Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Chapter 31: Chapter 31: Silver Light

The thunderous roar of the waterfall was deafening, a relentless curtain of white noise that made the very air vibrate.

Haoran and Xueli stood at the edge of the basin, the spray of the water drenching their clothes in seconds.

From this close, the sheer volume of water falling from a thousand meters was terrifying; it was a wall of liquid kinetic force.

”I believe this is it.” Said Haoran.

”Yeah, that thing could crush even a Foundation Establishment realm expert...” Xueli whispered, her voice barely audible over the crashing torrent as she looked at the cascading weight with genuine trepidation. ”No, perhaps even a Core Formation expert won’t be safe. Haoran, should we ask Miss Qing’er for help?”

Haoran didn’t even glance at her, his golden eyes fixed on the center of the fall. ”No need to trouble her for something so simple.”

Suddenly, the atmosphere around Haoran changed as his golden Qi flared up, swirling around him like a solar flare before converging with violent intensity into his right palm.

The full, unbridled might of a Golden Core expert exploded from his frame, causing the ground beneath them to crack and groan.

He stepped forward and slammed his palm toward the roaring water.

”Wave Splitting Palm!”

A massive, glowing phantom of a golden palm materialized in the air, several meters wide.

It struck the waterfall with the force of a falling star, and much to Xueli’s absolute shock, the thousand-meter-high curtain of water didn’t just splash; it was torn apart, and even the clouds in the sky was completely split open!

The golden Qi acted like a divine wedge, forcing the water to flow to either side, exposing the dark, mossy mouth of a hidden cave.

Xueli marveled at the sheer destructive elegance of the move.

Golden Core? she thought, her mind reeling. Are you sure this is just the Golden Core stage?! This power is already as dense as a Nascent Soul’s, isn’t it?!

It was just now that she realized that Haoran’s ”Golden Core” was worlds apart from the Golden Cores she had heard described in the Eastern Region.

Before she could offer a word of praise, Haoran’s hand shot out, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her into a blur of motion.

They shot through the gap in the water, their feet hitting the damp stone of the cave just as the golden palm dissipated.

Behind them, the waterfall came crashing back down with a sound like a mountain collapsing, sealing them in darkness.

Xueli leaned over, clutching her knees and gasping for air.

”That... that was too close.” She looked back at the watery veil before turning her gaze to the cave. ”So, this is the place, huh...wow, this is very—”

She paused, looking at the damp, stalactite-encrusted walls and the smell of wet earth and she couldn’t help but let out a small groan of disappointment. ”I wanted to say something poetic to mark the occasion, but this looks just like an ordinary, lame cave.”

Haoran snorted in genuine amusement, the sound echoing off the jagged walls before he reached out and grabbed her hand, his fingers interlocking with hers.

”Let’s go. Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

”Oh.” Xueli nodded, her face warming slightly at the contact as she let Haoran lead her deeper into the mountain.

As they walked, the cave continued to live up to Xueli’s ”lame” description—it was narrow, damp, and seemingly endless.

Seriously, whoever left behind the inheritance behind this couldn’t bother even decorating it?

Even placing an ever burning torch would be enough!

However, as they reached the final bend, the tunnel opened up into a massive, circular chamber.

In the center stood a pair of gargantuan, moss-covered stone gates, and unlike the rest of the cave, these were etched with intricate, flowing runes that glowed with a dim, haunting silver light.

”So this is it?” Xueli asked, her voice hushed with sudden reverence. ”...gosh, even the inheritance site itself is underwhelming.”

Haoran nodded, his expression turning sharp as he walked toward the gates and reached out, his hand touching the cold, ancient stone.

But the instant his palm made contact, the silence of the cave was obliterated as t gates erupted.

A blinding, supernova-like burst of silver light flooded the chamber, a light so intense that Xueli had to shield her eyes.

The entire mountain range began to tremble, rocks falling from the ceiling and the ground buckling in a violent quake.

Haoran’s brow furrowed in a deep frown.

This was wrong. According to the memories he had extracted from Chu Fang, when Tang Shan found this gate, it had opened silently with a drop of blood.

