Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Down below, the battlefield was a tempest of dust, blood, and shattered stone.

The First Officer was struck squarely in the chest by a single, terrifying strike, the sheer physical force detonating against his heavy breastplate like a battering ram.

BOOOOOOM—!

The First Officer was blown backward like a cannonball, skidding hundreds of meters across the scorched cobblestones and smashing through two thick stone pillars before coming to a violent, bone-crushing halt against a ruined wall.

He groaned weakly, clutching his caved-in chest armor as he coughed up a heavy mouthful of crimson blood.

Pain screamed through every nerve in his body. With trembling limbs, he forced himself to stand, clutching his dark-steel spear with white-knuckled desperation.

He stared at the giant standing in the clearing with wide, bloodshot eyes full of absolute horror.

”Y-You...” the First Officer rasped, his voice trembling violently. ”How... how are you so strong?! You don’t even have a trace of qi in your body!”

Shen Tao slowly walked towards him, his heavy boots crushing stone into fine powder with every measured step.

He didn’t bother explaining a single word.

Indeed, he didn’t have qi in his meridians. The specialized, ancient path of physical cultivation he pursued did not rely on the standard manipulation of environmental spiritual energy.

But his internal energy and bone marrow resonance were more than enough to completely compensate for what he lacked in conventional qi!

His very flesh and bones had been forged into an unbreakable divine weapon.

”D-Don’t come any closer!” the First Officer screamed, panic completely overriding his martial discipline.

He channeled every single drop of his Nascent Soul qi into his spear, making the dark steel glow with a blinding, emerald light.

He then thrust his weapon forward, executing the supreme technique that he learned after serving the Botanist Faction for so long—The Thousand-Leaf Phantom Spear!

A dense, lethal storm of hundreds of spear shadows erupted into the air, piercing through space toward Shen Tao’s head, throat, chest, and heart.

Every thrust carried enough piercing power to puncture mountain granite.

Facing the deadly barrage, Shen Tao’s expression remained completely stony and indifferent.

He didn’t even draw a weapon, nor did he step back a single inch. Moving with frightening second reaction speed, his massive arms became a seamless wall of defensive parries!

CLANG! CLANG! BANG! CLANG! BOOM!

Shen Tao blocked and deflected every single strike using nothing more than his bare forearms, palms, and elbows.

The spear points struck his golden-tinged skin, emitting loud, metallic ringing sounds as if hitting an indestructible anvil, kicking off showers of blinding sparks.

The First Officer struck faster and faster, his face contorted in frantic desperation, thrusting with wild, chaotic rage, but Shen Tao remained an unyielding, immovable fortress—blocking every single attack without taking a single scratch or suffering a millimeter of pushback.

”Die! Why won’t you die?!” the First Officer roared, gathering all his remaining power for one final, devastating overhead vertical strike aimed straight at Shen Tao’s skull.

”Sixth Form: Sunder the Earth!”

The massive spear came crashing down with the weight of a falling meteor.

Shen Tao simply raised his right hand, spreading his thick fingers, and caught the descending, full-power spear blade bare-handed in mid-air.

CRACK!

The shockwave blew back the dust in a hundred-meter radius, but Shen Tao’s arm didn’t bend even a fraction of a degree.

Before the First Officer could even process the utter horror of his ultimate attack being caught like a toy, Shen Tao’s left hand tightened into a massive fist as he drove his fist straight into the shaft of the dark-steel spear.

BANG!

The high-grade, spirit-forged weapon shattered into a dozen jagged metallic splinters!

The First Officer stumbled backward from the violent force, his hands bleeding, his divine sense shattered by the feedback.

He opened his mouth to cry out, but in that exact split second, Shen Tao vanished from his field of vision entirely!

SWISH—!

Before the officer could even turn his head, a heavy, cold hand locked like an iron vise onto the back of his head, gripping his scalp and hair with crushing force.

Shen Tao had materialized directly behind him!

