Help! I changed the gender of the male protagonist in the yandere game.

Chapter 205 Cave Strategy
Meanwhile, in the underground space of the Grudged Spore Forest, someone trapped in a trap is still struggling to hold on.

Ye Ming maintained his offensive stance, gripping his sword at all times.

In a brief moment, her vision distorted several times, and the surrounding scenery kept changing.

At the same time, all five senses are racing in a strange way. The signals from sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch all become distorted.

A violent, bizarre sensation surged into her body; Ye Ming's heart—no, her soul—was wailing, as if she could hear that sound in her ears.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

The woman's maniacal laughter rose from her feet.

It felt as if insects were crawling on her body; an extremely unpleasant sensation made her tremble.

"Enjoy this moment, then die here!"

The fox spirit Zhu Ling flew over from the other side, a cruel smile spreading across her face, and launched an attack.

"How could you possibly not be dead?!"

Ye Ming swung her knife at the enemy who should have been dead in an awkward posture. However, her movements became so gruesome that she couldn't even stand up and fell headfirst to the ground.

She scrambled to her feet in a panic, grabbed her weapon, and began to slash, but she was only fighting an enemy she had imagined in her mind.

boom!
The flames crackled and popped as they burned the nearby bamboo, and the surrounding air became scorching hot, as if the hot air she inhaled would burn the alveoli in her lungs. It was as if she had returned to the battlefield she had been on before.

—This is what happened on that day.

Wait a minute... what day was it exactly? Her memories became ambiguous and chaotic. The order of many memories in her mind seemed to be out of order, or more precisely, her sense of time was confused.

"So, you've gotten weaker, haven't you?"

The fox spirit Zhu Ling transformed into flames and attacked her, leaving burns and claw marks all over her body.

Amidst the splattering blood, the woman who should have been dead laughed and said, "Spiritual power, supernatural abilities, and swordsmanship—none of them are of any use now, are they? That 'eye' is meaningless here either. What else can you do? Just obediently accept your death!"

She laughed wildly, and with a flick of her right hand, she knocked her head off her neck.

I am dead.

boom!
My vision... no, all five senses were filled with a burning sensation.

"How many times has this happened?"

His mind was starting to lapse, his senses were gradually becoming numb, and his mouth was growing increasingly dry. However, in the next instant, Ye Ming's consciousness was revived.

This time, she returned to the territory of Yuejialuo.

That was Ye Ming's former home, a peaceful and tranquil territory.

Suddenly, the scenery changed again.

Fresh blood, scorching heat, the afterglow of the setting sun.

The entire scene before me was dyed crimson.

Suddenly, under the crimson sunset, a dark mass of things attacked from the distant sky.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh!
Winged monsters launched a surprise attack on the town below the castle and the castle of the Yuejialuo family.

People screamed in agony as a large number of monsters, some resembling humans and others birds, surged forward.

The fire started from nowhere, and familiar townspeople screamed and ran in all directions as the fire raged.

Quack quack...

It was the cry of a flock of demonic birds, a cry that seemed to be calling for disaster, a sound that was almost like a jeer.

Quack, quack, quack...

Countless such voices echoed and resonated, overwhelming everything.

It was filled with laughter, crawling, and hoarseness.

With a whoosh, the black feathers and the cries of disaster filled every corner of the sky, even obscuring the last rays of the setting sun.

Finally, the wind picked up. In an instant, black wings that blotted out the sky unfurled, and the thing descended upon the place with astonishing force.

Her heart was pounding and her body was trembling.

Once again, Ye Ming was transported by his memories to the day the city fell...

……

"Those people trapped here must be having a really tough time..."

Hyakusuke and the others have found the entrance to the underground cavern.

"After all, that trap is specifically designed to 'attack' a person's mind. The similar principle is to use inner demons to influence the person."

I think it was called something like "Heart-Breaking Barrier," which is one of the main reasons why Ye Ming and the others were trapped.

Even the most skilled exorcists cannot be without flaws or weaknesses in their minds.

However, this so-called "heart-breaking barrier" is exactly what it is. The trap is that as long as you step into the barrier's range, your brain will be affected by the barrier, and your consciousness will fall into complete isolation.

