Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

Zhendong Army had authorized Yan Yu to form a combat team, and naturally, the other military forces would not fall behind.

Lingnan Province's Royal Palace of the Annan National Defense Academy soon appointed Li Zhaojiang as the team captain and Li Minghu as the vice-captain. The siblings were tasked with selecting members.

The first thing to do after the team was formed was to play the recordings of the four-institute exchange matches for everyone, with the vice-captain Li Minghu personally explaining and reviewing the footage.

"You don't need to watch the other fights." Knowing his brother was thin-skinned and cared about his face, Li Minghu clicked on the video, immediately dragged the mouse to the very end, "I understand everyone's time is precious, we should only watch the one with the most technical content."

"The final round bout between Yan Yu and Liu Longtao." Li Zhaojiang nodded with feigned seriousness, "Indeed, it is worth detailed study."

The team members kept silent. In fact, everyone knew the captain had lost all three of his fights, but no one was foolish enough to point that out.

The video quickly came to an end, totaling less than 10 seconds.

Yan Yu first stepped back to evade the attack, then followed with a Curved Curse Punch that made Liu Longtao stagger.

Then he pretended to use the Runescript to fool Liu Longtao into casting the Barrier Charm, and then he switched from clapping hands to Iron Mountain Lean, returning to the Curved Curse, sending Liu Longtao flying once more.

It was over.

"Now that we have watched it, what are your thoughts?" Li Minghu paused the video and summarized with a smile, "I believe Yan Yu's victory in this battle is due to both conventional and unorthodox factors."

"The unorthodox factor lies in the fact that his two successful attacks both involved outsmarting Liu Longtao's Earth-Element Sturdiness Curse using the Wood Bending Charm. With wood overpowering earth, the Barrier Charm is forcibly broken, and the areas it hits will suffer obstructed meridians and sealed acupoints, which unless cleared with the Runescript, hinder the circulation of qi."

"So in the future, when we cast the Five Spells, we must pay attention to the interplay of the five elements. If your opponent has closed in on you and you still foolishly use the Barrier Charm for defense, a single Curved Curse can have you sprawling on the ground."

"As for the conventional aspect, the reason he was able to land his attacks was that his sheer capability truly overwhelmed Liu Longtao. Do you know in which aspect?"

"It's his spell switching speed," said Li Zhaojiang with a cool, expressionless face.

"Exactly, it's his spell switching speed," Li Minghu said with a smile, dragging the mouse to rewind the footage, "Look here."

She replayed the video at 0.5x speed for everyone:

"Here Yan Yu is already in close range, why doesn't Liu Longtao quickly end the Barrier Charm?"

"Because he is afraid it won't be fast enough," continued Li Zhaojiang.

"Yes, even at 0.5x speed, you can see that Yan Yu's closing speed is extremely fast, something that can't be achieved by Cloud Ascension Technique alone," said Li Minghu with a nod, "He must have used the Shifting Technique, leveraging its high speed to close in on Liu Longtao, braking with the Cloud Ascension Technique upon getting close, and then switching back to the Curved Curse."

"All these actions were completed in a flash, so from Liu Longtao's perspective, there was virtually no gap between Yan Yu closing in and casting the Curved Curse, making it hard to defend in advance."

"If he then tried to end the Barrier Charm, in all likelihood, he wouldn't have been able to carry out the next move in time, and would have been hit by the attack from the Curved Curse, hence he was forced to use the Barrier Charm to block. The result was the curse being broken and the meridians becoming obstructed; but what if he had tried to switch spells? Then he'd probably be killed instantly."

Seeing everyone deep in thought, Li Minghu added:

"I've calculated specifically based on this video. Yan Yu's spell switching speed is three times faster than the average cultivator. Meaning, in the time it takes us to switch one spell, he could easily switch three."

