Villain: Manipulating the Heroines into hating the Protagonist

Chapter 937: Looting The Scripture Hall Entirely

The heavy stone door of the maintenance tunnel sealed behind them, leaving the ruined, barren medicinal garden in the dark. Wang Jian and Sect Mistress Lianhua emerged back into the cool night air of the sect’s interior.

They moved like shadows, hugging the tree line.

”Now,” Sect Mistress Lianhua whispered, her voice barely audible over the rustle of leaves. She pointed towards a grand, multi-tiered pagoda structure in the distance, glowing faintly with defensive runes. ”The Scripture Hall. The legacy of our sect’s knowledge. Every pill recipe, every cultivation technique accumulated over a thousand years is in there.”

Wang Jian nodded. He pulled her closer, his arm wrapping around her waist, pulling her flush against his side. The tight black stealth suit she wore left nothing to the imagination. He could feel the heat of her skin, the softness of her flesh yielding under his grip.

”Let’s go empty it,” he murmured.

They approached the perimeter. The security here was significantly tighter than the garden. Fu Yan clearly valued the books more than the plants.

A dozen elite disciples, all at the Foundation Establishment realm, patrolled the grounds in a tight, overlapping pattern. But the real threat was the array.

A shimmering, translucent red barrier encased the entire building. It hummed with a low, menacing vibration.

”That is the ’Five-Fire-Chains Array’,” Lianhua identified it immediately, her eyes narrowing. ”It’s a lethal-grade formation. It doesn’t just block entry; it incinerates anyone who isn’t keyed to it with spectral fire. The identification talismans for it... they look new. Fu Yan must have issued them only to his most loyal dogs.”

Wang Jian watched from the shadows of a large spirit-oak. He wasn’t looking at the array, though. His hand was idly rubbing Lianhua’s hip, his thumb tracing the curve of her pelvic bone through the fabric.

”They’re arrogant,” he scoffed quietly. ”Look at their patrol route. It’s lazy. They’re relying entirely on the array to do the work. And the array... it’s strong, sure, but the energy nodes are exposed near the foundation. Amateurs.”

Lianhua leaned back into him. She arched her back slightly, pressing her magnificent, heavy breasts against his chest. She wasn’t pulling away. In fact, she was actively grinding her buttocks against his thigh.

Her mind was in a strange, hazy place. The thrill of the heist, combined with the lingering aftershocks of his earlier ”healing,” had rewired her.

’He’s so confident,’ she thought, a flush rising on her neck. ’He looks at this impossible security and sees child’s play. And he’s holding me... he’s holding me like he owns me. Like I’m his prize.’

She realized, with a jolt of dark excitement, that she didn’t want him to let go. She wanted him to conquer this place. She wanted him to strip her sect bare, just as he had stripped her.

’I am his slut,’ she admitted to herself, the thought sending a shiver of pleasure down her spine. ’My body belongs to him. My dignity belongs to him. And it feels... liberating. No more responsibility. No more Sect Mistress burdens. Just... serving him. If I please him, he will protect me. He will spoil me, like he spoils Ruyan.’

She swayed her hips intentionally, rubbing against his crotch.

Wang Jian smirked, feeling her invitation. He gave her hip a bruising squeeze. ”Save it for later, pet. We need a distraction.”

He reached into his pouch and pulled out a small, mechanical construct. It looked like a rat, but made of dark metal and inscribed with movement runes. He had looted it from one of the Silent Puppet Guild handlers during the canyon ambush.

He infused it with a wisp of his own Qi.

”Go,” he whispered.

He tossed the rat. It landed silently in the grass and then took off, skittering across the courtyard on the complete opposite side of the building.

It hit a pile of decorative armor stacks with a loud CLATTER-CRASH.

”What was that?!” one of the guards shouted, spinning around.

”Over there! By the east wall!”

”A beast? An intruder? Check it out!”

The discipline broke instantly. Four of the six guards on this side broke formation and ran off to investigate the noise, eager to catch a rat.

”Now,” Wang Jian said.

He moved. He didn’t try to break the array violently. He activated his Void-Merging Breath.

