Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The cold night wind swept across the shattered mountain plateau, carrying the smell of ozone, burned rock, and wet copper.

”Apologies, young master.” Qing’er knelt down before Haoran.

Her knees struck the sharp, cracked gravel with a quiet clatter, her tight black silk garments were torn along the sleeves and collar, showing bruised, pale skin beneath.

Her hands, scraped raw and trembling from the violent impact of the Sword Emperor’s palm, were pressed flat against the dark earth.

Her head was bowed so low that her forehead nearly touched the dust, her black hair spilling over her face to hide the bitter shame burning in her eyes.

She felt useless. Every time a stronger opponent appears, she can provide no help to her young master.

She was an elite shadow guard bred from the secret training chambers of the Shen Clan.

She had survived venom pits, climbed out of mountains of iron spikes, and endured decades of ruthless discipline so that she could be a lethal blade in the dark for the direct lineage.

Yet, in front of ancient monsters whose cultivation spanned thousands of years, her speed, her shadow arts, and her twin weapons were brushed aside like falling leaves.

Against a true Supreme Emperor, she had been swatted down into the dirt, forced to watch her young master step into the fray to handle matters with his own hands.

That bitter taste of helplessness sat on her tongue like bitter ash.

”It’s fine. Get back inside my shadow and recuperate.” Said Haoran, patting her head.

His voice was calm, steady, and devoid of the cold anger that usually accompanied failure in the high clans.

His pale palm came down gently upon her dark hair, his fingers smoothing away the fine grit clinging to her crown.

To him, an enforcer was only expected to handle matters within their realm; expecting an Earthly Saint shadow guard to stand against a three thousand year old wandering emperor who had bathed in the blood of saints was an unreasonable standard.

Qing’er lowered her head even more, her shoulders shook with a silent, sharp breath.

There has never been any time of her life had she wished for more power.

She wanted strength that could cut through fate and karma, strength that could split the heavens, strength that could ensure her young master never had to soil himself or draw his own weapon against trash that dared cross his path.

She clenched her fist, her fingernails biting deep into her palms until droplets of crimson welled up.

Then, the black pool on the dirt beneath Haoran’s feet rippled once, pulling her slender form into the cool, silent depths of his spiritual domain, where the dense medicinal herbs and vital dragon essence within his body could slowly knit her torn channels back together.

Haoran straightened his back, his black and gold robes settling neatly around his tall frame.

Then, his figure blurred into a single, sharp line of light, skipping across the broken mountain ranges in great leaps that disregarded the jagged terrain below.

Within a minute, he crossed the scorched wilderness, descending onto the desolate border basin where the sky itself seemed to be groaning in agony.

The air above the basin did not behave like normal atmosphere.

It bent, folded, and twisted like clear syrup stirred in a hot cauldron.

Massive ripples of dull, muddy grey light pulsed outward from an unseen center, grinding the falling raindrops into steam before they could touch the rock.

The natural laws of the world—the wind, the light of the moon, and the subtle currents of spiritual qi—were all being rejected, cordoned off by an iron wall of pure conceptual will.

Inside that opaque, churning dome of twisted void, two powerful life-forces flickered: one violent and surging with furious slaughter, the other dim, ragged, and fading fast.

Haoran touched the distorted space.

Zzzzt!

A sharp, grating vibration struck his skin the moment his fingertips pressed against the invisible boundary.

It was not a physical barrier; it was thousands of microscopic threads of sharp sword intent woven into a dense, interlocking lattice.

The surface shoved his hand back with heavy, concussive force, spitting pale grey sparks that attempted to slice into his flesh, warning any outsider that this pocket of reality belonged entirely to the master of the blade.

Haoran’s eyes narrowed into cold, calculating slits as a low, mocking hum slipped from his throat.

”Azathoth... open a path for me.”

The obsidian Tang Dao flared with a deep, bottomless darkness that seemed to swallow the gray sparks whole.

