Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Chapter 149: Chapter 149: Sword Gun

Haoran tilted his head, his golden eyes scanning the remaining figures with a predatory calmness that was far more terrifying than any overt display of rage.

Even though the tri-color aura had faded, but the presence he exuded was still heavy, thick with the weight of a bloodline that sat at the apex of the universe.

He stood in the center of the scorched arena, the wind whistling through the dust of pulverized pillars, and he let out a short, melodic laugh that lacked any warmth.

”No one?” Haoran asked, his voice echoing with a mocking resonance. ”None of you are going to make a move? Imagine that. After all that grand posturing, none of you actually has to courage to confront me. It seems aside from Shen Tao, who actually had the spine to stand and bleed for his beliefs, none of you deserve to be in the Ten Crowns. Looking at you now, I think we should just rename this little group. Tao’s Crown... and the Nine Bandanas. Or perhaps the Nine Servants? Which do you prefer?”

”Tsk! Damn it! I can’t take your arrogance anymore!”

A man with long, golden-blonde hair tied back in a high, disciplined ponytail took a resolute step forward.

His eyes were a deep, obsidian black, contrasting sharply with the radiant glow of his skin and he radiated a heavy, dense pressure that seemed to anchor the air around him.

”I am Shen Ji! The 5th Crown! I possess the Tyrant King Sacred Physique! I have spent ten years in the gravitational pits of the Western Region to temper this body. I will not allow you to insult my pride and hard work!!”

”Oh?” Haoran blinked, his interest piqued for a fleeting second. ”The Tyrant King Sacred Physique... Indeed, that is a decent physique.”

Decent? Only someone like Haoran can say that.

To anyone else, the Tyrant King Sacred Physique was a legend.

It granted the user nigh-endless vitality and a physical power that followed a terrifying exponential curve; the longer the user stayed in battle, the stronger and more resilient they became.

Once cultivated to the level of Perfect Integration, a practitioner of this physique could theoretically challenge Supreme Emperors simply by the virtue of their functional immortality and ever-increasing physical output.

It was a body designed for attrition, a meat grinder that eventually wore down any opponent.

”Decent?!” Shen Ji felt his cheek twitch in a spasm of unbridled anger as the ground cracked beneath his feet. ”I’ll show you decent! My physical strength is unmatched in the young generation! I don’t need formations or pills to crush a man’s skull!”

He lunged, moving like a projectile, his speed not coming from Qi-based movement techniques, but from the sheer explosive power of his leg muscles.

He reached Haoran in the blink of an eye, his fist cocked back, glowing with the dull, heavy bronze light of his physique.

But at that moment, Haoran raised a single hand.

Shen Ji instantly paused mid-swing as a look of bewilderment crossing his face.

This wasn’t a spatial lock or a formation; it was a psychological and physical pressure so intense that his instincts screamed a warning his mind couldn’t ignore.

He felt as if he were standing beneath the palm of a celestial giant about to be ground into the dirt.

His momentum died, and he found himself unable to move, his muscles locking up in the presence of a superior predator.

Haoran reached out and grabbed Shen Ji’s face, his fingers digging into the skin, and jn that instant, a subtle but terrifying change occurred.

Gold and purple scales, fine, iridescent, and harder than Saint-grade steel, began to emerge along Haoran’s arms and cheeks.

His fingernails elongated, sharpening into obsidian claws that hummed with draconic Qi.

”Competing with a dragon in physical strength?” Haoran stared at Shen Ji with a gaze of genuine pity, as if he were looking at a particularly slow-witted animal. ”Are you an idiot? Or did your training pits simply deprive your brain of oxygen?”

In the Prime Origin Realm, the metrics of strength were well-documented.

An ordinary cultivator at the 9th stage of the Body Refining realm possessed roughly 900kg of raw striking force.

Those born with exceptional talent or high-quality bloodlines could reach 1000kg to 1500kg.

True geniuses, those who practiced specialized Body Cultivation Techniques or possessed unique physiques like Shen Ji’s Tyrant King body, could reach staggering heights of 3000kg to 5000kg.

But even among them, Haoran was a completely different breed.

With the Infinity Dragon God Physique, he had achieved a baseline of 10,000kg of raw strength at the peak of the Body Refining realm—that level of strength is already equivalent to a peak of Qi Gathering Realm!

And if he activated the innate ability of his physique, which granted him draconic properties such as scales or claws, his strength would even double!

Unless the opponent was a ”Cheat Protagonist” blessed by the source of the world, or the owner of a fully awakened Divine Physique of equal tier, Haoran was effectively invincible in the realm of physical combat.

Haoran’s grip tightened as he began to slowly, methodically apply pressure to Shen Ji’s skull.

The 5th Crown struggled desperately, his Tyrant King aura flaring in a frantic attempt to repel the hand on his face, his fists and feet striking Haoran’s body with the force of falling mountains.

But Haoran didn’t even budge. The strikes landed on his golden-scaled skin and dissipated as if they were raindrops hitting a shield.

