Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The next day.

Night.

Deep within the inner district of Leaf Green City, inside the grand meeting hall of the Botanist Faction, the atmosphere was thick with overwhelming tension, anxious murmurs, and suffocating pressure.

Massive wooden pillars carved with intricate vine patterns held up the high ceiling, while the scent of crushed medicinal herbs and ancient soil hung heavy in the air.

Sitting around an enormous round table made of petrified spirit-wood were all the high-ranking members, advisors, and vanguard generals of the Botanist Faction—every single one of them possessing formidable cultivation ranging from 7th, 8th, or 9th Grade of Spirit Ascension realm.

In the Four Cardinal Region, this level of faction is enough to dominate a section and can be considered a top tier force.

At the head of the grand table sat their supreme faction leader.

He was Mu Gang—a renowned 2nd Stage Nirvana Rebirth Realm expert whose name alone commanded immense respect throughout the Imperial Academy’s inner dimension.

He possessed long, flowing jet-black hair tied back with a jade clasp, and sharp, piercing green eyes that shone like raw emeralds, reflecting his deep affinity with wood-element spiritual laws.

Dressed in immaculate, dark green robes embroidered with gold leaf patterns, Mu Gang rested his chin on his crossed fingers, his expression unreadable and cold as a stone statue as he listened to the chaos erupting around his council table.

”Faction Leader! We cannot afford to sit idly by and wait for disaster to strike!” roared General Chen, a burly, scar-faced peak Spirit Ascension master who commanded the city’s heavy guard unit.

He slammed his massive fist onto the petrified wood table, making the teacups rattle violently.

”Our shadow scouts caught them red-handed yesterday! Shen Haoran and that blonde maiden from his circle were actively snooping through the alleyways right near our central pagoda! They are surveying our defensive arrays and formation! They are mapping our weaknesses! They are unmistakably planning to launch an attack on our city to plant their mandate! And not just them, everyone from Shen Haoran’s circle are doing the same!”

”Calm yourself, General Chen!” countered Advisor Liu, a thin, middle-aged scholar in light green robes who managed the faction’s financial trade and spirit gardens.

Advisor Liu stroked his long beard, letting out a dismissive snort as he shook his head.

”Are you truly letting a few arrogant fresh newcomers spook you into a panic? Yes, news spread that Shen Haoran claimed an Academy’s Mandate during this trial, but so what?! Have you forgotten where we are? This is Leaf Green City! We have held this territory for over three centuries!”

”Advisor Liu is correct!” chimed in Elder Zhao, the head of the faction’s array defense division. ”Even if Shen Haoran possesses an Imperial Artifact or a divine physique, the gap between cultivation realms is a grand chasm that no mere genius can cross! According to our detailed intelligence reports from the trial stadium, the strongest individuals within Shen Haoran’s retinue—including the Ten Crowns—is Shen Haoran himself, at most he is at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm! Not a single one of them has crossed the threshold into the Spirit Ascension Realm, much less Nirvana!”

Elder Zhao stood up, pointing a slender finger toward the ceiling with unshakeable confidence.

”Our Faction Leader is a genuine 2nd Stage Nirvana Rebirth Realm powerhouse!” Elder Zhao declared proudly, his voice echoing across the meeting hall. ”A single gesture from Faction Leader Mu Gang is enough to crush ten thousand Nascent Soul practitioners into dust! Furthermore, our central pagoda is fortified by a Rank 8 Spatial Isolation Array that draws continuous power directly from the four subterranean spirit veins running beneath the city! Do those greenhorn fresh disciples honestly believe they can just walk into our territory, break our grand formation, and defeat a Nirvana Rebirth expert with mere Nascent Soul cultivation?! They wouldn’t dare attack us! They would be committing suicide!”

