Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The heavy silence in the shattered forest stretched for what felt like an eternity.

Broken trees dripped sap onto the torn bark, and the residual ozone left in the wake of the ascending pillar of light hissed like dying serpents in the cold night air.

Xu Xiansu stood entirely motionless upon the branch, her knuckles, white as bleached bone, slowly regained their color as the blood began to circulate once more.

Her chest rose and fell in a sharp, shallow breath, her bangs casting a jagged shadow over her eyes.

Beside her, Xia Mengyao’s pupils remained wide, locked onto her companion with an expression of stunned bewilderment.

That signature, the interlocking resonance of primeval solar brilliance and eternal lunar stillness, had not been a mere echo or a clever counterfeit.

It was the undeniable pulse of Xu Xiansu’s soul, along with the hint of the Sun Moon Divine Physique, carrying an ancient density that even Xiansu herself had not yet fully unlocked in this lifetime.

At this moment, the lingering shock in Xu Xiansu’s orange irises vanished, burned away in a single second by a terrifying wave of righteous fury.

The delicate skin along her jaw tightened until a vein pulsed at her temple, her teeth grinding together with a harsh, audible rasp, her voice dropping into a low, venomous hiss that made the surrounding needles frost over.

”Damn it! I want to see just who is so bold as to impersonate me!”

To steal her unique movement technique was an insult that warranted severing a man’s limbs.

But to mimic the very frequency of her soul, to broadcast her divine physique’s origin across the sky like a mockery of her existence, and to use that authority to tear open the heavens and escape right before her eyes—it was a personal desecration of her pride and dignity.

She whipped her head toward her companion, her hair swirling like a tempest of moonlight around her shoulders.

”Mengyao, follow me! I won’t rest until I find those people!”

Xia Mengyao also turned serious and nodded.

The soft, somewhat naive demeanor she had carried when lost in the forest evaporated completely, her refined spiritual qi surging through her in an instant.

”Alright.”

At that, the two of them immediately rushed towards where Yan Xiao had disappeared.

BOOM!

The massive branch beneath their feet violently splintered as both women launched themselves into the firmament!

Xia Mengyao became a dazzling streak of radiant red light, her robes billowing like the wings of a celestial swallow as she carved through the upper air currents.

Alongside her, Xu Xiansu didn’t even rely on standard aerial footing; her eyes flared with golden and silver rings, the air around her heels folding inward, her speed pushing the sound barrier to its absolute breaking point as they chased the faint, burning scar across the horizon.

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Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of miles to the southeast, nestled within the jagged cliffs of a desolate, wind-scoured mountain range...

CRASH!

Yan Xiao suddenly collapsed inside a cave.

He tumbled across the jagged, damp limestone floor, slamming heavily into a cluster of ancient stalagmites before rolling to a stop against the rear wall.

His worn traveling leathers were thoroughly shredded along the seams, smoking with residual friction.

He was breathing heavily, a ragged, rattling gasps tearing from his scorched lungs.

Every single bone in his body felt as though it had been fed through an iron mill.

The catastrophic velocity of that sudden, involuntary flight had pushed his mortal flesh far past its structural threshold; his meridians were screaming in fiery agony, his muscles twitching with involuntary spasms, and a dark, coppery taste coated his tongue.

His vision blurred into a sea of swimming, pitch-black spots, the faint drip of condensation in the cavern echoing in his ears like distant thunder.

His trembling fingers reached toward his chest, clawing at the stone, before falling unconscious, the darkness claiming him entirely.

Time lost all meaning in the subterranean silence, marked only by the slow, rhythmic settling of dust and the gradual circulation of his battered dantian knitting his cracked ribs back together.

When he finally opened his eyes once more, the pitch-black cavern was bathed in the pale, blue light of a distant moon filtering through the narrow cave entrance.

His eyelids fluttered, crusted with dried sweat and grime.

Groaning in pain, with every joint in his spine popping with a dull ache, he slowly sat up and leaned his bruised shoulder against the rough stone.

He lifted his left hand, his gaze locking onto the weathered, dark metal band resting quietly on his middle finger.

