Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Outside the Ye Heavenly City.

The quiet mountain clearing erupted into a boiling sea of pure silver fire.

The tall cedar tree behind them was shredded to fine dust before the sound of splintering wood could even reach the rocks.

”Die!”

Wei Zhingyi roared as she launched herself at Ye Fan!

The nine silver tails behind her back flared open like giant, burning scythes, each one larger than a mountain range.

The icy medicine that Haoran had shoved down her throat had frozen the dirty aphrodisiac, but it had also ignited the fierce, ancient fire of her celestial fox lineage.

The shame of being touched, the humiliation of almost tearing off her own garments for a scheming worm, drove every drop of her recovered spiritual strength straight to the surface.

Her pupils narrowed into razor thin slits of silver, her claws growing long, sharp, and translucent like polished cold jade.

She crossed the rocky distance in less than a heartbeat, her hand coming down with enough sheer, crushing momentum to split the earth down to its molten core!

Ye Fan’s face went chalk white. The hair all over his skin stood on end, his legs turning to jelly under the terrifying weight of a peak Heavenly Saint’s raw fury.

’System! Quick! Shield! Barrier! Defensive talismans, whatever it is, as long as it can save my life, just use them all! Protect me right now!’

Ye Fan desperately pleaded inside his mind, screaming at the top of his lungs, his teeth knocking together in frantic panic.

[Ding!]

[Emergency Defensive Protocols Engaged!]

[Deploying: Diamond Turtle Aegis!]

BOOOOM!

Wei Zhingyi’s palm crashed into a shimmering wall of barrier shaped like a turtle shell and glowed like diamond, which had snapped into existence barely an inch from Ye Fan’s trembling nose!

The air shrieked as a violent, blinding blast wave tore across the mountain ridge, vaporizing the surrounding cliffs, flattening three peaks in the far distance, and gouging a trench fifty fathoms deep into the bedrock!

The shockwave alone, radiating outward into the empty sky, carried enough brute force that if it had struck an open stellar field, ancient suns would have cracked and drifted apart into cold embers!

Yet the diamond turtle barrier cracked, and as Wei Zhingyi pulled back her arms, the barrier shattered into millions of fragments.

”Die!” Wei Zhingyi didn’t pause for a fraction of an instant, her eyes burned with wild, lethal intent.

’System!’ Ye Fan roared.

[Deploying: Golden Bell Talisman!]

A golden barrier materialized, surrounding Ye Fan protectively.

But Wei Zhingyi’s other hand whipped forward, her nine tails whipping through the air like screaming meteors, smashing into the barrier with an endless barrage of strikes!

CLANG! BANG! CRASH! BOOOOM!

Claws, tail-whips, and beams of silver lunar fire rained down like a relentless, catastrophic storm!

Each blow struck with the force of falling planets, hammering the golden bubble into the dirt, burying Ye Fan waist-deep into the crushed stone!

Then, with one final strike, the golden barrier shattered!

’Shit! System! More! Give me more!’ Ye Fan cried out, his voice hoarse, blood leaking from his ears and nose as the concussive force rattled his internal organs despite the magical protection.

[Ding!]

[Deploying: Nine Layer Earth Wall!]

[Deploying: Saint Grade Iron Ward!]

Layers of stone, steel, and light flickered on and shattered almost simultaneously!

But Wei Zhingyi was relentless. She tore through the Earth Wall with a single swipe of her claws, shattered the Iron Ward with a sweeping blow of her three left tails, and brought her heel down onto the Void Mirror, obliterating the spatial glass into sparkling dust!

She didn’t feel the pain in her cracked meridians, and she didn’t even care that her wounds were reopening, soaking her torn lilac robes in fresh crimson.

All she saw was the disgusting, rat-like face of the boy cowering beneath her boots.

”HOW DARE YOU HUMILIATE ME, HUMAN!? DIE! DIE! DIE! I WILL RIP YOUR SOUL OUT OF YOUR BODY AND SHATTER THEM INTO PIECES!”

Yet no matter how she screamed, Ye Fan was still safe for those chaotic moments due to the system.

But the downside is that he huddled like a beaten dog in the crater, his hands locked tightly over his skull.

However...

[Ding!]

[Warning! System Inventory Exhausted!]

[No further defensive items or skill available!]

[Activating Invincible Body...Negative]

[Cooldown on Invincible Body active: 23 hours remaining!]

The mechanical voice rang out like a death sentence.

Ye Fan froze, his eyes wide and vacant. ”No... wait... System, buy something! Take my points! Give me another shield!”

[Error: Insufficient Favorability Points. Purchase failed.]

CRACK!

The final defensive barrier around him shattered like cheap porcelain, the glowing fragments dissolving into thin air.

Wei Zhingyi stood right above him, her silver hair whipping wildly in the howling wind, her chest heaving with furious breaths.

Her right hand was pulled back, her five fingers curled into a lethal spear-hand coated in dense, swirling silver energy that hummed with pure, unadulterated annihilation.

She grinned at him, ”It seems you ran out of tricks, boy. Well, it’s time for you to die.”

Without hesitation, she thrust her hand, intending to pierce a hole through his chest and rip out his heart...but...

How could a protagonist die so easily?

The piercing wind of her strike was already carving bloody lines across his chest, peeling his skin back, threatening to crush his bones into red paste.

