I will be stronger after the remake

If all the monsters in "Journey to the West" were ranked according to their strength, the Spider Demon would definitely be at the bottom. If Pigsy were careful, he could take down all seven of them by himself.

But the spider demon's senior brother, the centipede demon, was no ordinary being. Known as the Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord, he had a thousand eyes under his sides that could shoot out golden light. This golden light was not an illusion but a tangible thing that could transform into a wall to block it. Even Sun Wukong's body of steel and iron could not break through it. Afterwards, he was weak and numb, and his whole body ached, suffering from serious aftereffects.

Finally, under the guidance of the Old Mother of Lishan, Sun Wukong sought out the mother of the Pleiades Star Lord, "Pilamba Bodhisattva," and used a embroidery needle with a restraining effect to break it.

Among the many demons, it would be difficult for the Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord to rank in the top ten, but he could still make it into the top twenty. However, from the perspective of a psionicist, his threat level is enough to rank him in the top ten.

Chapter Thirty: The Insect Demon Army

The same monster poses a different threat to the pilgrimage team and a different threat to psychics.

For example, the Green Ox Demon possesses the Diamond Bracelet from Laozi, which can capture anything. It has captured the weapons and magical treasures of Sun Wukong, Li Jing, Nezha, the Water and Fire Star Lord, and the Eighteen Arhats. Its difficulty in conquering it in Journey to the West is definitely among the top five formidable enemies. Without Laozi's help, there is basically no way to defeat it.

But for psionicists, the power of the Vajra Bracelet is so-so. Anyway, most people don't have magical treasures, so they don't even have the right to be trapped.

Admittedly, the Vajra Bracelet can be used as a weapon, but the Green Ox Demon never used it in the original story, so he probably didn't know how to use it.

Even if it knew how to use it, the physical destructive power of the Diamond Bracelet was only so-so. When Sun Wukong was hit on the top of his head, he only lost his balance and fell. He was not hurt at all, got up and continued running. In the end, he was captured because he was bitten on the calf by the Howling Celestial Dog.

In comparison, the centipede demon's golden light could cover more than ten miles, making it practically a weapon of mass destruction.

Imagine a light barrier with physical isolation properties and a radius of more than five miles descending from the sky. Except for top-tier psionicists and those with special life-saving psionic abilities, most psionicists would be instantly crushed into mincemeat.

Even Sun Wukong couldn't withstand the golden light; he was struck so hard his scalp went weak and his whole body ached. Surely no one thinks their body is tougher than Sun Wukong's.

Just as Tang Ping was pondering whether to prepare an escape plan, Yun Yanzi's words relieved him: "It's not a centipede demon. The centipede demon is stronger than the spider demon. If they appear together, the centipede demon will definitely be the first to be discovered."

"If it's not a centipede demon, what other monster could be associated with a spider demon?"

Tang Ping, after all, did not possess the ability to remember everything he saw, and could not recall it for the time being.

"They are the spider demon's adopted son, a bunch of insect monsters."

As Yunyanzi spoke, she handed over a small booklet.

Tang Ping took a look and saw that it was indeed the content related to the spider demon from the original "Journey to the West," with two paragraphs highlighted in bold:

"It turns out that the demon had a son, but he wasn't her biological son. He was her adopted son. His names were Honeybee, Ant, Toad, Ban, Grasshopper, Wax, and Dragonfly."

"Seeing the fool's ferocity, the strange creatures revealed their true forms one by one, taking flight and shouting 'Change!' In an instant, one became ten, ten became a hundred, a hundred became a thousand, a thousand became ten thousand, and each one became an infinite number. All that could be seen was: wax flying everywhere and dragonflies dancing all over the ground."

After reading it, Tang Ping couldn't help but sigh, "This is the advantage of having an organization behind you. All kinds of intelligence and analysis are prepared for you, so you don't have to collect them yourself."

He thought for a moment and speculated, "If spider demons can really produce adopted sons, they will likely be as skilled in creating clones as in the original story, trying to win by sheer numbers."

“That’s right, and we are extremely difficult to deal with, after all, large-scale offensive psionic energy is relatively rare.”

“In the original story, Sun Wukong plucked a hair and transformed it into a flock of eagles. He used seven different eagles against seven different insects to wipe out the monsters. Can’t we follow suit?”

"It's already underway. Headquarters is recruiting psychics with eagle-related spiritual attributes nationwide. These traditional myths emphasize the concept of restraint. Even seemingly powerful enemies can only surrender when they encounter their natural enemies. As the saying goes, supernatural powers cannot overcome fate. Just in case, headquarters has also recruited psychics with chicken-related spiritual attributes."

