Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

A day later.

The subterranean air of the remote cavern was frigid, thick with the sharp tang of calcified stone, ancient moss, and the subtle, lingering trace of spatial displacement.

Deep within the winding crevices of the barren mountain range, the passage of hours possessed no warmth, marked only by the monotonous, rhythmic dripping of groundwater from the jagged ceiling into stagnant puddles.

Spirit Xu Xiansu stood there, hovering mid air, meditating, when she suddenly opened her eyes and frowned.

”Yan Xiao, let’s leave.”

The voice was not a gentle whisper brushing against the waking mind, but a sudden, urgent ringing that struck like an iron bell directly against his sea of consciousness.

The youth gasped, his eyelids flying open to reveal bloodshot pupils, his spine jerking against the rough limestone wall where he had been sleeping.

Before he could even blink away the morning grogginess, the luminous, ethereal phantom hovering before him dissolved into a ribbon of silver starlight and disappeared into his ring.

”Those two have already arrived.”

In her mind, Spirit Xu Xiansu couldn’t help but curse the luck of these dogs of heaven.

It was infuriating. The mountain range they had fled to was an uncharted labyrinth of shattered slate and dead veins, shielded by magnetic currents that should have scrambled even high-grade scrying artifacts or divination.

Any ordinary pursuer would have spent three weeks combing the canyons just to narrow down the sector.

Yet they had arrived in less than twenty-four hours.

That was definitely the sickening, manufactured tyranny of Heavenly Dao’s hounds.

”W-What?!”

Yan Xiao scrambled to his feet, stumbling over his own boots in his panic, his heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped beast.

”Master, can’t you just take care of them here?!” he whispered frantically, his voice cracking with exasperated, indignant hysteria. ”Why must we run?! You can easily take them on if you wanted to!”

Before, whenever he encountered danger, his master would always save him no matter what.

But now...

”Master, I don’t want to get chased around by these lunatics for the rest of my life!” Yan Xiao complained bitterly, his knuckles turning white, ”If she’s crazy enough to hunt me across the world, then she’ll never stop! End it here! Crush them, slap them down, and let’s get out of this cursed mountain!”

Spirit Xu Xiansu frowned deeply within the ring, her ancient consciousness stirred, an invisible wave of stern, chilling reprimand washing through his soul.

”Yan Xiao, it’s not that simple. Those two are—”

TICK.

The words were violently severed mid-syllable.

At that moment, the pale blue morning light filtering through the narrow entrance of the cave instantly drained away, replaced by an oppressive, lifeless monotone gray.

The dripping groundwater suspended itself mid-drop, hanging like floating glass beads between the stalactites.

The dust motes rising from Yan Xiao’s shuffling boots froze in the air, petrified into static grains.

The ambient wind whistling through the outer gorge died in a fraction of a microsecond, the entire valley choked into a terrifying, unnatural standstill.

And from the boundless void beyond the cavern walls, the rhythmic, hollow chimes of an invisible, primordial clock echoed directly within their souls.

TICK.

TOCK.

TICK.

Spirit Xu Xiansu instantly knew that Xu Xiansu had used her Physique to slow down time.

The Sun Moon Divine Physique.

The divine physique that held dominion over the flow of moments, reducing reality to an agonizing, glacial crawl while the wielder stepped freely through the frozen spaces of existence.

Within the ring, the spirit woman did not panic.

She had spent an entire lifetime mastering everything of that exact authority; she knew its weight, its reach, and its precise frequency down to the fundamental law.

But to think that it would actually be used on her.

She sighed.

The sound was heavy, laced with an ancient, melancholic weariness.

HUMMMMMMMMM—!

From the ring on Yan Xiao’s finger, an incandescent, translucent wave of silver and golden light burst outward.

Spirit Xu Xiansu enveloped Yan Xiao with her powers, casting a spherical barrier of inverted temporal refraction around his physical vessel.

The silver light resonated in perfect, counter-harmonic opposition to the external domain, completely negating the time dilation.

