Qin Ye considered his options for a very long time.

"The only advantage I have is that no one has ever seen the Dusk Legionnaire..." he murmured to himself with furrowed brows. "The first King Yanluo never cultivated it, while the second King Yanluo did cultivate it, but he barely ever had to battle anyone. Thus, no one has ever seen the Dusk Legionnaire. On top of that..."

He swept a hand through the air, and around a dozen Yin spirits appeared in the room, including the likes of the Spatial Spirit, the Porter Spirit, Chu Renmei, Huang Jiansen, Otakemaru, Leatherface, Jason, and Freddy Krueger.

Aside from those who had voluntarily joined the Dusk Legionnaire, all of the other Yin spirits, such as Otakemaru and Leatherface, were only mindless puppets. However, so long as Qin Ye remained alive, they wouldn't die, either.

Furthermore, he could clearly see that each of these Yin spirits had a blue thread connected to their backs.

The thread extended into their bodies while the other end was attached to Qin Ye's fingers. After looking at the threads for a while, Qin Ye cleared his throat and waved his hands through the air as he said in his best anime voice, "Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets." [This is a technique used by Sasori, a character in the popular Japanese anime and manga, Naruto.]

Ryu Changmin and Kwon Kyung-ho turned to him with appalled expressions. They couldn't help but feel as if they had accepted the wrong master...

Qin Ye was also feeling extremely ashamed of himself. The scene reminded him so much of Sasori's usage of the technique that he simply couldn't help himself!

He cleared his throat vigorously a few times to hide his embarrassment, then put on a serious expression as he curled a finger. Otakemaru immediately made his way toward him before kneeling down in a respectful manner. "Otakemaru pays his respects to his master."

Qin Ye cast an indifferent gaze toward Otakemaru, and several seconds later, the two of them swapped positions amid a flash of Yin energy!

Otakemaru was still in a kneeling position, but he had appeared on the bed while Qin Ye was standing where Otakemaru had just a moment ago.

After reaching the Yama-King level, his Dusk Legionnaire had evolved once again, but he didn't have the time to examine the changes and later on, he forgot all about it.

He didn't know the effective range of this mutual teleportation ability, nor any other details about this new ability. At this point, all he had at his disposal were around a dozen Yin spirits and this mutual teleportation ability.

There was no point in complaining, and he began to carefully ponder his situation. After a long while, he murmured to himself, "The effective range is around one kilometers, but there must be Yin energy thread connections to facilitate the teleportation. No one else aside from me can see these threads, but they can be severed by outsiders. However, Yama-King level power is required to do so."

He cast his gaze toward his puppets again.

The Spatial Spirit and the Porter Spirit had already reached the Infernal Judge level, and they were still decently useful.

The Spatial Spirit could create spaces that resembled black holes of around a meter in size with its mouth acting as the entrance to the black hole. As for the Porter Spirit, it specialized in soundwave attacks, able to reach up to 200 decibels.

130 decibels was enough to shatter glass cups and at 200 decibels, all living beings below the Infernal Judge level would have their eardrums completely ruptured.

Both of them were capable of unleashing large-scale attacks, which made them useful against large numbers of low-level opponents. Brando definitely wouldn't be conceited enough to defend the entirety of Saint Peter's Church on his own, so the Porter Spirit and the Spatial Spirit would be useful when it came to dealing with his underlings.

Kwon Kyung-ho was a survivor from the MV Sewol, capable of summoning a sea full of deceased spirits from the time of the incident. His fellow students could also fight for him, and after so many years, he had already become an advanced Infernal Judge. However, he wasn't going to be all that useful in the upcoming battle. The fellow students that he could summon were a cultivation rank lower than him, so they could stall for time, but were lacking when it came to destructive power.

The true trump card that Qin Ye had up his sleeve was Ryu Changmin, whose special ability made him untouchable, even for Yama-King level assailants. The higher his opponent's cultivation rank, the shorter the effective duration of his ability, but he was only one step away from becoming an Abyssal Prefect.

As for pure combat prowess, the most powerful Yin spirits in the Dusk Legionnaire were naturally the likes of Chu Renmei, Huang Jiansen, Otakemaru...

Hold on, now that I think about it, I already have close to 10 Abyssal Prefects under my command! Holy shit!

Unfortunately, the likes of Chu Renmei and Huang Jiansen were at a higher cultivation rank than Ryu Changmin, but the quality of their powers couldn't compare. Ryu Changmin's hatred was unique in that he hadn't even been born before he died by the hands of those closest to him. He had witnessed the worst of human nature before he had even arrived in this world, which made him an evil ghost of an extremely high caliber.

Yin spirits like Otakemaru, Jason, and Freddy were just purely evil, and they couldn't even begin to compare with Ryu Changmin.

He continued inspecting the evil ghosts at his disposal, and his gaze fell on a man and two women.

They were the werewolf, black witch, and vampire that he had met during that conference in Mirage City.

They had no names nor special abilities, and they had only been accepted into the Dusk Legionnaire based on the merit of their lofty cultivation ranks. However...

Qin Ye rubbed his own chin with a contemplative look in his eyes.

Perhaps they could be useful in a very special way.

After looking at the three Yin spirits for a while longer, he instructed, "Werewolf, from now on, you'll be known as Dusk 11. Vampire, you'll be Dusk 12, and black witch, you'll be Dusk 13."

"Yes, Master," the three Yin spirits replied with wooden expressions.

He closed his eyes and carefully directed his consciousness toward the three evil ghosts.

As a result, he discovered that the werewolf and the vampire really did have no special abilities. Ryu Changmin's Untouchable Love was an extremely rare and exceptional ability, it would be unfair to expect them to have abilities of a similar level, but what they did have were bloodline abilities.