Chickens were naturally used to deal with centipedes.

Domestic organizations have always been adept at saturation strikes, making full use of their own advantages. They will not ignore something just because the possibility is small. As long as it is within their capabilities, they will make contingency plans in all aspects.

Other countries don't lack the desire to emulate this approach, but rather the inability to do so. This method severely tests grassroots organizational capacity and collective cohesion. By not doing it, they can control the scope of the impact, but by doing it, they might allow chaos to spread.

After waiting a while, more than a dozen people arrived one after another. Together with the local psionicists who were originally waiting in the square, the total number was close to forty.

Yunyanzi stretched out her wrist, revealing a watch—this thing really ruined her reclusive and otherworldly aura—she glanced at the time and made a decision: "Almost everyone has arrived, let's set off first."

No one objected. Then, Yunyanzi raised his hand, and clouds rose from the ground, lifting everyone up.

Tang Ping stepped on it a few times; it was soft and elastic, and the texture was not like cotton but more like rubber.

"Be careful not to fall."

Yunyanzi gave a reminder, and then the clouds began to accelerate, flying northward.

Tang Ping was initially worried about the impact of the high-altitude airflow, but she quickly realized that everyone was unaffected, guessing that someone must have used a large-scale wind-avoidance technique.

He estimated the speed of the clouds and mist to be around 120 kilometers per hour, which is much slower than modern airplanes and even slower than high-speed trains, but it is convenient to use.

Unaffected by the terrain, the flying vehicle could move straight ahead. In less than ten minutes, everyone saw the battlefield and felt strong spiritual energy fluctuations.

Five beams of light rose from the ground and shot straight into the sky. The beams were connected by a light curtain, forming a huge pentagon that trapped the dark clouds inside.

Upon closer inspection, Tang Ping could see that the dark clouds were composed of countless insects, numbering in the tens of millions. They emitted a low, guttural chirping sound that was enough to make one feel uneasy and cause one's blood to rush, as if one's heartbeat was resonating with it.

The swarm of insects tried to break through, constantly colliding with the light barrier, but to no avail. Each collision resulted in the deaths of a large number of insects, their corpses scattering like grains of millet. Yet, they showed no fear and launched their attacks time and time again.

"The Five Elements Trapping and Killing Formation was fortunately discovered in time and set up early. But don't be careless. Some monsters still managed to escape before the formation was set up. Although they are weak, their numbers are considerable. They always move in groups. If you encounter one alone, it's basically a death sentence."

The speaker was a bald man dressed as a martial monk, standing 1.9 meters tall, with bulging muscles all over his body. These muscles weren't the bulky kind from a gym; they had a more fibrous look, and it was clear at a glance that he had advanced to the flesh-based spirit level.

His Buddhist name was Lingchong, and he was the deputy captain of the local armed forces section, specifically responsible for protecting the medical team.

The team's two leaders, a monk and a Taoist nun, sparked a lot of complaints, but with a formidable enemy at hand and the timing not right, everyone held back.

"The first aid camp is just below, don't come any closer."

Ling Chong reminded Yun Yanzi, who nodded and manipulated the clouds to descend to the ground.

Under the makeshift tent, two wounded soldiers were already lying there. Yunyanzi quickly assigned tasks and directed everyone to provide medical treatment.

Chapter Thirty-One: The Five Elements Formation

Yunyanzi divided everyone into three groups: the disinfection group, the healing group, and the life-saving group, each with its own responsibilities.

The disinfection team doesn't spray disinfectant or apply alcohol to wounds; instead, they detoxify the poisoned individuals.

The healing team is responsible for treating those with minor injuries. Once the injuries are healed, the injured person can return to the battlefield. For example, if someone loses an arm but the severed limb is not destroyed and is retrieved in time, it is considered a minor injury because there is spiritual magic that can quickly reattach the limb.

The rescue team is responsible for treating the seriously injured. Their mission is to save the person's life and prevent the injury from worsening. Afterward, the injured person is handed over to the soldiers who are waiting nearby, and the soldiers then move them to the rear.

It sounds cruel, but it's the most efficient method. As long as you survive, the injuries can be treated after the battle. In battle, every psionicist's spiritual power is extremely precious, so you should conserve it whenever possible.

As a newcomer, Tang Ping was assigned to the healing group, which had the highest margin for error. After all, if the disinfection group or the life-saving group made a mistake and delayed the best treatment time, a life could be lost.

At first, with fewer wounded, Tang Ping had the leisure to gaze at the distant battlefield and inquire about the situation from the wounded.