”You are being far too naive, Elder Zhao!” General Chen shouted back, his face turning red with mounting frustration. ”Have you not heard the rumors circulating from the Nascent Soul trial realm?! Shen Haoran beat Shi Tian and Hei Xuan, two top heirs of Immortal Clans, into the stone floor with his bare hands without even using a single drop of qi! He is a monster! His group is also comprised of the Ten Crowns, who completely halted the combined forces of the Immortal Lineages on the pyramid stairs! If we treat them like ordinary Nascent Soul students, we will pay for it with our very lives!”

”Bah! Rumors and exaggeration!” another vanguard leader scoffed, waving his hand in total disdain. ”In the trial realm, their qi was restricted by an ancient array! Out here in the open world, where the full might of our qi and cultivation rank can be deployed, physical strength alone means nothing against a Nirvana Rebirth domain! What can a bunch of bratty newcomers do against our faction’s thousands of members?”

”Enough with your arrogance!” General Chen barked, turning to glare at the speaker. ”I say we preemptively activate the city’s grand defensive barrier right now! Lock down all four main gates, double the patrols around the central pagoda, and pull half of our garden workers to fortify the inner streets!”

”Absurd! Utterly absurd!” Advisor Liu argued back instantly, slamming his scroll onto the table. ”Do you have any idea how many thousands of Dao Points it costs to keep the grand city barrier running at full power for a single day?! We are currently in the middle of harvesting our prime batch of Grade 7 Sun-Dew Herbs in the eastern botanical gardens! If we pull the garden workers to stand guard on the streets like paranoid fools, those delicate herbs will wither, costing our faction thousands of points in lost revenue! We cannot disrupt our entire economy just because two students took a romantic stroll down an alleyway!”

”Romantic stroll?!” General Chen sneered viciously. ”They were inspecting our spatial nodes! You paper-pushing alchemists only care about your precious plants while the enemy is sharpening their blades at our very gates!”

”Gentlemen, please!” a female advisor chimed in, trying to mediate the rising shouting match. ”Perhaps a compromise? We can increase the guard rotation around the eastern gardens while keeping the inner city on elevated alert, without wasting resources on a total lockdown—”

”No! Total lockdown is the only safe option!”

”I refuse to let our trade suffer for baseless paranoia!”

”He is a monster, I tell you!”

”He is merely a Nascent Soul junior!”

The entire meeting hall descended into a loud, chaotic brawl of raised voices, furious slamming of hands, and clashing spiritual pressure as the generals and advisors divided into two fiery camps—one side demanding immediate, total military mobilization, and the other dismissing Shen Haoran’s group as arrogant greenhorns who would never dare launch a suicide assault against a 2nd Stage Nirvana Rebirth expert.

Throughout the entire chaotic shouting match, Mu Gang remained completely silent.

Slowly, the faction leader raised his right hand.

The moment his dark green sleeve shifted, an immense, suffocating weight of 2nd Stage Nirvana Rebirth spiritual pressure descended upon the hall like an invisible mountain!

The air froze, the wooden table groaned under the sudden force, and every single arguing general, elder, and advisor instantly shut their mouths, their faces turning pale as they turned their eyes toward their leader.

Mu Gang slowly lowered his hand, his sharp green eyes sweeping over his quieted council with cold, absolute authority.

”Let them come,” Mu Gang spoke, his voice low, deep, and echoing with dark, terrifying composure.

He leaned back in his tall wooden chair, a cold, dangerous smirk curling up his lips as his emerald eyes flickered with lethal intent.

”If Shen Haoran and his little retinue truly possess the foolish audacity to attack my Leaf Green City... then I shall personally show those arrogant fresh newcomers the true disparity between a mere Nascent Soul junior and a Nirvana Rebirth Realm expert. Their blood shall serve as a warning to every other ambitious student in this academy.”

*

*

*

Unknown to Mu Gang and the trembling council members arguing inside the meeting hall, standing gracefully on top of a nearby high rooftop, staring down at the massive nine-story central pagoda under the pale, shimmering moonlight, was Shen Haoran.

