Villain: Manipulating the Heroines into hating the Protagonist

While the elders of the Mystic Peak Sect were locked in a stalemate of pride and indecision, their enemies were not idle. The members of the newly formed Righteous Yue Alliance, having seized the narrative, now began to apply pressure. Their opening move was not a direct assault, but something far more insidious, a strategy that bled their enemy without risking a single soldier of their own.

Their chosen instrument was the Hundred Beast Manor.

Their target was not a fortress, but a farm.

Li Mei hated guard duty.

She was nineteen years old, a reasonably talented disciple at the Sixth Stage of Qi Condensation, and in her opinion, she was destined for greater things than this. She was supposed to be in the inner sect, practicing elegant sword forms and perhaps catching the eye of that handsome, stoic Senior Brother from the Disciplinary Hall.

Instead, she was here.

She was stationed at the Green Terrace Paddock, a vast, sprawling agricultural territory in the sect’s outermost southern region. It was, she had to admit, beautiful. Thousands of acres of terraced paddies, filled with the luminescent, gently glowing stalks of Spirit Rice, cascaded down the hillsides like a verdant waterfall. The air was clean, sweet with the scent of rich earth and growing things. It was peaceful.

And that was the problem. It was agonizingly, soul-crushingly boring.

’This is so unfair,’ she thought, leaning against the railing of her small, thirty-foot-tall wooden guard tower. Her official-issue spirit sword felt heavy and useless at her hip. ’My father pulls strings with Uncle to get me a ’safe’ first posting, and this is what I get. I’m a glorified scarecrow.’

Her days were a monotonous cycle. She would wake, meditate, patrol the perimeter of her assigned sector, check the low-level defensive arrays for fluctuations, and then spend eight mind-numbing hours staring out at the endless, swaying fields of rice. The most exciting thing that had happened all week was when a mischievous Wind Vole had tried to steal a stalk of rice, and she had spent a full ten minutes chasing it away with weak Wind Blade spells.

’At this rate, I’ll never reach the Seventh Stage, let alone Foundation Establishment,’ she grumbled internally, kicking a loose pebble off the edge of the tower. She had heard the rumors, of course, the whispers that had trickled down even to this remote outpost. Whispers of a failed mission, of a great treasure lost, of tensions with the other sects.

But it all felt so distant, so unreal. Here, under the warm sun, with the gentle breeze rustling through the rice stalks, war was just a story told by elders to frighten junior disciples.

She sighed, her thoughts drifting back to Senior Brother Tian. He was so handsome, with his sharp jaw and his serious, focused eyes. Did he even know she existed? Probably not. He was a Ninth Stage expert, on the cusp of the peak. He wouldn’t have time for a mere Sixth Stage outer disciple stuck babysitting a rice farm.

It was in the midst of this teenage angst, this profound and all-consuming boredom, that the world began to change.

The first sign was the silence.

The cheerful chirping of the Spirit Sparrows in the nearby bamboo grove, the constant, low hum of the insect life in the paddies—it all just... stopped. An abrupt, unnatural stillness fell over the entire valley.

Li Mei frowned, her cultivator’s senses, dulled by weeks of monotony, finally prickling with a faint sense of unease. ’That’s strange. Why did it get so quiet?’

Then came the tremor.

It was faint at first, a low, deep vibration that she felt more in the soles of her feet than she heard with her ears. The water in the terraced paddies, previously as still as glass, began to ripple, tiny concentric circles spreading from an unseen epicenter.

’An earth-tremor beast, maybe?’ she thought, her hand instinctively going to the hilt of her sword. They sometimes wandered down from the foothills of the Endless Mountain Range. They were big and clumsy, but usually harmless.

But this was different. The tremor wasn’t a single, passing jolt. It was a constant, growing hum. The vibration intensified, the wooden beams of her guard tower beginning to groan and creak. The gentle ripples in the water became violent sloshing, spilling over the edges of the terraces.

A deep, primal fear, cold and sharp, began to pierce through her boredom. She frantically checked the sect-issued warning talisman at her waist. It was a small jade slip, designed to glow a fiery red if the sect’s main defensive formations detected a large-scale incursion.

It remained a cool, impassive green.

’Nothing? But... how?’ The sect’s formations could detect a Foundation Establishment expert from a hundred miles away. What could possibly cause a tremor this strong without triggering an alarm?

The sound came next. It started as a low rumble, the sound of a distant thunderstorm. But it grew with terrifying speed, the rumble becoming a roar, the roar becoming a deafening, earth-shattering cacophony. It was the sound of a thousand waterfalls, of a mountain collapsing, of the world itself tearing apart.