Upon his brow, the vertical seam split wide, revealing a brilliant, radiant pupil of molten celestial gold that burned through the illusions of the void, laying bare the structural knots and pressure points of the surrounding array.

With a smooth, downward stroke of his arm, the black blade carved a straight, vertical line through the barrier.

*

*

*

Inside the Ten Thousand Sword Domain, Sword Emperor had pinned down Wei Zhingyi on the ground with dozens of swords, she was barely even conscious.

The world inside was a desolate, infinite graveyard of rusted iron.

Underneath a sky of perpetual grey smog, countless blades—longswords, broadswords, curved scimitars, broken daggers, and heavy cleavers—were thrust into the barren, red dirt like markers on an endless battlefield.

The air hummed with a terrible, ear-splitting metallic shriek, thick with the smell of old rust and clotted blood.

In the center of this blighted expanse, Wei Zhingyi was pinned flat against the crimson earth.

Her limbs, her sleeves, and her nine magnificent tails were nailed to the bedrock by dozens of broad iron blades driven deep through her meat and bone.

Her pale lilac robes were torn to wet ribbons, drenched in dark red that pooled around her broken spine.

Her nine silver tails, scorched black and limp, twitched with faint, weak spasms, their majestic luster smothered under layers of soot and dirt.

Her eyelids fluttered, heavy as lead, her breathing a wet, shallow wheeze that sounded like an empty bellows.

”The treasure... Give it to me!” Sword Emperor roared, twisting a sword stabbed to her chest.

SKRRRR!

He grabbed the hilt of a rusty shortsword driven through her right shoulder blade, grinding the jagged steel against her collarbone and rib with cruel, deliberate force!

Wei Zhingyi coughed up a mouthful of blood, the warm crimson spraying across his grey leather boots and the dirt, but just grinned weakly at him, ”If... You’re... A man... Kill me!”

Her cracked, swollen lips parted in a bloody, defiant sneer.

Her silver eyelashes, wet with sweat and tears of pain, trembled as she glared up into his one working eye.

She is Wei Zhingyi, she had maintained the pride of the celestial fox bloodline.

She had walked through the sea of human sins without letting her spirit bend to greed, lust, or fear.

Even if her cultivation was shattered, even if her bones were turned to gravel, she would rather have her soul ground to ash than bow her head to a thieving vagabond who lived like a stray dog.

”You think I don’t dare!”

Sword Emperor raised his hand, and amongst the infinite swords surrounding them, one serrated blade flew towards his hands.

CLANG!

A seven-foot-long, double-edged saw-toothed broadsword tore itself from a mound of grey gravel thirty paces away, whistling through the smog before settling firmly into his remaining left hand.

The serrated teeth along the edge were dark brown, caked with the dried, ancient marrow of hundreds of cultivators who had died screaming beneath his boots.

”Let’s see how long you can endure!”

His eyes burned with cold, rabid cruelty as he raised the serrated blade high above his shoulder, aiming the jagged teeth directly at her exposed throat, intending to saw through her flesh inch by inch until she reveal where she hid the treasure!

Wei Zhingyi remained silent, as if she had long since accepted her death.

She let her heavy head fall back against the cold stones, staring up into the endless grey ceiling of the domain.

Her eyelids closed slowly. The blinding pain in her chest seemed to recede into a dull, distant numbness.

She felt no fear of the dark river waiting for her on the other side.

She just felt sorry for her disciples once she’s gone.

Images of her young disciples back at the Immortal Coupling Palace drifted across her fading mind, especially that the little fox girl who ran through the plum blossom orchards and the maidens who had trusted her to shield them from the depraved sects of the upper realm.

Without their palace Mistress, without a 9th Stage Heavenly Saint holding the grand defensive banners, those wolves and hyenas would descend upon the mountain within days, tearing her home to pieces and chaining her precious girls into furnaces.

’Forgive me...’ she wept silently, a single drop of clear water sliding from her temple into the dirt. ’Master cannot protect you anymore...’

