Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Hundreds of light-years away from the Ancient Heaven Star, the silent graveyard of the astral sea was an expanse where even light grew tired and time seemed to lose its forward march.

Yet, across this dead sector, the fabric of space itself was currently torn into thousands of jagged, weeping fissures.

Giant asteroids the size of mortal mountain ranges drifted as pulverized dust, incinerated by the microscopic aftershocks of a conflict that had barely begun before it reached its conclusion.

’Ten seconds.’

The Sun Moon Emperor thought grimly, looking at his dissolving spiritual body and stared back at Spirit Xu Xiansu.

His chest, his arms, and his legs were turning translucent, breaking apart into countless tiny motes of spiritual light that drifted aimlessly into the cosmic dark.

Ten seconds.

That was all it took for Xu Xiansu to completely crush him, making him unable to even fight back.

It had not been a grand war of attrition.

There were no thousand-move exchanges, no prolonged clashes of cosmic domains, and no grand displays of secret arts.

The moment their forms had crossed the boundary into outer space, she had merely raised her hand, and with a single, languid gesture of her index finger, she had completely rewritten the reality around him.

His battle techniques had shattered upon impact with her casual authority, treating his understanding of the universe like the crude scribbles of an infant.

She had stepped through his defenses, gently placed her palm against the center of his spiritual chest, and detonated a frequency of pure, transcendent cosmic unraveling.

The whole fight—if it could even be called that—didn’t even last more than ten seconds!

’Strong. Too strong.’

He was shocked beyond belief, after all, even though he’s just a soul, he is still at the peak of Immortal Emperor realm, while this woman was just half step away from breaking through.

Technically speaking, she is still at the Immortal Emperor realm.

Yet the difference in their power was too vast... And just like she said, it was like heaven and earth.

’What a fool, I am.’

The peak of the Immortal Emperor realm was a magnificent mountain peak, certainly, but that final half-step she occupied was like a boundless firmament looking down upon the mountain itself.

A rueful, self-deprecating smirk tugged at the corners of the emperor’s fading lips.

”Man, this soul is already a goner,” Sun Moon Emperor shook his head, the movement causing his jawline to fracture into glittering golden embers.

He was not bitter. This was just a fragment soul he had left behind inside the foundation of the Sun Moon Refinement Tower to guide whoever is lucky enough to inherit them.

And to witness someone who shared his physique reach such an unthinkable height was, in a twisted, paradoxical way, the greatest honor a master could ever ask for—even if she was the alternate self of his disciple, and even if she had killed him in her own timeline.

He steadied his fading sight, looking into Spirit Xu Xiansu’s fathomless orange eyes that carried the cold sorrow of an extinct universe.

”Tell me, is there a name for the realm beyond Immortal Emperor? And are there someone who already are at that stage.”

It was the final, lingering obsession of a soul who had dedicated his entire existence to the pursuit of the summit.

When one stood at the peak of all known cultivation and looked upward into the void, the only question that mattered was whether there was truly another stair.

Spirit Xu Xiansu hovered in the astral void, her robes drifting without weight, completely pristine and untouched by the clash.

She was silent for a moment, the starlight in her eyes turning still, before answering.

”It’s called Primal Origin,” she spoke, her voice carrying across the airless void through the fundamental vibration of the cosmos. ”Yes, it’s base of the name of this realm.”

The emperor’s fading eyes widened slightly, a profound, chilling epiphany washing through his crumbling consciousness.

”As for those at that level, I only know two,” Spirit Xu Xiansu continued softly, her gaze drifting toward the boundless dark between galaxies. ”The other one, I’m sure you already know. And the last one—!?”

She never finished the sentence.

SNAP.

Spirit Xu Xiansu suddenly stumbled.

An invisible, catastrophic shockwave ruptured through the metaphysical cord that connected her spectral form to the lower plane.

Her ethereal starlight robes violently flickered, turning translucent in an instant.

Thousands of glowing silver-blue motes of soul energy began peeling away from her skin, violently sucked downward toward the distant speck of the Ancient Heaven Star like water pulled down an open drain.

Her connection to reality was unraveling at breakneck speed; the anchor that tethered her alien, transcendent soul to this timeline was buckling under an irreversible termination!

”Damn it. Did the kid die?” Spirit Xu Xiansu whispered in annoyance, her composure cracking into sharp, bitter irritation.

She knew the rules of the planar boundary better than anyone.

Without Yan Xiao drawing breath, the karmic contract that allowed her to exist within this timeline was severed.

Heavenly Dao’s cosmic immune system was descending upon her like a trillion invisible crushing hammers!