Panic, raw and unreasoning, seized her. Her training, the endless drills and lectures, kicked in. She scrambled up the ladder to the very top of her guard tower, her heart hammering against her ribs, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

She looked towards the north, towards the distant, hazy line of the Endless Mountain Range.

And what she saw shattered her world.

The horizon, the familiar, gentle green line of the rolling foothills, was gone.

In its place was a moving, heaving, roaring line of black, brown, and grey. It was a wave, a living tidal wave of monstrous flesh, stampeding directly towards her. It was a Beast Tide.

Her mind, paralyzed with abject terror, struggled to process the scale of it. It wasn’t dozens of beasts, or even hundreds. It was thousands. Tens of thousands. A sea of fur, scales, claws, and fangs, stretching from one end of the valley to the other.

She could make out individual shapes now. Hulking, ten-ton Iron-Skinned Rhinos, their horns like siege weapons, leading the charge. Great packs of three-headed Shadow Wolves, their forms blurring as they ran, their collective howls a chilling counterpoint to the thunder of the stampede. Massive Earth-Shaker Boars, their tusks the size of small trees, plowing through the landscape, leaving deep furrows in their wake. And above them, a cloud of black, circling Sky-Ripper Vultures, their screeching cries a promise of the feast to come.

And their eyes. All of them, from the smallest Razor-Toothed Hare to the largest Iron-Skinned Rhino, had eyes that glowed with a feral, unnatural, incandescent red rage. They were not just running. They were attacking.

’This isn’t a migration,’ her terrified mind screamed. ’This is an army.’

Her training finally broke through the paralysis. Her hands, trembling so badly she could barely function, fumbled in her pouch for the emergency flair. A Crimson Skyflare. The highest level of distress signal an outer disciple could carry.

She poured every last wisp of her spiritual energy into it. The talisman blazed with a desperate, brilliant light.

WHOOSH!

A searing, crimson comet shot into the sky, exploding a thousand feet above her in a shower of brilliant red sparks that formed the sect’s sigil. It was a desperate, silent scream for help, a single, tiny beacon of defiance against the overwhelming tide of death.

She had done her duty.

And now, there was nothing left to do but watch.

The first wave of the Beast Tide crashed into the Green Terrace Paddock’s outer defensive array. The shimmering, almost invisible shield of light flared into existence, a testament to the sect’s power.

For a single, hopeful moment, it held.

Then, a dozen Iron-Skinned Rhinos slammed into it in unison.

CRACK!

The sound was like the sky itself breaking. A visible, spiderwebbing crack appeared in the shimmering shield. The array, designed to repel small groups of beasts or a single Foundation Establishment-level threat, was not built to withstand the collective, brute-force impact of an entire army.

CRACK! BOOM!

With a final, explosive roar, the defensive array shattered, its protective light dissolving into a shower of harmless green sparks.

The tide surged forward, unimpeded.

Li Mei stood on her tower, her face ashen, her eyes wide with a horror so profound it had gone beyond fear. She watched as the roaring, stampeding sea of monsters washed over the beautiful, peaceful fields of Spirit Rice she had been tasked to protect. The delicate, glowing stalks were trampled into the mud, the ancient, carefully maintained terraces destroyed in seconds.

The Beast Tide, an unstoppable force of nature, was here. And she was standing directly in its path.

Far to the east, in the serene, herb-scented halls of the Crimson Pill Sect, a different kind of war was being waged. It was a war of wills, a battle of ideologies, fought not with claws and fangs, but with cold, sharp words.

The Grand Cauldron Hall was the heart of the sect. It was not a throne room or a council chamber, but a place of profound, scholarly pursuit. The air was warm and humid, thick with the complex, intoxicating aroma of a thousand different rare and magical herbs. Nine colossal bronze cauldrons, each the size of a small house, lined the circular hall, their surfaces etched with ancient, complex alchemical runes. Eternal, low-burning alchemical flames licked at their bases, a testament to the sect’s unending quest for knowledge.

But today, the atmosphere was not one of peaceful study. It was icy cold, charged with a tension so thick it was almost suffocating.

At the center of the hall, the sect’s leader, the elegant and peerlessly beautiful Sect Master Lianhua, stood before her council of elders. Her green robes, embroidered with silver threads that depicted the blooming of a hundred different spirit flowers, were immaculate. Her face, a masterpiece of classical beauty, was a mask of cold, righteous fury.

She was confronting her greatest rival, the Second Elder, Fu Yan. He was a stout, powerfully built man whose fine robes could not conceal the raw, bullish ambition that radiated from him. His face was flushed, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of defiance and triumphant greed.

