Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The tumultuous, roaring chatter of the tens of thousands of gathered youths vanished in a single, terrifying microsecond.

An absolute, suffocating silence instantly blanketed the entire sprawling plaza outside the Imperial Academy as the colossal, mountain-sized Profound Arks of the Nine Immortal Clans and the Twelve Immortal Sects smoothly settled into their designated atmospheric moorings.

The pure, unadulterated weight of their defensive arrays and spatial stabilizers pressed down upon the capital city like an invisible ocean, forcing even the proudest noble scions to bow their heads under the crushing atmospheric pressure.

Then, one by one, with the clinical, rhythmic precision of a marching army, the core disciples and legacy successors originating from the Twelve Immortal Sects all began to descend gracefully from the lower ramps of their respective vessels.

”Look over there... That’s the primary ark of the Purple Sky Immortal Sect!” a rogue cultivator whispered through his locked teeth, his eyes wide with a mixture of intense reverence and dread.

At that moment, disciples from Purple Sky Immortal Sect deacended from the Ark.

”That’s ... The one standing at the very front of their disciples... that’s Bai Wenxin, universally acknowledged as the most talented, ruthlessly brilliant woman of this entire generation! I heard she successfully integrated a fragment of the Purple Mystical Heavenly Lightning into her dantian just a few weeks ago!”

”She’s also one of the heroes who stopped the barbarian invasions! Definitely worthy of being called one of the top of this generation! Unlike a certain crown prince!”

Bai Wenxin stepped onto the stone courtyard, her long, violet-tinted robes fluttering softly in the wind.

Her eyes were sharp, cold, and entirely unbothered by the staring masses.

She exuded an aura of absolute electric lethality, her very presence causing the surrounding air to smell faintly of ozone.

Right beside her vessel, a massive, jade-carved battleship belonging to the Grand Void Immortal Sect opened its main gates.

Stepping out into the light was their premier Core Disciple, Gao Yu, dressed in flowing, white-and-silver robes that seemed to subtly warp the light around his silhouette.

He carried a simple, unadorned wooden staff, but his eyes held the deep, unsettling vacuum of the infinite void.

”My god, it’s Gao Yu!” a young noble from a prominent central clan gasped, instinctively taking a step backward. ”The monster who mastered the Void-Shattering Finger in less than three months! I heard that during his last trial in the northern wastes, he casually erased an entire legion of demonic beasts with a single flick of his sleeve. The Grand Void Sect is truly aiming for the absolute top position this year!”

Before the crowd could even process his arrival, a third, blood-red ark belonging to the notorious Asura Sword Immortal Sect slammed heavily onto the stone platform.

Stepping down the ramp with an aggressive, unhurried stride was Xue Feng, a man whose long crimson hair perfectly mirrored the violent aura of slaughter radiating from his body.

Two massive, unsheathed demonic blades were strapped to his back, humming with a low, bloodthirsty resonance that made the hearts of the weaker disciples beat in an erratic, terrified panic.

”Xue Feng... the Living Calamity of the Asura Sect,” a veteran rogue cultivator muttered, his hands trembling as he clutched his own weapon. ”He actually forced his way out of the Blood-Pooling Purgatory early just to attend this enrollment! Look at the density of his qi... it’s already thick enough to materialize into solid mist! Anyone who stands near him during the trials will surely have their mental cultivation completely shattered!”

All the legacy disciples and elite vanguards from these supreme sects moved forward in perfect, organized ranks, taking their positions directly at the absolute front of the grand courtyard, silently waiting for the massive gates of the Imperial Academy to finally grind open.

However, just as the crowd began to adjust to the overwhelming presence of the Twelve Immortal Sects, an even greater, far more terrifying commotion violently rippled through the courtyard as the true, undisputed lords of the upper realms—the descendants of the Nine Immortal Clans—all began to systematically descend down from their star-metal fortresses.

”Finally...the Nine Immortal Clans... it’s truly rare to have all of them gather at the same time.”

”That’s true. In previous enrollments, only two or three of them would send their descendants at the same time.”

”The Shen Clan, the Hei Clan, the Gu Clan, the Ling Clan, the Shi Clan, the Yao Clan, the Ming Clan, Jian Clan, and the Su Clan... Truly terrifying group.”

Amongst the 9 Immortal Clans, the Shen Clan was, without a single shred of a doubt, the absolute strongest and most dominant force, and they operated with the unapologetic, crushing arrogance that naturally accompanied such unmatched supremacy.

Their bloodline descendants dominated almost every single known path of cultivation across the star systems, and every single generation they produced seemed to invariably birth heaven-defying monsters who shattered the historical records of the heavens.

They abided by a simple, brutal philosophy: power decides absolutely everything in this universe.

Because of this unyielding belief, the vast majority of their members were notoriously arrogant, aloof, and utterly ruthless, but they always possessed the terrifying, world-shaking strength required to back up their pride.

The other immortal clans either deeply feared them, fiercely hated them, or secretly spent their entire lives trying to desperately imitate their grand structural design.

Directly to their left, the dark, light-absorbing vessels of the Hei Clan lowered their anchors.

The Hei Clan exclusively cultivated the forbidden arts of darkness, ancient curses, death techniques, and all sorts of taboo, restricted methodologies that made the common orthodox sects tremble.

Across the realms, they carried the dark reputation of being evil monsters who thrived on suffering, but internally, their structure was surprisingly disciplined, tightly knit, and fiercely, fanatically loyal to one another.

Their core members were cold, calculating, and utterly terrifying to fight in open combat, especially in the absence of light, where their specialized techniques became completely invincible, twisting the shadows of their enemies into lethal weapons.

In stark contrast, the eccentric scholars and tomb-raiders of the Gu Clan descended from an ark wrapped in ancient, dust-laden protective runes.