But as the battle continued and the number of wounded increased rapidly, he was so busy that he had no time to spare. He didn't even bother to ask people's names, and instead used the spiritual technique "Rejuvenation of Withered Trees" on his wounds. Once the wounds were almost healed, he would tell the other person to get lost and let the next wounded soldier come up.

Because the enemy they were fighting was a swarm of insects, most psionicists' wounds were pitted and often contained residual toxins, so they had to be treated by the disinfection team first.

As Tang Ping saw more and more wounds, he quickly went from being terrified to becoming numb. Even so, he was still shocked when he saw a wounded soldier whose face had been half bitten off, with his cheekbone exposed.

"Don't worry about my face, it won't affect the fight anyway. Just stop the bleeding. The key is to put my hand back in place."

"……it is good."

Tang Ping used her spiritual magic to smear the other person's face to stop the injury from worsening. Then she took the severed hand, placed it against the severed wrist, and used the water-based spiritual magic "Reunion" to reconnect them.

"Why don't you try and see if you can move?"

Tang Ping felt dizzy due to the significant depletion of her spiritual energy.

The injured man moved four fingers and praised, "The young doctor's skills are quite good."

"It's a pity that one finger wasn't retrieved, and there's nothing we can do to help."

"It's alright. Using psionic magic doesn't require hand seals, so losing a finger won't have any effect."

After saying this, the wounded man jumped off the makeshift paper bed, preparing to return to the battlefield. Before leaving, he reminded the doctor, "Doctor, your face looks a little pale. Please take care of yourself and get some rest."

Tang Ping gave a wry smile and was about to receive the next wounded soldier when Yun Yanzi stopped him in time: "Go and rest first, and recover your spiritual power."

"But……"

Tang Ping turned his head and glanced at the line of wounded soldiers still waiting for treatment.

"If you rest now, you can hold on longer and save more people."

While giving his instructions, Yunyanzi patted Tangping's shoulders with his whisk.

"...The Taoist priest is right, I've been so busy I'm dizzy."

Tang Ping quickly shook off the battlefield emotions, regained her rationality, walked to the rest room next door, picked up a bottle of spirit replenishment potion, and gulped it down.

Many cultivation novels often depict cultivators taking pills while fighting powerful enemies, but spiritual practitioners cannot do this because converting natural spiritual energy into their own spiritual power is a process. If they are distracted in battle, they will only die faster.

This is not a game; there is no setting where you can quickly replenish health and mana by drinking a potion.

Even so, the Spirit Replenishing Elixir remains a very precious strategic resource.

Suddenly, a loud bang came from afar. Tang Ping stood up and stood on tiptoe to look. He saw that one pillar of the Five Elements Trapping and Killing Formation had been destroyed and the sealing light barrier had shattered.

However, the people in the camp only discussed the scene briefly before the atmosphere returned to normal. There was no panic, and no one turned to run away.

It wasn't that everyone was a warrior ready to die, but rather that they had anticipated this situation.

At the center of the battlefield, the remaining four pillars of light reconnected, instantly forming the Four Symbols Trapping and Killing Formation, continuing to block the enemy within.

The formation is one of the greatest research achievements in the domestic psychic community in the past twenty years, and also the greatest contribution to the global psychic community.

After all, foreign psionic organizations have also invented and created psionic techniques and magical artifacts, but array formations are unique to China.

The domestic psychic community continues the old Chinese tradition of emphasizing practicality in inventions and creations. The Five Elements Trapping and Killing Array is not particularly sophisticated, and even Tang Ping's perspective can discern some traces of its operation.

Someone with relevant knowledge could easily figure out the formation's operating rules in a short time and then hinder it. For example, they could first block the metal-type spiritual power, accumulate it, and then, based on the principle of mutual restraint of the five elements, guide the metal-type spiritual power to attack the wood-type formation eye, which would likely break the formation in one fell swoop.

However, this requires relevant knowledge; otherwise, if one is completely ignorant, one can only rely on brute force, which will drastically increase the difficulty.

Some people might find it strange that the basic principles of the Five Elements' mutual generation and restraint are just a few, such as "metal generates water, water generates wood" and "metal restrains wood, wood restrains earth." They are not complicated at all, and you can remember them after hearing them once. What's so difficult about them?

However, this is from the perspective of modern Chinese people. If it were ordinary people in the past, or foreigners who have never been exposed to the Five Elements system, they would be at a loss when they encountered it, as if they had stepped into an unknown territory.

The Psionic Administration Bureau is taking advantage of the fact that monsters are NPCs, brainless, and ignorant of the Five Elements.

