Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Exhausting.

That single, crushing word was the only thing currently echoing through the depths of Shen Haoran’s mind.

Although he could theoretically sustain the physical existence of this grand, artificial world indefinitely through the nigh-infinite, boundless reservoir of raw qi provided by his Infinity Dragon God Physique, the metaphysical upkeep was a completely different matter.

Maintaining the intricate web of conceptual laws, rewriting reality, and forcibly binding the destiny of a Saint required an immense amount of mental focus and spiritual strength.

It was draining his consciousness at a terrifying, unprecedented velocity.

He actually regretted it a bit, that he wanted to teach this elder a lesson and wanting him to feel despair for daring stop him that he brought him here.

However, what’s done is done. He will stick to his decision, no matter what.

He will make this old man regret his choice of interfering in his affairs.

However, at this exact moment, despite his immaculate outward appearance, Haoran actually felt like a thoroughly sleep-deprived, incredibly fatigued person fighting a desperate, losing battle against the overwhelming urge to just close his eyes and collapse onto a soft, comfy bed.

When he had previously deployed the Genesis Protocol alongside Qing’er to suppress the physical limitations of their cultivation gap, he hadn’t felt even a fraction of this profound, bone-deep exhaustion.

But that was because she trusted him completely; her soul was entirely compliant, and she wasn’t resisting the shifting of the laws.

Right now, however, this 9th Stage Earthly Saint Realm powerhouse was actively, violently thrashing against the golden chains of the domain, his vast cultivation trying to tear through the artificial constraints.

Every passing second felt like holding back a raging tidal wave with his bare hands.

”You...” Elder Mu stared at him, his voice shaking violently in absolute, unadulterated shock. ”How... how did you manage to do that!? What kind of heresy is this!?”

The ancient scholar was completely shocked. No, it was significantly deeper and more primal than mere shock; he was genuinely, deeply terrified.

The absolute authority of his 9th Stage Earthly Saint cultivation base, a power he had spent thousands of arduous years refining through blood, sweat, and tears, had been casually cut down to match the parameters of a youth.

The suffocating sensation of sudden powerlessness triggered a long-buried psychological trauma.

He felt as though he had been abruptly thrown back into his youth a thousand years ago, when he was just a powerless, penniless commoner dog standing before that terrifying patriarch, the supreme father of the brilliant noble woman he loved, unable to even lift his head.

Haoran stared back at him with piercing, icy golden eyes, gritting his teeth internally as he did his absolute best to not reveal even a single hint of his current mental weakness or fatigue.

He couldn’t afford to let his concentration slip for even a millisecond.

”You...” Haoran spoke, his voice dropping to a low, commanding whisper as he channeled the absolute weight of the world’s willpower. ”Stand completely still.”

The moment the verbal decree echoed through the burning golden sky, Elder Mu felt a wave of horror wash over his features.

It was as if his own physical body, his very nervous system, had violently betrayed his commands.

His muscles locked up instantly, his joints turning to solid stone as he froze completely in place, unable to even lift a single finger to defend himself or intervene.

’No...! Just like back then...! I’m powerless to do anything...!’ Elder Mu thought, gritting his teeth in anger and self blame.

Then, without wasting a single breath on useless words or grand declarations, Haoran spun around.

He gripped the Black Imperial Sword, Azathoth, tightly in his right hand and struck his blade directly toward the terrified, groveling figure of Tai Yuhao.

The blade released a sharp wave of sword intent, intending to tear him to shreds.

”Hiiieeekkk!” Tai Yuhao shrieked in absolute, primitive fear as a devastating, localized blast of concentrated gold and purple sword intent erupted from the dark blade, slicing through the alien metallic ground as it rushed straight toward his chest.

However, right before the lethal, swirling energy could tear his flesh into molecular dust, a strange, ancient jade pendant that he had been wearing around his neck suddenly lit up with a blinding, protective radiance.

The artifact violently shattered, instantly forming a heavily reinforced, translucent spiritual barrier that managed to successfully block the full momentum of the sword intent blast.

*Boom!*

Tai Yuhao froze for a split second, his ears ringing from the concussive force of the explosion.

But almost immediately, seeing that the divine barrier had successfully protected his life from a certain death, a hideously arrogant, hysterical grin spread across his blood-smeared face.

”He...Hehehe!” He laughed, ”It seems my time Isn’t up yet.”

However, before he could even celebrate more, Haoran appeared before him, his sword raised.

”You lot truly are a massive, repetitive nuisance to kill,” his voice whispered right next to Tai Yuhao’s ear.

Before Tai Yuhao could even process the words, Haoran instantly reached his left hand out, firmly grabbing the smooth surface of the translucent spiritual barrier.

Then, with a ruthless, unyielding surge of physical power, he drove the razor-sharp tip of Azathoth straight through the defensive shield.

*Crack!*

The reinforced barrier began to violently spiderweb with thousands of glowing fractures under the pressure of the dark imperial blade.

”Disappea—”

But before Haoran could finish his final execution command, the burning golden sky of his independent world suddenly, inexplicably darkened.

A heavy, suffocating blanket of pitch-black thunderclouds manifested out of absolute nothingness, defying the very laws of his creation as a massive, world-rending bolt of crimson heavenly lightning struck down directly at his head.

Haoran’s instincts flared with danger. He reacted with blinding, fluid speed, instantly releasing his grip on the barrier and leaping backward across the metallic plain, dodging the apocalyptic lightning bolt by a mere fraction of an inch as it blasted a massive, smoking crater into the ground.

