Without Drawing a Single Sword, Kill the Demon-Shaped General

The Gyoubu Oniwa boss wasn’t exactly difficult. Once you had mastered deflecting, you could eventually overcome the thing simply by throwing enough attempts at it.

But for players with shaky fundamentals, it was undoubtedly a nightmare.

Especially in the Illusion Realm version of Sekiro, where the strength of every boss and elite enemy far exceeded that of the original game from his previous life.

So when word spread that Zhong Yi had developed a brainless method for clearing Gyoubu Oniwa, it immediately drew countless eyes.

【Smart Little Zhou sent 10 Little Stars in the livestream and said: Stop keeping us in suspense, Senior Brother Zhong! Save me!!!】

Seeing Zhou Qiaoling’s gift message, Zhong Yi immediately broke into a grin.

After all, Zhou Yue had set up that formation right in front of him, so Zhong Yi knew perfectly well what Zhou Qiaoling was going through at that moment.

“Junior Sister Qiaoling, couldn’t you send something a little better… Hahaha!”

Zhong Yi shook his head with a laugh.

At one spirit crystal each, the Little Stars were indeed perfectly in line with Zhou Qiaoling’s personality.

As the number of viewers in the livestream continued to climb, Zhong Yi stopped keeping them in suspense.

“If you want to learn how to clear it without taking damage, go to zJunior Sister Li’s livestream… In this streamer’s room, you can only learn how to do it brainlessly!”

With that, he jumped down from the city wall. When he landed, he failed to keep his footing and took an awkward tumble.

The livestream chat immediately erupted in laughter.

【Demonstrating the margin for error right at the start】

【Just how brainless does the method have to be for Zhong to beat Gyoubu Oniwa…】

【I really can’t learn that flat-ground faceplant】

【As expected of Zhong!】

……

“Ahem! That was an accident. Everyone, please ignore the details.”

Brushing the dust from his clothes, Zhong Yi made his way to the center of the battlefield.

Gyoubu Oniwa, mounted on his warhorse, once again came charging noisily out through the city gate.

This time, Zhong Yi didn’t take advantage of the opening at the start to sneak in a hit. Instead, he turned around and ran.

The livestream chat was completely baffled.

【What the heck? Run? Where can you run to?】

【If running away worked, Smart Little Zhou wouldn’t have been getting bullied this whole time…】

【If you don’t take advantage of the opening at the start, how are you going to fight afterward with those clumsy hands of yours?】

……

Looking at the messages floating through the sky, Zhong Yi flashed a mysterious smile.

“Fight? Today, I, Zhong, will not swing even a single blade! Why don’t you all take a look at the livestream title?”

As he spoke, Zhong Yi arrived beneath a five-meter-tall watchtower standing on the southeastern side of the battlefield.

Before beginning the fight, he had already changed the title of his livestream.

The moment they heard Zhong Yi mention it, the viewers were stunned by the new title.

【What? What does “Challenge: Defeat Gyoubu Oniwa Without Drawing Your Sword” mean?!】

【Something like that… is impossible, right?】

【Honestly, if Gyoubu Oniwa had come out early enough to see Zhong trip over himself after jumping down, he might’ve laughed himself to death…】

【Just watching the streamer talk big!】

……

“Talk big? No, no. I, for one, never talk big.”

Zhong Yi shook his head with a smile. He directly returned the Kusabimaru to its sheath, then took an item out of his backpack.

【What’s going on? He really sheathed the Kusabimaru?】

【What is Zhong holding?】

【An Ash Ball?】

【Is he planning to choke Gyoubu Oniwa to death with Ash Balls…?】

……

Zhong Yi offered no explanation. He went straight beneath the watchtower and stopped in front of a patch of withered grass.

“Everyone, pay attention to this grass. Jump from here!”

With that, Zhong Yi executed a second jump with astonishing familiarity, reaching the edge of the watchtower just in time. He grabbed hold and pulled himself up.

“Jump again!”

He leaped a second time, and this time reached the top of the watchtower.

At the same moment, Gyoubu Oniwa finished shouting his pre-battle threats and began charging toward Zhong Yi’s position.

“Don’t panic here. Pay attention to Gyoubu Oniwa’s position… Good. Right now, throw the Ash Ball at him!”

Zhong Yi fixed his eyes on Gyoubu Oniwa’s movements. The instant the Ash Ball struck him, Zhong Yi turned around without even looking back and faced the city wall opposite him.

“Aim in this direction and jump!”

Taking a deep breath, Zhong Yi jumped with all his might.

The scene left countless viewers in the livestream staring in shock.

