Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Chapter 107: Chapter 107: The Self

[The Third Trial: The Trial of Heart!]

[Begin!]

The sea of clouds beneath Shen Haoran’s feet suddenly rippled and dissolved, and the vast, starry indigo sky was pulled away like a silken veil.

The profound silence of the High Heavens was replaced by the gentle, rhythmic rustle of leaves and the faint, sweet scent of mountain air.

Haoran blinked, and when he opened his eyes, he was no longer sitting before the Heaven Piercing Saint, instead, he was standing on the periphery of a memory, a ghost in his own past; this was in a mountain in the Shen Clan Domain.

A few yards away, a younger version of himself—barely six years old—sat cross-legged beneath the sprawling canopy of an ancient peach blossom tree.

The boy’s golden blonde hair caught the dappled sunlight, and his golden eyes, even then, held a depth that no child should possess.

He was staring at the sky, not with wonder, but with a strange, clinical detachment.

Just then, the voice of the Heaven Piercing Saint resonated through the air, no longer majestic and booming, but soft, layered with a tragic, haunting empathy.

”Shen Haoran,” the voice whispered, ”you were born superior to everyone else. It is the blessing and the curse of your blood. Born from a supreme clan that dictates the laws of the universe, gifted with a talent that defies the very heavens, and nurtured by parents whose shadows cover entire realms. A true young supreme, a god in the cradle.”

The scenery shifted violently, the peaceful orchard replaced by a cold, white jade training plaza within the Shen Domain.

The six-year-old Haoran stood in the center, his small hands clean, his breathing steady.

Around him lay the broken, weeping bodies of his peers—the ”prodigies” of the branch families and allied sects.

They were clutching shattered limbs, their faces twisted in agony and shame.

But the young Haoran didn’t look down at them with cruelty; he simply looked through them, as if they were nothing more than fallen autumn leaves.

”But,” the Saint’s voice continued, ”that extreme superiority also brought you an extreme, suffocating loneliness. When you are the peak, everything else is just the base of the mountain.”

The image blurred and reformed. Now, a ten-year-old Haoran stood at the edge of a sky-piercing cliff, the wind whipping his robes.

He was overlooking a vast, breathtaking scenery of floating islands and crystalline seas, a view that would have moved any mortal to tears.

But his face remained a mask of marble.

There was no joy in the view, only the realization of the distance between himself and the world below.

”There is no one who can understand you,” the Saint whispered, the words echoing like a funeral dirge. ”There is no one you can truly talk to. There is no one who can stand beside you and see the colors of the world the way you see them. Your mother, Chu Xueyu? Your aunts, Feng Yuyan and Leng Shuang? They love you with a ferocity that could burn the stars. They would give up their very lives for you without a second thought. But ultimately... they cannot understand you. To them, you are a miracle to be protected. They look at you and see a treasure, but they do not see the soul that is starving in the dark.”

The world shifted again, showing a seventeen-year-old Shen Haoran standing atop a flying sword, soaring high above the clouds.

The wind roared around him, but he looked solitary, like a lone spark of gold in an infinite blue void.

”Yes. Isn’t that so? Deep down, the reason you search for power with such desperate, quiet intensity is not for the sake of ruling. It is because you believed—you hoped—that at the very top, at the ultimate summit of the Dao, there may finally be people who can understand you. You thought that if you climbed high enough, you would find your equals.”

The image flickered and changed once more, and this time, it showed the twenty-year-old Haoran under the thunderous pressure of the waterfall, his muscles taut, his golden eyes blazing as he broke through the first stage of the Golden Core Realm.

The power he radiated was enough to make the earth tremble, but as he stepped out of the spray, his expression was one of profound, hollow disappointment.

”But... you have given up hope. You looked at the ’experts’ of the world and found them wanting. You looked at the masters of the realms and found them shallow. There was simply no one who could stand equal to you, and the silence of the peak was becoming absolute... until...”

The scene shifted back to the familiar, opulent hall of his mother’s palace, and the twenty-year-old Haoran stood there, his mother sitting on his throne, watching the dying Shen Ming—Haoran’s cousin, with Qing’er kneeling in the shadows.

This was the moment that he found out about the protagonist and villains.

”...you found out the ’truth’ of your world. You found out about these anomalies known as ’Protagonists.’ People chosen by the heavens themselves, gifted with ’Systems’ and ’Fates’ that allowed them to grow at a rate that matched your own. People who were meant to be the true sovereigns of the narrative.”

Haoran felt a strange, cold shiver run down his spine as the Heaven Piercing Saint materialized beside him within the memory.

The Saint turned his nebula-filled eyes toward Haoran, but he was looking down, his hands clenched at his sides, his golden blonde hair obscuring his face.

