Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Chapter 62: Chapter 62: Crisis

Ning Xiao, Old Hu, and Old Jian stood upon the high ramparts of the Seven Treasure City, their gazes locked onto the two figures hovering with nonchalant arrogance in front of the massive, undulating sea of the Allied Army.

The sky itself seemed to buckle under the weight of the collective Qi being released by the million-strong force, but it was the two men at the vanguard who truly commanded the terror of the moment.

”They are... The Grand Archer, Dai Xuan, and The Undying, Buo He. Those two are still alive!?” exclaimed Old Jian, his voice carrying a rare tremor of disbelief.

As the one hailed as the Sword Saint who had lived through a century of shifting powers, he knew these names not as contemporary rivals, but as legends that should have been buried by time.

The Grand Archer, Dai Xuan, was a name that had echoed through the Eastern Region a hundred years ago where he had gained immortal fame in a single night when a rogue meteorite, burning with celestial fire, threatened to obliterate one of the region’s largest metropolitan hubs.

Dai Xuan had stood atop the highest peak and loosed a single shaft of light that shattered the star-stone into harmless dust.

However, shortly after that feat, he had reportedly ventured into the perilous transit zones leading to the Central Region, believing himself talented and powerful enough to stand at the peak.

But when no news returned for decades, the world assumed the central region had claimed him, so to see him now, standing vibrant and lethal, was like seeing a ghost draped in martial splendor.

And the other one, the Undying Buo He was a darker legend altogether where two hundred years ago, he was a man driven to the brink of insanity when his entire bloodline was butchered by a sect of demonic cultivators.

In his grief, he became a butcher himself, slaughtering more than a hundred thousand demonic practitioners in a decade-long crusade of blood.

And back ck then, it was whispered that he was truly immortal; blades shattered against his skin, and spells slid off his soul like water off a lotus leaf.

The history books claimed that because he eventually lost his mind and began slaughtering the common populace, the Big 3 Kingdoms had united their ultimate experts to execute him.

”It turns out,” Ning Xiao hissed, his eyes narrowing as he realized the depth of the deception, ”they didn’t kill him, but had subdued him, and worse, they turned a madman into their ultimate hidden weapon, waiting for a day like this to unleash him.”

Dai Xuan stepped forward in the air, each footfall creating a ripple of golden light as he looked down at the Ning Clan leadership with a cold, aristocratic disdain.

”Ning Xiao! Know that this outcome is the result of your own stubbornness!” Dai Xuan’s voice was amplified by his Qi, sounding like rolling thunder that shook the city’s foundations. ”If you hadn’t insisted on this pathetic, self-righteous neutrality, if you had simply chosen to side with the kingdoms that birthed you, none of this blood would need to be spilled! But the basic rule of the Cultivation World is simple: Do unto others before others do unto you! We will not wait for you to be tempted by the Spirit Hall’s promises. Before you can join them to destroy us, we will ensure you are erased from the map!”

Without another word of parley, a massive black bow, carved from the wood of a Lightning-Struck World Tree, appeared in Dai Xuan’s hands.

Suddenly, the air around him began to scream as the atmospheric Qi was sucked into a single point on the bowstring.

”Let this arrow be the sign of the day of your doom! Fall Star Arrow!”

An arrow of pure, condensed Starlights flew from the string with a speed to fast it warped the space around it, flying like a comet compressed with the absolute Dao of Archery that Dai Xuan had spent a century refining in the shadows.

A hundred years ago, when Dai Xuan had watched that meteor falling toward the earth, his first thought hadn’t been heroics, nor has it been fear, but it had been awe at the sheer, unbridled momentum of a celestial body.

He had realized then that a true arrow should be like a god’s judgment—inevitable and crushing.

And with that realization, he had gained enlightenment in that moment of catastrophe, breaking through to the Spirit Ascension realm by mimicking the ’Law of the Falling Star.’

As the arrow streaked toward the city, the Seven Treasure City’s defensive array, a masterpiece of formation art fueled by millions of spirit stones groaned into life.

A massive golden dome of Qi erupted, covering the entire city in a protective shell that was supposed to withstand even the siege of a Great Clan.

But the Fall Star Arrow was not a mere physical projectile, so the moment it made contact, the laws of ’Impact’ inherent in the arrow clashed with the ’Stability’ of the barrier.