He stood right on the edge of the carved stone tiles, his hands tucked casually inside his robe pockets, looking completely nonchalant as the cool night wind whipped through his dark hair.

In the dim shadows of the midnight sky, his majestic golden eyes seemed to glow with an ethereal, predatory light.

Then, one by one, spatial ripples distorted the air behind him.

The members of his inner circle started appearing like silent ghosts, materializing across the surrounding rooftops under the vast starry firmament.

Shen Tao, Shen Fei, Shen Xinye, Shen Jian, Shen Ji, Shen Hei, Shen Cai, Shen Xun’er, Shen Bai, Shen Ying, alongside Huo Yue, Zhu Ziyan, Xu Xiansu all took their positions, looking down at Leaf Green City with expressions ranging from cold indifference to sheer amusement.

Huo Yue crossed her arms over her chest, letting out a loud, mocking snort as her fiery eyes scanned the pathetic guard posts below. ”Look at those filthy dirt-diggers running around like mindless ants down there! They seriously call themselves a proper student faction? They smell more like fertilizer and wet mud than actual cultivators! It’s honestly an insult to my flames that we even have to waste our breath burning down a city belonging to a bunch of low-born plant-breeders!”

Shen Ji chuckled boisterously, cracking his massive knuckles with a sound like snapping timber. ”Hmph! What else do you expect from these weak-blooded grass-eaters?”

Shen Xun’er grinned maliciously, cracking her fingers, ”Those botanist bastards have spent so many centuries crawling in the dirt and rubbing leaves together that their backbones have probably turned into soft vines! How pathetic, did they think throwing a handful of medicinal weeds at us is going to stop a real martial prowess?!”

”Indeed,” Shen Fei sneered, his eyes filled with elitist contempt as he looked at the distant greenhouses. ”Look at how pathetic their defenses are. Are they so arrogant that they didn’t even bother to try? Tsk. Whatever, native soil sniffers like them are born to be subjugated anyway.”

Shen Hei chuckled, ”True. They spend their entire lives cultivating useless herbs for superior group to consume, yet they actually dared to build a city and act like proper masters of the realm? Just a group of glorified gardeners who belong in the dirt under our boots!”

”They probably think plants can save their pathetic lives,” Shen Jian snorted coldly, his hand resting on his sheath. ”When I tear through their flesh, we’ll see if their precious weeds can stitch their heads back on.”

Listening to his circle mock and tear down the Botanist Faction with merciless disdain, Shen Haoran turned around slowly.

The glowing golden light in his eyes illuminated the rooftop as he looked at the gathered powerhouses standing before him.

He took his hands out of his pockets and spread his arms slightly, a handsome, intoxicatingly confident smirk curling up his lips.

”Tonight, we do not merely claim a city,” Shen Haoran spoke, his voice low, smooth, and echoing with an ancient, tyrannical authority that resonated directly within their minds. ”We erase a delusion. These arrogant dirt sniffers have forgotten their place in the grand hierarchy of this academy. They believe that centuries of hiding behind soil and plants can protect them. They believe a mere title can bridge the grand ocean known as status. Tonight, we shall show Leaf Green City what true power looks like. We will shatter their delusions, crush their pride, tear down their mandate, and grind their so-called faction into the very dirt it sprouted from! Let every faction in this entire dimension witness their destruction and learn who truly rules the Imperial Academy!”

”Understood, Young Master!” the entire group, except Huo Yue, who just laughed, declared in a quiet, synchronized chorus of absolute, fanatical devotion, their spiritual pressure flaring up like a hidden volcano beneath the night sky!

”Go,” Haoran commanded softly.

And with that single word, the entire group dispersed into flashes of blinding light, shadowy streaks, and flaming embers, vanishing toward their assigned strike positions around the perimeter of Leaf Green City.

Xu Xiansu was the only one to remain, standing a few steps behind him, arms crossed over her chest.

Shen Haoran looked back at her before staring at the night sky, and smiled.