Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

At the very center of Nascent Soul trial dimension where the pyramid stood.

Two figures appeared, staring at the grand structure.

The air beneath the towering black obsidian pyramid was thick with an intense, suffocating pressure.

The massive structure stretched high into the sky, its polished steps gleaming like dark glass under the swirling emerald light of the Academy’s Mandate hovering at its peak.

One of the figures was Huo Yue, who stood near the base of the first step, her hands resting casually on her hips as her fiery crimson hair fluttered in the atmospheric wind generated by the array.

She tilted her head back, looking up at the summit with a whistle.

”Whoa, that is one big token,” Huo Yue remarked, her lips curving into a bright, confident smirk. ”Don’t you think so, senior?”

She turned around, her grin widening into a slightly wicked expression.

Behind her, her assigned senior student—and official partner for this trial—stood trembling in the dirt.

The poor man was completely burned from head to toe, wrapped tightly in thick white bandages so extensively that he resembled a walking mummy, with only his single left eye visible through a narrow slit in the linen.

Ever since they had stepped through the portal into this trial dimension, he had been insufferable.

He had constantly attempted to boss around Huo Yue, arrogance oozing from every word as he flexed his seniority and superior cultivation base, making things unnecessarily difficult for her at every turn. He had treated her like a naive, junior disciple who needed to obey his every command.

In the end, the fiery Huo Yue couldn’t take it anymore. The volcanic temper running through her blood exploded, and she challenged him to a fight right on the spot.

What’s a higher cultivation base to a true protagonist? Absolute trash!

Using her peerless fire intent plus several Heavenly Flames and her raw combat skills earned from countless life or death situations, she completely burned him to a crisp, searing his protective qi until his flesh melted and he became thoroughly, utterly obedient to her every whim.

”Hmffff! Hmfff!” The senior tried to speak, but the pain of his burns and the bandage covering his mouth made it impossible.

”Ah man, I wish I can understand mummy.” Huo Yue shook her head.

Just then...

”Sister Yue!”

Huo Yue turned her head at the sound of the cheerful voice and saw Qian Yunxi running towards her, smiling brightly while waving her hand in the air.

Her blue robes fluttered gracefully as she cleared the rocky terrain with light, airy leaps.

Huo Yue blinked, scanning the empty space behind her friend, and noticed that there was no one walking with her. ”Sister Yunxi, where’s your partner?”

Qian Yunxi stopped beside her, letting out a helpless sigh before smiling wryly. ”He ran away and left the trial space entirely. The moment a high level demonic beast attacked us, he panicked, activated his emergency talisman, and vanished. I’ve been wandering alone ever since.”

She shook her head, wondering just how such a cowardly man managed to enter the academy.

Was the previous entrance exams much easier than the one they took?

”I see. Then let’s partner up then,” said Huo Yue cheerfully.

She reached into her sleeve and took out an emergency exit talisman—the very talisman that was issued to all students at the start of the exam so they could forfeit and leave the dimension at any time.

This particular talisman belonged to her burnt senior partner, which she had forcibly confiscated earlier so he would be trapped here to suffer her wrath instead of escaping comfortably.

She tossed the glowing paper to the bandaged man. ”Go. I have a new partner now.”

The senior looked at the paper talisman in his hands as if he had just seen God himself descending from the heavens.

Tears of joy and relief brimmed in his single visible eye.

Without wasting a single second, he channeled his remaining qi into the talisman, and his bandaged body instantly vanished into a flash of spatial light, escaping the dimension forever.

Huo Yue almost laughed at how he escpaed like a rat that got found by a cat.

”Everyone should be gathering here right now, shouldn’t they?” said Qian Yunxi, looking up at the glowing green mandate hovering thousands of steps above them.

”Should be,” said Huo Yue, resting her arms behind her head. ”Nobody with an ounce of ambition is going to pass up an opportunity like this.”

”You are correct, Yue. After all, the Academy’s Mandate is far too important to ignore.”

The two turned their heads as another set of footsteps sounded against the gravel, seeing Gu Xunyi walking towards them, completely alone, still with that nonchalant and friendly smile resting comfortably on her beautiful face.

Her demeanor was as relaxed as if she were merely taking a casual stroll through a imperial garden rather than preparing for a massive battle.

”Sister Xunyi, seems like you got rid of your partner too,” said Huo Yue, chuckling as she folded her arms.

Gu Xunyi simply chuckled softly, but didn’t say anything to deny or confirm it, her calm eyes reflecting the brilliant emerald light of the pyramid.

Following her arrival, the atmosphere below the monument grew increasingly heavy as dozens of other elite students started appearing from all directions of the compass.

First came the Third Prince, Xu Jingshan, radiating a noble and majestic imperial aura.

He walked shoulder-to-shoulder with his older brother, the former Crown Prince Xu Xiaojun, both of them keeping their expressions sharp and guarded.

Although, Xu Xiaojun now looked a bit more timid standing beside Xu Jingshan, completely unlike the arrogant him from years ago.

After them arrived Su Xishi, her alluring posture and demeanor, with her fox tail swaying playfully contrasting that of her partner, the serious and stern Bai Wenxin, walking alongside her.

Soon after Hei Xuan and Shi Tian appeared—two formidable, arrogant heirs from the ancient Immortal Clans, their bodies dripping with dense, heavy cultivation pressure that forced lesser disciples to step back.

