, of course, he wouldn't care about any broadcast effectiveness.

He casually tore off the broken camera from his chest and threw it onto the stone-bricked ground, his divine sense swiftly scanning the surroundings.

Within this palace, the decoration and furnishing were all eerily cold, the distinct style of the Demonic Sect unmistakable. Directly behind the main hall was a statue of a female cultivator, stunningly beautiful yet with a gentle yet sinister aura. She held a bone longsword in her hands, her expression between a smile and not, her demeanor growing ever more enchanting and evil.

Beneath the statue, on a dusty altar laden with incense, was the spirit tablet of the cultivator, inscribed with the eight ancient seal characters "Ancestor of our sect, Fairy Lianshan."

Yan Yu's Divine Sense merely touched upon the tablet, and immediately, a torrent of information rushed into his sea of consciousness—all of it singing praises of the so-called "Fairy Lianshan's" astonishing feats, such as "achieving heroic deeds with the delicate body of a woman", "wielding the power of an entire sect to command the majesty of the six realms", "upon ascension, ten thousand demons wept, stars dimmed, and the sun and moon lost their light"...

Yan Yu didn't believe a half-word of these nonsensical boasts—if he did, he might as well have water in his brain.

That world's Demonic Sect factions generally exaggerated their cultivators' prowess absurdly. For instance, naming rites for their Taoism Methods—the spell looks fancy? Call it Jiuyin! Too difficult to learn? Xuan Yin! Extremely powerful?

Tai Yin! They adopted whatever sounded most impressive, which was entirely unlike Mei Yingxue's Xuanmen Zhengzong. Xuanmen Zhengzong cultivators valued their reputation; they wouldn't dare to use names like Taiqing or Yuqing unless their techniques were truly related, for fear of being ridiculed by their peers.

If Zhao Yuanzhen had not been taken in by a master from the Demonic Sect but had joined Xuanmen Zhengzong instead, perhaps she wouldn't have developed the vain and profit-driven character she had now.

Having raced into the side hall on the right with the Ghost General, Yan Yu followed suit. He passed through the side halls, the rear halls, with the ground gradually sloping downward until they arrived in a vast underground palace.

The area was enormous, nearly half the size of a football field, resembling a huge subterranean cavern.

Everywhere one looked, heaps of various bones were arranged into incense burners, pagodas, stupas, memorial arches, and even shapes resembling Taoist temples, shrines, and monasteries.

Everything within this underground palace was unbelievably constructed from bones!

At the entrance nearest to them, on a massive carapace of some creature, several ancient seal characters were inscribed in a lively and flowing style.

With just a glance, Yan Yu instinctively understood their meaning:

Divine Bone Palace.

Before he could contemplate the meaning of "Divine Bone Palace", the ground beneath his feet suddenly shook violently.

All the bones around him, whether part of the buildings or scattered in the corners, suddenly flew together as if attracted by a powerful magnetic force, thrumming as they flew toward the front.

In the depths of the palace, the Ghost General stood with his horse on a clearing as myriads of bones crawled rapidly along the ground, as if alive, swarming up his feet, legs, and torso...

In just a few breaths, an endless supply of bones completely enshrouded the Ghost General, transforming him into a colossal half-skeletal giant over twenty meters tall, with a large halberd in hand, eyes blazing with soul fire, and the Nine Heavens Yin Demon Prison Banner on his forehead, akin to the divine presence of Erlang.

The mere sight of it carried immense majesty, shaking the spirit, compelling the impulse to kneel and bow in submission.

Looking at the gigantic skeleton, Yan Yu laughed to himself, thinking the powerful entity behind this Mysterious Realm must be a Lego enthusiast. Who else would play with bones like building blocks? Do you think bigger means stronger?

He swung his arm to the side, and a Silver Pellet fell to the ground, swiftly transforming into a beautiful woman with an ample chest and long legs. Though her beauty and figure were not remarkably different from that of the Demonic Sect Enchantress, her eyes and brows lacked the frank and honest demeanor of the original, bearing a tranquility and calmness more akin to Su Yunjin's.

The Puppet Ah Zhen, after several days and nights of rushed work by the Demonic Sect Enchantress before entering the Mysterious Realm, was finally ready to make an appearance.

With a core made of Celestial River Settling Earthly Divine Iron and skeletal structure of Thousand-Year Divine Dragon Wood, whether it was the force of an attack or the capacity to endure damage, it had surpassed any Transcendent being on Earth to date.

This was also Yan Yu's sole reliance for not pursuing the path of a top-tier Sword Immortal from his previous life and instead opting to become a Puppet Master in this one.

The half-giant began roaring fiercely, its soul fire flickering in its eyes like the raging flow of a great river, ceaselessly washing over its eye sockets. It exuded a terrifying majesty, like a king coldly overlooking all beneath heaven, demanding every creature and object in the world to bow before him.

But Yan Yu's face showed not the slightest sign of tension. Instead, he lightly flicked the heavy blade of the Huangting Kunwu Sword and proclaimed aloud:

"Sword light stretches thirty thousand miles, blocks the vast sea, spreaws warm blood!" (Note 1)

"Now stepping boldly toward the heavens, reaching the pinnacle, without looking back!"

Puppet Ah Zhen by his side produced a faint smile, the corners of her mouth appearing to curve upward, though it could be an illusion.

With a hearty laugh, Yan Yu started to form the Sword technique, boldly saying:

"Let's go, Ah Zhen!"

Puppet Ah Zhen instantly accelerated, moving as fast as thunder and lightning across the ground, charging towards the half-giant. Her wrist blade shone brightly as a mirror, luminous as the moon.

Yan Yu, along with the light of the Huang Tingjian, merged into one radiant sight, dazzling as a brilliant dawn, shining brightly as the sun, and in an instant, he launched towards the bizarre center of the giant's forehead, his immense killing intent soaring straight for the Nine Heavens Yin Demon Prison Banner!!!

(Note 1: This line is taken from the elegy by a Jingbei poet for Valkyrie Li Minghu, who died in battle in the South Sea, and published in the "Jingbei Daily", and is now utilized by Yan Zhanlong in this context.)