Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

[Host, on your left!]

The system’s metallic warning shrieked directly inside his consciousness with the force of an alarm bell.

Lin Che didn’t hesitate for even a microsecond.

Relying on sheer, instinct-driven muscle memory and trust with the system, he threw his entire upper body violently to the right, contorting his torso at a sickening, unnatural angle.

*SWIISH—!*

A whisper of cold brushed past his cheek, severing a few strands of his hair before the air itself fractured where his head had been standing an instant prior.

Shen Haoran materialized out of thin air behind him as if he had always belonged to the shadows, his face completely unbothered, his posture as pristine and majestic as a celestial deity stepping through a peaceful garden.

Then, without a single word of mockery or warning, Haoran thrust his right hand forward, driving the translucent blade forged from pure, radiant sword intent straight toward Lin Che’s heart.

The sheer density of the condensed spatial sharpness caused the surrounding air to hiss and pop, leaving a white vacuum trail in its wake.

Lin Che’s eyes widened. ’System!’

[Activating Shield of Camelot!]

At that moment, a massive ethereal wall of impossible beauty materialized and blocked the attack, but the two immediately shattered upon contact.

Lin Che jumped back, his boots skidded against the slick stone edge of the cliff as he barely stabilized his footing, his lungs gasping for air.

He looked at Haoran, who stood nonchalantly with that same maddeningly calm expression, casually twirling the sword made of pure sword intent in his right hand.

”What did I even do to offend you!?” Lin Che roared, his raspy voice laced with a mixture of raw indignation, disbelief, and mounting panic. ”Is it because I refused your invitation to join your clan back then?! Is that why you’re hunting me down like a rabid dog in these godforsaken trial grounds?!”

Shen Haoran didn’t answer. He didn’t even blink.

His bright golden eyes remained completely indifferent, treating Lin Che’s frantic shouting as nothing more than the meaningless buzzing of an insect.

Then, with a subtle, effortless flick of his wrist, Haoran unleashed a horizontal sweep.

*BOOM!*

A massive, hundred-meter crescent wave of silver sword intent exploded from the tip of the phantom blade, carrying enough kinetic and spatial force to bisect a mountain range.

The sheer wind pressure generated by the strike blew back the dust and shattered rocks, hurtling straight toward Lin Che’s chest.

”Shit!” Lin Che spat, channeling his 1st Stage Spirit Ascension qi into his feet to detonate a small shockwave beneath his soles, leaping backward and dodging sideways into the open air.

The crescent wave sailed past his former position, disappearing into the pitch-black void beyond the cliff and cutting a clean, smooth line through the sky that took several seconds to close.

[Host, forget him! Get to the top and sign-in!]

The system’s blue interface flashed frantically across his vision, pulsing with bright red warning symbols.

”Understood!”

Without a single second of hesitation, Lin Che turned his back on the cliff edge and leaped straight toward the floating wooden stairs.

His boots touched the first suspended plank, and he began sprinting upward, leaping three, four, five steps at a time as he ascended toward the pitch-black void above.

”You think you can just run?”

Haoran’s smooth, terrifyingly composed voice resonated right behind his ear, though the young master remained standing at the base of the cliff.

Haoran raised his left hand toward the sky, spreading his fingers wide.

In an instant, the dark atmosphere above the floating staircase began to tremble.

Thousands of silver light points ignited in the void, expanding rapidly until an entire sky of sword intent weapons—swords, spears, axes, and halberds forged entirely from pure, condensed sharpness—materialized like a shimmering ceiling of death.

”Fall.”

Haoran brought his hand down.

A literal rain of thousands of sword intent blades descended from the heavens, screaming down toward the narrow, floating wooden staircase with the sound of a tearing realm.

[Automated Defensive Protocol Initiated!]

The system’s monotone voice echoed inside Lin Che’s mind, overriding his manual controls to tap directly into his dimensional inventory.

[Deploying Item: Heavenly Aegis Umbrella!]

[Deploying Item: Seven-Star Mirror Array!]

[Deploying Item: Mountain-Crushing Obsidian Talismans (x50)!]

A massive, golden silk umbrella expanded above Lin Che’s head, spinning rapidly to generate a whirling hurricane of defensive light.

Simultaneously, seven ancient bronze mirrors floated out from his storage space, arranging themselves in a glowing hexagonal formation that reflected the incoming trajectory of the descending blades.

*CLANG! CLANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!*

A deafening, continuous cascade of metallic explosions shattered the silence of the void.

The rain of sword intent swords slammed mercilessly into the system’s defensive artifacts.

