Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Chapter 90: Chapter 90: Infinity and Void

The dusty street in front of the Ling Clan manor, which had moments ago been a stage for a petty regional rivalry, was suddenly plunged into a vacuum of absolute, suffocating terror.

The air itself seemed to curdle as Shen Haoran’s gaze locked onto the man who had once been a legend in the Upper Realms.

Without wasting another second, before the sound of his own voice had even finished echoing against the stone walls, Haoran moved.

To the observers, he vanished and reappeared in a single frame of reality.

Then, he reached out with a hand that felt like cold iron, grabbed Jiang Chen’s face with a grip that threatened to shatter his skull, and slammed him into the ground.

The impact was deafening.

The heavy cobblestones of Fragrant Flower City, reinforced by centuries of minor earth-qi, splintered like brittle glass.

Cracks spiderwebbed outward, reaching the feet of the horrified bystanders.

Then, with a chilling lack of emotion, Haoran raised his silk-booted foot and stepped directly onto Jiang Chen’s face, pinning the ”Peerless Sword Venerable” to the dirt like a common insect.

The whole sequence hadn’t even lasted a second.

The Jiang Clan members, who had been standing tall and arrogant behind their young master, froze in a collective state of cognitive dissonance.

One moment their leader was like a king; the next, he was a rug.

”Y-Young Master!”

”Bastard! Let go of the Young Master!”

The spell of shock broke, then driven by a mix of clan loyalty and the desperate knowledge that their livelihood died with Jiang Chen, dozens of Jiang Clan warriors drew their weapons.

With a chorus of enraged roars, they rushed toward Haoran, their Qi flaring in a chaotic, multicolored mess of Body Refining and Qi Gathering techniques.

Shen Haoran didn’t even turn his head to look at them, as a thin, cold smirk played on his lips.

He simply waved his hand casually, as if cutting through a bothersome curtain of silk.

Immediately, the world went silent.

The charging warriors stopped mid-stride.

And for a heartbeat, they looked like statues. Then, a thin, red line appeared across the midsections of every single man in the front three rows.

Their bodies began to slide, their upper and lower halves separating with sickening, wet sounds.

Blood erupted in a synchronized spray, geysering into the air with such pressure that it actually began to rain down upon the street in a warm, copper-scented deluge.

The Ling Clan members, watching from the safety of the stairs, took a collective step back, their faces drained of all color.

Ling Hongchen even fell to his knees, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps as he stared at the carnage.

Ling Luochen, meanwhile, simply stared at him fascination, completely unaffected by the blood and corpses.

After all, having cultivated the Asura Descent Technique, the souls of humans was a necessity for her to breakthrough.

She had already slaughtered an entire village and absorbed their souls, a requirement to start Cultivating this technique.

Right now, she was simply in awe at Shen Haoran’s strength, and wondered when would she have that kind of power.

On the other hand, the bystanders, the commoners who had gathered for the ”show,” shrieked in a high-pitched discordant chorus.

Many turned and fled into the alleys, while others simply collapsed and puked on the spot, the scent of fresh entrails and ozone overwhelming their senses.

”Bastard! Just who are you!?” Jiang Chen’s muffled roar came from beneath Haoran’s boot as he clawed at his legs, yet his fingers couldn’t even tickle Haoran. ”How do you know that name! Why do you want to kill me!?”

”Like I said, you don’t need to know that,” Haoran replied, his voice a calm contrast to the screaming and the blood.

He reached into his storage ring, and with a ripple of black and violet light, he summoned his sword—Azathoth.

The blade was a sliver of concentrated darkness that seemed to drink the light of the sun.

”All you need to know is that your second chance at life was a mistake. And I am here to correct that.”

At that moment, as if responding to the danger of the chosen one, the clear sky of the Saint Burial Realm began to churn as heavy, charcoal clouds swirled into a vortex directly above the city, and the low, guttural roar of thunder began to shake the earth.

”No! I will not die yet!” Jiang Chen roared, his voice cracking with the strain of a soul trying to force a weak body to perform miracles. ”I have just returned! I still have to take revenge on those three witches! I will still stand above the heavens and make them pay for every drop of my blood!”

