Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Away from all the fighting, Advisor Liu and Elder Zhao moved with extreme caution, taking deliberate, light steps through the narrow, damp stone corridors beneath the inner district of Leaf Green City.

Cold sweat continuously trickled down their pale faces, dripping onto their luxurious green silk robes.

Surrounding them in a tight, impenetrable defensive formation was an elite escort force, compromising of seven imposing early-stage Spirit Ascension experts with drawn weapons and twelve late-stage Nascent Soul realm combat wardens whose divine sense actively scanned every shadow, corner, and stone tile for the slightest hint of danger.

Advisor Liu continuously wiped his drenched forehead with his sleeve, his hands shaking so violently he could barely hold his administrative talisman.

”Curse those muscle brained brutes of a generals!” Advisor Liu spat in a low, furious whisper, his voice laced with venom as they turned a sharp corner into a dimly lit sub-basement. ”Did you see how that barbarian Chen grabbed me by my collar?! He dared to threaten my life in front of the entire council! Paper-pushing fools, he called us! If it weren’t for our financial genius and trade management, where would he even get the resources to buy his heavy armor and spiritual broadswords?!”

”Indeed! Utterly uncouth, ungrateful swine!” Elder Zhao wheezed, clutching his aching chest as he hurried to keep pace with the swift march of their Spirit Ascension bodyguards. ”We suffer day and night balancing the faction’s treasury, maintaining the complex subterranean arrays, and securing trade routes, only to be made the scapegoats the moment a single disaster strikes! And for what?! Because a pack of arrogant, low-born brats decided to play war!”

”Ah, don’t even speak of those cursed newcomers!” Advisor Liu cursed bitterly, his eyes twisting with unbridled hatred. ”That brat Shen Haoran! That crazy fire-wielding maniac! May the heavens strike them down! They come to our city, burn our spirit herb reserves, drop a star on our gardens, and turn our centuries of hard work into piles of useless ash! When Faction Leader Mu Gang captures them, I will personally request that their souls be extracted and refined inside our spirit-draining caldrons for a thousand years!”

”Focus on the task at hand, Advisor Liu,” the lead Spirit Ascension guard interrupted coldly, his hand resting firmly on the hilt of his glowing blue spiritual sabre as his eyes darted around the subterranean passage. ”Faction Leader Mu Gang gave explicit commands. We must reach the primary array core immediately and reroute one hundred percent of the subterranean spirit veins to lock down the ninth floor of the central pagoda. Leave the cursing for after the city is secured.”

At the same, this guard was afraid. If anyone from the Shen Clan heard what this man, Advisor Liu was spouting, they will surely uproot his nine generation of lineage.

And perhaps even them, the guards, will be caught and slaughtered.

Are these people so delusional that they began to think they can just curse the heirs of Immortal Clans as they pleased?

Sitting in that comfortable seat power must’ve turned their brains into jelly.

Elder Zhao snorted, though he quickly pulled out a glowing, triangular bronze key from his spatial ring. ”Hmph! You don’t need to tell us how to do our jobs! Watch the perimeter!”

They paused before a massive, solid granite wall at the dead end of the corridor.

Elder Zhao stepped forward, pressed the bronze key into a subtle, hidden groove between the ancient bricks, and injected a dense stream of his qi into the wall.

RUMBLE... CRACK!

The heavy granite wall shuddered, grinding back with a deep, echoing groan to reveal a pitch-black, hidden passageway winding deep underground.

Without lingering, the group slipped inside, passing through three more hidden, intricate array doors, each requiring complex hand seals, blood verification, and secret spatial keys to unlock.

Finally, after navigating the labyrinthine network of secret tunnels, they arrived at the threshold of a massive, cavernous underground chamber.

Deep below the city’s surface, the ambient air vibrated with dense, shimmering green light as four massive, glowing subterranean spirit veins pulsed like giant, ancient hearts, feeding raw cosmic energy directly into the central pagoda above.

Advisor Liu let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, leaning his hands on his knees as he wiped his sweaty face once more.

”Finally... we made it. Once we turn these keys and lock down the array from down here, not even a true Immortal will be able to breach the central pagoda’s mandate chamber!”

”Well, you people are finally here, we’re getting bored.”

A cool, smooth, and shockingly nonchalant voice suddenly echoed from the dark threshold right behind them, cutting through the humming ambient energy of the subterranean cavern like an icy blade.

WHAT?!

Every single person in the escort group froze dead in their tracks as a wave of terrifying, paralyzing shock shot straight down their spines, making the hair on the back of their necks stand on end.

Advisor Liu and Elder Zhao gasped in horror, their eyes bulging out of their sockets as they whipped around frantically alongside the seven Spirit Ascension experts and twelve late-stage Nascent Soul wardens, their weapons drawn in an instant with clashing, panicked spiritual energy.

Standing casually right at the entrance of the secret underground chamber was Shen Xinye, Shen Ji, Shen Jian, and Shen Cai.

All four of them were draped in heavy, dark grey cloaks that seemed to swallow the ambient green light of the subterranean spirit veins.

Without a hint of urgency, they casually unclasped the garments, took them off, and handed them back to Shen Cai, who stood at the rear with a wide, smug grin plastered across his face.

