Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

”This is...” Huo Yue stared at the knife resting in her palm.

Her fingers brushed against the cold, unadulterated metal, and though it looked like a common utensil a chef might use to chop vegetables in a mortal kitchen, her instincts as a peak Golden Core cultivator screamed in absolute terror.

The closer she looked, the more she realized that the edge of the blade didn’t reflect the morning light; rather, it seemed to slice the ambient illumination itself into microscopic fractures.

There were no intricate runes, no heavy arrays, and no flashy inscriptions carved upon its surface—just a raw, dense density that made the space within the kiosk warp ever so slightly around the metal.

”A knife made from the compressed sword intent of a Supreme,” said Haoran, his voice remaining as steady and detached as a frozen mountain lake.

He watched the subtle trembling of her fingers, his golden eyes observing the way her crimson aura instinctively coiled backward, refusing to touch the dormant weapon directly.

”Our ancestors forged these blades for me as a means of protection. Although it can only be used once, and the blade will completely disintegrate into ash after its release, anyone below the Supreme Emperor realm caught within its trajectory will instantly be erased from existence. Their flesh, their soul, their past, and their future karmic ties will be sheared away until nothing remains.”

”This...” Huo Yue’s wine-red eyes widened in profound shock, her breath catching in her throat as the sheer weight of the gift settled into her consciousness.

She looked up from the weapon to the flawless, unmoving face of her fiancé. ”Is it... is it really okay for me to have something this incredibly precious? This is a treasure that could easily decide the fate of a top-tier sect in the Central Region, or destroy several kingdom in a single instant.”

Haoran nodded smoothly, his posture relaxed against the bench. ”Take it. A weapon is only as valuable as the purpose it serves, and right now, your vengeance serves as a suitable stage.”

With this as an absolute, reality-breaking trump card, he knew with absolute certainty that her inherent status as a favored protagonist of the heavens would handle the rest of the journey.

The world’s essence would inevitably guide her to the doorsteps of the Shadow Hall, and when she opened that door, she would have the power to slaughter whatever ancient monster thought they could hide behind a historical lineage.

He didn’t need to hold her hand through the dark alleys; he only needed to give her the match to burn the entire neighborhood down.

Huo Yue clenched her fist tightly around the dull iron hilt, the metal biting into her skin, before she carefully stored the knife into the deepest, most secure compartment of her spatial ring.

She stared at him, the tears that had blurred her vision earlier completely gone, replaced by an intense, burning devotion that defied words.

”Thank you, Haoran,” she whispered, her voice thick with an emotion that felt heavy enough to reshape her meridians. ”I swear, I will make them bleed until the shadow itself turns crimson.”

Haoran chuckled, the low, rich sound vibrating within the quiet boundaries of the wooden kiosk as he swirled the remaining wine in his jade glass, watching the red liquid climb the edges. ”Don’t thank me yet, Yue’er. The road to the Shadow Hall’s central domain is paved with the corpses of countless experts and geniuses, and I expect you to arrive at the Imperial Academy without a single blemish on your skin.”

He then reached once more into his storage ring, pulling out a heavy, dark gold token etched with the intricate insignia of the Shen Clan.

The metal radiated a faint, rhythmic pulse that felt like a secondary heartbeat, heavy and full of a quiet, supreme authority.

He extended his hand and handed it to her, the golden light of the dawn catching the metallic ridges.

”If you ever feel that your life is in absolute danger, if you find yourself cornered by a variable your flames and that knife cannot resolve, crush this token,” Haoran commanded, his eyes locking onto hers with an icy weight. ”The spatial coordinates locked within the array will instantly shatter the distance between regions, and a peak Heavenly Saint realm expert from my clan’s enforcement vanguard will immediately come and save you. They will descend like a falling star, and whoever is standing against you will be crushed beneath their heel.”

”Peak Heavenly Saint...” Huo Yue muttered, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper as she stared down at the golden token resting in her palm.

The sheer scale of the backup Haoran was casually throwing her way was mind-boggling. In the Eastern Region, a Nirvana Rebirth expert was considered a walking god; a Heavenly Saint was an entity that ruled over entire star systems, a being whose single breath could scatter the clouds of an entire province.

Mind you, the size of cities were already planetary, with kingdoms having the average territory the size of star systems!

She immediately stored the token away, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. ”Haoran... I... I don’t even know how I can begin to repay you for all of this. This...these are pretty much keys to destroy an empire.”

”Repay me?” Haoran’s smirk returned, sharp, aristocratic, and completely unbothered by the cosmic debt he had just created. ”You are my fiancée, the woman who will stand beside me when I ascend to the absolute peak of the upper realms. You don’t have to repay me with anything, because everything I own will eventually be yours to command.”

At that exact instant, just for a microscopic fraction of a second that Huo Yue’s human senses entirely failed to notice, Haoran’s eyes flickered.

The deep, solid gold of his pupils fractured into a blinding, recursive pattern of rainbow-colored light, flash of the Karmic Light Observation operating at its absolute maximum capacity, before instantly returning to his normal, calm golden state.

Haoran stared at Huo Yue directly in the eyes, the two of them falling into a profound, heavy silence as the wind rustled the wisteria vines outside the kiosk.

