Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

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When Yan Yu called Zhou Hongyu a "billy club disguised as a mace," he wasn't just shooting in the dark; he knew her background inside and out.

Zhou Hongyu's family background was rather complex. Her father was a minor civil servant in Rongzhou County, Nanchuan Province, and her mother was a preschool teacher from Shuzhong Prefecture. The two had met through a matchmaker and gotten married.

However, their marriage was a sham from the start. The two who had met through a matchmaker had no feelings for each other - her father had only thought about "living through the days," while her mother had been looking for a "long-term meal ticket."

When a good-for-nothing met a con artist, the result was inevitably being devoured completely.

After Zhou Hongyu was born, her mother used "emotional breakdown" as a pretext to file for divorce, and after several disputes, they finally separated.

Since Zhou Hongyu was still in her swaddling clothes, according to the legal customs of Lu Country, custody was almost always granted unconditionally to the mother. Thus, as her father lost his wife and daughter, he also had to pay his ex-wife a considerable sum in child support every month.

As for her mother, after gaining custody, she immediately left the child with her own mother to look after and, with the child support money she received from her ex-husband every month, she led a carefree and joyous life, never looking at her daughter again.

In other words, Zhou Hongyu had never experienced any fatherly or motherly love since she was a child.

Her grandmother was a reticent rural woman living in the old district of Shuzhong Prefecture. With little in the way of a pension, and unwilling to abandon her pitiful granddaughter, she worked from dawn to dusk every day, single-handedly covering everything from milk powder to school fees.

Maybe it was out of love for her grandmother that Zhou Hongyu, despite a significant lack of discipline, didn't turn out completely rotten.

She didn't smoke, but she drank. She didn't date hoodlums, but she fought them—and she fought fiercely. In middle school, she once took on three boys and smashed one's head with a chair, landing him in the hospital for several stitches—after all, the key in a fight isn't physical strength, but rather, the desire to attack and aggressiveness.

Even special forces would tremble at the sight of a juvenile delinquent wielding a fruit knife.

Her grandmother had no solution for her, and since her academic performance was poor, she was sent to a martial arts high school in the hope that she could get recruited for her athletic ability and scrape together a college degree to find a job.

Just last month, shortly after Zhou Hongyu received her acceptance letter from the Pingxi Army's cultivator program, her grandmother passed away suddenly at home from a cerebral hemorrhage.

This event hit Zhou Hongyu hard, so much so that she contemplated suicide several times.

After enrolling, she quickly caught the leaders' attention with her daring and fierce demeanor.

At this time, no one knew that it wasn't because this girl was naturally brave and fierce, but because with the death of her only loving grandmother, a strong tendency for self-destruction had grown within her.

Zhou Hongyu stepped onto the stage with an expressionless face. Seeing that Yan Yu on the opposite side also didn't greet her with a salute, but just stared at her face intensely, she couldn't help but curse out loud,

"What the hell are you looking at!"

She had wanted to say "What are you motherf*cking looking at," but after all, with the leadership watching, she subconsciously cleaned it up a bit... though it wasn't much more polite.

"I'm looking at a mace," Yan Yu said intently.

Zhou Hongyu was stunned for a moment, immediately realizing that "mace" referred to "spiked club," and became furious. Without waiting for the referee to start the match, she charged straight at Yan Yu.

The referee was somewhat taken aback, but Yan Yu quickly waved at him forcefully, and he promptly got the hint to exit the area.

Zhou Hongyu threw a punch, bolstered by the strength of the Curved Curse, aiming directly for the opponent's face.

This was the experience she had accumulated from years of group fights: if you aim for someone's face, they would instinctively feel fear and dodge when they see your fist quickly enlarging in their field of vision.

Before the punch could even reach him, Zhou Hongyu suddenly felt a pain in her chest as the internal flow of her Curved Curse was disrupted.

Without the enhancement of the Curved Curse, her fist was easily caught by Yan Yu's left hand. He said, with a flippant tone,

"Hasn't anyone taught you about the mutuality of the Five Elements?"

The interaction of the Five Elements was basic theory, covered in the national textbook "Tactics and Strategy Studies for Cultivators."

There were two methods to counter the Wood Bending Charm: one was to invoke the "Wood fuels Fire" notion and use the Flame Curse to burn the opponent, quickly increasing the expenditure of their True Yuan;

The second was to use the idea of "Metal overcomes Wood" and hit the opponent's energy channels with the Metal-Element Impact Curse, which could immediately break the charm's hold and cause the meridians to clog, preventing the immediate use of the charm until the channels were cleared with energy flow.

The flow of the Curved Curse started from the Dantian in the abdomen, went up through the chest to the corresponding shoulder, passed through the entire arm, and finally converged on the hand that was exerting the force.

Targeting the arm was cumbersome, as the objective was to hit you while the arm was moving and swinging, making it hard to aim. Hence, to save trouble, it was common to aim the Impact Curse at the chest.

However, Zhou Hongyu was one who didn't study—she slept through the morning theory classes, so how could she be aware of this theory?