Shen Cai laughed as he caught the garments, waving the cloaks playfully towards Advisor Liu and Elder Zhao. ”How about it? These are Concealment Cloaks, which I made specifically to hide us completely from the outside world! They mask breath, spiritual fluctuation, thermal signature, and even spatial displacements. Pretty neat, right?”

Advisor Liu’s eyes bulged with utter, paralyzing disbelief, his hands shook violently, dropping his administrative talisman onto the stone floor with a sharp clack.

”H-How...? How did you get down here?!” Advisor Liu stammered, his voice cracking as he pointed a trembling, sweat-slicked finger at them. ”This passageway is a top-secret route known only to council members! It requires many verification seals and secret spirit keys! How could you possibly know about this place?! Were you... were you tailing us from the very beginning?!”

Shen Ji stepped forward, his expression cold, unbothered, and completely relaxed as he looked down at the pale, terrified council members as if they were nothing more than insects trapped in a jar.

”Tailing you?” Shen Ji let out a short, dismissive snort, his voice echoing smoothly off the cavern walls. ”Do not flatter yourselves, old fools. We didn’t need to trail your pitiful steps through the dark. Everything, from the moment Huo Yue dropped her sun onto your eastern gardens, to your panic in the council hall, to your exact escape route through these underground tunnels, was entirely predicted and planned by Young Master Haoran before we even stepped foot inside Leaf Green City.”

”What?!” Elder Zhao gasped, his face turning from pale to a sickly, horrified white. ”You... you knew we would come to the array core?!”

”Of course,” Shen Jian chimed in with a dark, dangerous smile, ”You cowards care about nothing but your precious arrays and your own useless hides. The moment chaos broke out, you were guaranteed to run straight to the subterranean spirit veins to lock yourselves in.”

Elder Zhao and Advisor Liu felt like they were slapped in the face.

But...

Advisor Liu frowned, ”That still doesn’t explain how you are able to find this and even get in.”

Shen Cai shrugged, ”Shen Bai calculated the area where the core is base on the width, diameter, and area of effects of the arrays, and it led us roughly around here.”

The Botanist’s eyes widened in shock. Is that possible? Just how skilled was that man to be able to tell where the core was base on that?

”As for your defenses and shit,” Shen Cai picked his ears with his pinky, before blowing it towards them with a smirk, ”Well, they’re just bunch of old, barely maintained mechanism. I have no problem breaking them apart and opening them without leaving any traces behind.”

He then grinned at them, ”Of course, the wall leading to the main energy core that can control the four subterranean nodes is impossible for the current me to break. The two of you probably has the key, right? Can you surrender it to us?”

At that moment, the lead Spirit Ascension guard stepped in front of the two terrified council members, his glowing blue spiritual sabre raised high as his other Spirit Ascension comrades and twelve late-stage Nascent Soul experts flared their cultivation to the maximum!

Dense, crashing waves of water- and wood-element spiritual pressure flooded the cavern, rattling the stalactites hanging from the ceiling!

Elder Zhao, sensing the overwhelming numerical advantage of his elite escort force, tried to summon a shred of courage.

He gritted his teeth, glaring at the four young cultivators with a sneer born of sheer, desperate terror.

”So what if you found us?!” Elder Zhao yelled, his voice echoing wildly. ”Look around you! You are just four Nascent Soul juniors! We have seven Spirit Ascension experts and twelve late-stage Nascent Soul masters protecting us! Do you honestly think four bratty greenhorns like you can stop us from activating the lockdown?!”

Advisor Liu, standing behind the heavy shields of the guards, gained a sudden spike of arrogance as well, shouting furiously, ”Arrogant, foolish brats! You walked straight into a enclosed underground vault with nowhere to run! Are you not afraid of being crushed into blood mist by our elite guard force?!”

Shen Cai stopped folding his cloaks. He slowly raised his head, looking at the shouting, sweat-drenched Advisor Liu and Elder Zhao with an expression of profound, mocking pity.

”Afraid?” Shen Cai scoffed, a bright, sadistic grin stretching across his face as he reached into his spatial storage ring. ”Old man, let me teach you a fundamental truth of the universe. All fear simply comes from a lack of firepower!”

THUD—!!!!!

With a heavy, bone-rattling slam that shook the entire subterranean cavern, Shen Cai pulled out an absurdly massive, black-and-gold spiritual artillery cannon and slammed its tripod base directly into the solid granite floor!

The cannon barrel was over three meters long, forged from thick, reinforced dark-star iron, and inlaid with hundreds of glowing red attack arrays.

The gaping front muzzle of the weapon was broad enough for a grown man to fit his head inside, and the moment it materialized, a suffocating, lethal concentration of compressed destruction energy began to wildly gathered inside its deep chamber, humming with a sound like a trapped dragon about to break through.

The massive cannon barrel raised slowly, locking its gaping, glowing red sights directly onto the faces of Advisor Liu, Elder Zhao, and their pale, frozen guard escort.

Advisor Liu’s jaw dropped so low it nearly unhinged, his eyes wide with absolute, breathless terror.

The seven Spirit Ascension experts instantly froze, cold sweat pouring down their backs as the raw, suffocating threat of the giant weapon locked onto their souls!

”Now,” Shen Cai smirked, resting his hand casually on the firing mechanism, ”who said something about fear?”