He could only close his eyes in despair.

’It’s over...’ Ye Fan thought, his bowels turning watery, his soul shivering in total, dark hopelessness. ’I survived a past life, got a system, thought I was going to rule the world... and I’m going to die in a ditch before I even reach the prime of my youth...’

He regretted it. He regretted his greed, regretted his arrogance, he regretted his haste...but, there is no medicine for regrets.

He waited for the cold steel of her claws to tear his throat open.

He waited for the darkness.

He waited for death to claim his soul once more...or perhap, death probably won’t be able to claim it if it was destroyed.

But...

RIIIP!

At that exact second, the empty space right beside his ear twisted like wet cloth being wrung out by two massive, invisible hands!

The fabric of reality tore open in a vertical, jagged slit, spilling out a suffocating, freezing aura of sharp iron that instantly froze the falling pebbles in mid-air!

Then, a voice resounded, low, dry, and heavy as a falling iron anchor.

”So this is where you are.”

CLINK.

A sound like two pieces of cold metal meeting echoed through the devastated crater.

Ye Fan slowly opened his eyes, trembling from head to toe, blinking away the sweat and blood stinging his lashes, and he instantly saw a majestic man standing beside him, grabbing Wei Zhingyi’s wrist.

The man stood firm and tall upon the jagged stone, dressed in weathered, plain brown robes tied with a rough hemp cord.

His face was aged, carved with deep lines like old granite, his grey beard stiff as wire.

He didn’t carry even a single blade in his hand, yet his entire frame gave off the terrifying, sharp presence of a divine sword that could pierce the firmament with a simple breath.

His rough, calloused fingers were clamped firmly around Wei Zhingyi’s slender, pale wrist, halting her lethal strike barely an inch above Ye Fan’s heart!

The terrifying silver energy coating her claws sputtered and died under his iron grip, unable to push forward even a millimeter!

”You... Sword Emperor!”

Wei Zhingyi’s eyes widened, but she quickly gritted her teeth so hard that fresh blood welled from the corner of her lips.

Her nine silver tails flared back in defensive panic, her pupils trembling with profound, bitter hatred.

The man who had chased her across three provinces, who had forced her to burn her life essence and shattered her meridians using that so called Ten Thousand Sword Domain of his.

She thought it’d be awhile before he can find her, yet here he was, standing right in front of her once more!

The Sword Emperor’s eyes were completely cold, looking down upon her battered, trembling form with indifferent disdain.

”Fox, I finally found you,” the old master spoke, his voice grating like an iron blade dragged across stone. ”You burned half your cultivation to jump through the void, thinking you could vanish like a wisp of smoke, but too bad. It seems my luck is better than yours. Now, hand over the item, or this time, you will not be able to escape.”

His fingers tightened slightly around her delicate bones, making the joint groan under the immense, crushing weight of a true Supreme Emperor.

Beside them in the dirt, Ye Fan fell down on his butt, breathing heavily, the feeling of death still lingering on his soul.

He sat flat in the dust, his hands splayed out behind him, his chest rising and falling in violent, ragged gasps.

Cold sweat completely drenched his clothes, pasting the coarse cloth to his shivering back.

He looked at the old man’s weathered brown robes, then at the furious fox woman whose claws had almost ripped his face off, his jaw trembling uncontrollably.

He had stepped halfway into the yellow springs of the underworld, his soul nearly severed from his flesh, saved only by the sudden arrival of an ancient monster who hadn’t even looked at him.

Fifty paces back, standing on the edge of the shattered cliff beneath the shadow of a broken boulder, Haoran watched the entire scene unfold with a calm, unhurried posture.

His hands remained tucked inside his pristine dark sleeves, his body leaning on a tree, eyes completely calm, as if the fight didn’t affect him even a little bit.

”Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk.”

A soft, mocking sound slipped from his lips, shaking his head slightly with quiet disdain.

”As expected, these protagonist’s luck is way too ridiculous.” He mused.

It was always the same tiresome pattern.

Whenever these heavenly fools ran out of tricks, whenever their cheap system items broke and the enemy’s knife was descending upon their necks, the heavens would twist themselves into knots just to throw a stray variable into the clearing.

An enemy’s enemy would conveniently drop out of the sky.

An ancient ruin would collapse.

A wandering master would coincidentally pass by to block the fatal strike.

The world seemed ready to bend its own rules backwards just to keep an unremarkable ant breathing.

Haoran looked at the brown robed Sword Emperor, sensing the sharp, unrefined sword intent rolling off the old man’s skin.

He recognized him, or rather, the Shen Clan held records of every Supreme that appears in Tian Yuan Empire, be they hidden or in public.

Among them, Sword Emperor was one of the most troublesome to handle due to being alone.

But he can’t believe that this lone Supreme, detached from the grand families, is arrogant enough to hunt down the mistress of a high palace over a buried relic.

Neutral forces are always the one no one can tolerate, because you never know when they will turn into your enemy.

The only reason he was tolerated was because he didn’t show any signs of disrupting the order...but now...

A small, dangerous smirk touched the corner of Haoran’s mouth, his golden pupils reflecting the moonlight.

”Well,” Haoran murmured softly, his voice barely a breath against the mountain wind, ”I guess it’s about time I get involved.”

With an easy, measured step, his white boots came down upon the shattered gravel, and he began walking toward the crater.