WHOOSH.

The oppressive, suffocating leaden weight pressing down on his chest vanished in a heartbeat.

The frozen air in his lungs rushed outward in a ragged gasp, his joints unlocking as normal momentum was forcefully restored to his flesh.

”W-What was that?!” Yan Xiao gasped, his knees buckling slightly, his eyes darting frantically across the gray, lifeless stone around him. ”Everything stopped! What hap—?!”

Before he received an answer—

SHIIIIIIIIICK!

A streak of pitch-black death tore through the gray air as a dagger immediately flew past his cheeks!

The blade whispered inches from his ear, so close that the atmospheric friction tore open the scab on his cheek, a fresh spray of crimson droplets exploding into the air before freezing instantly into floating red pearls.

THUD!

The dagger embedded itself three inches deep into the limestone wall behind his head, its pommel humming with a violent intent that aged the surrounding stone by three hundred years in a single second, turning the rock into brittle, flaky dust!

Yan Xiao froze.

His breath hitched in his windpipe, his pupils contracting into pinpricks of pure, paralyzing terror.

He didn’t dare move his neck by even a millimeter; the icy, killing intent lingering in the blade’s wake felt like a physical wire wrapped around his throat.

Then, stepping out from the petrified shadows of the corridor, Xu Xiansu and Xia Mengyao appeared at the entrance of the cave.

Xia Mengyao stood slightly behind, her robes pristine, her auburn hair drifting in the gentle draft created by her own protective aura.

Her deep blue eyes were wide, alert, and guarded, her slender hand resting firmly upon the white-jade hilt of her scabbard, radiating the disciplined vigilance of a seasoned swordsman.

Ahead of her, stepping across the frozen, gray dust of the cavern floor, was Xu Xiansu.

Her loose silky black hair hung straight past her waist like woven moonlight, completely undisturbed by the temporal stagnation.

Her vibrant orange eyes, burning with the interlocking, spinning wheels of the sun and moon, locked onto the boy standing against the wall with absolute, chilling disdain.

”You actually broke free from my time dilation,” Xu Xiansu narrowed her eyes, her melodious voice dropping into a dangerous clip that echoed off the frozen stalactites.

She took a slow, unhurried step forward, her embroidered combat boots making no sound against the rock.

The air around her frame rippled with subtle, distorting waves of heat and frost, the dual authority of her physique passively crushing the ambient qi into submission.

”You...”

Xu Xiansu halted five paces away, her gaze piercing straight through Yan Xiao’s body, searching every bone, every meridian, and every hidden corner of his spiritual sea.

”Just who are you, really?” Every single word fell like an iron weight into the freezing silence of the cavern. ”How do you know my Sunshine Steps? And why do you have an aura similar to mine, and even seem to possess the aura of the Sun Moon Divine Physique?”

Yan Xiao remained silent. His tongue felt like a block of dried salt, glued to the roof of his mouth.

He looked at the girl’s furious, haughty face, so stunningly identical to the mentor who had guided him through the dark, and felt a suffocating, dizzying terror that locked his vocal cords tight.

What could he say? That his master was an old soul living in his jewelry? That his master has the same appearance as her?

He had no answers himself!

The silence stretched, taut as a drawn bowstring ready to snap.

Xu Xiansu’s eyes flashed with lethal impatience, her right hand rising, fingers curving to summon another blade—

And, at that moment...

Haaaah...

A long, weary sigh echoed throughout the cave.

Then...

HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM—!

The gray, petrified space within the cavern suddenly shuddered.

From the ring on Yan Xiao’s trembling finger, a thick, luminous mist of pristine celestial starlight burst forth.

The light did not explode in violence; it unfolded with majestic, effortless grace, weaving together threads of primeval solar brilliance and eternal lunar ice, expanding outward until the gray temporal domain was gently, firmly pushed back three paces.

Finally, Spirit Xu Xiansu appeared, coalesced into the damp air, hovering inches above the stones.

Seeing her, both Xu Xiansu and Xia Mengyao were stunned.

