Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

”Shen Xinye, Shen Ji, the two of you, go and catch up to those two old men,” said Shen Jian, his deep voice slicing through the thick dust clouds hanging over the subterranean ruins.

He didn’t even look back at them, his cold gaze already locking onto the surviving guards assembling in front of the caved-in exit.

Shen Xinye said nothing more. She simply gave a curt, silent nod, her silver eyes flashing with sharp resolve, and instantly leapt over the fractured boulders, sprinting after Advisor Liu and Elder Zhao into the dark, secondary escape tunnel.

Shen Ji grinned savagely, his massive frame shifting like an avalanche as he kicked off the stone floor, creating a small shockwave that sent gravel flying.

”Heh, don’t leave all the fun for me, Xinye!” he bellowed, surging forward right behind her heels.

The remaining late-stage Nascent Soul guards, realizing the two council members were about to be intercepted, desperately tried to step into the passage to block their path.

”Halt! You shall not pass!” several wardens screamed, drawing their glowing spiritual blades and channeling their wood-element qi to construct a defensive wall.

BOOOOOOM!

Before any of them could even raise their weapons, a crushing, heavy wave of pure, suffocating qi exploded outward, stopping them dead in their tracks.

The sheer physical weight of the spiritual pressure slammed into their chests like a falling hammer, forcing them to freeze, their boots skidding helplessly against the shattered stone floor.

The guards turned their heads in sheer, wide-eyed shock, and saw Shen Jian stepping out from the shadows.

He was grinning like a demon, his golden hair flying wildly around his head. But what really caught their attention was the thing on the center of his chest.

It was a blinding, incandescent radiance that erupted from beneath his robes, glowing like a miniature star trapped within his ribs.

There are also complex, ancient, and divine golden runes spread rapidly outward from his sternum, crawling across his neck, shoulders, and arms like living, burning veins of light.

”That’s... that golden light... those divine runes...!” a senior Nascent Soul warden stammered, his eyes bulging out of his sockets as he stumbled backward in utter, paralyzing terror.

”A Supreme Bone!?”

The entire group of Nascent Soul guards was completely stunned, frozen in place by pure, unadulterated awe and dread.

A Supreme Bone was the ultimate, legendary mark of a born supreme—an extraordinary, divine physical trait blessed by the very laws of the universe.

Anyone who possessed such a heavenly bone was naturally granted absurd, god-like traits: a terrifying resistance to all standard qi attacks that can almost be mistaken as an immunity, hyper-accelerated cellular healing, exponentially boosted raw combat power, and an oppressive, innate aura field that automatically eroded and lowered the natural defenses of every enemy standing in its presence.

Facing a cultivator blessed with a genuine Supreme Bone was like having nightmare.

Unless an opponent possessed a vastly superior cultivation realm, combined with an endless supply of high-grade recovery pills and offensive and defensive artifacts, they were inevitably bound to lose!

Unfortunately, because Shen Jian had stolen this bone from its original owner, Shen Tao, through a dark, forbidden ritual rather than being born with it naturally from his mother’s womb, he couldn’t use its true, divine potential to its full extent.

The bone was not perfectly integrated with his natural soul, forcing him to endure immense internal strain whenever he drew upon its primordial authority.

Of course, none of these doomed, terrified guards knew that secret.

To them, the young man standing before them was nothing less than a living, unstoppable god of war.

Shen Jian threw his head back and laughed wildly, his red eyes glowing with pure, bloodthirsty madness.

”Come on, you worthless insects! Show me what you’ve got!”

SWISH-SWISH-SWISH—!

The divine runes covering his chest flared with blinding intensity, expanding outward and spreading across the ground beneath his boots in a wide, circular field of golden light!

The moment the divine domain touched the feet of the Nascent Soul guards, a sudden, suffocating weight pressed down on their shoulders.

Their internal qi flow stuttered violently, their protective barriers weakened by half, and their physical reflexes plummeted into sluggishness.

They instantly felt as if their strength, speed, and defenses had been severely weakened.

”HAHAHA! YOU BUNCH OF TRASH! I AM BORN SUPREME!” Shen Jian roared at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing through the subterranean ruins like a shattering mountain.

Without drawing any weapons, Shen Jian charged directly towards the cluster of enemies with nothing but his bare fists, moving with explosive, earth-shattering velocity.

