Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

”Xunyi... I swear on my ancestors. If you touch that seal, I will knock you unconscious, tie you to a boulder, and drag you out of this cave myself. We are not resurrecting a god just so you can write a thesis!”

Gu Xunyi stared at Ning Xueli and sighed in annoyance.

The bronze measuring rod in her hand tapped irritably against the rim of her boot, making a sharp, metallic ring that bounced off the cavern walls.

With Xueli’s strength, Gu Xunyi can flick her wrist and instantly subdue her, but doing so has zero benefits for her aside from possibly earning Haoran’s ire.

He does care a lot about his people.

So with an exaggerated, dramatic slouch, she slid the surgical calipers back into the leather loops of her satchel and waved a dismissive hand.

”Fine, whatever,” Xunyi grumbled, blowing a loose lock of her hair away from her forehead. ”Perish the thought that we advance the frontiers of cosmic biology today. Let’s just search the place and see if we can find more information about gods and the divine realm.”

Ning Xueli let out a long, trembling breath that practically drained the tension from her spine.

Turning their backs on the pinned titan, the two girls began combing through the subterranean ruins.

They skirted the shimmering trenches of stagnant mercury, stepping over shattered paving stones etched with defensive wards that had long burned out their spiritual essence.

Gu Xunyi summoned three floating orbs of cold spirit light, sending them drifting high into the dark vault to illuminate the crumbling colonnades and subterranean galleries lining the perimeter.

They searched for murals and tablets, writings, but all they found out was about the culture of the ancient people and no helpful knowledge.

Every carving they brushed the moss and dust away from seemed to tell the same redundant, superstitious tale.

There were depictions of crude, round-bellied clay kilns, stylized stick figures harvesting subterranean fungi by the light of glow-worms, and lengthy stone registers listing grain tributes paid to long-dead tribal chieftains.

One wall showed an elaborate funeral procession where men in feathered headdresses wailed over stone sarcophagi, while another documented the migration routes of primeval blind-lizards through subterranean tunnels.

”Useless,” Gu Xunyi muttered, aggressively rubbing a soot-covered tablet with a rag before tossing it aside into the rubble. ”It’s all domestic bureaucracy and primitive harvest rituals. Not a single line on divine soul structures, zero anatomical diagrams of celestial physiology, and not even a footnoted reference to how the ancient array masters tuned the mercury’s frequency to dissolve divine authority. It’s entirely mundane.”

Ning Xueli shook her head, tracing the faint chiseling on a cracked pillar. ”To them, the gods were not an academic subject to be dissected, sister Xunyi. They were an existential terror to be appeased and prayed.”

As the silence settled back over the vast cavern, only the faint, ominous hum of the golden skeleton broke the stillness.

Above them, the two massive crimson fires burning within the eye sockets of the sixty-meter skull flickered.

The ancient, layered voice echoed downward once more, devoid of its previous blustering theatricality, now carrying a strange, dry amusement.

”Why search for these stones when you can ask me?”

The sound of Ivaraune speaking rattled the loose dust from the stalactites.

”If you truly hunger for the truth of the higher planes, little scholar... I can tell you. After all, I was originally from the divine realm, cast down and banished into this foul mortal muck before your ancestors even learned how to circulate qi.”

Ning Xueli immediately stiffened, her band twitching as she took a protective half-step in front of Xunyi, looking up at the burning eye sockets with sharp, defensive suspicion.

”We refuse,” Xueli said coldly. ”Ancient demons do not open their mouths out of charity. What kind of poison are you trying to plant in our sea of consciousness? What horrific price do you intend to demand in return for your words?”

A low, resonant sound vibrated through the ribcage of the golden titan—a hollow chuckle that set the iridescent mercury swirling in its trenches.

”A price? What could two fragile, squeaking mortal insects offer an immortal demigod pinned beneath nine nails of celestial jade?” Ivaraune sighed, the sound like wind scraping over dried leaves. ”I desire neither your blood nor your meager treasures, girl. I need nothing. After three million years of staring at a cave and listening to the dripping of stagnant water, I want only someone to talk to. Even an eternity of hatred grows dull when there is no one left to hear it.”

Ning Xueli remained rigid, her instincts screaming that even a conversation with an entity of this caliber was an insidious trap.

Gu Xunyi, however, was already sitting down on a flat slab of fallen stone.

She pulled out a fresh, thick roll of pristine spirit parchment, dipped her bone stylus into a pot of black ink, and adjusted her floating crystalline monocle.

”Stop wasting breath on dramatic preamble and start talking,” Gu Xunyi commanded, pointing the wet tip of her stylus up at the massive skull. ”Begin with the classification of divine thrones, energetic transference mechanisms, and the structural variances between true divinity and standard transcendent cultivation.”

Ning Xueli pressed her palm against her face, letting out an exhausted, defeated groan. ”I can’t believe this is happening...”

The crimson flames in Ivaraune’s eye sockets flared with faint, pleased amusement as the ancient demigod began to recount the divine realm.

”You mortals of the lower worlds walk an arrogant path,” Ivaraune spoke, his deep voice carrying the resonance of a bronze bell ringing in an empty valley. ”You crawl through your meridians, suffer the agony of nine lightning tribulations, and climb the ladder of self-refinement until you call yourselves ’Immortals.’ You believe that transcendence is the only true summit beneath the sky. But in the divine realm, your so-called immortality is merely one path—and a lonely, selfish one at that.”

Gu Xunyi’s stylus flew across the paper, leaving behind sharp, disciplined lines of miniature calligraphy as Ivaraune began explaining the true nature of divinity.