So without finishing her words to Sun Moon Emperor, she immediately flew back down to Ancient Heaven Star!

BOOM!

She became a descending streak of dying starlight, plummeting through the astral void, breaking light-years of distance in desperate, burning leaps to reach the surface before her soul was completely consumed by the void.

Sun Moon Emperor blinked, watching her frantic streak of light tear through the darkness.

He chuckled softly, before deciding to follow after her to witness the conclusion—

Crack.

But before he could move, his spiritual body also crumbled, his torso turned to dust, his arms scattered into golden sparks, and the last vestiges of his ancient will dissolved into the silent astral sea.

He can only sigh and hope that his disciple is going to be fine.

With that final, protective thought, the great Sun Moon Immortal Emperor vanished entirely from the cosmos.

*

*

”

Down below...

The narrow, mist-shrouded gorge in the secluded mountain range was painted in fresh, steaming crimson.

SHICK.

Xu Xiansu pulled out the dagger, and the blade was dragged backward through the flesh with merciless precision.

A gruesome fountain of dark, arterial blood sprayed across the damp limestone rocks, hissing as the lingering temporal decay on the steel burned away the vitality of the droplets.

”Guh... HAAAHK!”

Yan Xiao coughed up a mouthful of blood spilling over his chin and soaking the collar of his shredded traveling leathers.

His legs gave out completely as he stumbled forward, his knees slamming into the wet dirt, his trembling hands clawing at the open, gaping hole in his chest where his heart had been cleanly severed in two.

Every breath pulled agonizing fire into his punctured lungs.

Yet, through the blinding haze of his death throes, pure, venomous hatred surged through his veins.

With the last scrap of his fading vitality, Yan Xiao turned and glared at Xu Xiansu.

His bloodshot eyes bulged from their sockets, his teeth stained completely red, his mouth opening to spit a dying man’s eternal, soul-searing damnation upon her head.

”You... you soulless, psychotic bi—”

SWISH.

A cold, horizontal flash of black steel whispered through the air before the word could leave his tongue.

Xu Xiansu reacted quickly and severed his head!

THUD.

The head separated cleanly from the neck, spinning twice through the mist before tumbling into a muddy puddle, his lifeless eyes still locked in that grotesque, hateful glare.

Before the fountain of blood from the severed neck could even reach its peak—

SHRRRRR-CLACK!

Xu Xiansu’s arm blurred a second time, dragging the dagger vertically through the collapsing torso, before cutting his body in half!

The two halves of the boy’s corpse collapsed into the dirt with a wet, heavy thud, splashing mud and blood across the hem of her boots.

Xu Xiansu flicked her wrist, sending a single line of blood snapping off the blade onto the stones.

Her orange pupils, burning with the rotating sun and moon, looked down upon the mangled remains without a shred of pity, guilt, or remorse.

”I don’t like being cursed at by a dying man,” she whispered, her voice as smooth, cold, and flat as a winter lake.

Standing five paces away, her sword still dripping with faint traces of violet sword qi, Xia Mengyao slowly lowered her weapon.

Her hair blew across her pale face, her deep blue eyes wide as she stared at the sudden butchery that happened before her.

Even after years of training in the cutthroat environment of her sect and the academy, Xu Xiansu’s brutality always managed to send a sharp, cold shiver down her spine.

”Xiansu, is everything alri...”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Before she could say anything, the sky above the ravine violently shattered!

A deafening, atmospheric sonic boom split the clouds wide open as the dense mist choking the gorge was instantly vaporized by a descending shockwave of pure, blinding celestial starlight.

Spirit Xu Xiansu descended behind them and landed upon the shattered stones without a sound, but the impact of her arrival bowed the trees for miles around.

CLANG!

Xia Mengyao immediately snapped her sword upward, her sword intent flaring to its peak, while Xu Xiansu pivoted on her heel, her dagger raised in a reverse grip, prepared to unleash a desperate, life-or-death struggle against their opponent..

Before they could speak, they immediately noticed her crumbling spiritual body.

The terrifying immortal who had stepped into outer space a few seconds ago was coming apart at the seams.

Her legs were already half-gone, dissolving into a shimmering, drifting cloud of silver-blue motes.

The right side of her collarbone was entirely translucent, exposing the hollow, fading light of her spiritual core.

The karmic backlash of Yan Xiao’s death was consuming her from the roots; without an anchor, the entire fabric of this world’s Heavenly Dao was violently rejecting her existence, erasing her from the timeline with brutal, systematic efficiency.

Yet, despite her physical unraveling, her face held an expression of pure, suffocating wrath.

”You...”

