Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

"That's right," Yan Yu said seriously, "The real difficulty lies ahead."

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In the afternoon, news indeed arrived from the front line.

The giant bronze bell was successfully destroyed, and the Ten Thousand Swords Formation once again demonstrated its might.

Regrettably, the Golden Core True Man who went on the expedition with Elder Tian Yue was unfortunately killed by the ambushing Demon Cult members near the giant bell.

To avoid affecting morale, Shushan did not hold a grand memorial for this brave and fearless Sword Immortal, only placing his plaque in the Ancestor Hall to honor his achievements.

However, the less publicized his sacrifice was, the more it seemed precious, causing the news to spread among the Sword Immortals.

To ensure their comrade's sacrifice was not in vain, everyone fought even more bravely, significantly increasing both the enemy death toll and their own casualties, forcing the Sect Leader and the elders to quickly send a message to the Sword Immortals: Our focus now is not on killing the enemy, but on defending and delaying time as much as possible! We must hold on until reinforcements arrive!

Whether or not reinforcements will come is uncertain, but when asked, the answer is yes.

Without the suppression of the giant bronze bell, the opposing side clearly had no better method against the Ten Thousand Swords Formation and could only organize more manpower for a strong assault.

The Sword Immortals fought valiantly, utilizing the power of the Ten Thousand Swords Formation, and crushed the enemy, achieving victory on the first day.

On the second day, the number of attackers doubled.

On the third day, it doubled again.

On the fourth day, it doubled again... Yan Yu and Mei Yingxue could already confirm that there was definitely an "iron-blooded commander" on the opposing side, who could forcefully drive their people to the battlefield. Otherwise, with these demonic loose cultivators' natural tendencies, they would definitely watch and incite others to die in their place.

But at this rate, the defensive pressure on Shushan would soon reach an unbearable level.

On the tenth day, the Emei defense line was finally breached by the flood of enemies.

Chen Yanwei chose to abandon the sect and flee, slashing through the intercepting Demon Cult elders with one sword, then disappearing as a stream of light over the horizon.

The other Shushan elders, true men, and disciples all scattered and fled, and whoever managed to escape or was intercepted entirely depended on luck.

Yan Yu's luck wasn't good, being casually struck by a Nascent Soul level demon cultivator passing by. Mei Yingxue instinctively moved to save him and take the hit, resulting in her being completely obliterated.

Reloading.

Returning to the mountain peak for the fifth time, both of their eyes were somewhat dazed.

This time, they made no tactical mistakes throughout, nor faced any urgent problems, they were simply overwhelmed by the opponent's unreasonable human wave tactics—given the vast disparity in overall strength between the two sides, this outcome was inevitable.

But this made it seem almost impossible to save the Shushan Shangqing Sect.

"We must have made a mistake somewhere," Mei Yingxue said, frowning, "Human wave tactics are unsolvable for us, our strategy should be to prevent the enemy from using them, meaning we need to give the enemy the illusion that 'the territory will be conquered soon'... Shouldn't we avoid destroying the giant bronze bell?"

Without destroying the giant bronze bell, the Ten Thousand Swords Formation wouldn't be able to perform at full strength, the enemy's offensive wouldn't be thwarted, and naturally, they wouldn't need to force more people to storm the formation.

"Your thinking is certainly flawed," Yan Yu disagreed, "The premise of showing weakness to the enemy is to make them think they must rescue what is attacked, crippling ourselves just to appear weak is meaningless. The Ten Thousand Swords Formation is the key defense of the sect, disabling the formation is like cutting off an arm, hoping the enemy will become complacent... What if they don't?"

"In fact, without breaking the giant bronze bell last time, we managed to hold out much longer," Mei Yingxue argued, "The enemies aren't united. The more demon cultivators the Ten Thousand Swords Formation kills, the more they realize how hard Shushan's defense is to breach, causing them to consolidate—doesn't that make our defense harder?"

"If that's the case, maybe we can advise the Sect Leader," Yan Yu pondered, "Try not to kill but only injure, pretend Shushan's defense is inadequate to see if we can buy time?"

Both decided to replay the plot progression to the Ancestor Hall gathering and proposed this plan to the Sect Leader and elders.

Chen Yanwei immediately decided: Do it this way! Everyone, act, if you can hold out for a hundred rounds, don't kill the enemy within fifty!

The Shushan Sword Immortals took their orders and left.

Days later, complaints were widespread.

The reason was simple: Sword Immortals were used to going all out, fighting with the aim to decisively defeat the enemy. Telling them to act like it's evenly matched, who understands that!

Fighting became clumsy. Especially for those not good at acting, against weaker opponents, they held back too much, and ended up getting hurt by the enemy. Upon returning, they protested to the Sect Leader, saying they would rather die on the battlefield than fight with their hands tied like this.

Thus, the strategy proposed by Yan Yu quickly became impossible to continue.

The two looked at each other, for a moment at a loss, finally deciding to go with Mei Yingxue's idea: persuading Elder Tian Yue to deliberately avoid destroying the giant bronze bell, disabling the Ten Thousand Swords Formation, to prevent the use of human wave tactics.

This time, it indeed lasted longer than previous attempts because the Demon Cult Allied Forces consistently deployed small scale forces, slowly swapping blows with the Shushan Sword Immortals.

Shushan fell after eighteen days, with a two-thirds casualty rate and virtually no chance of reversal seen throughout.