”KILL HIM! HE’S ALONE!” One of the guards shrieked in frantic desperation. ”SO WHAT IF HE’S SUPREME!?”

Over a dozen Nascent Soul Guards snapped out of their panic and attacked simultaneously.

High-grade spiritual broadswords, barbed spears, and razor-sharp flying daggers enveloped in dense, cutting wood and water qi rained down upon Shen Jian from every single direction.

CLANG! BANG! SLASH! PUKS!

The sharp weapons struck Shen Jian’s body directly.

Blades slashed across his shoulders, spears stabbed into his chest, and flying daggers pierced his thighs.

Normal cultivators would have been turned into a pincushion of shredded meat, but Shen Jian didn’t flinch, didn’t block, and didn’t care in the slightest.

Acting like a completely unhinged berserker, he entirely ignored their attacks, taking the full, brutal force of every strike head-on.

Thanks to the Supreme Bone’s qi resistance and hyper-accelerated healing, the deep cuts on his flesh didn’t even bleed properly before the golden runes flared, stitching his muscle fibers and skin back together in fractions of a second.

”Is that all your pathetic weapons can do?!” Shen Jian cackled, stepping right inside the guard captain’s stance.

He reached out with his bare, rune covered hands, grabbing one of the lead guards by his shoulders.

Then, with a violent, terrifying surge of pure physical force, Shen Jian literally ripped the guard’s arms right out of their sockets.

”AAAAAAGH!” the guard shrieked in horrific, gut-wrenching agony as blood sprayed across the cavern floor.

Shen Jian didn’t give him a second to breathe and directly drove his bare fist straight into the guard’s chest.

BOOOOM—!

His fist punched clean through the heavy steel armor, through the sternum, and out the man’s back, shattering his Nascent Soul dantian into liquid paste.

Shen Jian yanked his blood-soaked arm out, letting the lifeless corpse collapse into the dirt, and immediately spun around to lock his predatory gaze onto the next terrified soldier.

”Mon... Monster! He’s a complete monster!” a guard whimpered, dropping his spear as he tried to scramble away on his hands and knees.

”Where are you running, little rat?!” Shen Jian laughed, leaping forward and grabbing the fleeing guard by his head with a single hand.

He slammed the man’s skull into the granite wall with such terrifying force that the stone caved in, painting the rock in crimson.

”Damn it! Don’t run! Attack him together!”

The guards gritted their teeth and charged at him together.

Blades hacked at his back, spears pierced his ribs, but Shen Jian only grew wilder and more euphoric.

He stomped through the guard ranks like an unstoppable vortex of blood and bone, laughing maniacally as he took every hit without a second thought, grabbing soldiers by their limbs, snapping their spines over his knees, and tearing their bodies completely apart with his bare hands in a display of pure, unbridled savagery.

”HAHAHAHA! Come at me! All of you!”

*

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Next to the bloody storm created by Shen Jian, the Seven Spirit Avatars—towering multi-colored energy giants ranging from a draconic half-man to a roaring lightning conqueror—all ganged up on Shen Cai’s solitary silver and gold robot simultaneously.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

The combined impact of seven high-tier Spirit Ascension martial techniques hit the massive humanoid puppet like a localized cataclysm!

The fiery red winged warrior swung a hundred-foot broadsword of liquid magma directly against the robot’s left shoulder, while the heavy brown granite titan slammed a colossal stone warhammer squarely into its chest!

At the exact same time, the dark violet lightning conqueror unleashed a concentrated storm of blue thunderbolts, and the silver blade master executed fifty rapid spatial slashes across its back!

BANG! BANG! CRACK! BOOM!

The massive robot was hurled backward through the subterranean air, violently crashing through three crumbling granite pillars before smashing into the cavern wall!

Sparks showered across the dark ruins, and the reinforced platinum armor plates across its chest and left arm dented heavily under the overwhelming kinetic barrage.

Inside the glass-walled control cockpit, Shen Cai was thrown violently against his safety harness, his control levers vibrating so hard his hands went numb.

The diagnostic arrays around his seat flashed with frantic red emergency lights.

