Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

”Get over here!”

Shen Xinye declared, her silver, elegant eyes flashing with sharp, decisive coldness as she violently yanked the glowing red rope back.

The tied-up Elder Zhao was pulled straight through the air toward her like a hooked fish, his body flailing helplessly in mid-air.

As he hurtled through the darkness, Shen Xinye smoothly raised her right hand, curling her middle fingers inward to form a sharp finger gun pointed directly at his forehead.

SHUU-SHU-SHU-SHUUU—!

She flicked her wrist repeatedly, firing a rapid barrage of dense, razor-sharp sword intent bullets from her fingertips.

Each condensed projectile whistled through the air with a high pitched, piercing shrieking sound, cutting through the dusty atmosphere like micro-sized flying blades aimed straight for his vital spots.

Paralyzed by the sheer, suffocating terror of imminent death, Elder Zhao’s survival instincts violently kicked into overdrive!

”Ahhhh! Protect me!” Elder Zhao shrieked in pure fear and panic.

Forcing a burst of his remaining spiritual sense into his spatial storage ring, he immediately took out a high-grade defensive artifact—a gleaming, ancient bronzed turtle-shell shield engraved with protective, ocean element runes.

The bronze shield expanded in a flash of blue light, hovering right in front of his tied body to absorb the incoming lethal barrage.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The sharp sword intent bullets slammed violently into the surface of the bronzed turtle-shell shield, creating brilliant showers of golden sparks and sending ringing metallic shockwaves echoing down the stone corridor.

The sheer kinetic impact pushed his airborne, bound body forward even faster, hurtling straight toward Shen Xinye’s standing position.

However, just as he was about to reach her, Shen Xinye’s expression remained utterly unbothered, cool, and motionless.

She opened her palm, and with a swift, fluid motion, she condensed her overflowing, boundless sword intent into a physical weapon—creating a six-foot-long, dazzling blade made entirely of sharp, incandescent white sword intent.

She stepped forward, lower leg pivoting, and stabbed the radiant blade straight toward Elder Zhao’s exposed chest with terrifying, precision speed.

CRACK—!!!!!

The high-grade defensive turtle-shell artifact shattered completely into a thousand useless bronze shards under the armor piercing authority of her condensed sword intent.

Elder Zhao’s eyes dilated to the size of pinpricks in pure, unadulterated fear as the piercing white point shattered his shield and drove straight for his heart.

Driven by a desperate, frantic urge to survive, he violently twisted his upper body to the left with everything he had, contorting his old frame mid-air.

STAB!

His desperate contortion thankfully allowed him to dodge a fatal blow to the heart, making the radiant sword intent blade miss his chest and plunge deep into his right shoulder instead.

”AAAAAAAGH!” Elder Zhao shrieked in agony as the sword intent severed his flesh, fractured his collarbone, and tore through his upper meridians, spraying bright crimson blood across Shen Xinye’s pristine robes.

The agonizing pain and the razor-thin border between life and death shattered Elder Zhao’s last remaining thread of sanity.

”YOU WRETCHED LITTLE DEMON! DIE!” Elder Zhao roared at the top of his lungs, his face contorting into a bloody, monstrous mask of pure, unbridled rage.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

Elder Zhao released all his Spirit Ascension qi in a single, catastrophic burst.

A wave of pressurized, emerald and blue spiritual energy exploded outward from his dantians, generating a massive shockwave that instantly snapped and destroyed the binding runes of the red rope, tearing the magical cord into useless, burnt fibers.

Free from his bindings, Elder Zhao landed heavily on his feet, his right shoulder bleeding profusely, his hair wild and disheveled.

He slapped his spatial ring, pulling out a pair of long, jade encrusted hooked daggers that glowed with a toxic, high pressure wood element aura.

”I am an Elder of Leaf Green City! I will not be killed by a brat like you!” Elder Zhao screamed, lunging forward with full, frantic speed.

He crossed his hooked daggers in front of his chest, executing his ultimate close quarters martial technique—The Emerald Viper’s Fang!

SWISH-SWISH-SWISH—!

Dozens of poisonous, emerald dagger arcs burst into existence, forming a lethal, spinning sphere of cutting blades that rushed straight toward Shen Xinye’s throat and torso.

Shen Xinye didn’t step back a single inch. Her white sword-intent blade flickered in her hand, her movements light, fluid, and impossibly graceful, as if she were performing an effortless dance in the dark.

CLANG! CLANG! BANG! CLANG!

She parried every single one of his frantic dagger strikes with absolute, effortless precision.