His form blurred. He pulled Lianhua with him, wrapping his aura around her. They became ghosts, slipping through the gap in the patrol.

They reached the base of the building. The red barrier hummed inches from their faces.

Wang Jian knelt by one of the exposed energy nodes—a stone pillar glowing with heat.

He pulled out a ”Qi-Siphoning Talisman”. He slapped it onto the node, then immediately covered it with a small illusion talisman to hide it from sight.

”It won’t break the array,” he whispered to her. ”Not yet. It will slowly, silently drain its power over the next few hours. By dawn, this barrier will fail on its own, creating even more chaos for Fu Yan.”

They moved to the main doors. Two guards remained, looking bored.

Wang Jian moved behind them. He didn’t use a weapon.

THWACK. THWACK.

Two silent, precise chops to the carotid arteries. The guards slumped, unconscious before they hit the ground. Wang Jian caught them and laid them down gently.

They stood before the massive, rune-etched double doors of the Scripture Hall.

”The door is sealed by the Sect Master’s blood,” Lianhua whispered, stepping forward. She bit her thumb and pressed her palm against the central locking mechanism. ”Only I can open this.”

The array glowed. Then, it flashed a violent, angry red. A pulse of rejection force pushed her hand away.

”What?” she gasped, staring at the door. ”How... how could this not work?! I am the Sect Mistress! My blood signature is keyed to the core!”

”He changed it,” Wang Jian said flatly. ”Fu Yan. He must have accessed the central control node and wiped your permissions. He’s thorough.”

Lianhua looked devastated. ”Then we can’t get in. Without the key...”

”A blood seal? Crude,” Wang Jian scoffed. He stepped up to the door. ”Step aside, Lianhua. Let me show you how a real master picks a lock.”

He placed both hands on the door. He didn’t use brute force. He channeled his Stellar Qi, sending thin, tendrils of dark energy into the array’s matrix.

He closed his eyes, analyzing the logic structure. It was a complex weave of identification protocols.

’It’s asking for a specific blood frequency,’ he analyzed. ’But like all arrays, it has a maintenance sub-routine. A backdoor for when the Sect Master is dead or the token is lost.’

He found the loop. He flooded the sensor with a specific frequency of Qi that mimicked the sect’s maintenance puppets.

”Open,” he commanded.

The heavy, rune-etched doors shuddered. The red light turned green. With a silent hiss of pneumatics, they slid open.

Lianhua stared at him, her eyes wide with worship. ”You... you hacked the Ancestral Seal? In seconds?”

”I told you,” he grinned, slapping her ass as he walked past her. ”I have my secrets.”

They stepped inside.

The interior of the Scripture Hall was vast. It was a cathedral of knowledge. Rows upon rows of shelves stretched up to the high ceiling, filled with thousands of scrolls, jade slips, and leather-bound tomes. The accumulated wisdom of a thousand years of alchemy and cultivation.

”It’s... it’s all here,” Lianhua breathed.

Wang Jian looked at the sheer volume of loot.

”We don’t have time to sort through this garbage,” he said decisively. ”We take it all.”

He walked to the first row. He swept his arm out. His high-grade spatial pouch, the one with the massive internal capacity, flared.

WOOSH.

An entire shelf of scrolls vanished, sucked into his pouch.

”We’ll read them later,” he said, moving to the next shelf. ”Start packing, Lianhua. Anything that looks shiny. Anything that looks old.”

He moved like a whirlwind. Shelf after shelf was stripped bare. In minutes, the vast hall began to look like an empty warehouse.

Lianhua helped, but she found herself distracted. She watched him move. His power. His decisiveness.

She walked over to him while he was clearing a section on fire-attribute techniques. She pressed her body against his back, her arms wrapping around his waist.

”Master is so strong,” she purred, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. She purposely arched her back, pressing her large breasts into him.

Wang Jian paused, glancing back at her. ”Not now, pet. We’re working.”

”But I want to help,” she whispered, reaching down to graze the front of his trousers. ”Watching you take everything... it makes me... wet.”