The Gu Clan was completely, pathologically obsessed with digging through ancient ruins, hunting for lost inheritances, and researching buried, forgotten civilizations.

They spent significantly more time actively digging through the ruins of dead immortal kingdoms than participating in the political machinations of the central region.

Because of this ancient obsession, they possessed an uncountable number of bizarre treasures, forgotten knowledge, and reality-warping relics, but they also carried a terrible, infamous habit of accidentally awakening catastrophic disasters and sealed primordial entities that should have stayed buried forever in the dirt.

Stepping out from a vessel lined with solid spirit jade and rows of defensive arrays was the Shi Clan, the undisputed financial masters of the Tian Yuan Empire.

The Shi Clan had achieved their unmatched wealth by aggressively controlling the premier spirit stone veins, deep crystal mines, ancient trade routes, and heavenly resource sectors across the continent.

While their individual cultivators might not possess the monstrous, raw physical strength or bloodline transformations of the other immortal clans, their boundless, infinite wealth allowed them to effortlessly finance wars, purchase entire minor realms, and manipulate the markets.

Almost every single major sect or independent kingdom owed them massive favors, rare resources, or unpayable debts at some point in their history, making them untouchable through simple economics.

On the other side, from the quiet, silver-trimmed vessels of the Ling Clan a group of calm, silent youths stepped down.

The Ling Clan specialized exclusively in spiritual and psychic methodologies, mastering the complex paths of high-tier illusions, direct soul attacks, mind reading, and esoteric dream-walking techniques.

Their members were always deeply unsettling to be around because nobody could ever truly know if their thoughts, memories, or choices were actually their own or just being manipulated, so whenever a Ling Clan cultivator was standing within a mile of their position, everyone else gets incredibly unsettled.

They rarely engaged in direct, physical combat, but many of their historical enemies were already thoroughly defeated, broken, and enslaved before they even realized they had stepped into an illusion.

Following them were the masters of the botanical pathways, the Yao Clan, descended next.

They were the undisputed supreme masters of spiritual herbs, divine alchemy, lethal poisons, and mutated spiritual plants.

While their ancestral lands looked like peaceful, stunningly beautiful paradises of blooming flowers, nearly ninety percent of everything growing on their soil could instantly kill an immortal.

They were famous across the heavens as the greatest, most miraculous healers of the era, yet conversely, many of the deadliest, most agonizing poisons ever recorded in the history of cultivation had also originated from their private laboratories.

Next were the patient strategists of the Ming Clan, they stepped down from an ark decorated with the banners of a thousand conquered sectors.

The Ming Clan systematically controlled the greatest number of lower realms and minor mortal worlds across the void.

While the other immortal clans focused all their military resources entirely on dominating the high-tier immortal territories, the Ming Clan slowly, methodically expanded its absolute influence from the bottom upward.

They were patient, cold conquerors who raised massive mortal armies, harvested millions of hidden talents from countless worlds, and played the long game far better than anyone else in existence.

The fierce swordsmen of the Jian Clan emerged next, the sheer density of their unified sword-intent causing the stone bricks of the courtyard to crack and splinter under their boots.

The Jian Clan lived entirely, exclusively for the path of the sword.

Their members were straightforward, intensely proud, and absolutely obsessed with sharpening their personal sword intent through endless battle, bloody spars, and ruthless training.

They were universally considered the single most dangerous clan to engage in direct, head-on combat because their offensive power and lethal velocity were absurdly, overwhelmingly destructive.

Finally, the low-profile diplomats of the Su Clan stepped onto the platform.

The Su Clan was widely known across the capital as the weakest and least physically intimidating of the Nine Immortal Clans, completely lacking the monstrous bloodlines, divine physiques, or overwhelming military strength of their peers.

Because of this inherent genetic deficit, they had managed to survive through countless eras entirely through masterful strategy, silver-tongued diplomacy, deep secret-keeping, and extreme adaptability instead of relying on brute force.

While the younger, arrogant cultivators of the Immortal Clans frequently mocked them for their soft approach, the older, wiser monsters of the clans knew that the Su Clan had survived the fall of multiple empires for a very good reason—they were the ultimate survivors who knew exactly when to bend and when to strike from the dark.

They follow a very simple saying, ”The living laugh at the dead.”

All enemies who seek to replace and devour them had already been forgotten by times, but the Su Clan remained as one of the hegemon of the current epoch.

*BOOM.*

At that moment, the primary, central boarding ramp of the Shen Clan’s grand flagship hit the stone floor with a heavy, final thud.

Shen Haoran, his golden hair catching the sharp midday sun like a crown of light, calmly stepped out from the interior of the vessel.

He moved with a slow, majestic grace, leading the elite youths of the Ten Crowns directly behind his shoulders, while the organized disciples of the Luo Clan and the Flower Mountain Sect followed closely in his wake, their banners snapping in the wind.

And at that exact, historic moment, as his boots touched the central stones of the testing plaza, the legacy heirs and young masters from the rest of the Immortal Clans also stepped out from their respective arks simultaneously.

The air in the courtyard completely turned into liquid iron.

Every single heir stopped their advance, their bodies freezing in place as they slowly turned their heads, and all of them stared directly at each other across the empty space of the plaza, their competing, world-shaking paths of destiny violently clashing in mid-air.

Shen Haoran smirked at them, ”A few years have passed, and I thought you all would spend those time trying to improve, but judging from all of your strength... apparently not. Congratulations, all eight of you have been the first people to prove me wrong.”

The heirs of the Immortal Clans all glared at him, their auras rising to the heavens, completely suppressing everyone else in area!

And Haoran simply chuckled, completely unbothered.

The enrollment hadn’t even begun, but the war for the era had officially opened its first page.