Without a single word or a shred of hesitation, Shen Tao used his absolute physical strength to slam the First Officer’s face directly into the hard, stone ground!

BOOOOM—!!!!!

The earth fractured violently! Stone tiles exploded in every direction as a deep, three-meter crater burst open under the terrifying impact!

The First Officer’s protective helmet shattered into fragments, blood spraying across the dirt as his face crushed into the bedrock.

Before the dazed, concussed officer could even scream, Shen Tao lifted him back up by the back of his head like a lifeless ragdoll, raised his hand high into the air, and slammed him face-first into the ground again!

BOOOOM—!!!!!

”Aaargh!”

Shen Tao raised him up by his scalp once more, his expression cold and implacable, and slammed him face-first into the dirt yet again!

BOOOOM—!!!!!

BOOOOM—!!!!!

BOOOOM—!!!!!

The brutal, rhythmic destruction echoed continuously across the ruined battlefield like thunderous drumbeats!

Over and over again, Shen Tao raised the struggling, bleeding deputy officer up by the hair and violently drove his face into the shattered stone floor, pulverizing the bedrock into dust, breaking every bone in the man’s face, and utterly annihilating his consciousness in a display of pure, unadulterated physical dominance!

*

*

*

On the other side of the ruined district.

The second officer moved like a violent streak of blue lightning, flashing back and forth across the battlefield, striking and leaving in fractions of a second, turning Shen Fei into what looked like a helpless punching bag.

BOOM! BANG! BOOM! BANG!

Lightning-infused kicks, high-velocity palm strikes, and crackling spear jabs rained down upon Shen Fei’s heavy frame from every imaginable angle.

The air crackled with thunderous shockwaves, the cobblestones around his boots fracturing into spiderweb patterns with every impact.

Although Shen Fei couldn’t feel a single drop of pain—his sacred physique neutralizing the kinetic energy effortlessly—it was still getting incredibly annoying.

The second officer zipped to a halt twenty yards away, bathed in crackling blue arcs of lightning, and burst into a loud, arrogant laugh of absolute disdain.

”Hahaha! What’s the matter, big guy?!” the second officer taunted, tossing his head back with a cruel, mocking sneer. ”Is your physical defense all you have to show for yourself?! You’re as slow and lumbering as a mountain turtle! You can’t even see my movements, let alone land a single counter-attack! Fighting you is like punching an overgrown rock! You’re nothing more than an immobile target in my domain!”

Shen Fei remained completely silent, standing tall in the center of the dust cloud.

He didn’t even bother brushing the static sparks off his heavy shoulders.

Instead, his mind quietly drifted back through the years, returning to the grand stage of the Heaven’s Choice Tournament.

He vividly remembered the overwhelming, humbling defeat he had suffered at the hands of Shen Haoran.

Back then, Shen Fei had relied entirely on his untamed Sacred Physique—a legendary bodily constitution that granted him near-indestructible physical defense and an incredible, crushing gravitational weight that could flatten surrounding terrain.

He had believed himself completely invincible among his peers.

Yet, when he faced Shen Haoran, his weight became his greatest liability.

Shen Haoran’s speed during that match was truly unmatched, shifting through space like a phantom god, dodging every heavy blow before delivering strikes that bypassed physical defense entirely.

Shen Fei had been completely unable to even fight back, forced to watch helplessly as his arrogance was thoroughly dismantled.

That bitter defeat had reshaped him entirely.

From that day forward, Shen Fei trained relentlessly, pushing his divine sense, spatial perception, and kinetic prediction to their limits specifically to counter fast, agile opponents who sought to use their superior movement speed to dance around his immovable bulk.

He didn’t need to chase lightning—he only needed to know where the bolt would land.

At that exact moment, as the second officer prepared to launch another high-speed blitz, his lightning-clad body blurrred into motion.

SWISH—!

The second officer circled around at blinding speed, preparing to strike from Shen Fei’s blind spot on the left.