Wang Jian chuckled. He grabbed her hand and kissed the palm. ”Hold that thought. Once we have the Cauldron, I’ll ruin you properly. Now, loot.”

She giggled, a girlish sound that felt strange coming from her, and went back to grabbing scrolls, her hips swaying exaggeratedly with every step, hoping he was watching.

The outer shelves were bare. The hall echoed with emptiness.

”Is that everything?” Wang Jian asked, looking around the desolate library.

”No,” Sect Mistress Lianhua said, her voice dropping to a reverent whisper. She walked towards the center of the room. ”The core techniques... the true legacy of the Crimson Pill Sect... the ones only the Sect Master and personal disciples are allowed to study... they are not on the shelves.”

She pointed to a solitary jade pedestal in the very center of the room. A single, ancient-looking scroll rested there, encased in a shimmering barrier of light.

”They are in the central repository,” she explained. ”That scroll contains the ’Nine-Heavens Pill Scripture’. The foundation of our sect.”

Wang Jian walked towards it, his eyes greedy.

”Be careful, Jian,” she warned, grabbing his sleeve. ”This is protected by the Founder’s own ’Nine-Flame Seal’. It’s a trap. Only the Sect Master’s specific aura can unlock it safely. If you touch it wrong, it releases a burst of...”

Wang Jian didn’t let her finish. He was impatient. And he was hungry.

He reached out and grabbed the scroll directly through the light barrier.

WHOOSH!

The trap sprung instantly. Nine tendrils of brilliant, white-hot azure fire erupted from the pedestal, lashing out like vipers to incinerate the hand that dared to touch the legacy.

It was a wisp of a Heavenly Flame, preserved for centuries.

But it wasn’t his hand they found.

Wang Jian’s Stellar Qi flared. It didn’t block. It didn’t deflect. It opened.

A small, swirling vortex of dark, starry energy formed around his hand. It was a black hole of cultivation power.

The azure flames lashed out, and were instantly sucked into the vortex.

SLURP.

The sound was wet, visceral. The terrifying fire was consumed, swallowed whole by Wang Jian’s technique.

Lianhua stared, her mouth hanging open. ”You... you devoured the Founder’s flame seal? That... that was a wisp of the Azure Sky-Heart Flame! It should have burned you to ash!”

Wang Jian just grinned. He could feel the rush of pure fire-essence feeding his own core, strengthening his meridians.

”It was tasty,” he said, licking his lips. ”Spicy.”

He stuffed the priceless legacy scroll into his pouch. ”Now, let’s go.”

Lianhua looked at him with wide, dilating eyes. ’He is not just a cultivator,’ she thought, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. ’He is... a monster. A wonderful, terrifying, all-consuming monster. And he is my monster.’

She felt a surge of arousal so potent her knees nearly buckled. The sheer power... the dominance...

”One last thing,” Wang Jian said. He looked around the now-empty, desecrated Scripture Hall.

”We need to leave a message. And cover our tracks.”

He pulled out a handful of the ”Spiritual Interference Bombs” he’d used in the arena. He began to prime them, adjusting the rune sequences with his Qi.

”I’m setting these on a long delay,” he murmured. ”Three days.”

He moved around the room, planting the bombs. He hid them under the empty shelves, inside the hollow walls, near the main structural support pillars.

”When these go off,” he explained, ”the entire hall will collapse. The resulting explosion of chaotic spiritual energy will scramble any attempt to track us or use temporal retracing arts. It will just look like a catastrophic array failure.”

He returned to the central pedestal. He pulled out a small vial of corrosive acid.

With a steady hand, he etched a symbol onto the jade surface.

It was a sword. The insignia of the Azure Sword Clan.

”More ’evidence’ for Fu Yan to find,” he chuckled. ”Let him think his ’allies’ got greedy and raided the library while he was busy.”

”You are devious,” Lianhua whispered, admiring the crude forgery.

”I’m practical,” he corrected. ”Now, grab my hand. We’re leaving.”

He took her hand. ”The Cauldron. Take me to it.”

They slipped out of the Scripture Hall, leaving the unconscious guards sleeping peacefully by the door.