Every time his poison coated jade blades clashed against her white sword intent, the sheer purity of her martial intent neutralized the toxic aura instantly, sending green sparks flying against the stone walls.

”Why won’t you die?!” Elder Zhao screamed, his eyes bloodshot as he pressed the attack, thrusting his left hook directly toward her eye socket while sweeping his right blade toward her ribs.

Shen Xinye tilted her head back by a mere hair’s breadth, letting the left dagger graze past her nose bridge.

She effortlessly spun her wrist, bringing the pommel of her sword-intent blade up to slam directly into Elder Zhao’s wounded right shoulder.

BANG!

”AGH!” Elder Zhao groaned, his right arm going completely numb as blood gushed afresh from his open wound.

Taking advantage of his momentary falter, Shen Xinye stepped inside his guard, her eyes glowing with an ancient, sovereign light as she channeled the majestic inheritance resting deep within her soul.

The air around her instantly grew suffocatingly cold, heavy with the phantom pressure of an ancient, ascended Emperor.

”Your attacks are sloppy, old man,” Shen Xinye spoke softly, her voice cool and melodious, yet carrying an undeniable, chilling authority. ”Your qi is chaotic, your footing is weak, and your spirit is already broken by fear. You were dead the moment you ran.”

She raised her sword-intent blade high above her head, the dazzling white light expanding into a ten-foot pillar of pure, cutting sword domain that illuminated the entire subterranean corridor.

Elder Zhao looked up at the radiant, sovereign aura surrounding her, his knees trembling violently, his hooked daggers shaking in his hands as he realized the terrifying, insurmountable wall standing before him.

But then, Elder Zhao’s eyes turned firm, filled with the sheer, unadulterated madness of a trapped beast backed into a corner.

”DAMN YOU! SPIRIT AVATAR!”

He roared at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing violently through the subterranean corridor as he finally summoned his Spirit Avatar.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

The ancient stone walls exploded outward, showering the dark place with flying gravel and crushed bedrock.

A massive, horrifying ethereal figure erupted into existence—a colossal, demonic looking tree whose towering trunk twisted with dark, agonizing faces.

Its base sprouted dozens of sharp, tentacle-like roots that whipped wildly through the air, while its upper canopy expanded into a tangled nightmare of thick, arm-like branches ending in razor-sharp wooden claws.

Elder Zhao floated securely inside the forehead of this grotesque wood-element avatar, his bleeding right shoulder dripping crimson onto the glowing green energy core beneath his feet.

The demonic tree raised six of its massive arm-like branches, interlocking them in front of its body just in time to block Shen Xinye’s descending, ten-foot pillar of white sword intent.

BOOOOOOM—!

The blinding explosion of sword qi detonated against the intertwined wooden arms, stripping away layers of bark and sending showers of burning green splinters flying in every direction, but the massive Spirit Avatar successfully held its ground, blocking the lethal blow.

Shen Xinye didn’t force the engagement. She pushed off the air with effortless grace, floating back through the dusty atmosphere and landing lightly on top of a fallen granite pillar twenty yards away.

She raised her cool silver eyes, quietly staring at the towering demonic tree avatar with an expression of quiet, unbothered contemplation.

With a flick of her slender wrist, she reached into her spatial storage and pulled out a radiant, ancient golden crown—the divine relic she had inherited from that disgusting, perverted Shameless Emperor during her trial.

She placed the golden crown smoothly onto her head.

The moment the crown rested upon her golden hair, an ancient, bizarre, and utterly absurd spiritual domain expanded outward.

One of the primary abilities engraved upon this crown was the conceptual law of Dominator and Dominated—a divine authority that effectively translated the underlying mechanics of BDSM into inescapable reality.

The moment the domain was established, Shen Xinye was designated as the undisputed Dominator, while her designated target, Elder Zhao, was forcefully branded as the Dominated.

In practical combat terms, this conceptual authority exerted an irresistible, crushing psychological and spiritual weight over the victim—brutally suppressing and weakening Elder Zhao’s cultivation output, movement speed, and physical defenses, while simultaneously bestowing immense stat amplifications, aura pressure, and combat bonuses upon Shen Xinye.

Furthermore, the crown granted her direct control over the power of vibration!

By imbuing her spiritual sense into any physical object she touched, she could cause its atomic structure to vibrate at millions of cycles per second.

”That shameless, perverted old Emperor...” Shen Xinye cursed under her breath, a faint, rare blush of utter annoyance dusting her cheeks as her dark eyes twitched.

