Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The air surrounding the secondary front line was thick with the scent of medicinal herbs and the ozone of gathering storm clouds.

Standing before the trio was Da’Er, a Giant General whose skin was the color of bruised obsidian, covered in jagged white scars that looked like frozen lightning.

Unlike the other generals, Da’Er carried no club; he wore heavy bronze gauntlets that hummed with a low, vibrating frequency, designed to shatter both bone and spiritual barriers.

He roared at them, his aura at the 1st Stage Nirvana Rebirth Realm exploding outwards.

”Why have I gotten myself involved in this?” Bei Nu grumbled, his fingers flying through his storage ring before he adjusted his glasses, which were slipping down his nose from the sheer pressure of the giant’s aura. ”I should be in a climate-controlled lab, weighing star-grass, not staring at the literal personification of a blunt-force trauma.”

”Same here. I’m just a poor, weak, little girl,” Su Xishi pouted, her white fox ears drooping pathetically as she batted her long eyelashes at the giant, though her wine-red eyes remained as sharp as needles.

At that moment, she turned her gaze toward Hun Ming, leaning slightly on her parasol. ”You, brother over there, can we entrust the fighting to you? My delicate hands weren’t meant for such savage labor. I’m sure you want to show off your manliness to such a cute, beautiful girl like myself, right?”

Hun Ming, clutching a silver halberd that crackled with restless blue sparks, let out a weary sigh.

”I am not that great of a fighter myself,” he lied smoothly, his eyes narrowing as he calculated the distance between them and the titan. ”But it seems the ’poor little girl’ and the ’weak alchemist’ have no intention of moving, so I suppose I have no choice.”

Da’Er didn’t care for their banter. To him, these three were the ”brains” of the operation—the most dangerous targets to leave alive.

So with a roar that sent a shockwave through the dirt, he leaped, his massive bronze gauntlets glowed with a dull, brownish light as he slammed them toward the ground.

”Scatter!” Hun Ming barked. ”Hurry up!”

They didn’t hesitate and immediately fled.

At that moment, the ground where they had stood a second ago erupted into a fountain of pulverized stone and dust.

”Bei Nu, pills! Now!” Hun Ming commanded as he slid across the dirt, his halberd carving a line of lightning in the earth.

”Fine, fine! Don’t yell, I hate being yelled at when I didn’t even do anything!” Bei Nu shouted as be reached into his satchel and threw three distinct orbs. ”Green is for speed, Red is for strength, Blue is for the giant’s funeral!”

Hun Ming caught the green and red pills mid-air, swallowing them instantly, and at that moment, a surge of violent energy flooded his meridians, his muscles bulging as his reaction speed tripled.

At the same time, the blue pill hit Da’Er’s chest and shattered, releasing a thick, violet mist.

”Aromatic Death Cloud!” Bei Nu smirked. ”Inhale deeply, big guy. It’s made from concentrated Night-shade Lotus and Viper’s Gall, that thing can knock down even a dragon!”

Da’Er coughed, his movements momentarily staggering as the potent poison began to numb his nervous system.

But the giant’s constitution was monstrous, and they have learned to adapt to the poisonous miasma outside the Tian Yuan Empire, and it easily adapted to poison.

At that moment, he roared, blowing the mist away with a single exhale, his eyes turning bloodshot with rage.

”My turn,” Su Xishi whispered.

She didn’t move an inch, but her wine red eyes suddenly glowed with a hypnotic, shifting violet light. ”Mirror of the Forsaken Soul!”

Da’Er, who had been about to crush Bei Nu, suddenly froze, and to his eyes, the battlefield had vanished.

He was no longer in the Eastern Region; he was back in the Vast Wilderness, surrounded by the ghosts of the brothers he had lost in the migration.

His massive arms trembled as he swung at shadows, his mind trapped in an intricate web of mental interference.

”He’s in the cage!” Su Xishi called out, a bead of sweat rolling down her temple. ”I can’t hold a Nirvana Rebirth general for long! Hit him!”

”With pleasure,” Hun Ming replied as he lunged forward, his halberd spinning like a propeller. ”Thunder God’s Wrath!”

He leaped high above the confused giant, his weapon gathering the natural static of the battlefield before he came down like a lightning bolt, the silver tip of the halberd piercing through Da’Er’s shoulder armor and burying itself in the meat of his trap muscles.