He struggled with a manic strength, his muscles bulging as he tried to shift Haoran’s foot.

Yet, no matter what he did, he remained completely powerless. Not to mention getting up, he couldn’t even move make Haoran move an inch.

”Stand above the heavens?” Haoran looked down, his eyes filled with a profound, clinical disdain. ”Jiang Chen, you can’t even stand before me. How dare you speak those words when you can’t even move my foot from your face.”

Haoran moved his foot from his face to his chest. He then raised Azathoth, the tip of the blade pointing directly at Jiang Chen’s throat. ”Die with your delusions.”

He struck down.

”NOOOOO!” Jiang Chen let out a final, desperate scream as the dark blade descended.

But then, as if the heavens themselves were intervening to protect a favored child, his body erupted with a violent, dark purple light as a shockwave of pure, unadulterated Void-energy exploded outward.

Shen Haoran was forced to raise his arm to cover his face as he was blown back several meters.

He skidded across the broken cobblestones, his boots carving deep grooves into the street before he stabilized himself.

Then, he looked up, his golden eyes widening in genuine surprise.

”That is...” Haoran muttered, a sharp glint of interest returning to his gaze. ”The Formless Void Divine Physique? This man actually possesses such a divine body in this decrepit world?”

As one of the supreme physiques born at the very dawn of creation, the Formless Void was a legend for its absolute defense and spatial manipulation.

It was a power that required immense talent and luck to cultivate.

But from what he had observed, Jiang Chen’s current body was a disaster—diluted by excessive drugs, weakened by debauchery, and devoid of even a shred of proper foundation.

Not to mention Cultivating it, even awakening it would be even harder than what he went through when he was trying to awaken his own physique!

’...What the hell.’

It was at this moment that Shen Haoran finally realised just how utterly biased the heavens is towards these chosen ones, something he had completely ignored before.

On the verge of death, this Jiang Chen not only awakened his divine Physique, but also cultivated it to Minor Completion!

Just then, as the purple light died down, Jiang Chen stood up, and at this moment, he was no longer the weak young master anymore.

Now, he was wreathed in a flickering, ethereal purple aura that seemed to swallow the shadows around him.

He wiped the blood from his mouth and laughed, a cold, arrogant sound.

”Hahaha! I said it, didn’t I? I will not die! My destiny is written in the stars! I will rise above others and become a supreme! Ruling over the heavens and earth!”

”Supreme?” Shen Haoran stared at him for a long moment, then slowly shook his head, his expression one of pity. ”Jiang Chen, how low have you truly fallen? You dream of becoming a ’Supreme’? Since the dawn of time, there have been countless Supremes. They are born and they die in the blink of a celestial eye. To become a Supreme is merely to become one of many—to be a slightly larger fish in the same stagnant pond. For you to dream of something so... mediocre. It seems the rumors of your past glory were greatly exaggerated.”

Jiang Chen snorted, his purple aura flared with his anger. ”You are from the Upper Realm, right? Did the Shen Clan send a little dog like you to finish what they started? Hehe, those three bitches really are afraid of me, aren’t they? They can’t even sleep without worrying I’ll come back to have my revenge and destroy them!”

”Who knows.” Haoran smirked.

Jiang Chen gritted his teeth as he pointed a trembling finger at Haoran, his voice rising to a shriek. ”You dog of the Shen Clan! You and your entire bloodline are an abomination! Sooner or later, you will be judged! You will suffer the wrath of the heavens for your evil deeds!”

Shen Haoran stared at him for a long while before he shrugged, his posture relaxing into a state of terrifying calm as he held Azathoth to the side, the dark blade humming. ”The Heavens can judge me... when they prove that they are worthy to sit in my presence. Until then, they are just the roof over my head.”

”You—!”

”Now, enough talk,” Haoran said, his smirk returning, sharper than before as he felt the Infinity Dragon God Physique within his own body beginning to resonate, his blood boiling with the prospect of a true battle. ”This is my first time facing another genuine Divine Physique in a life-or-death struggle. I find it... exhilarating. Let us see if your ’Void’ can survive the ’Infinity’!”