He stabilized his footing and slowly looked up at the swirling vortex of dark clouds, his golden eyes completely calm, yet carrying a deep, chilling understanding of the cosmos.

’As expected,’ he thought bitterly, a cold smirk playing upon his lips. ’The blind, collective will of the heavens... you just couldn’t sit still and watch. You desperately wanted to interfere to protect your chosen plaything, didn’t you?’

”Ha... Hahaha! AHAHAHA!” Tai Yuhao suddenly burst into a manic, completely unhinged fit of triumphant laughter, his eyes bloodshot as he dragged himself up onto his knees behind the shattered remnants of his barrier. ”Do you see this, you golden-haired bastard!? Even the supreme heavens themselves are actively protecting my life! I truly am special! A chosen one by the heavens! You cannot kill me! Just you wait... once I survive this day, I will never, ever let you go! I will tear down everything you love! Oh holy heavens! Strike down this vile, arrogant demon right now!”

As if directly obeying the desperate command of its favored child of destiny, the black vortex of dark clouds rumbled with deafening fury, preparing a secondary, much larger salvo of apocalyptic thunderbolts.

”Do you truly believe you are safe just because the sky is screaming?” Haoran spoke, his voice completely calm. ”How naive. You’re not the first one to receive this sort of treatment, so don’t deceive yourself. You’re not special.”

He casually waved his right hand toward the heavens.

High above them, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the massive, monolithic floating fortress hanging in the sky of his world, suddenly came to vibrant, terrifying life.

The ancient structure glowed with millions of complex, interconnected runic pathways.

Then, the exact instant the massive volley of crimson heavenly lightning struck down from the dark clouds, hundreds of multi-layered golden runic circles materialized directly in front of the floating fortress.

The ancient weapon systems fired simultaneously, shooting massive, hyper-concentrated beams of pure celestial light that collided with the lightning bolts in mid-air, completely neutralizing, countering, and dispersing the heavenly wrath into harmless sparks of static energy.

”W-What the hell!?” Tai Yuhao’s laughter died instantly in his throat.

He stared up at the sky in complete, utterly paralyzed disbelief, his mind entirely shattering as he witnessed a mortal-made fortress casually waging war against the heavens and winning.

Before he could even process the existential terror, Haoran’s figure blurred.

In a fraction of a second, he appeared directly in front of the kneeling protagonist, his raised black sword completely coated in a thick, suffocating aura of gold and purple energy.

At that moment, Tai Yuhao completely panicked, his survival instincts utterly collapsing as he threw his hands up in a desperate, pathetic gesture of surrender.

”N-No! Wait! Let’s talk about this rationally, young master! please! Y-You want Zhu Ziyan, right!? She’s yours! She’s completely all yours! I’ll happily annul the engagement right now! Just spare my life... spare me, please!”

Haoran looked down at the weeping, trembling boy, his golden eyes devoid of even a single drop of human warmth.

”Mercy is a luxury reserved solely for those who possess the wisdom to know their place in this world,” Haoran whispered, his voice cold as the cosmic void. ”For an irrelevant, arrogant ghost who dares to raise his hand against me and my people... the only justice is absolute erasure.”

At that exact moment, the heavens let out a final, desperate roar, unleashing dozens of simultaneous lightning strikes to protect its child, but they were all flawlessly intercepted and countered by the continuous, blinding beams of light radiating from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Haoran smirked at the heavens as if wanting to provoke it, then without hesitation...

*Slash!*

With a single, absolute, and fluid stroke of his dark blade, Haoran struck him down.

The Black Imperial Sword cleanly severed Tai Yuhao’s head from his shoulders, and the residual purple flames of the sword intent instantly invaded his physical vessel, completely destroying his soul structure at a conceptual level, permanently preventing his consciousness from ever being revived through any sort of resurrection arts.

The moment the protagonist’s life force officially hit zero, Haoran felt a strange, intensely warm current of pure, compressed heavenly energy flow directly out of the headless corpse, entering his own soul to enrich the overall destiny of himself and the Shen Clan.

Although killing a child of destiny wouldn’t directly increase the luck of his clan, but by increasing his own luck, it would also indirectly increase the luck of his clan.

Albeit, it wouldn’t be as effective as if he subdued them directly.

Just then, with the permanent death of the Child of Destiny, the aggressive, dark lightning clouds in the sky immediately lost their anchoring source of luck and dissipated into nothingness within a matter of seconds, returning the independent realm to its pristine, golden calm.

*

*

*

Far away.

Beyond the boundaries of the academy, deep within the hidden pocket dimension of the Shen Clan Domain.

Inside the grand, structurally majestic Supreme Hall.

Shen Daiyu, the great-grandmother of Haoran, who had been peacefully, lazily lying on her silk hammock, snacking on rare spiritual fruits while enjoying her afternoon rest, suddenly opened her eyes wide.

A flash of profound, absolute shock rippled through her gaze as she immediately stood up, her long robes rustling.

At that exact same instant, deep within the ancestral catacombs and hidden palaces of the domain, several ancient, primordial Supremes, monstrous ancestors who had been locked in deep, centuries-long meditative slumbers to preserve their remaining life essence, opened their eyes simultaneously, their gazes piercing through the void as they felt the sudden, massive upward surge in their clan’s overall heavenly luck.