Seven-colored lights. The unmistakable, supreme luck of a bona fide protagonist of the universe was swirling around her body like a violent, silent storm.

However, as he analyzed the shifting patterns of her destiny, he noticed that Huo Yue’s luck seemed to be glowing significantly brighter, denser, and more concentrated than any other protagonist or chosen heroine he had encountered across his travels.

Not to mention, if his karmic sight wasn’t mistaken, there were already thin, distinct hints of an imperial gold outlining each individual color of her aura.

Her destiny was actively evolving, shifting away from a mere tragic victim seeking justice and mutating into a sovereign ruler who would rewrite the laws of the world.

At that exact moment, as the realization of her power settled into his mind, the intense, suffocating silence inside the kiosk was broken.

”Haoran...” Huo Yue’s breathing suddenly turned heavy, a ragged, desperate sound that hissed through her teeth.

Her wine-red eyes, previously fixed on his face with gratitude, suddenly fractured into a look of absolute, primal hunger—a deep, visceral need that had been cooking inside her veins for months of lonely, agonizing cultivation.

Without a single word of warning, she moved with the sudden, violent velocity of a striking viper, tackling him directly to the wooden floor of the kiosk.

She loomed over him, her long crimson hair falling like a curtain of liquid fire on either side of his face, completely shutting out the morning light.

Her hands gripped his shoulders with a force that would have shattered the bones of a lesser cultivator, her chest jiggling violently with every shallow, heavy breath she took.

The scent of her, ancient herbs, sulfur, and a sweet, intoxicating female musk, swarmed his senses.

Haoran didn’t resist the impact. He just let himself fall backward onto the smooth wood, his expression remaining perfectly calm and collected as he lay on his back, observing her unstable state with the clinical focus of a researcher watching a volatile reaction reach its absolute peak.

”Haoran... Haoran...” Huo Yue spoke, her voice ragged, dropping into a low, guttural purr that vibrated against his skin as her chest pressed flush against his ribs, her heat radiating through his golden silk robes like a furnace. ”Do you have any actual idea how much I’ve missed you? Do you know what it felt like to be alone in the dark, thinking about how much my master is suffering and daydreaming that you will arrive to help me? I missed you so much that I thought of your face every single night until my mind began to warp. I missed you so much that you wouldn’t leave my thoughts for a single second, driving me to the brink of insanity. I missed you so much that my very body was quite literally aching in a physical need that no amount of meditation could suppress. When we finally saw each other again earlier on that blood-soaked plain, it took every single ounce of my willpower just to not pounce on you in front of the entire army and devour you right then and there.”

Haoran believed her. He didn’t need his karmic vision to see the absolute truth of her obsession. Right now, as he looked up into her face, he could quite literally see her pupils turning into shifting, pink hearts, her vision completely glazed over with a manic, possessive lust.

Her massive chest jiggled with every frantic, heavy breath she drew, her skin turning a dark, flushed red that leaked a sweet, heavy vapor.

Right now, she looked like she was a single thread away from snapping completely, a goddess of fire ready to go completely insane if her hunger wasn’t immediately satisfied.

However, instead of feeling disgust or alarm at her predatory behavior, Haoran strangely felt a deep, dark surge of excitement and thrill coursing through his own meridians.

The primal, chaotic nature of her obsession resonated beautifully with the quiet darkness hidden beneath his own aristocratic composure.

Without a single word of hesitation, his hands shot out, wrapping tightly around her slender waist, then, with a sudden, explosive burst of his physical strength, he flipped them both over in a seamless blur of movement, reversing their positions instantly.

Now, making her lie flat on her back against the wooden floor of the kiosk, he loomed over her, his golden hair falling forward as he pinned her wrists down above her head.

”Haoran...” she whispered, her eyes rolling back slightly as her legs instinctively coiled around his thigh, her voice turning into a desperate, pleading sound.

At that exact moment, Haoran immediately descended, capturing her lips in a deep, bruising kiss that completely cut off her words.

Huo Yue let out a muffled whimper of absolute ecstasy against his mouth at the moment their lips met, and as her hands broke free from his grip, she immediately wrapped tightly around his neck with a desperate intensity.

She caressed his hair violently, her fingers digging into his scalp as she pulled him down with all her strength, pushing his entire weight flush towards her body as if she were trying to physically fuse their two souls together through the friction of their skin.

Their tongues wrestled for dominance within the hot, wet cavity of her mouth, a fierce, chaotic battle that lacked any gentleness.

The intensity of their passion was so absolute that their saliva began to overflow, trickling down from the corner of Huo Yue’s lips in a thin, glistening line that ran down the side of her flushed neck.

She was arching her back against the floor, her entire body vibrating with the heat of her four Heavenly Flames, which were now roaring in perfect harmony with his gold incinerating power.

Finally, after a few minutes of non-stop, breathless desperation, they broke the kiss just enough to draw air into their burning lungs, their foreheads resting against each other as they breathed heavily, their hot breaths mingling in the cool morning air.

Haoran stared down at her, his golden eyes glowing with a cold, absolute command that brooked no delay, his voice a low, heavy drone that vibrated directly into her core.

”Strip.”

Huo Yue felt her entire body violently shake in an explosion of pure, unadulterated excitement, her pink-heart pupils widening as she reached for her own robes with trembling, frantic fingers.