Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

”Shit!”

Tang Lin cursed as he squeezed the dry, fibrous stalks of a withered Spirit-Gathering Fern until the pale leaves crumbled into brittle emerald dust between his calloused palms.

He sat cross-legged behind a jagged shelf of slate in the desolate foothills, his teeth gritted in bitter frustration.

The meager cluster of second-rate weeds he had scoured from the rocky crevices was a pathetic consolation prize compared to the sea of primordial, extinct flora filling the sprawling terraces below.

It was barely enough to even cause a reaction to the World Tree branch.

Inside the quiet expanse of his sea of consciousness, the desiccated, shriveled twig remained largely dormant and just let out a disappointed quiver, absorbing the meager trickle of herbal essence with a sluggish, unhurried pulse that felt like a starving beggar receiving a single grain of rice.

Its hunger was not satiated it merely simmered with unsatisfied irritation.

But still, he noticed as the refined essence settled into his dantian, the ambient qi circulating through the valley seemed to bend toward him with greater urgency.

The invisible pores along his meridians widened, drinking in the dense, medicinal air at a pace nearly thirty percent faster than before.

He opened his eyes and leaned forward.

With a tap of his foot, he channeled that energy from the World Tree into the dry stone beneath his heel.

Rustle...

From the barren cracks between the slate flagstones, vibrant green shoots of mountain grass violently sprouted into existence, uncurling their slender blades and spreading across the dead gravel in a matter of heartbeats.

Along with that verdant burst, a warm, subtle current of pure vitality washed through his body—his life force seems to extend too, adding perhaps several decades to his lifespan as his biological clock slowed under the primordial blessing.

”Not enough,” Tang Lin muttered, staring down at the patch of grass with a scowl. ”If I had absorbed all those herbs, I could’ve at least made the World Tree sprout a leaf or two.”

His chest tightened with agonizing regret.

A single leaf from the primordial World Tree was a divine treasure capable of defying the natural order of the cosmos!

A World Tree leaf has many magical effects depending on how you prepare it: steeped in heavenly spring water, it could cleanse a cultivator’s soul of karmic tribulations; burned as divine incense, it could grant profound enlightenment to break through insurmountable saintly bottlenecks; and consumed raw, it could reforge shattered dantians or grant an extra life when facing death!

And all of that boundless fortune had been stolen from right under his nose by that arrogant woman!

But then...

ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR—!!!!!

Without warning, a massive roar shook the heaven and earth!

The shockwave descended like an invisible avalanche, flattening the lush terraced fields below and sending boulders tumbling down the slopes.

Tang Lin even almost stumbled down.

His boots skidded across the newly sprouted grass as the mountain ridge pitched beneath him like a ship in a storm.

He threw his arm out, catching himself against a protruding spur of slate, his breath violently knocked from his lungs.

He turned and stared at the mountain.

High above the clouds, crowning the jagged apex where the temple stood, the air had ignited into an apocalyptic storm of violet fire.

Emerging from the sulfurous smoke and coppery miasma was the colossal silhouette of a massive western dragon.

The beast was a towering, primeval calamity easily hundred meters long.

Its body was heavily muscled and armored in thick scales of dark amethyst that seemed forged from condensed void.

Two colossal, leathery wings spanned over a hundred meters, their membranes dripping with streams of liquid violet fire that dissolved the surrounding stone like wax.

Its draconic head bore four backward sweeping horns, its slitted crimson eyes burning with ancient, territorial madness as a suffocating, soul crushing pressure cascaded down the thousand-tiered stairway.

And right beneath its massive, taloned forelegs, Tang Lin sensed the qi of the four disciples disappearing.

One by one, like fragile candles snuffed out in a hurricane, the spiritual signatures of Lu Feng and his three martial brothers flickered out into nothingness.

”That’s... that’s definitely the guardian beast of the inheritance site!” Tang Lin breathed, his pupils shrinking into trembling pinpricks. ”The beast Shen Tao couldn’t defeat!”

The horrifying rumors from his previous life rushed back into his mind with brutal clarity.

Tang Lin’s survival instincts violently seized control of his limbs.

’Run! Get to the gate before it notices me!’

Tang Lin immediately tried to retreat, spinning on his heel to sprint down toward the emerald threshold.

But at that moment...

He froze.

