Oh no! I've been reincarnated as a corpse!

Time flies, and a month has passed in the blink of an eye.

For the past month, Lu You's life has been no different from before.

He did not choose to work harder in seclusion and intensive training just because he was about to break through.

You can daydream as usual, go shopping as usual, and spend the same amount of time cultivating as before.

Two days ago, his cultivation level had naturally reached the peak of the Living Corpse realm.

The yin energy in his body was abundant and full, like a container filled with water, and any more would cause it to overflow.

His physical strength also reached a critical point. He could clearly feel that he was only one step away from the Iron Corpse realm.

But he didn't rush to make a breakthrough; instead, he focused on making final checks and filling in any gaps in his knowledge.

Just like before an exam in my past life, no matter how well I reviewed, I would still go through my mistake notebook one last time to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

He has prepared the ice coffin needed for the breakthrough.

I made it myself.

To be honest, the ice coffin didn't look very appealing—it consisted of a few pieces of wood cut from Qinglin Mountain, roughly shaped with a black iron sword, and then bound together with vines and tree sap.

Lu You looked at her handmade work and remained silent for a long time before finally comforting herself: This isn't a magic weapon; as long as it meets the ritual requirements, it's fine.

Anyway, since it's buried in the ground, no one can see it.

All the breakthrough materials have been categorized and sorted according to the requirements of the ceremony.

The Yinming Cold Iron was carefully wrapped in a piece of animal hide taken from the wolf demon's treasure vault. The fragments of the century-old Xuanbing were placed in a jade bottle. The fragments of Yin Soul Stone, the shell powder of the Ironclad Centipede, and the Xuan Iron Ore Powder were each packed in different small cloth bags and neatly stacked in the most easily accessible place in the storage bag.

Lu You has also been continuously researching formations over the past month.

He took out all the array flags he had taken from the wolf demon's treasure vault and compared them one by one with the records in the "New Moon Qi Induction Chapter" to study their rune structure and spiritual power flow.

After repeated comparisons and tests, he finally chose two formations that would not conflict with each other and could even complement each other.

One set is a purely defensive formation that, once activated, forms a solid spiritual energy shield to block external attacks; the other set is a trapping formation that creates a maze-like area around the shield, causing intruders to lose their way.

The combined defensive effect of the two formations is far greater than that of simply adding them together.

At the same time, Lu You also found a defensive magic item in the treasure vault, a palm-sized bronze mirror.

The mirror surface was mottled, and the edges were covered with green rust, making it look like a burial object dug out of an ancient tomb.

However, after being infused with yin energy, a faint silver halo will appear on the mirror surface, forming a semi-transparent shield in front of the person.

He spent several days refining the bronze mirror, which should be able to block out danger and buy him time to become invisible and escape.

After taking stock of all the preparations, Lu You left his cave on a dark and windy night.

He once again traversed the silent, eerie mass grave and stepped into the gray, misty underworld.

He didn't need to worry about not finding the location of the Four Protectors by following the subtle traces left from his last visit.

Traveling swiftly, Lu You soon arrived near the small pit where the female zombie was.

In the gray mist, four figures sat quietly in the pit, motionless, like four statues forgotten in the underworld.

They carried out Lu You's orders quite well.

They said they would wait here, and they waited here, without ever leaving.

Upon sensing Lu You's approaching aura, the four guardians turned around almost simultaneously.

Four pairs of cloudy, grayish-white eyes fell on Lu You in unison, a slight ripple appearing in their empty pupils, like a small pebble suddenly thrown into a stagnant pool.

They stood up unsteadily and walked towards Lu You.

"Big brother!" The female zombie's voice was hoarse.

"Father!" "Father!" "Father!"

Three voices followed in quick succession, rising and falling like a trio.

Lu You nodded in satisfaction at the female zombie.

She called me the one I liked best.

The title "Big Brother" may sound like a gangster boss, but it's at least much more normal than "Dad".

As for the other three guardians...

Lu You glanced at them with a hint of helplessness.

I still can't learn it.

Forget it, I'm too lazy to think about it anymore.

It doesn't matter what you call it.

Lu You smiled and waved to the four zombies: "Come with me!"

He planned to clear out all the monsters from the Yin Realm surrounding the ritual site before the ceremony officially began.

The breakthrough ceremony lasts for three days and three nights. During this time, he must concentrate on guiding the Yin energy to cleanse his body and fuse with the Yin Nether Cold Iron, leaving him no energy to deal with external threats.

Lu You, accompanied by his four guardians, began a thorough patrol and extermination operation, using the small pit containing the female zombie as the center and a radius of three kilometers.

Five undead stood in a loose fan-shaped formation on the gray, barren land, like a group of thugs patrolling their own territory.

The number of monsters in this area is not too large, and their strength varies.

There are four of them, all within the same realm.

Two skeletons of canines, one skeleton of feline, and a strange creature made up of the skeletons of some unknown animal.

These four monsters of the first realm were no match for the four guardians. Before they could even react to what was happening, they were swarmed by the four living corpses and torn to pieces, leaving only skeletons scattered on the ground.

There are two at the second level.

One of them was a skeletal tiger, several times larger than an ordinary tiger, with bones as thick as saplings and eerie green flames burning in its eye sockets.

The other was a corpse demon, its entire body covered in dark red muscle tissue, without skin, like a skinned human specimen, with a row of jagged bone spurs growing on its back, and its hands transformed into two bone scythe-like weapons.

Both are at the early stage of the second realm.

However, even at the early stage of the second realm, the four guardians together would find it difficult to deal with him.

The white-boned tiger possessed astonishing strength; a single swipe of its paw could create a large crater in the grayish-white ground.