【There’s no way you can get up there from here, right!?】

【A barrier has been placed around the city wall. An invisible wall will stop you!】

【Holy crap! Gyoubu Oniwa just smashed the watchtower to pieces!】

【So far, I don’t see any chance of winning】

……

In Lu Ze’s previous life, most games contained something known as an invisible wall.

On the one hand, it was a sign of limited production capacity. On the other, it restricted the player’s range of movement and prevented unforeseen glitches from appearing.

With the methods available in the Illusion Realm, there was only a limit to what cultivators could do—not to production capacity.

Lu Ze could easily have created the Illusion Realm without any invisible walls.

However, taking the characteristics of Sekiro into consideration, he had installed invisible walls in the Illusion Realm as well, rationalizing them as “barriers.”

Furthermore, although the grappling hook in the Illusion Realm version of Sekiro had far greater freedom than in the original, there were still many areas in crucial battle zones where grappling was prohibited.

Otherwise, defeating bosses by exploiting the terrain or bugs would be far too easy, and the difficulty of the Illusion Realm would cease to exist.

After all, the system’s mission required him to make things difficult for the cultivators and prevent them from clearing the game too quickly.

Zhong Yi’s jump looked absurd, but in midair, he had happened to step on a peculiar point along one of the invisible walls.

Using that point as a foothold and jumping again allowed him to travel slightly farther than an ordinary jump—just enough to reach the edge of the city wall, trigger the climbing animation, and pull himself over the top.

The scene was completely beyond the viewers’ expectations.

【Whoa? You can actually get up onto the city wall?!】

【How did he do that?】

【But what good does getting up there do? Gyoubu Oniwa can’t hit him, but he can’t hit Gyoubu Oniwa either…】

【Don’t tell me he’s planning to make Gyoubu Oniwa ram the wall until he dies?】

……

“Whew…”

After pulling himself onto the city wall, Zhong Yi let out a long breath.

In truth, the series of actions required at this point had a very high chance of failure.

If he made even one mistake and the watchtower was smashed apart by Gyoubu Oniwa, he would have to start all over again.

Fortunately, his luck was good this time, and he had found the correct foothold, allowing him to jump up successfully.

Once he was on the wall, Zhong Yi didn’t dare pause for even a moment. He sprinted along its edge, then jumped onto a rooftop.

That was when the viewers in the livestream finally realized that something was wrong.

【Whoa! Everyone, look… at Gyoubu Oniwa and his warhorse!】

【Did the Ash Ball blind them?】

【There’s something wrong with Gyoubu Oniwa’s horse!!】

【It’s frantically searching for Zhong’s location!】

……

Zhong Yi didn’t stop on the rooftop either. He sprinted in one direction until he reached the eaves, where he finally stopped. Looking completely confident, he glanced down and began explaining to the messages floating in the sky.

“The Ash Ball briefly affects an enemy’s vision, but against Gyoubu Oniwa, it has an even more remarkable effect… It sends the warhorse into a berserk state, after which it can only locate me by scent!”

“In other words—”

Zhong Yi pointed beneath his feet.

The house stood at the edge of a cliff, with an abyss thousands of meters deep directly below.

Before he could finish speaking, Gyoubu Oniwa, consumed by madness, was already charging furiously toward Zhong Yi’s position. He and his horse plunged headlong into the abyss.

【You have defeated the Boss: Gyoubu Oniwa (Normal)!】

“Uh… I hadn’t finished explaining yet. He demonstrated it himself.”

Zhong Yi scratched his head helplessly, seemingly regretting that he hadn’t timed his explanation better.

Of course, in Lu Ze’s opinion, it was fortunate that Zhong Yi hadn’t finished speaking.

Otherwise, there was a chance the warhorse’s frenzy buff would have expired on its own…

Zhong Yi’s method for triggering an environmental kill had indeed been developed by someone in Lu Ze’s previous life.

At its core, this strategy exploited the simplicity of the combat AI: it would only pursue the player’s direction, eventually causing the enemy to run into a terrain-based death.

The official developers in Lu Ze’s previous life eventually fixed this exploit. Considering how difficult it was to discover, however, Lu Ze had chosen not to fix it. He was more than happy to see players come up with such an unorthodox strategy.

He had even thoughtfully designed the setting so that the Ashen Corps would drive warhorses into a frenzy. Otherwise, given the combat AI of the Cyber Souls, players would never have been able to trigger the cliff-jumping event even after climbing onto a rooftop.

To a certain extent, discovering such an unorthodox strategy was no less difficult than Junior Sister Li taking on Genichiro alone in the early days.

Lu Ze could not help but sigh.

“From a certain perspective, Senior Brother Zhong really is a genius…”