She couldn’t help but inwardly curse the Supreme Emperor for being an a completely unhinged pervert when designing his divine artifacts.

Although, she had to admit, despite this high-frequency vibration concept that could indeed be utilized in a mind-bogglingly sexual or debauched manner, its practical application on a live battlefield was terrifyingly lethal.

In combat, this high-frequency resonance could be harnessed to trigger earthquakes, shatter dense kinetic barriers, disintegrate enemy weapons upon contact, and exponentially amplify the cutting power of her sword blade to a defense ignoring level.

Reaching into her spatial ring once more, Shen Xinye drew her main weapon—the elegant Frost-Edged Willow.

The moment her fingers wrapped around the sword hilt, the crown’s high-frequency vibration surged into the steel.

The blade of the Frost-Edged Willow began to vibrate at an invisible, ultra-high frequency, emitting a faint, high-pitched humming sound that caused the ambient air around the steel to visibly warp and ripple.

”What... what is this oppressive pressure?!” Elder Zhao gasped from inside the demonic tree’s forehead, his voice trembling uncontrollably.

Under the crown’s Dominator and Dominated domain, Elder Zhao felt an overwhelming, soul-crushing weight settle over his dantians.

His peak Spirit Ascension qi became sluggish and heavy, his physical reaction speed plummeted, and a paralyzing sense of innate submission and helplessness washed over his mind.

”DAMN IT! WHAT IS THIS!? GET AWAY FROM ME!” Elder Zhao shrieked in frantic terror, trying to overcome the mental suppression.

He commanded his demonic tree avatar to strike, and dozens of sharp, tentacle-like roots and arm-like branches whipped through the air simultaneously, hurtling straight toward Shen Xinye like a tidal wave of thorned wood.

Shen Xinye didn’t even bother dodging. She simply stepped forward, swinging the vibrating blade of the Frost-Edged Willow in a smooth, casual arc.

SWISH—!!!!!

The vibrating sword blade cut through the air!

This attack didn’t merely strike the incoming wooden tentacles—it utterly disintegrated their physical structure at an atomic level.

The dozens of sharp roots and heavy branches were sliced into fine, powdery sawdust before they could even come within five feet of her robes.

”WHAT?!” Elder Zhao screamed, his eyes bulging as the conceptual suppression weakened his avatar’s structural durability even further.

Shen Xinye blurred into motion, appearing directly in front of the towering demonic tree in a fraction of a second and thrust the Frost-Edged Willow straight into the main trunk.

BOOOOOOOOOOM—!

The high-frequency vibration transmitted directly into the core of the Spirit Avatar, and a seismic shockwave detonated through the wooden giant!

The entire demonic tree began to vibrate rapidly, deep structural fractures spreading across its bark as the high-frequency vibration shattered its energy pathways from the inside out.

CRACK! BANG! SHATTER!

With a deafening explosion of green light, Elder Zhao’s Spirit Avatar was completely shattered into millions of useless, dissolving energy fragments.

”AGH!” Elder Zhao coughed up a heavy stream of dark crimson blood as his avatar collapsed, sending his weakened body falling helplessly toward the stone floor.

Before he could even hit the ground, Shen Xinye flicked her wrist and four thick, glowing red spiritual ropes materialized out of thin air, shooting forward and binding Elder Zhao’s limbs in mid-air.

SWISH-SWISH-SWISH!

The enchanted ropes tied his body in a deeply humiliating, tightly bound bondage pose—hogtying his legs behind his back, pinning his arms tightly behind his spine, and arching his back forcefully toward the ceiling, leaving him completely immobilized and suspended horizontally three feet above the dirt.

”No... No! Please! Mercy! I beg of you!” Elder Zhao whimpered, his face flushing with a mixture of immense shame, excruciating pain, and paralyzing terror as he squirmed helplessly in the humiliating, tight bindings.

Shen Xinye floated down, her boots landing silently on the stone floor right in front of the bound council member.

Her expression remained ice-cold, utterly devoid of pity or hesitation, her silver eyes looking down at him as if he were nothing more than dirt under her heels.

”You chose the wrong side,” Shen Xinye spoke softly, her voice cool and level.

She raised the vibrating, hum-filled blade of the Frost-Edged Willow and drove it cleanly through his exposed throat.

STAB!

The ultra-high-frequency blade pierced cleanly through his neck, severing his vocal cords and shattering his spine in a second.

Elder Zhao’s eyes widened in one final, silent gasp of terror before his life force completely drained away, his limp, bound body hanging motionless in the cold, subterranean darkness.