This makes it difficult to escape the current situation even by using other means. Even with powerful abilities like the Eye of Heaven, it is impossible to find a way out without using them.

According to the game's setting, players unanimously believe that this is a powerful barrier in the game, comparable to the effect of the Curse Return Barrier.

This barrier can ignore physical defenses and directly affect the mind and thoughts, which makes it virtually invincible.

Of course, the drawbacks are also clear. This kind of barrier is much more difficult to set up than the spell-reversal barrier, and it can basically only be made into a fixed trap that cannot be moved.

Moreover, even the caster cannot resist the effects of the barrier once it is activated; as long as they are within the barrier's range, they will be subjected to an "indiscriminate" attack.

Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be a good way to counter the "Heart-Breaking Barrier" trap; one can only rely on spiritual power to withstand it or break free through superhuman willpower.

"Anyway, in the game, the protagonist stalled for a while and, relying on his 'strong will,' managed to get out of the crisis on his own."

Bai Jie frowned slightly.

He suddenly realized how outrageous his previous thoughts had been.

'Although Ye Ming is the protagonist, she's still just a person, and now she's a girl... Sigh, how should I put it? Thinking about it now, I just dumped all the responsibilities that had nothing to do with her onto her.'

While pondering this question, Bai Jie followed the others, walking along the narrow cave entrance into the depths of the underground cavern.

Unlike the dense fog that surrounds the outside world, the fog here is much thinner.

"I thought this was the source of the fog?"

Lian Zhang was also somewhat surprised. Beside this guild leader, two puppets were holding weapons of varying lengths, guarding him.

“No, that fog isn’t normal; it exists through magic,” Hiiragi Hiruko, who had been silent until now, seemed to realize something and whispered, “The formation of that fog must be a spell activated through some medium. It can be controlled by itself. Otherwise, why would it only activate when people land on the island?”

That makes sense; if the fog were a natural phenomenon on the island, it wouldn't have happened so coincidentally that it only appeared after everyone had arrived.

It must have been through her innate spiritual sensitivity that Hiiragi Hiruko was able to think so keenly, realizing this more than anyone else present.

"It seems the enemy below this cave is already aware of our arrival..."

Lian Zhang seemed somewhat disgusted by the situation; he wrinkled his nose.

"Perhaps they are hiding somewhere, secretly monitoring our actions."

"This is not surprising."

Bai Jie gripped the steel staff infused with spiritual materials, his cold, eagle-like gaze sweeping over his surroundings as he slowly spoke.

"This fog might also be a kind of warning barrier, and its effect will not be weakened even if it becomes thinner... Also, this barrier may monitor the creatures moving inside, which means that it will be difficult for our every move to escape the enemy's tracking."

"The enemy is in the dark while we are in the light, so it's no wonder that Lord Yeming and the others were captured by the enemy after landing on the island."

Matsudaira Inomaro sighed as well. He slung his naginata over his shoulder and summoned a clay doll-like shikigami.

Upon hearing the explanation about the fog, the muscles on everyone's faces tensed up, and they became fully alert.

The team, which had previously been loosely organized, became a tightly knit group and marched forward.

The blonde girl, Tojouji Maika, was the same; her face tightened and her expression became serious. This young lady of the Tojouji family was also a powerful exorcist, which could be seen from the spiritual energy emanating from her.

She also adopted an attitude that she could fight at any moment. The girl's weapon was a pair of vajras, with long blades extending from both ends of the thick, short handles, surrounded by four shorter, claw-shaped, slightly curved blades.

Upon noticing the dual weapons she was wielding, everyone was quite surprised. Very few exorcists used such weapons; in fact, it could be said that they weren't even considered weapons at all.

The vajra is more like a ritual implement and has little effect in actual combat. It is more of a tool and medium for casting spells.

'This Miss Jujou, although not a high-ranking exorcist, possesses combat strength and total spiritual power at the level of a rank A exorcist.'

Hiiragi Hiruko was also secretly communicating with Hyakusuke using telepathy.

'A Class A exorcist?'

Hyakusuke thought to himself that, in the setting, Jujouji Maika was indeed not a super-class exorcist, but considering that she inherited the bloodline of the Jujouji family, in terms of destructive power alone, she might not be inferior to a super-class exorcist.