The werewolf's bloodline ability was Moonlight, allowing its power to double at night. Furthermore, it would be capable of entering a berserk state and adopting a giant wolf form.

The berserk state would boost its power by a further 30%, while the giant wolf form would double its power yet again, making it a formidable creature of the night. Even more importantly, it was also a werewolf, so it wouldn't look out of place among a group of werewolves.

The vampire's bloodline abilities were agility enhancement, bat transformation, and vampirization.

The agility enhancement increased agility by 100%, granting him far superior speed, evasive ability, attack velocity, etc. Essentially, everything that fell under the agility attribute in online games applied here.

The bat transformation granted him the ability to fly, while vampirization was a bloodline ability possessed by all vampires. Any living creature that was bitten by him and had his blood injected into their body would be transformed into vampires. However, this vampire wasn't all that powerful, so its vampirization ability would only be able to convert victims into the most low-level blood slaves.

He cast his gaze toward the black witch and several minutes later, he nodded with a pleased expression.

She had no special abilities or bloodline abilities, but she did possess several good spells.

Extreme Cold Coffin: allows the user to instantly freeze oneself in a body of ice of extremely low temperatures that's very difficult to break through in a short time.

Qin Ye rubbed his own chin with a contemplative expression.

If worse came to worst, this ability could come in handy to transform her into a shield. However, in order to unleash this spell, she had to chant an incantation that was 10 seconds long.

Phoenix Fire: an inextinguishable flame that can incinerate everything in sight within 100 meters.

This was a useful spell as vampires and werewolves were naturally fearful toward things that produced light, so it could be used for intimidation.

That was all that Qin Ye had at his disposal. How could he overcome the enemy's defenses with just those assets alone? There was no way for him to return to the Cathayan Underworld to request reinforcements.

Time slowly passed by in deep thought, and Qin Ye sat on his bed with his legs crossed in silence.

At night, Philadelphia was not a very peaceful city. Yin energy was surging everywhere, and the occasional ghastly howl or goosebump-raising sob could be heard. However, Qin Ye paid no heed to this. After a long while, the dark clouds outside faded, and the sun rose up into the sky to herald the arrival of a brand new day. Only then did Qin Ye finally raise his head.

"I've got it!"

He pressed his palm down toward the writing on the bed, and all of the writing instantly dissipated into Yin energy.

Throughout the night, his writing had already covered the entire bed.

"There's a chance, and it's not a small chance! If I can pull this off, I'll be able to enter the underground church and leave safely without revealing my identity!"

As a Yama-King, staying up an entire night wasn't taxing on his body whatsoever, but such a long and intense period of deep thought had left him feeling quite weary mentally, and his eyes were slightly bloodshot.

However, he paid no heed to all of that. This was going to be a risky plan. As was the case in all worthwhile things in life, no reward could be repeated without taking a risk. Even filling out one's university preference form carried an element of risk, let alone something like this. After making his decision, Qin Ye immediately jumped down from the bed and vanished as a gust of Yin wind.

Half an hour, Edward reappeared somewhere roughly 80 kilometers away from Philadelphia.

There were still taxis here, and he hailed one at random before instructing the driver to head directly toward Philadelphia.

Wanted notices for him had already been placed all over Philadelphia, so he couldn't appear in the city as Edward. At the very least, he couldn't do that prior to the implementation of his plan.

However, he had to have a clear plan of what he wanted to do, then constantly make adjustments on the fly as the situation unfolded.

He couldn't use the same plan twice so he only had one opportunity, and he had to make it count!

In contrast with Philadelphia at night, a hint of life had returned to the city during the day. Soon, the taxi had made its way close to Saint Peter's Church, but it was unable to get through.

A police officer rode toward the taxi on his motorcycle, and the taxi driver rolled down his window with a displeased expression. "What's going on? Is this area blocked off?"

The police officer took a look inside the taxi, and Edward made no attempt to avert his gaze. Instead, he looked directly into the police officer's eyes.

The police officer's expression was quite natural, and he replied, "Saint Peter's Church hasn't been repaired in many years, and we had a big storm last night, leading to the collapse of some parts of the church. Thankfully, no one was injured or killed. However, it'll take roughly a month before everything returns to normal."

"How could this be?" Edward asked with a stunned expression. "I came all this way just to visit Saint Peter's Church! Can you make any exceptions?"

"I'm afraid not, sir."

"Damn it... Edward cursed under his breath before heaving a disappointed sigh. "Do you know exactly when the church will reopen?"

"I'm not too sure on that," the police officer replied in a resigned manner. "We only just received notification to block off this road, and even we're unable to access the church. We've only been told that the repairs will take roughly a month, but no exact time has been decided on the reopening."

Edward heaved a long sigh as he rolled up the car window.

However, right as the car left this street, a cold smile replaced the disappointed look on his face.

Does that mean the grand script of death will be able to achieve a significant breakthrough within a month? It'll either be completed or no longer need to be in Philadelphia, which means that I have at least 25 days to prepare.

Just as he had predicted, Brando's influence still hadn't extended into the police force. Some things had to remain a secret to the general public. The church could know, the witch hunters could know, but normal police officers definitely had to remain oblivious.

They were only normal people, and if they became aware of what was happening, they would unconsciously spread panic among the masses, and that would be absolutely unacceptable to the church.

Only a stable and orderly parish was a good parish. This meant that he wouldn't encounter any trouble in the next few days in the mortal realm, which allowed him to find a place to rest and think without having to worry about anything, and that was extremely valuable.

A thread of Yin energy emerged from his fingertip, then traveled out of the car and disappeared beneath a certain manhole cover.

There's still a month left, let's see who's going to get the last laugh!