”You have brought shame upon this sect, Fu Yan!” Sect Master Lianhua’s voice, usually a soft, melodious chime, was as sharp and cold as a shard of ice. ”You have stained the hands of our disciples, my disciples, with the blood of an allied sect! And for what? For mere greed! For a pile of cold, dead metal!”

Her accusation, delivered in front of the entire council, was a direct, open challenge to his authority.

Elder Fu, however, was unrepentant. He let out a short, barking laugh, a sound that was a gross violation of the hall’s usual serenity.

”I have brought opportunity, Sect Master!” he shot back, his voice a booming, confident roar. ”While you preach your sermons of peace and passivity, our sect falls further and further behind! The Mystic Peak Sect has bled us, and every other sect in this State, dry for centuries with their damnable monopoly! They have grown arrogant and weak! The Righteous Yue Alliance is the future, a future where we are no longer supplicants, but leaders! And thanks to my foresight, my courage, the Crimson Pill Sect will have a leading role in it!”

”The ’Righteous Yue Alliance’ is a flimsy excuse for treachery and banditry!” Lianhua countered, her eyes blazing. ”You have dragged our noble legacy through the mud, and you have made us enemies of the most powerful sect in the State! You have endangered us all with your reckless, greedy ambition!”

”I have secured our future!” Fu bellowed. ”The Star-Vein Iron we now possess will allow our artifact refiners to reach new heights! It will strengthen our sect for the next five hundred years! A future you would have us sacrifice on the altar of your timid, outdated policies!”

The argument raged, the two powerful Core Formation experts, the two most powerful figures in the sect, locked in a bitter, irreconcilable ideological battle.

Finally, Sect Master Lianhua used the final weapon in her arsenal: her ultimate authority.

”I have had enough of this,” she declared, her voice ringing with the power of her office. ”I forbid it! I, as the Sect Master of the Crimson Pill Sect, forbid you from committing a single disciple, a single spirit stone, or a single ounce of your own energy to this foolish, dishonorable war! You will cease all contact with this so-called ’Alliance’ at once! That is my final command!”

A tense silence fell over the hall. It was a direct, absolute order. To defy it would be an act of open rebellion.

Elder Fu stared at her, his face a mask of fury. Then, a slow, ugly smile spread across his lips.

”You forbid it, Sect Master?” he sneered. ”You seem to forget. Your commands only hold weight as long as the council supports them.”

He turned, his arms spread wide, addressing the assembled elders. ”Brothers! Do we follow our ’wise’ Sect Master down this path of peaceful stagnation? Or do we seize the golden opportunity that I have laid before us? An opportunity for wealth, for power, for true respect!”

Nearly a third of the elders in the hall, men whose palms had been greased by Fu Yan’s promises of power and profit for years, stood up, their faces set with a grim, defiant determination.

Sect Master Lianhua’s face went pale. She had known he had support. But to see them so openly defy her...

”We will not be seceding from the sect,” Elder Fu declared, his voice ringing with triumph. ”We are still loyal disciples of the Crimson Pill Sect. But,” he added, his smile turning into a cruel, mocking smirk, ”my faction, and the disciples who believe in our vision of a stronger, more prosperous future, will be acting independently for the good of the sect.”

He played his trump card, a move that was as brilliant as it was devastating.

”We will establish a forward base of operations in the great trade hub of Five Rivers City,” he announced. ”We will openly recruit any disciple who wishes to join our cause. And, of course, we will be distributing our share of the liberated Star-Vein Iron from there, to our loyal followers. We will show the world what the Crimson Pill Sect is truly capable of when it is unshackled from fear and tradition.”

It was a masterstroke. He had not declared rebellion. He had declared a schism.

Sect Master Lianhua was trapped. She was rendered utterly, completely powerless. She could not attack him, for that would be the spark that would ignite a bloody, catastrophic civil war, a war that would destroy the sect from within. All she could do was watch, helpless, as he carved out a piece of her authority, a piece of her sect, and made it his own.

Elder Fu gave her one last, triumphant, and utterly contemptuous look. Then, he and his faction of elders turned their backs on her and walked out of the Grand Cauldron Hall, their heads held high.

They left behind a shattered council, a paralyzed sect, and a beautiful, heartbroken Sect Master, standing alone amidst her silent, useless cauldrons, the bitter scent of treachery now overwhelming the sweet aroma of her herbs.

The Crimson Pill Sect was now a house divided, its great power fractured, its future uncertain. And the Righteous Yue Alliance had just gained a powerful, independent, and highly motivated new branch. The chaos in the State of Yue was spreading.