”Now, Jian,” Sect Mistress Lianhua whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of nerves and excitement. ”The final prize. The Crimson Dragon Cauldron.”

”Lead on,” he said.

She didn’t lead him to the main hall or the treasury. She led him towards a secluded, overgrown path that wound up the back of the mountain.

”Where are we going?” he asked.

”To my old dwelling,” she said. ”The one I used when I was a core disciple, before I became Sect Mistress. It’s been abandoned for fifty years. No one goes there.”

They reached a small, dusty cave dwelling. It looked unremarkable.

Inside, Lianhua walked to a heavy, stone bed. She pushed it aside with a grunt of effort.

Beneath it was a hidden trapdoor, sealed with a complex lock that didn’t use Qi, but alchemical reagents.

She bit her finger again. She smeared a drop of blood onto the lock, then breathed a specific sequence of breaths onto it.

Click.

The trapdoor swung open, revealing a dark, spiraling stone staircase that went deep, deep into the earth.

”The founder built this as his final, secret refuge,” she explained, lighting a flame in her hand. ”He didn’t trust his successors. A wise man.”

They began the descent. Down, down, down.

The air grew hotter. The smell of sulfur and molten rock filled the stairwell.

They descended for ten minutes. Finally, they emerged into a vast, circular natural cavern.

The walls glowed with a dull red light. Far below, a river of magma flowed, providing heat and earth-fire essence.

In the center of the cavern, resting on a platform of black obsidian suspended over the magma by massive chains, sat the prize.

The Crimson Dragon Cauldron.

It was magnificent. Ten feet tall, forged of a dark, blood-red metal that seemed to absorb the light. It was carved with two coiling, five-clawed dragons, their scales incredibly detailed, their eyes set with rubies that seemed to glow with a living intelligence.

”It is... alive,” Wang Jian breathed. He could feel it. The immense, ancient, and powerful spirit sleeping within the artifact. It was an Earth-grade treasure, bordering on Sky-grade.

”Only the true Sect Master’s bloodline and this specific mudra can command it,” Sect Mistress Lianhua said reverently.

She stepped onto the platform. She approached the cauldron.

She began to perform a series of incredibly complex hand seals. Her fingers were a blur. She chanted a low, rhythmic mantra.

She pressed her palm against the side of the cauldron.

HUMMMMM.

The massive artifact shuddered. The ruby eyes of the dragons flashed with light.

With a low, rumbling groan that shook the platform, the ten-foot cauldron began to shrink. It folded in on itself, the metal compressing, the size reducing rapidly.

In seconds, it was the size of a teacup, resting innocently in her palm. It was heavy, dense with power.

She turned to Wang Jian.

She didn’t hesitate. There was no reluctance in her eyes, only devotion.

She held out the tiny, perfect cauldron to him.

”It is yours, Master,” she said softly. ”The soul of my sect. I give it to you.”

Wang Jian took it. His heart pounded with a greed so intense it was almost painful. He held the weight of a thousand years of history in his hand.

He stared at it for a moment, marveling at the power. Then he looked at her.

He put the cauldron into his pouch.

He grabbed Lianhua and pulled her into a brutal, possessive kiss.

”You’ve earned a reward,” he groaned against her lips.

He pushed her back against the warm obsidian platform.

”Right here?” she gasped, looking at the magma below.

”Right here.”

He didn’t take her fully—there was no time for a full session. But he spent a solid five minutes just manhandling her.

He shoved his hands under her clothes, groping her heated skin. He kissed her neck, her chest. He ground his hips against hers, letting her feel exactly how happy she had made him. It was a quick, rough, standing grope, a down payment on the night of pleasure he had promised her.

”You did good, Lianhua,” he growled, squeezing her breast hard. ”You did very good.”

”Thank you, Master,” she panted, her head thrown back.

He pulled away, his breathing harsh. ”Let’s go. We’re done here. We have everything.”

They fled back up the stairs, sealing the tomb behind them. They left a hollowed-out, dying sect in their wake, stripping it of its past, its present, and its future.