The blonde, arrogant girl is no match for powerful exorcists like Gehua and Xiaoqi, who possess overwhelming combat strength and can alter terrain with their bare hands, making them veritable humanoid natural disasters. However, underestimating her combat power would be a grave mistake.

'In her personal storyline within the game, she becomes several times stronger after turning evil, and even the awakened protagonist is defeated by her multiple times…'

Bai Jie thought to himself that she was the type with excellent potential, and if she were trained, she could also become an outstanding combatant in the main characters' group in the later stages.

In fact, the appearance of Totsuji Maika here is not necessarily a bad thing for the Black Shark Island side quest. After Yoru and the others were trapped, her appearance can be seen as a new fighting force that can be recruited by our side.

'But what if she met Ye Ming? What would happen then...'

Just imagining it made him so troubled that he had a stomachache.

At the same time, the group continued forward. Although the dense fog was thinning, dangers still lurked within it. Not long after entering the cave, they encountered an obstacle.

They had walked less than a hundred meters when they saw hundreds of howling monsters rushing towards them. These were smaller monsters than the clay-like zombies they had seen before, but their size was close to that of large beasts.

Each of these beasts had bloodshot eyes, was covered in fungal spores, was extremely frenzied, and was fearless in the face of death.

"Go away."

Bai Jie thrust out the tin staff in his hand, then swept and slapped it, repelling the approaching beasts.

He would choose a tin staff as his weapon, partly because there was no suitable spirit spear in the warehouse, and partly because he could use the tin staff as a long weapon to perform spear techniques.

Bang!
He swept one wild beast away, and another had its head smashed, rendering it immobile. After all, these were not formidable enemies. The group easily killed them without lifting a finger.

call!
After defeating the enemy, Hyakusuke let out a sigh of relief.

'Fortunately, I originally thought my strength would decline significantly after that incident, but it seems it hasn't regressed much, and the flow of spiritual energy within my body has also stabilized.'

The total amount of spiritual power is naturally incomparable to the state of expansion after being heavily eroded by the energy of ghosts and gods.

Bai Jie still remembers that at that time, he was almost never short of power. His life energy was assimilated and eroded by the spirit energy, and he could also transform the demon energy he absorbed into his own energy.

"My spiritual power has decreased, but it has also become more refined than before. Speaking of which, the Barbarian Fang Spear Technique that I learned is a style that uses the refinement of spiritual power to achieve its purpose, with the aim of using a small force to defeat a large one."

The amplification of the ghostly energy is powerful; however, it comes at the cost of rampage and loss of control.

Hyakusuke originally acquired this power only to gain a "special attack" effect against immortal enemies, and did not intend to rely on this external force excessively.

As for him now, having lost his ghostly aura, he doesn't feel any psychological dependence on him.

'My movements feel more refined than before, and my body feels much lighter...'

He gradually regained his confidence, and a smile appeared on his face after he regained his spirits.

"Vulnerable."

Cai Zang spoke casually, his five fingers together, and the fireball that shot out from his palm burned the monster to death before returning to his palm.

"Without the fog here, the power of the spells has returned to normal."

The fireball in his palm became a second source of light. The light began to illuminate the surrounding environment.

Old man Matsudaira gripped the hilt of his naginata in reverse and poked the end of the hilt at the corpses of several wild animals a few times. Suddenly, the old man seemed to realize something and muttered to himself, "Look closely, this isn't some kind of monster; it seems to be a wild dog or some kind of wild animal."

Upon hearing his words, everyone's attention turned to him.

"It really is a stray dog...?"

Renjo Senjuro looked at it carefully for a few moments, then revealed a somewhat surprised expression.

"From this perspective, this should be a kind of experimental animal... and those zombies before, perhaps they were also affected by some kind of influence, or underwent magical modification, which is why they turned into that form."

“I had heard about it when I was gathering intelligence before. The pirates on Black Shark Island also kidnapped local people and livestock.”

Cai Cang asked with doubt, "But then again, what exactly are they doing on this island?"

Suddenly, a howl, seemingly emanating from the depths of the earth, rang out, and from the end of the dark passage shrouded in a thin mist, the sound of a wild beast's hooves pounding the ground approached...

"Let's discuss this later!"

Renjiro also drew a samurai sword and assumed a fighting stance.

(End of this chapter)