Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

High above the jagged peaks near the Demonic Lotus Sect, the twilight sky was a bruised canopy of swirling violet and dull charcoal clouds.

The bitter, sulfuric mist rising from the vast marshlands below curled in wisps around the high-altitude air currents, reeking of ancient decay, poisonous miasma, and sweet, fermented lotus pollen.

Shen Haoran stood there on the sky using a flying silver sword, observing the massive gothic style city of the Demonic Lotus Sect.

The silver blade beneath his feet hummed with a quiet, sharp vibration.

It hovered perfectly stationary amidst the howling upper gales, anchored by the subtle, effortless gravity of his supreme cultivation.

Draped in his sweeping, midnight-black robes embroidered with nine-clawed golden dragons that seemed to slumber beneath the silk, Haoran looked down upon the sprawling metropolis with cold, calculating detachment.

His hands were tucked casually behind his back, his chiseled face seemingly carved from primeval ice, and his golden hair fluttered loosely.

His golden dragon pupils, glowing like twin miniature suns in the gloom, pierced through miles of defensive fog and ancient protective arrays.

He has to admit, the city below was a breathtaking, macabre marvel of gothic architecture.

It was carved directly into the sheer caldera of an extinct volcano, enclosed by towering ramparts of black basalt that bristled with iron-spiked battlements and gargoyle watchtowers weeping purplish alchemical fire.

Flying buttresses of dark stone arched across winding waterways where colossal, luminous violet lotuses bloomed upon the surface of the canals like floating lanterns.

Ribbed spires, needle-thin bell towers, and soaring cathedrals of stone reached toward the heavens like petrified, reaching claws, their lancet windows glowing with the sickly, seductive violet light.

Tens of thousands of demonic cultivators, guards, and enslaved servants moved through the paved avenues like scurrying ants, completely oblivious to the apex predator gazing upon their necks from the clouds.

Beside him, Shen Xun’er stood on empty space.

She did not require a flying sword or even a flying artifact. She just stood weightlessly upon the void as if the empty air were solid, polished crystal, her small feet lightly resting on invisible, folded dimensional planes.

Her robes billowed around her lithe, athletic frame, and her hair floated upward in defying ribbons.

Her eyes danced with vibrant, playful curiosity as she looked down at the spiked roofs, occasionally tilting her head to watch the spatial currents bend around her porcelain fingertips.

Just then, Haoran frowned, his gaze landing on a nearby forest.

His golden irises narrowed into two slits of lethal perception.

Three thousand kilometers to the north of the sect’s outer ramparts, past the primary defensive boundaries of the Sect’s protective array, lay a dense, shadowy forest.

The forest was an impenetrable thicket of black, metallic stalks that swayed stiffly in the wind, naturally dampening spiritual sound and masking scent.

To an ordinary divine sense, the woods seemed entirely empty, harboring only the sluggish, poisonous vipers of the marsh.

Yet, to Haoran’s perception, the spatial fabric woven between those black bamboo stalks carried an unnatural, rhythmic tremor.

Two points of concealment, disguised beneath high-tier, space-folding illusion formations, pulsed with familiar, unmistakable ripples of qi that doesn’t belong to this world.

”Xun’er, follow me,” Shen Haoran said as he flew towards the forest, with Xun’er immediately following after him.

The silver sword beneath his boots tilted downward.

With a single, silent slice of the air that bypassed the sound barrier entirely without creating a sonic boom, Haoran descended from the clouds like a falling black comet, tracing a flawless arc through the violet mist.

Behind him, Shen Xun’er took a single step forward; her silhouette flickered once, dissolving into a shimmering distortion of spatial ripples, re-manifesting effortlessly beside his shoulder with every leap of folded distance.

*

*

*

Down in the depths of the forest...

The black, metallic stalks rose fifty paces into the gloomy canopy, their sharp leaves clattering like iron plates in the damp breeze.

At this moment, two incredibly beautiful women were lounging upon a low, velvet covered divan they had casually brought out from their storage rings.

One of them has a long black hair and dark eyes with a voluptuous mature figure.

She was sprawled lazily across a mound of silk cushions, her cascading midnight-black hair pooled over her bare, milky white shoulders, framing a face of breathtaking elegance.

Her figure was full, dangerously voluptuous, with a narrow waist that blossomed into broad, intoxicating hips, all barely contained beneath a low-cut dress of translucent, red silk that revealed the deep, tantalizing swell of her porcelain chest with every slow breath she drew.

Her dark, almond-shaped eyes were half-lidded, heavy with an innate, intoxicating spiritual charm that made the surrounding air feel thick with musk.