”Agh! You dirty, shameless, honorless bastards!” Shen Cai screamed over the cockpit speakers, his voice echoing loudly through the surroundings as he wiped a streak of sweat from his forehead. ”Seven Spirit Ascension experts using your full Spirit Avatars to jump a single Artificer?! Where is your martial ethics?! Where is your dignity as senior cultivators?! All of you should be ashamed!”

The guard captain, hovering securely within the forehead of the blue half-dragon Spirit Avatar, raised his giant draconic talons and let out a cold, mocking snort.

”Martial ethics?” the captain scoffed, his deep voice echoing with unbothered, cynical amusement. ”You are a young talent from the prestigious, almighty Shen Clan! Since you possess such exalted status and grand background, it wouldn’t be much if we, mere lowly guards, gang up on you together, right?”

The other six Spirit Avatars chuckled in agreement, their massive, glowing energy frames stepping forward in a tight, intimidating circle, locking down every single escape angle around the dented robot.

”That’s right! A young talent of the Shen Clan should easily handle a few local guards!” the red winged warrior mocked, raising his magma broadsword once more. ”Don’t complain now, young man!”

Those mocking words hit Shen Cai like a splash of boiling oil, instantly igniting his fiery temper and sending his eyes flashing with violent, unbridled rage.

His face flushed bright red, a veins bulging across his temple as a dangerous, manic grin stretched across his lips.

”It wouldn’t be much, huh?!” Shen Cai roared, his hands slapping violently against the main control console in front of his seat. ”YOU DARE USE MY OWN CLAN’S PRESTIGE TO JUSTIFY YOUR SHAMELESS GANGING UP ON ME?! FINE! FINE! FANTASTIC!”

He reached into his spatial storage ring, his spiritual sense flaring up to its maximum capacity as he took several artifacts.

SWIIISH—SWIIISH—SWIIISH—SWIIISH—SWIIISH—SWIIISH—!

The night’s darkness was instantly illuminated by six blinding pillars of multi-colored spatial light that erupted around the clearing!

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD—!!!!!

Then, six massive, bone-rattling impacts shuddered through the bedrock, causing the entire surroundings to violently tremble once again.

When the blinding spatial light finally faded, six more colossal, hundred and fifty meter tall humanoid metallic robots materialized into reality, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Shen Cai’s primary unit!

Each robot was a true masterpiece of supreme artifact engineering and offensive weaponry!

One was forged from dense, jet-black Void-Iron, wielding twin thirty-meter energy scythes.

Another was clad in brilliant crimson Fire-Dragon Alloy, its shoulders mounted with heavy flame-thrower cannons.

A third was built from deep azure Glacial Steel, radiating an absolute zero aura that froze the surrounding dust into ice.

While the remaining three were heavily armored juggernauts armed with multi-barreled gattling arrays, high-frequency energy shields, and massive impact drills.

Now, seven metallic battle puppets now stood in a towering, terrifying line, their glowing eyes flashing with twin beams of crimson, azure, and gold light, completely surrounding the seven Spirit Avatars.

Shen Cai’s unhinged, booming laughter echoed wildly out of all seven robots’ roaring audio arrays simultaneously!

”HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Shen Cai cackled, leaning back in his cockpit seat with pure, dominant arrogance. ”Since all of you are seasoned, high and mighty Spirit Ascension realm experts, it wouldn’t be much if I used this much against you, right?!”

The lead captain’s eyes dilated to the size of pinpricks.

The seven Spirit Ascension experts inside their avatars completely froze, cold sweat pouring down their backs like torrential rain as their jaws dropped in horror.

”W-What...? SIX MORE PUPPETS?!”

”How does a single Nascent Soul cultivator have enough spiritual sense to control seven of these puppets simultaneously?!”

”THIS IS CHEATING! THIS IS CHEATING!”

”Ready... FIRE!” Shen Cai screamed in pure, ecstatic delight.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

All seven metallic battle puppets unleashed their full offensive arsenals at point-blank range.

High-caliber plasma shells, roaring streams of divine dragon fire, absolute-zero freezing beams, and spinning high-frequency drill strikes rained down upon the seven Spirit Avatars in an absolute, suffocating deluge of technological destruction.

The tables were turned instantly.

The seven Spirit Ascension experts were overwhelmed, their energy avatars battered, cracked, and pushed backward as Shen Cai’s mechanical legion relentlessly pulverized them into the cavern dirt.