”When you first found out about this, what you felt wasn’t just anger,” the Saint said, his voice dripping with a terrifying insight. ”No, you did feel rage when you realized you were being cast as a mere stepping stone, a ’Young Master’ villain meant to be slaughtered for someone else’s growth. But the very first thing you felt... the emotion that hit you before the rage... was joy.”

The image shifted rapidly, showing the moment Haoran first met Huo Yue in the Huo Clan.

They stood in the center of the Huo Clan’s hall, the air between them electric.

It was the first time Haoran had looked at a peer and felt a spark of something that wasn’t just boredom.

”Yes,” the Saint whispered. ”You thought: ’If it’s them... if they are truly the favorites of the world... maybe they can stand beside me. Maybe they can understand the weight of this existence.’ That was your first thought. You saw a protagonist and you didn’t see an enemy; you saw a potential friend.”

The scenes began to flicker faster and faster, a kaleidoscope of the ”Anomalies” Haoran had encountered.

He saw Huo Yue’s fiery determination, Lin Feng’s shamelessness, Chu Fang’s pervertedness and knowledge of the future, Tang Shan’s hidden depth, Yun Li’s strange aura, and finally, the broken but rising Jiang Chen.

”You believe, in the secret corners of your heart, that perhaps they can grow alongside you,” the Saint said, the words hitting Haoran like physical blows. ”That is why you didn’t just kill Huo Yue, and instead you helped her grow, giving her just enough resources to survive

That is why you spared Lin Feng, giving him resources to grow his sect. That is why, when you encountered these protagonists, your first instinct was not to eliminate them with the cold efficiency of the Shen Clan, but simply to observe. You were waiting, Shen Haoran. You were waiting for one of them to reach out and bridge the gap.”

The Saint stepped closer, his voice becoming a soft, heart-wrenching sigh that seemed to resonate with the very core of Haoran’s Infinity Dragon God Physique.

”Yes. Look at yourself, Shen Haoran. Deep in your heart, behind the mask of the Young Supreme, behind the cold decrees and the ruthless slaughters, you desired neither supreme power nor the cold immortality of the void. Your true, simple desire... was the desire to be understood.”

Haoran stood in the center of the shifting memories, his breath hitching as the iron-clad walls he had built around his heart—the ”Supremacy” he had preached, the ”Loneliness” he had embraced as a badge of honor—felt like they were cracking under the weight of the truth.

He saw himself in these images, and for the first time, he didn’t see a god, but saw a boy standing under a peach tree, waiting for someone to sit down beside him.

His golden eyes trembled, however, he reamined expressionless, with no one knowing what he was thinking aside from himself.

The silence of the high heavens returned, and he found himself back on the cushion of mist, staring at the Heaven Piercing Saint.

The tea on the table was still steaming, but the world felt different.

The ”loneliness” he had claimed he could bear was no longer a noble sacrifice, but now it was more of a wound that had been laid bare.

”So,” the Saint said, his voice gentle. ”Tell me, young Shen. Can a heart that seeks a companion truly walk the path of the absolute? Or is your ’Supremacy’ just a loud cry for someone to hear you in the dark?”

Haoran sat in silence, his hands trembling slightly on his knees...until eventually, he sighed.

”Good,” he said, voice steady, even as that truth still lingered in his chest. ”So that is what I am.”

He exhaled slowly, and the disturbance in his aura smoothed, deeper than before—less pure, perhaps, but far more real, as if a man who has been confused his whole life suddenly found the answer to what he has been searching for.

”Many cultivate for a lifetime and never see this,” he continued. ”They chase illusions and call it dao.”

His eyes lifted again, no longer hiding from themselves.

”But today... I have seen my own.” There was no shame in his expression, only clarity. ”You’re right, I am searching for people who can understand me. Someone who would not be crushed by my shadow, nor blinded by my brilliance. Someone who could look at me not as a genius of Shen Clan, nor as an unreachable existence, but as an equal.”

Yes.

What he chased for wasn’t power. For him, power was just a tool.

It wasn’t supremacy either. That was only an excuse.

What he truly sought... was simple.

Someone who could stand beside him without fear, someone who wouldn’t worship him, someone wouldn’t resent him, someone who wouldn’t be left behind by him.

...Someone who could look at the same heights, and understand why he kept climbing.

”Understanding oneself is harder than conquering heaven,” he said with a small smile. ”You have given me that chance. For that... I give my thanks.”

He stood up, and his qi erupted!

His power at the peak of Golden Core Realm circulated, and his divine physique glowing as if it was about to explode.

Then suddenly...

BOOM!

An aura far more powerful than a Golden Core bursts out of him.

The Heaven Piercing Saint watched as Qi began to revolve and gather around Haoran, as if his very presence itself commands the world to bow before him.

Finally, after a few moments, the burst of power subsided, and Haoran can be seen smiling as he clenched his fist.

”First stage Nascent Soul... I’ve reached it.”