His spiritual sense, heightened by the World Tree’s awakening, picked up the steady, unhurried aura of Shen Ying ascending the steps.

She wasn’t fleeing, and she wasn’t concealing her presence. She was walking directly into the dragon’s maw with the casual, stoic indifference of a customer strolling into an empty market.

Tang Lin hesitated.

His boots remained rooted to the ground as a fierce conflict raged within his chest.

Should he retreat? Turn his back, preserve his breath, and settle for the scrap of extended lifespan he had scraped from the rocks?

Or take the chance that Shen Ying would fight that beast, and take the inheritance for himself?

’Shen Ying is a powerhouse of the Shen Clan,’ his mind calculated at breakneck speed. ’Even if she can’t kill that abomination, she will certainly clash with it! If they tear into each other, the guardian will be completely occupied! While they bleed on the summit, the cauldron temple will be unguarded! The pills, the divine scriptures, the inheritance of the God of Medicines... it will all be ripe for the taking!’

His thoughts only lasted a moment before he immediately bolted towards the mountain.

Concealing his presence, Tang Lin became an imperceptible blur, darting from boulder to boulder, ascending the crags along the blind side of the ridgeline.

*

*

*

At this moment, Shen Ying climbed the mountains, looking completely unconcerned despite staring at the massive dragon at the top.

Her hands were casually tucked into the deep pockets of her baggy, oversized gray robes, her boots clicking rhythmically against the steps.

The blistering heatwaves of violet flame rolling down the stairway singed the pine needles along the cliffs, yet as the sulfurous drafts reached her hem, they parted harmlessly around a thin, dormant membrane of cold spiritual qi.

Her eyes looked up at the roaring titan with the exact same deadpan, slightly bored expression she might wear when watching an annoying mutt bark behind a garden fence.

After a while, she arrived near the temple.

The grand plaza before the sanctuary was an arena of butchery.

Slabs of shattered celestial marble were melted into glass, and right at the center of the devastation, the massive dragon was chewing on the four disciples.

CRUNCH.

The beast’s massive, dagger-like fangs clamped down on Lu Feng’s torso with a sickening wet snap, grinding bone and cold-iron armor alike into crimson pulp.

Blood and severed limbs dripped from the corners of its scaly maw, sizzled into steam by the purple flames licking its gums.

Then, hearing the light, unhurried scuff of boots against stone, the beast froze mid-chew.

Its colossal neck turned with a mechanical jerk, its slitted, burning crimson eyes locking directly onto the slender woman standing thirty paces away.

It dropped the mangled torso into the dirt with a wet thud and growled at her, a subterranean rumble that rattled the teeth in her jaw.

And without warning, attacked!

BOOOOOOOM!

The guardian’s hind legs shattered the plaza flagstones as it launched forward like a purple comet.

Its massive, jagged tail whipped through the air, breaking the sound barrier with a deafening crack, sweeping toward her waist to cleave her in two.

Shen Ying’s eyes narrowed by a fraction of a millimeter.

She did not retreat. Instead, she took out a couldron and immediately filled them with herbs, heated them to until they destabilized and threw them straight at the dragon’s face.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

A concussive shockwave of scorching flame erupted directly against the dragon’s snout, staggering the beast’s momentum and deflecting the tail strike into the stone balustrade, obliterating fifty meters of carved marble into powder.

Before the smoke could clear, Shen Ying stepped backward onto empty air, her sleeves billowing as she fired several cauldron explosions in rapid succession!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Four massive spheres of hyper-compressed alchemical flames detonated across the dragon’s chest, throat, and wings.

The concussive blasts were powerful enough to level a city, but the guardian’s amethyst scales merely hissed, glowing with a brighter, deeper violet sheen that hungrily absorbed the elemental shockwaves.

ROOOOOOOOOAR!

Enraged by the stinging strikes, the dragon opened its cavernous maw, unleashing a roaring torrent of violet dragon fire that drowned the entire plaza in a sea of reality-melting heat.

Shen Ying’s stoic expression finally fractured into a sharp scowl.

”Annoying lizard.”

HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM—!

Then, with a clicked if her tongue, she summoned her Heavenly Flame.

ROOOAAARRR!

A magnificent dragon of pure, roaring crimson fire manifested behind her back.

With an earth-shattering roar, the crimson flame dragon surged forward, locking its flaming jaws around the purple dragon’s throat!