”Is this the ’unmatched’ strength you spoke of?” Haoran asked, his voice a low, rhythmic growl. ”It’s quite... disappointing.”

Just then, a sharp, whistling sound cut through the air as a concentrated burst of Sword Intent, condensed into a point no larger than a needle, flew toward Haoran’s eye with the speed of a falling star.

Haoran flicked his free hand, the silver-scaled back of his palm deflecting the projectile as he turned his gaze toward the source.

Shen Xinye, the 4th Crown, stood twenty paces away.

She wasn’t holding a sword, and she was smiling ever so gently, her posture relaxed, pointing a ”finger gun” toward him with her right hand.

”Young Master,” she said, her voice melodic and calm. ”That man has clearly lost his will to fight. He’s already reached his limit. Can you find it in your heart to let him go? It’s a bit unsightly to watch a Crown be crushed like a grape.”

Haoran stared at her for a moment, then casually tossed Shen Ji to the side like a discarded toy.

The space around the arena instantly warped around the unconscious 5th Crown, and he vanished toward the infirmary.

”How did you do that?” Haoran asked, his curiosity genuinely piqued as he retracted the scales from his face, though his eyes remained glowing. ”That was Sword Intent, but the form was... unique.”

In the Prime Origin Realm, Sword Cultivators were famous for their versatility.

Many could send out slashes of intent from their fingers, and some could turn their entire bodies into a blade.

Haoran himself could manifest a sword-light from his palm.

But to compress it so tightly and fire it with such velocity that it acted like a kinetic bullet? That was a deviation from standard sword-dao that he hadn’t encountered.

”Just a little trick I picked up while meditating by the Needle-Point Falls,” Shen Xinye replied.

She didn’t lower her hand. Instead, she gathered a staggering amount of Sword Intent at the tip of her index finger.

”Why don’t you see it for yourself, young master.”

With a flick of her wrist, she ”fired.”

Dozens of almost invisible, high-velocity Sword Intent bullets rained down on Haoran, each one capable of piercing through high-grade spirit armor.

Haoran didn’t retreat and just moved his hands in a blurred, intricate pattern, his palms glowing with a faint golden light as he deflected the invisible projectiles one by one.

Each deflection sounded like a hammer striking an anvil, sending sparks of pure intent flying into the sand.

Once the barrage ended, Haoran stood in the center of a series of small, deep craters caused by the deflected shots while he looked at Shen Xinye with a look of approval.

”Impressive. Your control over the ’density’ of your intent is far beyond what your realm suggests. If you reached the Nascent Soul Realm, you can definitely take Shen Jian’s spot.”

”Thank you for the praise, Young Master,” Shen Xinye said, bowing slightly, though her eyes remained vigilant.

Haoran nodded before raising his hands.

”If I’m not wrong,” Haoran said, his lips curling into a sharp grin, ”it should be done like this...”

He mimicked her gesture, forming a finger gun with his right hand and pointing it generally toward the four remaining Crowns who were trying to reorganize their defense.

The eyes of the four remaining crown widened as their instincts screamed ”death”, and without hesitation, they attempted to scatter, using every movement technique in their arsenal to put distance between themselves and the Heir.

But not all of them managed to escape.

Unlike Shen Xinye, Haoran didn’t fire dozens, but hundreds.

A literal, vertical rain of golden Sword Intent ”bullets” descended upon them, saturating the area with lethal precision.

”Gah!” Shen Cai, the 7th Crown, let out a ragged gasp of pain as three golden flashes pierced through his right shoulder, his left thigh, and his stomach simultaneously.

His heavy hammer fell from his hands as his strength evaporated, and he collapsed into the sand.

”Cough!!” Shen Ying, the Alchemist, was hit a second later.

A streak of golden intent pierced her chest, narrowly missing her heart but shattering her lung.

She coughed up a violent spray of blood, her baggy white robes turning crimson as she fell.

As their bodies hit the sand, the spatial arrays activated, and the two vanished, leaving only four Crowns standing in the arena.

Shen Xinye and Shen Fei managed to escape, only because Haoran stopped firing.

”Hm. Impressive,” Haoran repeated, looking at his finger as if surprised by the efficacy of the ”trick.”

He had already deduced the concept behind this technique.

To fire Sword Intent like a bullet, you must first abandon the idea of a sweeping slash and compress it into a single, lethal point.

Then, spiral your Sword Intent to your fingertip to create a rifled, stabilizing spin, then seal it into a tightly packed using your qi so no energy can leak.

After that, shape the intent into an ultra-thin cutting tip so it penetrates instead of dispersing, and maintain a faint thread of control after firing to sustain its trajectory or trigger internal damage on impact.

Then, align your body, breath, and will into one straight vector as if forming a barrel, and release everything in one decisive instant so the stored force detonates forward rather than pushing out.

This method of using Sword Intent weakens the intent’s cutting power, however, it dramatically increases its penetration power and speed, making it almost impossible to evade or block.

He turned his gaze back to Shen Xinye and and Shen Fei.

”Your ’trick’ is quite efficient for clearing out the clutter. Now... shall we see if any of you have anything else to teach me?”