Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The battlefield around Shen Haoran and the Giant General Oo’gah had become a vacuum of absolute heat, an isolated domain where the surrounding air was no longer a gas, but a shimmering, distorted plasma that incinerated any stray arrows or projectiles before they could even reach the perimeter of their clash.

In this place, only the two of them stood in front of each other.

Oo’gah, the 7th Stage Nirvana Rebirth General, who stood at more than twenty feet tall, like a mountain of volcanic muscle and steam.

He was the strongest of the four generals, a giant who had wrestled prehistoric leviathans in the Vast Wilderness, and whose stomp can flatten mountains.

Yet as he stared at the young man before him, he felt a sensation he hadn’t experienced in centuries: insignificance.

And he couldn’t help but feel angry that he was feeling so insignificant in front of a brat who haven’t even reached Nirvana Rebirth realm yet!

”You think a single palm strike makes you my equal, ant!?” Oo’gah roared, the steam from his body turning into a concussive blast of pressure. ”I am the fire that consumes the world! The strongest of the Generals! And I will never lose to the likes of you!”

He lunged forward, his massive fists glowing with a burning hot intensity as he unleashed a flurry of strikes, each one capable of leveling entire Mountains.

The air screamed as it was compressed by his sheer physical velocity, creating a series of sonic booms that shattered the stone ruins for miles.

But Shen Haoran didn’t retreat. He didn’t even draw his sword, Azathoth, or rather, he even sheathed the sword itself, as if this giant isn’t worthy of being killed by it!

Instead, he moved with a fluid, terrifying grace that made the giant’s mountain shattering blows look like the slow-motion flailing of a child, dodging everything with ease of someone who had seen such attack pattern so many times.

”You are a fire that can burn the world?” Haoran’s voice cut through the explosions, calm and crystalline. ”I find it hard to believe. Perhaps you can just return and play king in your homeland, you country bumpkin. Tian Yuan Empire isn’t a place for you to run wild.”

Haoran took a single step forward, entering the eye of the storm as he raised his left hand, and the Gold Incinerating Supreme Flame swirled around his palm, forming a miniature sun.

”Sun-Piercing Finger.”

He thrust his hand forward and a beam of concentrated flame energy, no thicker than a needle but infinitely more dense, shot from his fingertip.

This technique was created by their ancestor, the true body of the Gold Incinerating Supreme Flame, the one who had already gained consciousness and became one of the many Supremes guarding the Shen Clan.

It utilises the intense heat produced by the Gold Incinerating Supreme Flame and compresses them into a small needle-like attack that can burn through all defenses and even burn the soul.

At this moment, the attack bypassed Oo’gah’s defensive qi as if it were parchment, piercing through the giant’s steam-armored bicep.

”ARGH!” Oo’gah roared, his arm jerking back as a cauterized hole appeared in his flesh.

The heat was so intense it had bypassed his natural immunity to fire, cooking the bone instantly while his soul was being burned!

”Impossible! My skin is tempered in the Magma Pits of the Wilderness!” Oo’gah gritted his teeth, looking shocked at the damage.

Shen Haoran smirked, ”Nothing is impossible, because I’m Shen Haoran.”

”You arrogant human!” Oo’gah glared at him and lunged again, this time trying to grapple Haoran, intending to crush him with his raw, 7th Stage Nirvana Rebirth physical mass.

Haoran’s golden eyes flickered as he stood his ground, and at that moment, his aura suddenly shifted and the air around him grew heavy, and a dull, metallic chime echoed through the battlefield.

”Unbreakable Diamond Sacred Technique.”

He activated his most powerful defensive technique, however, his skin didn’t turn grey like Jin Ci’s; instead, it took on a translucent, crystalline gold hue.

When Oo’gah’s massive fingers closed around Haoran’s shoulders, the giant didn’t feel the snap of bone. Instead, he felt as though he had tried to crush an indestructible pillar of divine jade.