Hei Xuan looked towards Huo Yue and the others, and, not finding Haoran, shook his head in disappointment.

In his mind, the only one to rival him and his partner in this trial was Shen Haoran.

And cutting through the fog with a sharp, terrifying sword aura was the sword maniac from the famous Jian Clan, Jian Xi, who was paired with a powerful, stern-looking senior cultivator at the peak of the Nascent Soul realm.

Then, one by one, the elite figures belonging to the Ten Crowns also started appearing around the perimeter.

Having long abandoned their burden-like partners, they gathered alongside Huo Yue and the others, forming a terrifying circle of young powerhouses that dominated the clearing.

Despite the vast crowd of geniuses assembling at the base of the stairs, Huo Yue kept looking back toward the horizon, tapping her foot against the dark stone with growing impatience.

”Haoran’s taking way too long,” Huo Yue grumbled, huffing softly as a small flicker of red flame danced across her shoulder. ”I’m sure he wanted to arrive late on purpose. He really likes making his dramatic entrance when everyone’s already watching.”

”Pfft! Hahaha!” Gu Xunyi let out a sudden, melodic laugh, covering her mouth slightly with her sleeve. ”Oh, you really know him way too well, Yue.”

The surrounding members of the Ten Crowns exchanged awkward, hesitant looks, staring at each other in silent amusement.

After all, perhaps in the entire world, aside from Haoran’s own terrifyingly powerful mother and his influential aunts, only these two bold maidens could actually make fun of him so openly without facing any severe repercussions or fearsome retaliation.

Shen Fei especially looked the most like someone who desperately wanted to laugh out loud.

His broad shoulders twitched, and he raised a hand to cough into his fist to hide his booming grin.

After all, during the grand Heaven’s Choice tournament years ago, Haoran had done the exact same thing—arriving late at the very last second, making a grand show of it, and completely suppressing every single one of them on the arena stage.

It was indeed a very dramatic entrance that none of them would ever forget.

However, there was someone standing among the crowd who couldn’t take that mockery lying down.

It was Haoran’s most loyal, fiercely obedient puppy.

Shen Xun’er.

”Hey!” Shen Xun’er snapped, her fiery eyes glaring daggers directly at Gu Xunyi and Huo Yue as she bared her teeth at them in indignation and shouted, ”Don’t speak bad about Boss, or I’ll fight you both right here and now!”

Gu Xunyi turned her gaze toward the furious girl and chuckled softly, her eyes twinkling with affection. ”You really are just like a protective little puppy, you know that?”

Shen Xun’er didn’t back down an inch as she simply crossed her arms tightly over her chest, turned her head away, and let out a sharp, rebellious ”Hmph!”

But at that exact moment, the ground beneath the base of the pyramid began to tremble violently!

*RUMBLE—!*

The dark soil cracked open with a deafening roar, and a colossal, mountain-sized desert sandworm suddenly erupted from the earth!

Dust, shattered rock, and sand rained down everywhere as the massive beast towered over the crowd, screeching into the sky.

In an instant, every elite cultivator present—from the Crown Prince to the sword maniac Jian Xi—instantly unsheathed their weapons, their qi bursting outward as they prepared for a intense, bloody battle against the surprise monster!

However, just as they were about to attack, everyone paused, their eyes widening as they noticed two calm and indifferent figures standing casually right on top of the sandworm’s massive, armored head.

They were Shen Haoran and Shen Xinye.

This worm is obviously not the one that Haoran first tamed, instead, before coming to the central pyramid, Haoran thought that walking through the vast desert on foot was far too tedious.

So, he went out of his way searching through the dunes for another massive earth worm to tame, using the suppression effect granted by his Infinity Dragon God Physique to turn it into a temporary mount so they could comfortably hitch a ride straight to the destination.

Huo Yue stared at the two and pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a long, exasperated sigh, but a small, almost unnoticeable smile appeared from her lips. ”Look at them... He really does like his dramatic entrances. I called it.”

With a casual, fluid motion, Haoran and Shen Xinye jumped down from the top of the giant beast’s head, floating gracefully through the air like feather-light leaves before landing smoothly on the stone ground.

The colossal sandworm let out a submissive, low rumble, bowed its giant head toward Haoran, and then burrowed back deep underground, leaving a massive clearing in its wake.

Every single eye in the area—hundreds of junior and senior students, all Nascent Soul geniuses—was fixed entirely on them.

Ignoring the staring crowd, Haoran and Shen Xinye walked smoothly towards Huo Yue, Gu Xunyi, Qian Yunxi, and the rest of the group.

Shen Haoran offered them a calm, handsome smile and opened his mouth, about to speak and greet his companions, when suddenly—

”Ah, we’re not late, are we?”

A clear, refined female voice echoed from the spatial boundary at the edge of the clearing.

The sudden arrival instantly drew everyone’s attention away from Haoran.

The crowd turned their heads to see Su Meilin and Ling Yinchi emerging from a rippling portal of spatial light, stepping side by side into the clearing beneath the green radiance of the mandate.

Huo Yue stared at the two newly arrived maidens of the Immortal Clans, then turned her eyes back to look at Haoran’s interrupted, frozen expression, and burst into a loud, uncontrollable fit of laughter.

”Pfft—HAHAHAHA!” Huo Yue cackled, clutching her stomach as she pointed at him. ”Looks like someone just got their grand entrance totally hijacked!”