"In all martial arts, no defense is indestructible, only speed is unbreakable. With such a rapid change of moves, if you can't keep up, then no matter what you do, he will instantly switch to a countering technique. In this way, you would have no chance of victory whatsoever."

"Hahaha." Seeing his teammates' expressions of shock and to prevent them from losing their fighting spirit, Li Zhaojiang cracked a joke, "If Yan Yu dyed his hair the eight colors of the gods and styled it into a Xiaolan, wouldn't he be a red-horned triple-speed?"

This meme was so abruptly put together that none of his teammates got the joke, and Li Minghu quickly explained:

"Therefore, the main focus of our team's upcoming training schedule is the joint practice of the Three Arts and Five Spells.

Everyone must master the execution of the Three Arts and Five Spells to the point of instinct and use proficiency to increase their speed of improvising new moves—of course, we're not expecting the freakish level of skill showcased by Yan Yu, but at the very least, when we face him in the future, we shouldn't be taken down within a few moves."

The team members all nodded and took note.

Find adventures on empire

Now that all four armies have formed their teams, there is a subtle relationship between cooperation and competition. With the four-college exchange competition taking place, who's to say there won't be friendly matches between the four teams in the future? Using Yan Yu as a training target is most certainly the right decision.

Under the leadership of Li Minghu, the Annan Army team quickly set its training goals for the near future.

Meanwhile, at the Pingxi National Defense Academy located in Shuzhong Prefecture of Nanchuan Province, team captain Zhou Hongyu sat in silence, letting vice captain Zhang Huaide play the video to the end.

"The most impressive thing about Yan Yu is his change-up speed, which far exceeds the average level," Zhang Huaide concluded, "If it's a one-on-one fight, it's nearly impossible to beat him, even if one fights desperately…"

"Alright, alright." Seeing him address the uncomfortable truth, Tang Xiaolian hurriedly interrupted him, "We don't need to talk about one-on-one fights; the power discrepancy is clear. Everyone just needs to practice hard afterwards. Talk about what to do in team combat."

"Team combat is much simpler," Zhang Huaide replied, "Yan Yu might be able to change moves at triple speed, but his teammates might not be able to keep up with him; that way, they cannot combine their attacks effectively."

"If he chooses to coordinate with his teammates, then he would have to give up his own advantage, equivalent to handicapping himself; considering his quick move changes, he doesn't really need to combine attacks with others, so I tend to think that in team fights, he will opt to go solo."

"Once he goes solo, our tactical focus should be on finding ways to isolate Yan Yu from his teammates. The specific tactics can be adapted to the situation and change according to the circumstances, but generally, they will definitely lean towards this direction."

"By isolating Yan Yu, whether we choose to first gnaw away at this toughest stone or prioritize knocking his teammates out of the game, we will have a lot of options afterward."

"Enough," Zhou Hongyu was actually already impatient, but her resentment towards Yan Yu suppressed her impulsive irritation. Now that Zhang Huaide had finished his analysis, she immediately slammed the table and declared, "Regardless of how the tactics change, without strength, it's all in vain!"

"From now on, everybody needs to practice fiercely!"

"Okay!" The teammates responded in unison.

Over at the Dingbei National Defense College, Liu Longtao was sitting alone in his office, watching the video on his computer, dragging the progress bar forward with his right hand, playing it, then dragging it, and playing it again, repeatedly.

His left hand rested beside the keyboard, silently clenched into a fist.

Ye Jun brought over some tea, and seeing him watching the video of his own defeat by Yan Yu in two moves, she paused for a moment before placing the tea beside him.

"Thank you," Liu Longtao said softly.

"You're welcome," Ye Jun replied quietly.

She quickly turned to leave the office, and only when she was out did she quietly pull out her phone and opened the video of the four-college exchange competition.

This video was secretly requested by Ye Jun from the instructor and Liu Longtao was not made aware of it.

After watching the video several times from beginning to end, she let out a quiet sigh and dragged it into a newly created "Tactics" folder, then added a password.

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