With a sound like a thousand mirrors shattering at once, the arrow pierced through the golden dome as if it were parchment, sending cracks spiraling across the sky and shattering the primary defenses of the Ning Clan in a single strike.

”Old Hu, watch out!” Ning Xiao barked.

Old Hu, the Bone Dragon, didn’t wait for the order as he vanished from the rampart and reappeared in mid-air directly in the path of the arrow’s remaining trajectory.

His eyes turned a sickly, necrotic green as he released his Spirit as s massive, skeletal Bone Dragon, made of the remains of ancient Earth-Drakes, erupted from his back, coiling its massive, calcified body into a defensive spiral to block the arrow before it could strike the inner manor.

BOOM!

The explosion was blinding as a mushroom cloud of dust, bone fragments, and residual starlight billowed hundreds of feet into the air.

”Old Hu!” Ning Xiao and Old Jian shouted in unison, their hearts freezing.

As the smoke began to subside, the sight that greeted them was grim as while Old Hu was still hovering, but he was breathing in ragged, wet gasps.

His Bone Dragon spirit was heavily damaged, its ribs shattered and its skull cracked, acting as a mangled shield that had barely saved his life.

The impact had pushed him back hundreds of meters, his feet carving deep grooves into the air itself.

”CHARGE!” Dai Xuan roared, his voice the signal for the end of the world.

The million-man army responded with a roar that literally shook the heavens and as the ground groaned as hundreds of thousands of cultivators rushed toward the city walls like an unstoppable tide of steel.

”Fire the Spirit Canons! Blast these people back to the hell they came from!” Ning Xiao roared, his voice finally losing its regal calm and adopting the grit of a desperate general.

The Ning Clan disciples and the city guardians, though trembling, moved with the precision of long-drilled experts.

They pulled back the heavy tarps covering the ramparts, revealing Rank 3 Spirit Canons—massive, tube-like artifacts forged from Spirit Iron.

These weapons were designed for one purpose: to convert raw Spirit Stones into high-density explosive bursts of Qi, and each shot carried enough power to vaporize a Core Formation expert and send shockwaves through an entire battalion.

The air was filled with the thoom-thoom-thoom of the cannons, and for a moment, the front lines of the Allied Army were obscured by a wall of fire and screaming.

But then, a sound deeper and more terrifying than the cannons echoed across the battlefield.

”RAAARRRHHHH!”

It was a primal, guttural scream as Buo He, the Undying, was no longer standing still. His body began to swell, his muscles bulging until his size had doubled.

His skin turned a violent, bruised red, and his eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible.

This was his Berserk State—the very state that had allowed him to survive a hundred thousand enemies.

The aura of a 7th Stage Spirit Ascension Realm expert—a full level higher than Old Jian—burst out of his body like a shockwave, flattening the grass for miles.

He didn’t use a weapon; he used himself, as if he became a living wrecking ball, charging toward the city gates with a speed that created sonic booms in his wake.

”Old Jian!” Ning Xiao shouted in worry, his eyes darting between the charging monster and his wounded friend.

Old Jian, hearing the call, felt the sheer, oppressive weight of Buo He’s power.

He knew that if that monster hit the city walls, the battle would be over in minutes, so he didn’t waste a second as he reached into his robes, pulled out a jade bottle of High-Grade Healing Pills, and tossed it to the gasping Old Hu.

”Recuperate and guard the Patriarch!” Old Jian commanded, his voice returning to its sharp, sword-like clarity.

Without waiting for a reply, Old Jian flew, as if he became a streak of silver light, a sharp contrast to the bloody red aura of Buo He.

”Old Jian, stop Buo He! Do not let him reach the gates!” Ning Xiao ordered, his voice echoing with the authority of the Ning bloodline.

Old Jian didn’t hesitate and even though he could feel that Buo He was an entire minor realm stronger than him, a gap that was usually insurmountable at the Spirit Ascension stage, he was a Sword Saint.

He had spent his life seeking the one true strike and he released his Spirit, a translucent, ethereal Greatsword that seemed to hum with the very concept of [Redacted] and charged headlong into the path of the Undying.

”You want to destroy the Ning Clan?” Old Jian hissed, his silver Qi flaring like a sun. ”You’ll have to cut through the Sword Saint first!”

The silver light and the red shadow collided in the sky, creating a vacuum that sucked the very breath out of the soldiers below.