The two colossal behemoths collided mid-air, tearing into each other with apocalyptic violence.

Crimson fire clashed against abyssal violet dragon flames, turning the mountain peak into a blinding inferno that melted the statues of the temple into liquid slag.

Yet, the guardian’s vitality was bottomless.

As the crimson flame dragon clawed into its neck, the purple dragon did not even flinch, instead, its massive wings snapped forward, pinning the flame construct’s shoulders, while its razor-sharp horns drove straight through the crimson dragon’s chest.

CRACK-SHATTER!

The heavenly flame construct violently ruptured into a rain of dying sparks.

With the flame dragon dispersed, the purple beast lunged through the storm of embers, its colossal, scaled arm shooting forward with terrifying, blinding velocity.

BANG—!!!!!

The massive, iron-hard back of its taloned hand struck Shen Ying squarely across the chest.

Her protective qi barrier shattered like brittle glass under the sheer, titanic force.

Her slender frame was hurled across the plaza like a broken kite, crashing violently into the stone ground.

And in the end, she was slammed to the ground, skidding dozens of paces through the pulverized marble before coming to a halt at the edge of the crater, a thick cloud of dust and steam swallowing her motionless form.

Fifty meters away, hidden beneath the lip of a shattered retaining wall, Tang Lin was watching all of this.

His heart was hammering violently in his throat, a cold sweat drenching his palms.

’Even her Heavenly Flame was shattered! She’s finished! The gap is too wide—’

Cough.

A dry, irritated cough echoed through the thinning dust.

Tang Lin’s breath hitched as he watched the center of the crater.

Shen Ying slowly stood up, her oversized gray robes were scorched along the edges, torn at the sleeves to reveal smooth, unblemished milk-jade skin beneath.

Her long golden hair had spilled free, tumbling wild and loose across her shoulders.

She wiped a speck of dirt from the bridge of her nose with the back of her forearm, spitting a mouthful of gray dust onto the marble.

Her face was as deadpan, cold, and emotionless as ever.

”...this is why I hate fighting,” Shen Ying muttered, her low, gravelly voice carrying an unmistakable note of deep annoyance. ”Especially fights like this where we decide the victor through force... it makes me look like a brute.”

The purple dragon locked its crimson eyes onto her standing figure, baring its dripping fangs, and the dragon roared, preparing to dive for the final kill.

Shen Ying reached into her storage ring and took out her chained sickle.

The black abyssal iron clicked softly as she let the heavy chain unspool from her wrist, the serrated, curved blade dragging along the scorched stones with a harsh, metallic rasp.

She cast her eyes toward the surrounding peaks, her gaze sweeping over the empty clouds, and casually added.

”Since none of those guys are around, it should be fine, right? Just don’t go around spreading this... I don’t want any attention, after all.”

The dragon didn’t care for her words; it lunged forward, jaws wide enough to swallow her whole.

Just then, her Heavenly Flame roared!

The scattered embers of the crimson flame dragon did not fade into the earth—they violently converged back toward the plaza, swirling into an incandescent, roaring vortex of blinding fire that slammed directly into her back.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

A cataclysmic shockwave of draconic energy detonated from her very soul!

And just like that, Shen Ying underwent a terrifying metamorphosis!

Across her smooth, milk-jade skin, incandescent, dense flaming dragon scales rippled into existence, coating her collarbones, her ribs, and the contours of her waist in an impenetrable armor of living magma.

Around her legs, the fire condensed into towering, razor-sharp flaming dragon leg armor that dug into the bedrock, anchoring her frame.

Over her arms, the flames coiled and hardened into massive, clawed flaming dragon gauntlets that grasped the black sickle with effortless, bone-crushing grip.

From between her shoulder blades, a pair of majestic, thirty meter flame dragon wings erupted through the air.

And crowning her brow, sweeping backward through her wild golden hair, rose a pair of magnificent, curved flame dragon horns that burned with the authority of a fire dragon.

She stood amidst the crater, no longer a grumpy, baggy-robed alchemist, but an ancient dragon empress forged of living flame and violence.

Shen Ying tilted her horned head slightly, her pupils burning with incandescent fire as she twirled the black sickle in her gauntleted hand, looking at the charging beast with complete, chilling disdain.

”Now... let’s see how much medicine I can squeeze out of your bones.”