Spirit Xu Xiansu slowly walked towards Xu Xiansu, struggling to even lift her legs as she was slowly dissipating.

Her boots dragged heavily through the mud, each stride an agonizing battle against the invisible gravity of the world’s rejection.

Her hair whipped frantically in the rising winds of her own demise, her orange eyes blazing with an ancient, terrifying fury.

”Do you know what you have done!?”

Her voice was not loud, but it carried the apocalyptic weight of a collapsing universe!

HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM—!

Even in her dying, dissolving state, the sheer aura that she possessed caused the two girls to be unable to move!

CRACK!

The limestone flagstones beneath Xu Xiansu and Xia Mengyao’s boots pulverized into dust.

The sheer, unfathomable density of an Immortal Emperor who was half a step beyond transcendence pressed down upon their shoulders like ten thousand falling stars!

Xia Mengyao’s knees violently buckled; she fell to one knee, her sword driving into the dirt to keep her chest from smashing against the stone, her breath entirely knocked from her lungs as blood leaked from the corners of her lips!

Beside her, Xu Xiansu stood with her spine bowed, her teeth clenched so hard they cracked, her muscles tearing beneath her skin as she fought with every drop of her Sun Moon Divine Physique to remain upright.

But it was completely futile!

They were completely suppressed!

They were ants pinned beneath the falling palm of an ancient sky.

A single stray flicker of that dying soul’s killing intent was enough to freeze their blood, paralyze their meridians, and bring their sea of consciousness to the very brink of collapse.

Spirit Xu Xiansu took another heavy, dragging step forward.

She raised her right arm, her translucent fingers curling into a claw, reaching out toward the younger girl’s throat—aiming to crush the life from this arrogant, short-sighted reflection of her past before the void could swallow her whole!

She reached out—

PZZZZT.

But the moment she touched Xu Xiansu’s collar, the moment the conceptual boundary between their two souls aligned...

...Her entire arm vanished!

The right arm, from the fingertips all the way to the shoulder joint, dissolved into a burst of harmless, glittering starlight, disintegrating into non-existence without leaving behind a single trace of kinetic impact.

The spectral woman froze.

Her empty shoulder drifted with faint, dying sparks.

She stared at it.

She looked down at the empty space where her arm had been, staring at the glittering dust drifting into the damp mountain breeze.

Her furious eyes slowly dimmed, the towering wrath draining away like water through cracked porcelain.

She closed her eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath of the mortal air—an air she had not tasted in three million years—and sighed.

It was a long, tired, and profoundly melancholic sound that seemed to carry the sorrow of an entire epoch.

And just like that, the oppressive aura that enveloped Xu Xiansu and Xia Mengyao vanished.

GASP! COUGH!

Xia Mengyao collapsed completely against the dirt, gasping for air like a drowning maiden pulled from the deep, clutching her bruised ribs as the suffocating pressure lifted.

Xu Xiansu staggered forward two paces, her dagger trembling in her slick, sweaty grip.

Her chest heaved in ragged, shallow spasms, wiping a smear of blood from her own chin, her vibrant orange eyes locked onto the crumbling spirit before her.

She saw it clearly now: the woman had a short moment left before her soul was wiped from the universe.

The fear that had briefly tightened Xu Xiansu’s throat evaporated, instantly replaced by that cold, insatiable, and shameless opportunism that defined her very nature.

She stared at her, stepping boldly forward, her voice sharp, demanding, and utterly devoid of reverence.

”You are disappearing.”

She tilted her chin, gesturing with the tip of her dagger toward the dissolving torso.

”Before that, can’t you give me all your knowledge? It would be a waste, don’t you think?”

It was the ultimate, brazen audacity belonging to that of a demonic cultivator.

Standing before her own dying, transcendent future self, and her first and only thought was to strip the spirit clean before the light went out.

But...it’s understandable.

If she could claim even a single drop of that grand legacy, her path to the apex would be cleared of all obstacles.

Spirit Xu Xiansu looked at the younger girl’s greedy, smug, and ruthlessly practical face.

She saw the untamed fire, the venomous self-interest, and the refusal to care for anything that did not serve her own ascension.

It was so breathtakingly familiar. It was like looking directly into an old, cracked bronze mirror from a lifetime she had tried so hard to forget.

Spirit Xu Xiansu shook her head, a faint, bitter, and sorrowful smile curving her remaining translucent lips as she sighed once more.

She then let her fading silhouette slowly sink down, sitting weightlessly upon a moss-covered boulder amidst the damp mist and falling leaves.

She looked into the eyes of the child she once was, her voice dropping into a soft, ancient whisper.

”Girl, would you like to listen to an old tale of mine?”