This is Mei Mei, a peak Nirvana Rebirth realm and a senior of Su Xishi.

Beside her, seated with one shapely leg crossed over the other, was Ruo Lanlan, a fourth stage Nirvana Rebirth realm expert and another senior of Su Xishi.

Her wild, honey-brown curls tumbled in voluminous, messy locks around her sun kissed collarbones.

Her body was intensely curvaceous, possessing an athletic, predatory tightness that radiated raw, untamed vitality.

A sheer, sleeveless halter-top of dark saffron silk clung to her frame, parted daringly down the center to proudly display a detailed, indigo butterfly tattoo perched upon the upper slope of her plump right breast, its wings appearing to flutter with every heartbeat.

Below her left eye, a single, dark beauty mark added an intensely seductive, playful accent to her pouty, rose-petal lips.

”Ahhh, I’m truly going to die of boredom out here, Sister Lanlan,” Mei Mei purred, stretching her long, porcelain arms above her head, arching her back until her spine gave a satisfying series of soft pops, causing her sheer crimson silks to pull tantalizingly tight against her prominent bust.

She turned her dark, heavy-lidded eyes toward her companion, her tongue lightly tracing her upper lip.

”Do you think little Xishi will truly let us have our pick of the disciples once we take over? I was scanning the outer training grounds earlier... Did you see that young sword-attendant in the blue sash? The one with the pale skin, the broad shoulders, and that fierce, stubborn scowl? Heavens, looking at the way his thighs flexed when he swung that broadsword... I wanted to drag him straight into these bushes, strip his robes to his boots, and let him weep under my skirt until dawn!”

Ruo Lanlan threw her head back and let out a husky, breathless laugh, her curly brown locks bouncing wildly against her shoulders.

She tapped the butterfly tattoo on her chest with a manicured finger, her brown eyes flashing with unbridled, shameless lust.

”That skinny little bird? Sister Mei, your taste is getting so delicate! A boy like that would break in half the moment we start! If we’re claiming spoils, I want real meat! I saw the captain of the sect’s gate guard. Now that’s a man! Think about those sharp features, that rough, husky breathing... Ah, I want him to pin my wrists to the headboard and try to bite through my neck! I’ll drain him so thoroughly he won’t be able to stand on his two feet for three months! We’ve been starving in these wretched swamps for weeks; I need a man who can last at least nine rounds before begging for mercy!”

”Nine rounds? You greedy little hussy,” Mei chuckled, rolling over on her side and playfully pinching Ruo’s thigh. ”You’ll exhaust him to death before the second day! We must keep at least a few alive to clean the courtyards and pour our wine. If we drain them all into dried husks, little Xishi will surely scold us for making a mess of her new throne room...”

The two women giggled together, their wanton, shameless chatter filling the soundproofed barrier with the thick, cloying heat of their dual-cultivation desires.

RIPPLE.

Suddenly, the air directly above their divan violently parted.

There was no sound, no spiritual warning, and not a single ripple from their divine sense.

The space simply yielded like liquid water, and, following that, Haoran appeared.

THUD.

His boots lightly touched the mossy loam three paces from their couch, his tall, imposing frame seemed to absorb the ambient light, casting a long, terrifying shadow over the two lounging women.

Behind him, Shen Xun’er stepped out of empty space, her eyes scanning the two half-naked women with cool, emotionless appraisal.

”Kyaaaah?!”

Mei Mei shrieked, instantly scrambling backward across the silk cushions, her hands flying to her chest as her dark eyes bulged in panic.

Ruo Lanlan gasped, her qi violently flaring as she reached for the concealed daggers at her waist, ready to decapitate the intruder—

But then, their gazes landed on his face, and they froze.

Every single thought, every combat reflex, and every scrap of survival instinct evaporated from their minds in a fraction of a second.

Standing before them was not an elder of the Demonic Lotus Sect, or any other enemy they were expecting.

It was a man whose beauty was a terrifying blasphemy against heaven.

His sculpted features were carved from the purest celestial jade, sharp, aristocratic, and possessing an unyielding, sovereign majesty that made the highest emperors of the world look like beggars in the dust.

His golden hair drifted with grace, his robes rippled with living golden dragons, and above all, those eyes, fathomless, burning pools of incandescent golden dragon fire that looked down upon them with untouchable supremacy!

A suffocating, dizzying heat rushed straight from their bellies to their cheeks, their pupils dilated until they were nearly solid black, their breath catching violently in their throats as their cores began to spin in frantic, delirious, and uncontrollable resonance!