”An Immortal must carve their own Dao out of their very flesh, step by step,” the demigod explained, the gold of his collarbones vibrating with low energy. ”If an Immortal dies, their Dao scatters back into the void. It cannot be handed down like a family heirloom. But a God’s divine position is an eternal cosmic seat woven into the foundational fabric of reality itself. If a God of the River, a God of War, or a God of the Harvest grows weary or faces their twilight, they can bestow their sacred mantle upon a chosen vessel. In a single breath, the recipient bypasses tens of thousands of years of arduous cultivation, their soul instantly elevated to harmonize with the divine laws of that throne.”

”A complete transference of authority without the necessity of individual comprehension,” Gu Xunyi murmured, her eyes glittering with clinical fascination. ”A shortcut of immense proportions.”

”Indeed,” Ivaraune continued. ”And because of this, god worshippers don’t fight for the so-called Heaven’s Will. In your mortal world, every generation sees millions of arrogant geniuses slaughtering each other to the last drop of blood, clawing toward the sky to seize a singular, microscopic sliver of the world’s mandate. But among the divine nations, there is no such chaos. Those who follow the divine path seek only the approval of the god they worshipped. Devotion, service, resonance, and faith—earn the favor of the throne, and the seat is yours when the deity steps aside.”

Ning Xueli, who had remained standing guard, found herself unconsciously listening, her sharp brows knitting together as she absorbed the alien philosophy of the higher planes.

”There should be a downside, right?” Xueli commented softly, unable to hide the innate skepticism of a traditional cultivator. ”If divinity can be obtained just like that, then there would be no one who would cultivate to be an immortal.”

”Clever child,” the hollow voice rumbled, acknowledging her insight. ”Indeed. On the downside, gods need worshippers, or at least, people who know they exist, so they can remain.”

The crimson flames in the skull dimmed slightly, as if choked by the memory of centuries of silence.

”The power of a god is inextricably anchored to the minds of the living,” Ivaraune said, his tone turning heavy, laced with ancient, chilling melancholy. ”An Immortal can wander into the deepest, most desolate corners of the chaotic void, entirely forgotten by the universe, and their cultivation will remain as unshakeable as a mountain. But a God? A God is a concept given form by the collective resonance of consciousness. If a god’s believers are slaughtered, their divine mantle rots. And if the last person who speaks their name turns to dust, the god itself will fade into absolute non-existence, no matter how powerful they are. You could command the stars to dance with a wave of your hand, yet if tomorrow all mortal life forgets your deeds, your divine core will dissolve like salt in water. That is the terror of the throne—an eternal life suspended entirely upon the fragile memory of mortals.”

Gu Xunyi tapped her stylus against her chin, adding a heavy margin note to her parchment. ”A parasitic cognitive symbiosis. The deity provides governance and stability in exchange for the conceptual maintenance of their existence. Elegant, yet very fragile.”

”And that fragility is precisely why Gods and Immortals are perpetually at odds,” Ivaraune continued, his voice hardening with the bitter embers of ancient wars. ”They cannot stand the sight of one another. The gods view the mortals and their realms as a grand garden that must be tended. Gods have the duty to maintain the balance of the entire existence—governing the seasons, calming the cosmic tides, sealing the outer abyssal rifts, and ensuring that reality does not collapse under its own weight. We bear the burden of the cosmos upon our shoulders.”

The skeletal titan gave a sharp, mocking snort that blew a cloud of pale dust across the stagnant mercury.

”And the Immortals? The Immortals are nothing more than parasites. Self-centered individuals who only care for their own interests! An Immortal cares nothing for the turning of the seasons or the preservation of the mortal herds. They plunder the spiritual veins of the earth, shatter continental plates to forge a single flying sword, and drain the vitality of whole star sectors merely to break through a minor bottleneck! They scream about freedom and unfettered will, yet their ’freedom’ is built upon the casual desecration of everything the gods bleed to maintain. To an Immortal, the universe is a quarry to be stripped bare. To a God, the universe is an altar that must be preserved at all costs.”

”Well, that’s rather prejudice of you.” Gu Xunyi shook her head, ”Immortals worked hard for that power, of course they will use it for their own satisfaction. If you think just because they have power then they must serve the world, then that power is nothing more than a curse.”

Ivaraune went silent, and sighed. ”...Indeed.”

”Anyways,” Gu Xunyi stared at him, ”Is there another way to become a god?”

Ivaraune nodded, ”There is. Simply gather enough faith to forge your own divine throne.”

”... interesting.” Gu Xunyi whispered, thinking of something, but then shook her head, ”Alright. Go on, tell us more.”

”You...you really are brave to demand something from a demon god like me.”

Though Ivaraune said that, he did began telling them more information while they listened, the subterranean darkness fading into background noise as the ancient exiled god laid bare the history of forgotten epochs.

He spoke of the Great Schism that tore the higher planes apart, where pantheons of ancient deities clashed with the supreme sovereigns of the immortal lineages.

He detailed how the divine realm was partitioned, how authority was divided between primordial concepts, and how the ancient gods had established divine courts to regulate the chaotic ambition of the cultivators.

He explained the nature of Divine Domains—absolute spheres of influence where reality ceased to obey physical laws and conformed entirely to the will of the reigning deity.

Gu Xunyi wrote without stopping, her stylus dancing across page after page of spirit parchment, cataloging the mechanics, the theoretical weaknesses, and the systemic structures of divine authority with meticulous precision.

Ning Xueli slowly lowered her guard, her posture softening as she stared up at the massive golden ribcage, her mind reeling from the realization of how minuscule their knowledge about Prime Origin Realm truly was in the grand, terrifying expanse of existence.

For nearly an hour, the cavern echoed with the deep, rumbling voice of the banished demigod and the scratching of a scholar’s pen, bridging millions of years of silence with the forgotten truths of the stars.