But just as he closed the distance, Shen Fei’s head suddenly turned, his eyes locking directly onto the second officer’s exact position mid-dash.

The second officer was instantly startled, his heart skipping a beat as cold sweat broke out across his back.

He forcefully checked his momentum and retreated thirty feet into the air, landing on a half-shattered rooftop, his eyes wide with sudden doubt.

’W-What was that?!’ the second officer thought frantically, his breathing uneven. ’Did he actually track my movement speed, or was it just a sheer, lucky coincidence?! No... there’s no way a heavy physical cultivator can react to my lightning movement art! It had to be a guess!’

Determined to test his theory, the second officer blurred into motion again, zig-zagging erratically across five distinct spatial points around the clearing.

But every single time he shifted his trajectory, Shen Fei smoothly turned his gaze, his cold, calm eyes effortlessly following the lightning trail across space.

The second officer gritted his teeth in violent frustration, his pride as a high-speed lightning cultivator deeply wounded.

”Don’t look down on me, you heavy bastard!” the second officer roared in anger.

He pushed his Nascent Soul cultivation to its dangerous limit, drawing upon his core essence blood to forcefully double his movement speed!

His body vanished entirely, leaving behind only a high-pitched, piercing shrieking sound as space itself hummed under the friction.

The sudden, sheer surge of velocity exceeded Shen Fei’s current observational tracking rate.

Shen Fei was unable to react in time and was struck squarely in the chest by an explosive, double-legged lightning dropkick.

BOOOOM—!

It worked!

The explosive impact force actually forced Shen Fei’s massive frame to take a single, heavy step backward, his boot crushing a deep furrow into the bedrock.

Re-appearing thirty yards away, breathing heavily but thoroughly reinvigorated, the second officer let out a confident, triumphant smirk.

”I knew it!” the second officer declared, his eyes flashing with pride. ”You were just relying on predictive sight! Once my speed surpasses your eyes, you’re back to being a helpless target!”

Confident in his ultimate victory, the second officer gathered every remaining drop of his electric qi into his right foot, preparing to launch a final, lethal high-speed drill attack aimed straight at Shen Fei’s throat!

”DIE!”

He kicked off the air with a sonic boom, diving straight forward like a falling thunderbolt!

But at that exact second—just as the second officer was about to reach his target—Shen Fei suddenly raised his head.

His eyes weren’t tracking the movement anymore; they were looking directly at the single point where the trajectory was forced to intersect!

SWISH—!

A heavy, dark-steel spear materialized in Shen Fei’s hand out of thin air, and with motionless precision, he simply held it out, pointing its cold, sharp tip directly into the path of the incoming lightning bolt.

The second officer’s eyes dilated to the size of pinpricks, but his kinetic momentum was far too vast, and he couldn’t stop, couldn’t alter his course, and couldn’t react in time!

STAB!

The heavy dark-steel spearhead pierced cleanly through the second officer’s chest armor, driving straight through his sternum, heart, and back.

His high-speed momentum came to an instantaneous, horrific halt as his entire body impaled itself upon the stationary weapon.

Cough, cough!

The second officer coughed up a heavy stream of bright crimson blood, his hands feebly clutching the cold shaft of the spear that transfixed his body.

He stared at Shen Fei, mouth-agape, shock beyond belief, his life force rapidly draining into the cold steel.

Shen Fei slowly, deliberately pulled the long spear back, withdrawing the blood-stained blade from the man’s chest without a single hint of emotion on his face.

He looked down at the dying officer, his voice cool, level, and utterly emotionless.

”You’re not as fast as the young master.”

The second officer’s legs gave out completely.

He slowly fell to his knees, his hands dropping to his sides, before falling face-down onto the hard, blood-soaked ground with a dull, heavy thud.

Shen Fei stared at the motionless corpse for a quiet moment, then shook his head in mild disappointment.

”You’re slow... even as you fall.”