It would also spew out clusters of green, eerie flames from its mouth, which, upon landing on the sand, would instantly burn the sand into a charred, glassy substance.

The Corpse Fiend was incredibly fast, its two bone scythes swung so fast they were impenetrable, drawing pale arcs in the gray mist and forcing the four living corpses to retreat repeatedly.

However, after watching the battle for a while, Lu You discovered something that made him doubt himself.

These two monsters, who were at the early stage of the second realm, seemed to be inferior to him in both strength and speed.

The white-boned tiger's pounce seemed slow to him, like watching a video played in slow motion.

He could clearly see the process of the Yin energy flowing, accumulating, and then erupting between his bones.

The process was crystal clear to him, every single detail was crystal clear.

The Corpse Fiend wielded his bone scythe with impenetrable speed, yet he could clearly see the trajectory of each strike.

Although the ghostly fire spewed by the white-boned tiger was powerful, leaving a scorched pit on the ground when the emerald green flames landed, it was not fast.

The blood arrows shot from the tips of the bone spikes by the Corpse Fiend were swift, making a sharp whistling sound as they streaked through the gray mist, but their trajectory was straight and not difficult to predict.

In Lu You's view, if these two spells missed, there was no problem.

Lu You felt that neither of these two spells could hit him at all.

This discovery made Lu You somewhat doubt whether his strength was much greater than he had imagined.

He always felt that he was just a lowly living corpse at the first level. Although his cultivation technique was a bit advanced and his treasures were a bit powerful, he was still a newbie at heart.

He had indeed fought monsters of higher levels before; the wolf demon that found his valley was at the second level.

However, Lu You used the Taiyin Huishuo Sha to launch a sneak attack, rather than defeating him head-on.

So he decided to try a one-on-one match.

The green flames in the white tiger's eye sockets flickered violently, and it let out a silent roar as it lunged at him with all four limbs.

The massive skeletal body cast a blurry white shadow in the gray mist, and the ground trembled slightly under its stomping.

It opened its stark white jaws, and a ball of emerald-green eerie fire quickly condensed in its mouth, emitting a burning sensation that stung the skin.

Lu You watched it pounce on him with a blank expression.

Just as it was about to pounce on him, he slightly turned his body, just enough to let the huge bone claws graz his collar.

Then he clenched his right fist and punched the side of the white bone tiger's head.

boom!

A violent force erupted the moment the fist made contact with the bone.

The white-boned tiger's head shattered into countless fragments on the spot, like a watermelon being smashed by a hammer, with white bone fragments flying everywhere.

The emerald green flame at the center of the skull was directly shattered by the force of the fist, turning into wisps of smoke that merged into the surrounding gray mist.

The massive body of the skeletal tiger remained in a pouncing posture, paused in mid-air for a moment, and then scattered into a pile of bones with a crash.

Lu You herself was startled.

He looked down at his fist—a few white bone fragments were stuck to the pale skin, but his knuckles were intact, without even a scratch.

He looked again at the pile of scattered bones on the ground; the largest skull fragment was no bigger than a thumb.

Did he do this?!

Apart from his previous fight with Nangong Yi, he has never directly confronted anyone again.

I never expected his fighting power to be so formidable.

With a single punch, he shattered the skull of a second-stage white bone tiger.

Although it was only in the early stage of the second realm, and although it was just a Yin Realm monster with low intelligence, it was still a genuine second realm monster.

As for the second-stage corpse demon, its fate was exactly the same as that of the white bone tiger.

Lu You didn't even use the black iron sword; he met its bone scythe with his bare hands.

Just as the scythe was about to strike his shoulder, he swayed slightly, dodging the blade perfectly, and then punched the corpse demon in the chest.

The resilient, dark red muscle tissue was blasted open by the force of the punch, leaving a hole the size of a bowl.

Lu You could even see the grayish-black internal organs and the swirling Yin energy inside.

The Corpse Fiend let out a hoarse roar, staggered backward, and gray-black air leaked wildly from the hole in its chest.

Lu You gave it no chance to catch its breath, took a step forward, and punched it in the head with a second punch.

The corpse demon's head exploded, and dark red bits of flesh and grayish-black Yin energy scattered everywhere.

The headless corpse swayed and then collapsed to the ground with a thud.

When Lu You cleanly and efficiently killed the two second-realm Yin Domain monsters, even the four living corpses stared wide-eyed and stood frozen in place.

Even those who are not highly intelligent were astonished.

It took them a long time to react when Lu You called them.

After dealing with all the Yin Sha monsters within a three-kilometer radius, Lu You returned to the female zombie's den with his four guardians.

He pointed to the pit and said to the female zombie, "You and the three of them dig this pit together, make it bigger."

The female zombie's tiny brain began to work rapidly.

After a long while, she finally received and understood Lu You's order.

Her cloudy eyes lit up, and she pointed to the small pit, her voice hoarse and excited: "Sleep...!"

Lu You nodded, giving full affirmation: "Yes, it's good to sleep when you're older! You can sleep more comfortably."

The female zombie immediately let out a low growl, bent down, plunged her hands into the grayish-white sand, and began to dig with a huff.

Her movements were swift and ruthless, like a tireless excavator. She dug out handfuls of sand from the pit and piled them around the edge, quickly forming a small mound.

The three zombies next to them also bent down and started digging.

The grayish-white sand beneath them was constantly being loosened, dug out, and piled up.

Lu You sat on a grayish-white boulder not far away, resting his chin on his hand, watching his four guardians diligently and tirelessly digging the pit, and became lost in thought with satisfaction.

He realized he was absolutely awful.

They were so shameless in exploiting these four pitiful zombies with such low intelligence.

In my past life, this would definitely be considered the behavior of a heartless boss.

But the feeling of not having to lift a finger is just so great.