The golden umbrella held for three seconds before splintering into fine dust; the seven bronze mirrors cracked one by one under the sheer, unyielding weight of Haoran’s intent, exploding into brilliant shards of bronze light.

Whenever a sword intent blade breached the defensive artifacts and threatened to impale Lin Che’s spine, a mysterious, absurdly convenient stroke of luck—the undeniable manifestation of thick, unshakeable plot armor—would trigger.

A stray gust of spatial wind would suddenly alter the trajectory of a lethal blade by a fraction of a millimeter, allowing it to merely graze his linen sleeve instead of piercing his neck; or a random piece of debris floating in the abyss would drift into the path of an incoming spear, absorbing the fatal blow at the exact, crucial microsecond.

”Keep going! Don’t stop!” Lin Che screamed to himself, his teeth grinding together so hard they bled as he pushed his legs to their absolute limits, bounding higher and higher up the floating wooden stairs.

Seeing his initial volley intercepted and deflected by a bizarre sequence of high-tier artifacts and improbable spatial fluctuations, Haoran’s eyes narrowed slightly.

He took a single step off the cliff edge, stepping directly onto the empty air as if climbing an invisible staircase, matching Lin Che’s speed effortlessly.

Haoran pointed two fingers forward, then, nine colossal, mountain-sized swords of radiant golden sword intent materialized around him, spinning in a tight wheel before shooting forward, locking onto Lin Che’s exact soul signature.

[DANGER! DANGER! High-density energy signature detected!]

[Deploying Supreme Inventory Reserves!]

[Summoning: Twin Blood-Steel Golems (Peak Spirit Ascension Realm)!]

[Summoning: Four Guardian Celestial Puppets(Peak Spirit Ascension Realm)!]

*ROAAAR!*

A brilliant crimson and silver summoning array tore open directly behind Lin Che on the floating stairs.

Out from the glowing spatial rift stepped two towering, ten-meter-tall behemoths constructed from deep blood-steel, their eyes burning with dark crimson fire.

Alongside them, four elegant, jade-armored battle puppets carrying massive halberds and shields materialized, radiating the thick, suffocating aura of genuine Peak Spirit Ascension powerhouses.

These were the ultimate combat cards Lin Che had accumulated over the past few months of daily sign-ins—beings that could easily wipe out an entire entire kingdoms in Cardinal Regions or hold off a small army of experts.

”Block him!” Lin Che yelled over his shoulder, not daring to look back as he neared the upper terminus of the staircase.

The two Blood-Steel Golems and the four Celestial Puppets lunged forward simultaneously, their colossal weapons tearing through the air to clash against the nine descending golden swords of sword intent.

*KABOOM—!*

A blinding explosion of gold, red, and silver energy detonated in the middle of the floating staircase, blowing away several wooden steps and sending shockwaves rippling out into the pitch-black abyss.

The four Celestial Puppets threw up their massive jade shields, forming an absolute defensive wall that absorbed the initial impact of three golden swords, though their jade armor cracked under the immense pressure.

The two Blood-Steel Golems roared, their massive fists smashing into two more golden swords, shattering the condensed intent into fragments of light at the cost of having their arms completely vaporized.

Yet, despite the overwhelming, transcendent force of Haoran’s attack, Lin Che’s seemingly endless arsenal of system-granted items and absurd, probability-defying luck kept him alive.

At this moment...

One of the remaining golden swords sliced cleanly through the chest of a Blood-Steel Golem and hurtled straight toward Lin Che’s head, a sudden, inexplicable spatial tremor—caused by the unstable nature of the trial dimension’s outer boundary—warped the space between them, causing the lethal sword to delay its arrival by a fraction of a second.

That fraction of a second was all Lin Che needed.

He threw a high-tier Void Swap Talisman behind him, his body instantly swapping places with a broken piece of golem armor twenty meters further up the stairs, completely bypassing the fatal strike.

*Hah... hah... hah!*

Lin Che landed heavily on the very top wooden platform, his feet slamming against the ancient stone tile that marked the apex of the floating stairs.

He clutched his bleeding shoulder, his body exhausted, his inventory thoroughly emptied of almost every high-tier artifact he had hoarded for years.

Directly in front of him floating above a stone altar, wad a magnificent, miniature golden sun that burned with ancient light.

Lin Che’s bloodshot eyes flared with desperate, triumphant light.

He reached his right hand forward, slamming his blood-stained palm directly onto the burning golden core.

”SYSTEM!” Lin Che screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing into the dark void. ”SIGN IN NOW!”