The memory of that terrifying encounter in the forest rushed back with horrifying clarity: that merciless woman who had moved with impossible grace, the black dagger that had grazed his cheek, the absolute conviction with which she had chased him like a rabid dog... and above all, that face.

Yan Xiao eyes remained at his ring, his voice hoarse, trembling with confusion and desperate yearning.

”Master... that woman... why does she look like you?”

For three quiet heartbeats, the cavern remained still.

The cold mountain draft whispered across the mouth of the cave, stirring the hem of his torn trousers.

Then—

HUMMMMM—

A gentle, ethereal luminescence began to bleed from the setting of the ancient ring, following that, a wisp of spirit emerged from his ring.

The mist was not the chaotic, turbulent smoke of demonic phantoms, but a pristine, crystalline luminescence that shimmered like pulverized starlight.

It drifted upward in lazy, graceful spirals, gradually expanding, weaving together threads of ethereal essence until it took the shape of a breathtaking physical silhouette.

She hovered inches above the dirt floor, her semi-translucent figure draped in sweeping, flowing celestial robes of deep midnight blue and dawn gold, trimmed with delicate, shifting cosmic embroideries that mirrored the turning of ancient constellations.

Her long black hair cascaded down past her waist like a celestial river, swaying weightlessly in an unfelt draft, pinned with an ornate hairpin carved from what looked like a crystallized piece of the primordial moon.

Her facial structure, the sharp cheekbones, the straight, elegant bridge of the nose, and the proud, dangerous curve of the lips—was an exact, undeniable match to the girl who had tried to slit Yan Xiao’s throat hours earlier.

Yet the difference in their aura was as vast as the divide between heaven and earth.

Where the young Xu Xiansu in the forest was sharp, arrogant, cynical, and full of raw, biting venom, this spectral woman carried an unfathomable, timeless nobility.

Her presence was as deep as the primordial abyss, as unshakeable as an eternal mountain that had witnessed the birth and death of ten thousand universes.

In her glowing orange eyes, there was no petty anger, and no mortal petulance—only an ocean of ancient sorrow, boundless wisdom, and a chilling calm that demanded the unconditional reverence of all living things beneath the stars.

The spirit woman looked down at the bruised, bewildered boy sitting in the dust, her gaze softening into something faintly maternal, yet undeniably distant.

”Yan Xiao...” she whispered.

Her voice was an ancient melody, smooth as silk sliding over jade, carrying a quiet weight that seemed to soothe the lingering ache in his battered meridians with its mere resonance.

”Forgive me,” the spirit woman murmured softly, her translucent fingers gently reaching down, hovering just above his bandaged cheek without making physical contact. ”It is not yet the time for you to know.”

She paused, her ethereal eyes locking onto his dilated pupils with sincerity.

”But if you still trust me... know that I will not harm you.”

Yan Xiao stared at her for a few moments.

He looked at the face that had haunted his dreams, the mentor who had pulled him from the dirt of his minor clan, taught him how to circulate his qi, corrected his clumsy strikes, and guided him past the lethal traps of his home province without ever asking for a single coin in return.

She had been his anchor in an unforgiving world.

If she had truly harbored malice toward him, she could have possessed his body years ago or discarded him to the beasts the moment her seal was cracked.

He swallowed the dry lump in his throat, and nodded.

”I trust you, Master.”

Spirit Xu Xiansu smiled lightly.

The expression was subtle, delicate as the first blossom of a winter plum, yet it carried a radiance that illuminated the dark cavern with breathtaking warmth.

”Good. For now, rest. You still haven’t recovered. Your spiritual sea suffered from the sudden transition through the void-boundary. You will need your strength for the days ahead.”

Yan Xiao nodded, the lingering adrenaline finally draining from his limbs, leaving behind a heavy, leaden exhaustion.

He let out a long, ragged exhale, and slowly, he relaxed back on the walls of the cave and closed his eyes, his breathing gradually steadying into the deep, rhythmic cadence of healing slumber.

Once the boy’s consciousness had drifted completely into the quiet dark, the gentle smile on the woman’s face slowly faded.

