Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Chapter 148: Chapter 148: Desperate Crowns

The silence that followed the manifestation of the Supreme Trinity was absolute, a heavy, suffocating blanket that draped over the hundreds of millions of spectators in the Divine Arena.

It was as if the laws of physics had been suspended; the air became stagnant, and the very concept of sound seemed to have been erased.

They stared at Shen Haoran, whose tri-color aura—silver, purple, and gold—pulsated with a rhythm that felt like the beating heart of the universe itself.

The pressure was so overwhelmingly oppressive that many in the stands felt the oxygen being squeezed from their lungs, their bodies instinctively trembling before an existence that had surpassed the boundaries of a mortal genius.

Down in the arena, the remaining Crowns were the first to feel the full weight of this transformation.

For a few heart-pounding seconds, they were paralyzed by a primal, ancestral fear.

However, they were the elite of the Shen Clan for a reason, their pride, their rigorous training, and their survival instincts kicked in.

They immediately bit their tongues to sharpen their focus, proving why they deserved to be the ”Crowns” as they forced themselves to calm down and regroup.

Shen Xun’er and Shen Hei, who had only just recovered from their previous exchange, were the most desperate.

They knew that if they didn’t act now, while they still had a shred of will left, they would never move again.

So with a collective roar of defiance, the 6th and 8th Crowns rushed toward Haoran from two different angles, their speed breaking the sound barrier.

However, as they entered a ten-meter radius around him, Haoran didn’t even lift a finger, and his third eye—the Golden Eye of Domination—glowed with a sudden, regal brilliance.

*THUD.*

”Ack!?”

”Gah!?”

The two were instantly slammed into the white sands as if the sky itself had decided to fall.

The gravity in their immediate vicinity increased ten-thousandfold, pinning them to the ground with the weight of an entire mountain range.

They couldn’t even groan; the sheer force flattened the earth beneath them into a mirror-like surface, and within seconds, their eyes rolled back into their heads as their consciousness fled from the unbearable pressure.

Before their bodies could be crushed into pulp, the space around the arena warped, and the two vanished, transported instantly to the medical pavilions.

Seeing that, Shen Fei flinched, his Qi flickering unsteadily.

He was the First Crown, yet why....why does he feel like a child watching a disaster, completely helpless!?

”Is... is he even human?” he whispered.

”Don’t underestimate us!” Shen Cai, the 7th Crown, roared, snapping the tension.

His face was contorted with a mix of fury and desperation as he clapped his massive hands together, and the hundreds of weapons he had summoned earlier—his floating armory—began to glow with a violent, unstable light.

”Go! Flash Artifacts!”

At his command, the artifacts turned into streaks of lethal light, whistling through the air toward Haoran.

Each weapon caused a series of sonic booms, tearing the atmosphere apart, and as the first spear touched the perimeter of Haoran’s aura, it actually didn’t pierce or anything....it detonated.

*Boom!*

Then, the second followed.

*Boom!*

Then the third.

*Boom!*

In an instant, a chain reaction of explosions engulfed the center of the arena.

The scale of the blast was so gargantuan that the entire Divine Arena, a structure meant to house hundreds of millions, physically shuddered as dust and fire rose in a mushroom cloud that touched the clouds.

Shen Xinye, watching from the periphery with her silver eyes narrowed, turned toward the panting Artificer. ”Flash Artifacts... that’s the Artificer’s technique where you overload a weapon with a massive amount of compressed Qi, forcing it to achieve a critical mass and explode upon impact, right?”

Shen Cai grinned through the soot on his face, his chest heaving. ”Not just that! The explosion of a Flash Artifact is qualitatively one level higher than its original rank! These are Rank 5 weapons, meaning every single one of those blasts had the destructive power of a Rank 6 artifact! It’s a force capable of threatening, perhaps even killing, a Spirit Ascension Realm expert! No one survives a hundred of those at point-blank range!”

Normally, with his Qi reserves, detonating two or three Rank 5 Artifacts was his limit before he’d be completely exhausted, but with the pills provided by Shen Ying, he was able to detonate hundreds of them!

Shen Xinye nodded slowly, though her expression remained grim. ”It’s a pity. A Flash Artifact is a one-time use. Once they are triggered, they are utterly destroyed. You’ve just burned a fortune that could buy a small province.”

”It’s worth it if we can beat him!” Shen Cai shouted, his eyes fixed on the smoke. ”It has to be worth it!”

”That’s not enough then,” Shen Ying, the 9th Crown, interrupted, her voice was cold and focused.

The others turned to see her surrounded by dozens of bronze and jade cauldrons that she had summoned from her storage ring.

”If we are going to beat that man, we need more fire power than just exploding scrap metal.”

She moved with a blurred speed, flicking hundreds of high-energy herbs into the cauldrons without even looking.