When the Impact Curse hit her chest, her first thought wasn't "he's trying to break my Curved Curse," but "he's trying to take liberties with me."

With her volatile temperament akin to a powder keg, she couldn't hold back at this moment and roared with fury.

Flame Curse!

Yan Yu calmly took a half-step back. The flames licked at his nostrils, rising up, and the scorching air tore at his face.

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He seemed to wave his hand carelessly, and the flames scattered like a curtain being lifted, quickly dissipating into sparks carried away by the wind.

The Water-Element Runescript can counter the Flame Curse with the minimal effort of moving a heavy weight with a slight force, needing only a little bit of True Yuan to extinguish it—but that doesn't change the Runescript's inferior status. After all, fire won't sprout legs and chase after you. In the eyes of most cultivators, why not just go around it and save on True Yuan?

Zhou Hongyu was also caught off guard. She had used the Flame Curse to force her opponent back, anticipating that he would bypass the flames and continue the assault from the sides.

Therefore, she had already lifted her hands early, ready to strike with the Metal-Element Impact Curse at his face, no matter which side he appeared from... But Yan Yu didn't go around; he extinguished the Flame Curse directly. His figure broke through the flames, coming at her fiercely as if he were a malevolent ghost Shura bathed in fire.

Zhou Hongyu quickly turned to aim in his direction, and in her haste, she fired an Impact Curse. However, Yan Yu dodged her shot with a slight twist of his body.

He didn't even use the Shifting Technique.

Taking advantage of the close distance, he swung a punch. Zhou Hongyu hurriedly raised her arm to block, instinctively activating the Barrier Charm for defense, yet she forgot that the Earth-Element Sturdiness Curse would be broken by the Wood Bending Charm.

By the time she abruptly realized this, Yan Yu had already landed a punch on her arm, causing her to stagger and retreat.

Barely stabilizing her stance, Zhou Hongyu had another afterthought: something wasn't right!

When two cultivators engage in a brawl with the Curved Curse, it's basically a matter of whoever breaks through the other's defense and lands a hit first wins.

Because the added force of the Curved Curse is so great, even with restrained True Yuan, it can still injure you with a single punch.

But having been hit by the other's Curved Curse Punch, and only retreating several steps, it could only prove one thing...

The other party was deliberately holding back strength, not using full True Yuan.

Zhou Hongyu paused for a moment, then a surge of raging anger emerged, along with an indescribable sense of humiliation.

That beautiful and heroic face of hers contorted beyond her control.

You, you, you... What do you mean by this?!

By now she also realized that the other's strength was even greater than Liu Longtao's—at least that Lord Master couldn't manage to fight while holding back and still defeat her without giving her a chance to fight back.

That made this act of holding back even more meaningful. If you would have simply overpowered me with strength and defeated me, that would be the end of it, no complaints—but why deliberately hold back?

Do you want to humiliate me by making me give up voluntarily?

Remembering her earlier experience with the "Impact Curse at the chest," Zhou Hongyu became convinced that his deliberate act of holding back was a ploy to keep her from leaving the stage too soon, seeking to manipulate her under the guise of the competition...

In her mind, the string of reason was on the verge of snapping, seemingly about to break completely at any moment.

The commander-in-chief of the Pingxi Army, Sun Rongxing, sat in the upper box, watching Zhou Hongyu being completely suppressed by Yan Yu, silently breathing out a sigh of relief.

The time of the Elders was far too precious. They had watched the four contestants fight each other yesterday afternoon, then boarded a plane back to Pingjing in the evening.

So Zhou Hongyu's powerless unlucky demeanor today did not fall into the eyes of those above... Their impression of her was probably still based on her brave victory over Liu Longtao yesterday.

So, losing a match was also good.

At least it would let her know that mere reckless bravery was not enough on the battlefield; eventually, she would meet an opponent she couldn't defeat.

After this exchange, someone would give her a thorough debriefing. Her tactical awareness was still too simplistic.

On the other side, Chen Lingyun sat in the waiting seats, observing Yan Yu play with his opponent in various fancy ways but without showing any smile, only silently contemplating.

With her intelligent mind, of course, she realized that Yan Yu was not conducting an instructive battle.

An instructive battle is where after you make a move, I immediately counter with a targeted technique, letting you understand the problem with your move.

The emphasis is on "targeted," in order to stimulate the opponent's thinking.

Now looking at the arena, Zhou Hongyu was attacking wildly, like a mad woman; it was clear she had lost her calm and couldn't think straight.

If it was an instructive battle, Yan Yu would have temporarily maintained his distance without attacking, allowing his opponent to regain her composure.

Yet he just kept striking back intermittently without using his full strength, seemingly not intent on driving Zhou Hongyu off the stage, just provoking her...

Yes, it must be to mess with her mindset. That kick he gave Zhou Hongyu earlier didn't even have the Curved Curse imbued in it, and he didn't bother to disguise this at all.

Did these two have some deep-seated grudge from a past life?