Her translucent form drifted soundlessly across the cavern floor, passing through the jagged rocks as if they were made of morning mist.

The night wind whipped around the high cliffside outside, howling through the narrow fissures of the gorge.

In the far distance, across the vast expanse of the lower plains, the faint, residual shockwaves of multiple beasts rippled through the ambient spiritual qi.

Standing in the shadow of the entrance, thinking of Xia Mengyao and the young Xu Xiansu, a melancholic look appeared on her face.

Her translucent brows knit together in a quiet, painful contemplation, her eyes reflecting the pale moonlight that fell across the rocky threshold.

”That woman...” she murmured to herself, her voice a silent vibration in the spiritual plane.

Her thoughts drifted back to the fiery, arrogant girl in the forest—the younger version of her own flesh, wielding that black dagger with such sharp, clinical precision.

”She’s definitely one of Heavenly Dao’s dogs.”

A faint, self-deprecating sneer flickered across the spirit’s lips, only to be swallowed immediately by a deeper, more profound furrow of her brow.

”And although her soul is young... it seems to contain a profound amount of knowledge.”

She remembered the look in the young girl’s eyes right before the strike—the absolute certainty with which she had predicted the Spirit Ascension elder’s every movement, the way she had accelerated that dagger to ignite plasma, and the fury with which she had recognized the Sunshine Steps.

It wasn’t the instinctive talent of a sheltered prodigy, it was the hardened, calculating cruelty of someone who had lived through blood, someone who knew how the gears of fate turned.

”But... It’s not rebirth,” Spirit Xu Xiansu whispered, shaking her head slowly.

She knew the scent of a regressor all too well; a soul dragged backward through the river of time carried the foul, rotting stench of karmic friction and severed timelines.

That young girl’s soul was pristine, untainted by the rot of the temporal abyss.

”So could she have knowledge of an alternate future self?”

The concept was terrifying, yet within the boundless labyrinth of the primeval cosmos, entirely possible.

Her gaze shifted slightly, looking up toward the high firmament where the stars burned with indifferent brilliance.

”I wonder... is she with Haoran?”

The name was spoken with a delicate, fragile reverence that made her spiritual body shudder.

Shen Haoran.

The monster who had carried the weight of the cosmos upon his shoulders, the man whose shadow had eclipsed both the gods of the firmament and the transcendent immortals of the void.

In every timeline, in every shattered reflection of causality, their fates were inextricably bound together—whether as rivals locked in bloody stalemate, or as supremes marching side by side toward the end of the sky.

If that younger self was currently standing beside Haoran... then that boy, Yan Xiao, was in far greater danger than he could ever possibly comprehend.

”And Xia Mengyao...”

Spirit Xu Xiansu looked back toward the path they had flown from, a soft, wistful sigh slipping from her translucent lips.

”How nostalgic.”

The image of that auburn haired girl, standing loyally beside her younger self, brought an ache to her spirit that eternity had failed to dull.

Xia Mengyao had always been like that—stubborn, loyal to a fault, hiding a fierce heart beneath that polite, aloof exterior.

In the wars that had burned the world to ash, Xia Mengyao had stood on the front lines until her hands were stained with celestial ichor, refusing to take a single step backward.

”Not just her... They should all be here, right?” she whispered to the empty wind.

The Ten Crowns, that Flame Empress, that cowardly cat, all those fools who had dared to reach for the heavens.

Yes...they should all be here. After all, even in death, they are all together.

At that moment, her eyes became distant, as if thinking of a time, long forgotten.

In the fathomless depths of her ancient memories, the cold cave and the desolate mountain range faded into nothingness.

She saw once more the burning plains of the Prime Origin Realm—the sky torn in half by golden fire, oceans of celestial blood boiling beneath the clash of high gods and ancient immortals, and the towering silhouette of a throne carved from the sun, standing tall amidst the ruins of a broken universe.

She remembered the laughter, the shared wine, the vows carved into their very marrow before the heavens fell... and the terrible, crushing loneliness of being the only one left to sleep in the dark.

A single, translucent tear formed in the corner of her eye, dissolving into motes of pale, silver starlight before it could ever touch the stone.