”Y-You are...”

Mei Mei’s voice broke into a trembling, breathless squeak, her hands dropped entirely from her chest, her robe falling loose, completely unconcerned with her exposure.

”Young Master Haoran?!”

In the next heartbeat, all dignity, all poise, and all pretense of being terrifying Nirvana Rebirth cultivators completely disintegrated.

”Young Master Haoran! It’s really you! Ahhhh! Heavens, it’s really you!”

Ruo Lanlan dropped her daggers straight into the dirt with a loud clatter, falling to her knees on the cushions, clutching her burning cheeks with both hands, her brown eyes practically spinning with pink, delirious hearts.

”You’re ten thousand times more magnificent in person! Look at those eyes! Look at that jawline! Master of the heavens, I think my soul are melting!”

Mei Mei threw herself forward, groveling at his boots with her voluptuous chest pressed against the moss, gazing up at him with unbridled, worshipful fanaticism, her voice thick with hysterical adoration.

”Young Master Shen! We have your portrait hanging in our private cultivation grottos! We recite your battle records before going to sleep! Please, step on me! Break my ribs! Cast a soul-seal on my forehead! Your humble maidservant will crawl on broken glass across three thousand worlds just to pour your morning tea!”

”Me too! Step on me first, Young Master!” Ruo Lanlan pleaded shamelessly, practically hyperventilating as she crawled to his side, looking up at his black boots with drooling, star-struck devotion. ”Forget those wretched disciples! Forget the entire world! If you want a furnace, take us! Take everything! Our blood, our souls—we’ll give you everything right now, right here on this moss! Ahhhh, he looked at me! Did you see that, Sister Mei?! He actually looked at my tattoo!”

Shen Xun’er frowned, her delicate brows knitting together in profound, disgusted distaste.

She looked at the two older women rolling in the dirt at her young master’s feet like starving dogs begging for table scraps, the tips of her fingers twitching with a sudden urge to fold the space around their necks and snap their spines.

But she did nothing.

She knew her Haoran’s temperament; if he had descended into these woods instead of incinerating them from the clouds, he had a purpose for these two noisy hussies.

Haoran stared down at them, entirely unbothered by the wild, undignified display of worship.

His golden dragon eyes held only a cool, faintly amused contempt, looking at them like an emperor looking at two groveling court jesters.

”You two are from the Immortal Coupling Palace, right?” Haoran asked, his deep, resonant voice vibrating through their sea of consciousness like an ancient bell, causing both women to let out simultaneous, shuddering moans of pure bliss.

”What are you two doing here?”

Hearing their god ask a question, the two women scrambled over each other, desperate to prove their loyalty, without holding back a single syllable.

”We’ll tell you! We’ll tell you everything, Young Master!” Mei Mei gasped frantically, shoving Ruo Lanlan’s face aside to speak directly into his hem.

”It’s Junior Sister Su Xishi! She’s currently hiding inside the Demonic Lotus Sect as their Saintess! She was captured five years ago, but she’s completely fine! She’s been playing the role of the obedient disciple while secretly plotting to overthrow the entire mountain!”

”Yes, yes!” Ruo Lanlan chimed in, eagerly nodding her curly head like a manic doll. ”She plans to turn the Demonic Lotus Sect into our permanent base of operations! Tomorrow night, when the full moon hits its zenith, she’s going to lock down the entire valley, capture Sect Master Da Xiaomi, seal her dantians, and purge all the opposing elders! She wants to seize the whole territory for our palace!”

Haoran listened, his eyes narrowing slightly as he processed the information.

Su Xishi... that cunning, ambitious little fox.

A slow, predatory curve pulled at the corners of his lips, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling chuckle that sent chills through the clearing.

”Sounds interesting.”

To turn an ancient, entrenched demonic sect upside down from the inside, cage them like cattle, and claim an entire territory in a single night—it was a bold, ruthless scheme that suited someone from the upper realm.

And the fact that she’s currently the Saintess...

It seems the board was far more convenient than he had originally anticipated.

He wouldn’t even need to waste his energy battering down the gates, he can simply follow up with her plan.

Haoran slowly turned towards Shen Xun’er.

The young maiden stepped forward, tilting her gaze up to meet his, waiting for his command.

”Xun’er, stay here,” Shen Haoran instructed, his tone smooth, commanding, yet carrying that subtle, familiar edge of impending amusement.

He then cast his eyes toward the towering, spiked obsidian spires of the cathedral palace rising in the distance, his smirk widening.

”I’ll be seeing that naughty fox for a bit.”