Just then, just as Sword Emperor was about to stab her, the space suddenly shattered behind, and a sword pierced through his back to his chest.

CRACK-SHING!

The grey fabric of the domain blew open like brittle porcelain!

Before the old swordsman’s arm could complete its downward swing, a cold, obsidian edge punched straight through his spine from behind, bursting through his sternum in an explosion of splintered bone and black, necrotic smoke!

”Guh!?”

The Sword Emperor’s breath choked in his throat.

His eyes widened to the size of saucers, his muscles freezing solid as a foreign, pitch-black cold rushed through his upper channels, freezing his blood and shocking his spiritual core!

Turning around, Sword Emperor saw a scene he will never forget.

The space of his supreme domain, an independent realm woven from three thousand years of refined intent that should have been impenetrable to anyone beneath the level of a True Monarch, had a colossal, jagged hole torn into its side.

The edges of the spatial tear were smoking with dark purple fire, unable to seal shut.

Haoran grabbed the shattered space and forced it open, his fingers were dug directly into the raw, fractured seams of reality, peeling the thick dimensional fabric apart as if it were a layer of rotten leather!

His golden hair whipped wildly in the violent draft, his robes pristine, his golden third eye blazing with ancient, sovereign light as his face squeezed through the gap, bearing a wide, mocking smirk that radiated pure, untouchable arrogance!

”Hey... it seems like you haven’t trained any technique to harden your body. How careless of you, Emperor.”

Haoran’s voice was smooth, light, and mocking, dripping with effortless disdain as he stepped fully onto the rusted ground of the domain.

”You... How!?” Sword Emperor demanded.

His hoarse roar cracked with uncomprehending shock.

Even though he was caught off guard, a mere Spirit Ascension shouldn’t be able to injure him.

The gap between a junior in the Spirit Ascension realm and a Supreme Emperor was wider than the distance between an ant crawling on a pebble and an eagle soaring through the clouds.

An emperor’s physical frame, even without specialized body-tempering arts, was tempered by thousands of celestial lightning tribulations!

Common spirit swords would shatter into dust upon touching his bare skin, and even high-grade saint treasures would barely leave a white scratch on his ribs.

Yet this dark blade had punched through his back as easily as an iron spit piercing a piece of roasted duck!

Was it the sword? He felt a very strange power from it.

The blade was not of this world; it was made of an obsidian metal that seemed to drink in the surrounding light, an ancient edge that carried the suffocating weight of an endless abyss, drinking in his life-force and gnawing on his soul through the open wound.

Or... it could also be that third eye... or maybe both.

The vertical golden pupil burning upon the Haoran’s forehead gave off an ancient, primeval light that seemed to pierce through every protective ward, every structural secret, and every flaw in his defensive aura, turning the dense flesh of a Supreme into transparent paper.

SHK.

Haoran wrenched Azathoth backward, tearing the black steel free from the old man’s spine.

HISSSS.

A terrifying surge of supreme life-force erupted from the old monster’s core!

Even with only his left arm remaining, an emperor’s regenerative vitality was monstrous.

The gaping hole through his chest smoked as flesh, muscle fibers, and cracked ribs knitted together at a speed visible to the naked eye, sealing the wound shut in less than two breaths, though his breath came out noticeably heavier and his aura dimmed by a fraction.

Sword Emperor turned his body around and grabbed Azathoth, staring straight into Haoran’s eyes.

His left hand shot out with blinding, desperate speed, his calloused, blood-soaked fingers clamping directly around the razor-sharp obsidian edge of the blade, ignoring the dark void-fire that began to sizzle and bite into his palm!

He leaned forward, his eyes bloodshot, wild, and burning with the rabid, unhinged fury of an ancient wolf that had been backed into a corner by a young hunter.

The distance between their faces was barely a foot, his ragged, hot breath smelling of old rust and iron as he stared straight into those mocking golden eyes.

”You... You will pay for this...”

The words tore out from the old master’s throat like gravel ground between millstones, vibrating with three thousand years of murderous vengeance.