But, at that moment, Shen Haoran’s eyes suddenly glowed.

A chilling, pitch-black light erupted from the depths of his golden pupils, instantly swallowing the light around his face.

The air, the spatial structure, and the very concept of causality around him seemed to freeze in absolute terror.

Law of Absolute Severance.

This was his ultimate trump card.

It was a cosmic, divine technique given to him directly by Nyx—a power that transcends the worldly concepts of probability, allowing him to completely bypass luck, karma, and the protected destiny of heaven’s favored children!

Under the gaze of this law, plot armor was nothing more than thin paper waiting to be burned.

He had wanted to wanted to refrain from using this, but now, he was left with no choice.

Who knew what kind of insane thing this man would pull out from this sign-in?

He imbued a sword intent sword with the Law of Absolute Severance and threw it towards Lin Che.

The sword was no longer shimmering with silver or golden light; it became a dark, absolute line of void that erased the space it traveled through.

At that moment, the remaining Blood-Steel Golems and Celestial Puppets trying to stop him suddenly froze and stopped moving entirely.

The crimson fire in their eyes extinguished in an instant, their spatial arrays unraveling as if they had never existed.

Losing their buoyancy, their colossal, heavy bodies tipped over the edge and fell silently into the endless abyss below.

Even the heavens themselves seemed to turn a blind eye.

A heavenly tribulation didn’t even appear to protect Lin Che from this fatal strike like it did with other protagonist; the realm’s cosmic order was completely severed and rendered helpless by the dark law.

The dark sword traversed the distance instantly, tearing through Lin Che’s defensive field like it wasn’t even there, and the blade stabbed straight through his back, piercing his heart and protruding out from his chest in a spray of dark crimson blood.

”GAAAH!”

Lin Che coughed up a huge mouthful of blood, his body violently spattering the glowing stone platform.

His vision flickered black, the excruciating pain threatening to shatter his consciousness.

Yet, through sheer, desperate willpower, his bloody hand remained pressed firmly against the golden core.

[Sign-in complete!]

Hearing that familiar mechanical chime, Lin Che breathed a heavy sigh of relief, a bloody, ecstatic grin stretching across his pale lips.

’I made it... I actually survived... The system will save me now...’

But...

[Congratulations host, you have received... eh? A pile of dirt?]

Lin Che’s grin instantly froze. The blood drained completely from his face.

*Poof.*

In a tiny, pathetic puff of gray smoke, a single, mundane pile of ordinary brown dirt materialized on the stone platform right in front of his hand.

There was no divine origin energy, no ancient legacy, and no breakthrough to the Nirvana Rebirth Realm.

Just a literal, useless heap of plain soil.

Before Lin Che could even process anything or wrap his mind around the absurdity of what he was seeing, the translucent blue interface hovering before his eyes suddenly started flashing a blinding, violent red.

[BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! WARNING! CRITICAL ERROR!]

The mechanical voice of the system, usually calm and monotone, became distorted, cracking with loud static and frantic pitch shifts.

[ERROR... SYSTEM CORE COMPROMISED! DETECTING HIGHER-ORDER COSMIC LAW... IT HAS SEVERED HOST’S DESTINY CONNECTION!]

[DATA CORRUPTION: 45%... 78%... 99%...]

[UNABLE TO MAINTAIN DIMENSIONAL ANCHOR... INITIATING FORCED DELETION...]

Lines of chaotic, corrupted code rained down across Lin Che’s field of vision.

The blue interface began to pixelate, crumbling into glowing fragments of light that dissolved into the dark air.

[H-Host... I’m... sorry...]

The system’s voice suddenly lost its cold, robotic resonance, sounding strangely human, small, and deeply mournful as it utilized its remaining energy to speak its final words.

*PING.*

With a final, faint, fading chime, the red flashing lights vanished.

The interface collapsed into a tiny speck of light and snuffed out completely.

The mental link that had bound Lin Che to his system for years was violently ripped away, leaving behind a cold, hollow, and utterly silent void in his mind.

The system was completely gone.

Deleted from existence.

Lin Che’s hand remained frozen in the air, his fingers trembling, blood slowly dripping from his lips onto the tiny pile of dirt before him.

The pain in his chest was nothing compared to the suffocating, terrifying emptiness that now filled his soul.

His cheat, his golden finger, his absolute reliance in this dangerous world... had been destroyed with a single strike.

And Lin Che can only stare at the empty space in complete, absolute despair, the cold shadows of the abyss slowly closing in around him.