Xia Mengyao’s jaw parted in complete, disbelieving shock, her pupils trembling violently as her hand froze atop her sword hilt. ”This... this is...”

Beside her, Xu Xiansu’s composure shattered entirely into dust.

Her posture hitched, her boots almost slipping against the gravel, her vibrant orange eyes went wide as saucers, staring at the spectral woman hovering before her as if the heavens had split open and dumped the dead upon the earth.

It wasn’t a family resemblance. It wasn’t an elder from her clan who shared branch genetics.

The woman before her was an older, more refined, and infinitely more profound version of her own self!

An older, mature self that looked as though she had weathered countless cosmic war, transcended the mortal plane, and looked down upon the universe with aloof detachment.

”You...”

Xu Xiansu stuttered, the cold certainty in her voice breaking into raw, incredulous bewilderment.

”Why... why do you look like me?!”

Her mind reeled in chaos. She had considered a spy using a scrying lens, she had considered a demonic beast skilled in illusions, she had even considered a demonic cultivator cultivating a cloning technique!

But this—a living, breathing divine soul carrying her exact face, her exact physique, and an aura that felt more authentic than her own marrow—defied every principle of cultivation she had ever comprehended.

Spirit Xu Xiansu didn’t answer the question.

She looked upon her younger self with an expression that held no anger, no resentment, and not even the slightest hint of competitive hostility.

In those ancient, ethereal eyes lay only an ocean of quiet sorrow—the look of an old traveler who had walked to the edge of the world and found only ruins, looking back upon the bright, untamed fire of the child she once was.

Her gaze shifted slightly toward Xia Mengyao, a flicker of fond, bittersweet warmth softening her brows, before returning to lock onto the younger Xu Xiansu.

”For my sake, can you let us leave?” Spirit Xu Xiansu spoke softly, her melodious voice carrying the heavy, crystalline resonance of an ancient empress, ”We promise not to interfere with you.”

The cavern fell into a suffocating silence.

For a few moments, Xu Xiansu stood entirely motionless.

She looked at the spectral form, she looked at the starlight woven into the robes, at the quiet sorrow in those eyes, and at the unmistakable, terrifying majesty that radiated from every pore of that spiritual vessel.

An alternate self?

A remnant from soul from the future?

A manifestation born from some temporal paradox?

The questions spun through her mind like a tempest.

In the grand, ruthless world of cultivation, two suns could not occupy the same patch of sky, and two emperors could not rule the same domain.

If this spirit truly possessed her face, her memories, and her divine physique, then her very existence was a threat to her own path to the summit.

Xu Xiansu stared at her only for a few moments before her eyes glinted with a hint of ruthlessness.

The hesitation in her orange pupils evaporated, replaced by the cold iron will of an apex predator.

She will never let a second her appear.

Not in this lifetime, and not in any timeline.

Her life, her Dao, and her ascension were unique, singular, and carved from her own will.

She would not share her face with a ghost, and she would not allow an unknown anomaly to wander through the world carrying her name, manipulating events from the shadows, or whispering secrets into the ears of common mortals.

If an alternate version of herself existed, then the cosmos was simply too small for both of them to draw breath!

Kill.

She must kill her.

Her fingers curled tightly, the silver and gold wheels in her irises accelerating into a furious, blinding blur, her right hand reaching behind her back toward the hilt of the concealed sword beneath her robes.

Watching the sudden, venomous flare of killing intent harden across the girl’s youthful face, Spirit Xu Xiansu sighed.

The sound was faint, dissolving into the freezing air like mist.

She knew what her younger self was thinking.

How could she not? She remembered that exact same burning arrogance.

She remembered that paranoid refusal to tolerate any shadow that threatened her supremacy.

She remembered the ruthless, uncompromising pride that would rather burn the heavens to ash than accept a single variable outside her control.

Looking at the young girl preparing to draw blade against her own future, the spirit woman slowly closed her eyes, the starlight around her shoulders beginning to burn with ancient, terrifying resolve.