Then, she snapped her fingers, and a dark crimson flame dragon, thirty meters long, materialized behind her.

It coiled around the cauldrons, its heat so intense the sand beneath her began to turn into molten glass.

This is the Crimson Dragon Burning Flame.

Ranked 13th on the Heavenly Flame rankings. It is a flame born only on battlefields where thousands of dragons have perished simultaneously, and is forged from their souls, their resentment, and their lingering anger.

This flame also possessed the terrifying ability to summon the burning spirits of the dead that it had burned, allowing the user to summon an undead burning spirit army.

Of course, maintaining their existence requires Qi, and if the spirit was more powerful than the user, then they might not even listen.

Just then, the cauldrons began to shake violently, glowing with a sickly red light that pulsed like a heartbeat.

It looked as if they are about to explode!

”Go.” Shen Ying flicked her wrist.

The cauldrons flew toward the center of the smoke where Haoran stood, then one after another, they reached the target and detonated in a series of ”Cauldron Explosions.”

*Boom!*

*Boom!*

*Boom!*

The entire arena shook as the exploded cauldrons caused as much explosions as the Flash Artifacts!

”What the—!?” Shen Cai turned toward her, his eyes wide. ”You’re intentionally failing the refinement to cause a backblast?”

Shen Ying nodded, and she was about to opene her mouth and answer when a voice suddenly echoed throughout the arena.

”Cauldron Explosion... a phenomenon that occurs when an alchemist makes a critical error in the refinement process. The potency of the blast is directly proportional to the rarity of the herbs used. I recall reading that even some Heavenly Saint experts have perished from accidental cauldron explosions during the creation of Tier 9 pills.”

The voice startled the Crowns as they all looked in front.

There, from the roiling black smoke and the dying embers of the crimson flames, Shen Haoran emerged.

He walked slowly, his black and gold robes pristine, not a single hair out of place.

The tri-color aura of the Supreme Trinity acted as an absolute shield, rendering the Rank 6 destructive force as harmless as a summer breeze.

He smiled at them, but it was a smile that promised no mercy.

”I’m impressed by your ingenuity,” Haoran said. ”Using the failure of your own crafts as a weapon... it shows a certain resourcefulness. But I’m afraid that’s still not enough.”

His aura suddenly flared, becoming murderous as a wave of pure slaughter-intent swept across the arena, causing the remaining Crowns to gulp.

They felt a physical sensation of hands gripping their hearts, their blood slowing in their veins.

At that moment, Shen Fei, paralyzed by the sheer disparity in power, remembered what Haoran had said earlier and decided to take a gamble.

He turned toward the pale, trembling Shen Bai, who was barely standing as he maintained the arrays. ”Shen Bai! Deactivate the arrays! NOW!”

Shen Bai was stunned, his mind clouded by exhaustion. ”What? But the Qi Disruption—”

”DEACTIVATE THEM!” Shen Fei screamed. ”He’s using something else! The arrays are only making him tap into that terrifying power! We need him back to his ’normal’ self!”

Shen Bai, terrified by the First Crown’s hysteria, did as he was told and snapped his fingers.

Almost immediately, the glowing runic circles of the Qi Disruption Array and the Heaven Binding Array flickered and died.

In that instant, the ”Seal” was restored.

The Infinity Dragon God Physique and the Heavenly Sword Dao Bone once again became the primary containers for Haoran’s soul.

The tri-color aura of the Supreme Trinity vanished in a flash of light, and his third eye closed, fading back into his forehead while his eyes returned to their normal, piercing gold.

The remaining Crowns immediately sagged, letting out long, ragged sighs of relief as they gasped for breath, feeling like drowning men who had finally broken the surface of a stormy ocean.

The suffocating, existential dread was gone, replaced by the ”manageable” pressure of a Nascent Soul expert.

However, the cost was high.

Shen Bai, having exhausted every drop of his Qi and mental energy to maintain those high-level formations, suddenly fell forward, unconscious before he hit the ground.

He was promptly whisked away by the spatial distortions, leaving only six Crowns standing.

Shen Haoran stood in the center of the arena, looking down at his hands.

The silver and purple glints were gone, replaced by the steady, golden-purple thrum of his physique.

”Hmm,” Haoran whispered, a small, thoughtful frown on his face. ”That feeling of power... the Trinity. It really is quite intoxicating. It’s a bit of a shame to put it back in the cage.”

He looked up at the remaining six, his golden eyes narrowing. ”But I suppose I should thank you. You’ve given me a taste of my future. Now, as a reward, I’ll finish this using the ’weak’ body you all seem to fear so much.”

The Crowns immediately prepared for battle.

Although Haoran in this state was also a monster, but he is certainly manageable unlike in that mysterious state earlier.

Haoran smirked and motioned at them with his fingers.

”Come on. Let’s not waste time. Let’s end this in an instant.”