Haoran didn’t even budge and just looked up at the giant, his expression one of mild disappointment. ”Is this the limit of your strength? It seems your arrogance and superior size does not equate for a superior combat power. Your punches are fanciful, your movements are incredibly slow, and your Qi is thin... You are far lousier than my expectations. How disappointing. I shall give you a one word evaluation... Weak!”

At that moment, Haoran grabbed Oo’gah’s wrists, and the disparity in size was comical, a human’s hands barely covering the giant’s pulse points, but the power shift was absolute.

Haoran twisted.

The sound of twenty-foot-tall bones snapping echoed like the cracking of a Great Oak.

”AAAAAHHHH!” Oo’gah let out a harrowing scream as his wrists were pulverized by Haoran’s grip, causing the Giant General fell to his knees, his massive frame shaking with a mixture of agony and terror.

”You... Just what are you!?” Oo’gah panted, purple blood leaking from his mouth.

”Your master,” Haoran replied. ”And as your master, I shall teach you the difference between taking a beating, and courting death.”

He finally reached for the hilt of Azathoth, and as the blade cleared the scabbard, the world seemed to grow cold.

The golden flames around him didn’t vanish, but they grew quiet, as if in reverence to the void-blade.

”Imperial Sword Style: First Form - Event Horizon.”

Haoran swung the blade in a casual, horizontal arc.

He didn’t move fast at all, however he moved as if this attack was an inevitability of fate.

The blade didn’t even touch Oo’gah’s neck, yet the Giant General felt his very soul being pulled toward the edge of the sword as the space between them distorted, folding in on itself.

Then, a black line appeared in the air, a tear in reality that consumed the light, the heat, and the life-force of the General.

Oo’gah tried to roar, to summon one last burst of blood-energy, but his voice was swallowed by the void, and the black line passed through his neck.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then, the steam emitting from Oo’gah’s body stopped, and the burning hot tattoos on his skin flickered and went dark.

His massive head slid slowly from his shoulders, disappearing into a cloud of black particles before it even hit the ground.

The Imperial Sword Style, the inherited sword technique of the Main Line, and something Shen Haoran had improved using the knowledge in the Library of the Hanging Gardens and his comprehension using the Heavenly Sword Dao Bone.

It is the most domineering sword style that currently exists.

Once done, Shen Haoran sheathed his sword with a crisp *clack*.

Around him, the barbarian army, which had been pressing the Spirit Hall’s defenses, went deathly silent.

They had just seen their strongest General, the 7th Stage Nirvana monster who had survived a hundred wars, beheaded like a common criminal by a youth who hadn’t even broken a sweat.

Haoran turned his gaze toward the far horizon, toward the Fire Giant Tribe’s Main Camp, where the leader, Korgar, was likely watching.

”Only that leader is left,” Haoran murmured, his golden hair catching the light of the setting sun.

He looked back at the city walls, where the noble scions and the Crown Prince were still frozen in shock.

He saw Lu Xinglan staring at him with a look of terrified worship, and Xu Xiansu watching from the shadows, her eyes wide with a mixture of dread and fascination.

”Don’t just stand there,” Haoran’s voice boomed, amplified by his qi so that it carried over the roar of the dying fire. ”The vanguard is broken. Everyone, all of you—Advance!”

The command acted like a lightning strike.

Reinvigorated by the sight of Shen Haoran’s absolute dominance, the Five Crowns led the charge into the heart of the retreating barbarian forces.

Jin Ci laughed like a madman, his diamond body plowing through giants like a wrecking ball.

Shen Xun’er was a whirlwind of jade dragons, her laughter echoing over the screams of the enemy.

Haoran didn’t join the chase. He stood in the center of the crater he had created, the Gold Incinerating Supreme Flame slowly receding into his skin.

”Come out, leader of the giants,” Haoran whispered to the wind, his eyes fixed on the distant volcanic peaks. ”I know you’re watching. Don’t make me come and find you. It will be much more painful for your tribe if I have to walk all the way to your throne.”

In the distance, the ground shook, a response from the earth itself to the challenge of a true sovereign.

The final battle for the Eastern Region was drawing near, and Shen Haoran was the only one standing at the center of the storm, unyielding and golden, a god of fire in a world of ash.