According to the investigation, the Chinese gods who appeared in the Illusionary Realm basically all understand the knowledge of formations. Setting up a formation in front of them is like showing off your skills in front of Guan Yu, asking for trouble. It will be broken in an instant. Their mastery of formations is at the grandmaster level, while humans can only be considered as beginners.

There are two types of monsters: those with a powerful background, like divine mounts, which may or may not understand, and wild monsters without a powerful background, which absolutely do not understand.

The spider demon is precisely the kind of monster without any powerful backing.

In short, if you encounter a monster that understands formations, no matter how sophisticated your formation is, it will be useless because the difference in levels between the two sides is too great. On the other hand, if you encounter a monster that does not understand formations, no matter how crude your formation is, the other side will only use brute force to break it.

In response to this, the Huaxia spiritual energy world created the Five Elements Trapping and Killing Array. This array is not sophisticated at all, but it has strong compatibility and adaptability. When attacked by an enemy, it will concentrate all the damage on one pillar.

Once this pillar is broken, the remaining four pillars can be reassembled into the Four Symbols Trapping and Killing Formation.

The Four Symbols Trapping and Killing Formation shares the same characteristic: once it is forcibly broken, it will transform into the Three Talents Trapping and Killing Formation.

If the Three Talents Trapping Formation is broken, it will transform into the Two Elements Trapping Formation.

The real solution is to break the Two Elements Trapping and Killing Formation.

Therefore, before the appearance of the Yin-Yang Trapping and Killing Formation, no one was too worried about safety.

Chapter Thirty-Two: Covering the Rear

Just as the medical team was preparing to continue their rescue efforts, Ling Chong, the deputy director and action captain of the armed forces department, said in a serious tone: "Some of the insects escaped during the formation's reconstruction and are rushing towards us. Everyone, quickly pack up and move to a different position!"

Everyone was startled upon hearing this, and just as panic was about to take hold, Yunyanzi flicked his whisk, as if pouring a bucket of cold water on their hearts, instantly calming them down.

With their own safety at stake, Tang Ping dared not keep a low profile and quickly suggested, "We might as well move to the other side first to confirm whether the enemy is coming for us or if their route just happens to overlap with our position. If it's the latter, then it's simpler."

Ling Chong glanced at Tang Ping and nodded, saying, "That makes sense. Let's move east first; there's a temporary warehouse there."

Yunyanzi said, "I will cover up everyone's movements."

With another flick of the whisk, a thick fog rose from the ground, obscuring everyone's figures. From the outside, it seemed as if the entire medical team had vanished into thin air, but from everyone's perspective, it was only slightly hazy, similar to the morning mist, and they could still see outside.

While not all of them were elites, the psionicists were all physically capable. After maintaining their composure and unifying their thoughts, their speed of action was astonishing. In less than two minutes, they had packed their belongings and begun to move. This included the wounded. As long as they could walk, they gritted their teeth and persevered, trying their best not to burden others.

Everyone knows that if anyone dares to act like a spoiled brat and demand special treatment at a time like this, they will definitely be thrown down.

After all, they are not real doctors, but only temporary healers. Their mental role is similar to that of a healer in a raid. They have not recited the "Medical Student Oath" and have no awareness of saving lives.

If Yunyanzi hadn't used the "Calm Mind Technique" on everyone, some people might have felt a sense of responsibility for the lives of others because they were still immersed in the atmosphere of the previous battlefield. But now that everyone has calmed down, their priority is naturally to save their own lives.

After marching at high speed for three minutes, Ling Chong turned his head and looked into the distance, saying in a solemn tone, "The worst situation has occurred. It's not a coincidence. The enemy has locked onto us and changed direction, flying towards us again."

Yunyanzi frowned and said, "My spiritual energy can be concealed at the visual level. The other party must have used other methods to lock on, such as sound or smell?"

"There's no time to test them all now. They'll catch up to us in five minutes at most. Someone has to stay behind to cover our retreat."

Ling Chong looked at everyone and said, "Those who have the ability to fight, please stay. Of course, I will not force you. I just want to remind you that there are too many insects. I cannot stop them all. There will inevitably be some that are missed. So those who stay may not be in more danger. Make your own decision!"

The logic here is not complicated. Those who stay behind will face the strongest attack from the swarm, but their willingness to stay behind to cover the rear proves their confidence in their own strength. The strong alliance greatly increases safety. Although those who leave will suffer fewer attacks from the swarm, their overall strength is weaker, and if they are unlucky, they may scatter.

After quickly realizing their situation, everyone hesitated, unsure whether to stay or leave.