This sudden, violent outburst contained the unmistakable aura of Supreme Qi—a signature so loud and piercing that it was effectively a beacon to every high-level expert in the region.

It was as if the tomb itself was screaming to the world that an intruder was here.

This didn’t happen in the other timeline! Haoran realized. Could it be the Heavenly Dao? Is it trying to expose me because I’m an anomaly interfering with its favorite son’s destiny?

The cave ceiling groaned, and a massive slab of stone plummeted toward them.

”Haoran!” Xueli screamed in terror.

But Haoran didn’t flinch.

Just then, his shadow beneath him flickered and expanded with impossible speed, and within a heartbeat, a dome of absolute, impenetrable darkness rose from the ground, enveloping the two of them just as the mountain above gave way.

The sound of thousands of tons of rock crashing onto the dome was like the roar of a dying god, but inside the shadow dome, everything was deathly still.

*

*

*

In the heart of the Central Region, within the sprawling, celestial expanse of the Imperial Capital, sat the ancestral estate of the Shen Clan.

Here, the laws of the world seemed to bow to the sheer density of Spiritual Qi, and the very air hummed with the resonance of ancient, living power.

Chu Xueyu, the Matriarch of the Shen Clan and the mother of Shen Haoran, sat atop a throne carved from a single piece of Immortal Jade.

She had been immersed in the deep, silent rhythms of her cultivation, her presence alone stabilizing the space of the entire hall, when her eyes suddenly snapped open.

Her golden pupils—the same shade as her son’s, but hardened by centuries of absolute authority—seemed to pierce through the very concept of distance and the fabric of the void.

Her gaze bypassed mountains, oceans, and the boundaries of provinces until it rested upon a desolate corner of the Eastern Region.

There, she saw Haoran standing amidst the rubble of a collapsing cave, a girl she didn’t recognize clinging to his side, and the familiar, dark aura of Qing’er acting as a protective dome around them.

She shifted her gaze slightly, focusing on the source of the violent tremors: the silver Supreme Qi that was currently screaming its presence to the heavens.

Chu Xueyu let out a cold, sharp snort of pure disdain that caused the air in her throne room to crystalize into frost.

”An inheritance of a Supreme Emperor in that stagnant backyard?” she murmured, her voice like grinding gems. ”Surprising, perhaps. But in the grand schemes of things, it is nothing more than a flickering candle. A Supreme of that level wouldn’t even make a splash in this place.”

She turned her gaze back to her son, her expression remained icy, but a glimmer of motherly love flickered in her eyes.

”Haoran, even a Supreme Emperor is still a Supreme, no matter how weak or pathetic their legacy may be. But this... this trash,” she said, referring to the silver light, ”it is not worthy of you. Could it be you are seeking it for that girl?”

She watched the way Haoran protected the stranger, then shook her head, pulling her divine sense back across the thousands of miles.

To a Matriarch of a Hegemon Clan, a Supreme Legacy from the ”Desolate Region” was like finding a gold coin in a sewer—too bothersome to reach for, and certainly not worth dirtying yourself over it, especially when you’re sitting atop a mountain of gold.

”With a commotion of this magnitude,” she mused, leaning back into her jade throne, ”those second-rate powers on the outskirts of the Central Region, those desperate for any scrap of heritage, will undoubtedly send their lackeys to investigate...hmm, it’s just right.”

As for true powers of the Imperial Capital? Those in the inner layers who walk the path of the Immortals? They wouldn’t bother staining their boots for such a pathetic scrap.

She tapped her finger on the armrest of the throne, the sound echoing like a war drum. ”Having Qing’er with him should be enough to quell any local pests. But it is time, Haoran.”

A predatory, proud smile finally graced her lips. ”It is time to stop playing in the mud and begin displaying your true talent. Let these ’geniuses’ from the outskirts of the Central Region come for the silver light. Suppress them. Break their pride. Prove to the world that a scion of the Shen Clan stands above all.”

She closed her eyes once more, the hall falling back into a heavy, sacred silence. ”Proved your might, my son. The stage has been set.”