Da’Er let out a harrowing scream, the pain snapping him out of the illusion as he backhanded Hun Ming, the force of the blow sending the disciple skipping across the ground like a stone on a pond.

”He’s awake! And he’s cranky!” Bei Nu yelped as he threw a handful of black pellets at the giant’s feet. ”Sticky Dragon-Tar!”

The pellets exploded into a viscous, tar-like substance that instantly hardened, anchoring the giant’s feet to the bedrock.

Da’Er struggled, his massive muscles straining against the magical adhesive. ”Ants! I will grind your souls into the dust!”

He slammed his gauntlets together, creating a localized earthquake that shattered the tar and sent a ripple of jagged earth toward Su Xishi.

”Oh, how scary,” Su Xishi giggled, though her face was pale as she twirled her parasol, releasing a wave of psychic energy. ”Soul Shock: The Banshee’s Wail!”

The invisible wave hit Da’Er’s mind like a physical hammer, causing the giant’s eyes rolled back into his head, blood trickling from his ears as his very soul was shaken by the mental vibration.

He dropped to one knee, the bronze gauntlets clattering against the stones.

”Finish it, Lightning-boy!” Bei Nu shouted, tossing one final, golden pill toward Hun Ming. ”The Emperor’s Dragon-Blood Pill! It’ll give you five seconds of peak power, but you’ll be sore for a week!”

Hun Ming caught the pill in his mouth, crushing it with his teeth and his skin suddenly turned a bright, electric blue, and his silver halberd transformed into a pillar of pure, crackling white lightning.

”One strike,” Hun Ming’s voice was now multi-layered, echoing with the sound of a storm. ”Infinite Path: Heaven’s Judgment!”

He moved in a straight line, so fast that he left an afterimage made of sparks as he passed through Da’Er like a ghost.

For a heartbeat, the battlefield went silent.

Then, a massive cross of lightning erupted from Da’Er’s chest, and the giant didn’t even have time to let out a final roar; the lightning cooked him from the inside out, turning his internal organs to ash before his body even hit the ground.

Da’Er, the Third General of the Fire Giant Tribe, fell with a thud that shook the nearby supply tents.

Hun Ming stood on the other side, his halberd smoking, before he collapsed onto his butt, his breathing ragged as the blue glow faded, leaving him looking pale and exhausted.

”Is... is it over?” Bei Nu asked, peeking out from behind a large medicinal cauldron.

”My head hurts,” Su Xishi complained, rubbing her temples as her fox ears twitched irritably. ”That brute had a very thick skull. It was like trying to mind-control a brick wall.”

”You two are complaining?” Hun Ming panted, wiping sweat from his brow. ”I’m the one who did the manual labor. Bei Nu, give me a recovery pill.”

”Pills aren’t free, you know,” Bei Nu grumbled, though he tossed a glowing green bean toward Hun Ming. ”That’s a ’Cloud-Step Restorative.’ It costs three spirit stone mines in the capital, so you owe me.”

Su Xishi walked over and sat down beside Hun Ming, gracefully smoothing her skirt despite the chaos. ”Well, we survived. But look at the center of the field.”

The three of them turned their gaze toward the horizon.

Even from their distance, they could see the towering golden pillar of fire that was Shen Haoran, standing amidst the wreckage of the barbarian vanguard.

”He’s still going,” Hun Ming whispered, a touch of genuine awe in his voice. ”He’s fighting a 7th Stage Nirvana general like he’s practicing in a courtyard.”

”That’s because he’s a monster,” Bei Nu sighed, leaning back against his cauldron. ”And fortunately for us, he’s *our* monster. Now, someone help me pack these herbs. The war isn’t over yet, and I refuse to lose my deposit on this cauldron.”

The three of them, the alchemist, the enchantress, and the lightning-caller, shared a tired look of relief.

They were the ”support” team, the ones who were supposed to stay in the back, but in the fires of the Eastern Region, they had proven that even the ”weak” could bring a giant to his knees.

”Still, those pills were incredibly useful.” Said Hun Ming, still feeling the lingering effects of the pills he took.

”Why thank you, the side effects are also real, so it’s beat not to take it regularly or it will damage your foundation.”

”Senior Brother!”

”Senior Sister!”

The two turned their heads and saw their fellow disciples running towards them.

At that moment, he finally breath a sigh of relief.