Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

”So it’s you...”

Haoran stared at the sky in profound shock, his breath catching in his throat as the primordial pressure of the golden eye pressed down upon his soul.

The pressure was unlike anything he had ever encountered—it carried the suffocating weight of uncountable epochs, the unyielding balance of the cosmos, and the cold authority of reality itself.

But then, the momentary shock in his eyes vanished, replaced by a sharp, radiant light.

A slow, dark grin appeared on his face, stretching wide as he looked directly into the terrifying golden iris hovering amidst the storm clouds.

”We meet at last, Heavenly Dao,” Haoran spoke, his voice quiet yet carrying a ringing, immortal resonance that cut cleanly through the howling gale and crackling thunder.

The colossal golden eye did not blink.

The swirling tribulation clouds around it tightened, dark violet lightning weaving into ancient, divine seals that locked down the space for miles around.

When the voice echoed again, it did not travel through the air; it vibrated through the fundamental threads of the universe, reverberating within the deepest chambers of Haoran’s mind and dantians.

”You are the one who are killing and targeting my chosens.” The Heavenly Dao stated.

Haoran smirked, ”Chosens? You actually chose those trash? For the so-called absolute authority of the world, your standards seems rather...low.”

The Heavenly Dao did not get angry, ”I have been trying to find you for a long time, but I keep failing. In fact, even now, I still have no idea where you are. Are you perhaps being hidden by a formation? No, there are no formation powerful enough to hide from my gaze. Could it be... Yes. That must be it.”

Haoran frowned. What the hell is this thing talking about? Is there something or someone helping him hide aside from the Supremes in his house?

”You are an anomaly, Shen Haoran,” the Heavenly Dao intoned, its voice sounding like the grinding of tectonic plates and the distant collapse of dying stars. ”You are the singular flaw in the tapestry of this realm—a life that should be despised above all else. You stand outside the grand cycle of samsara, wielding truths you were never meant to hold, disrupting the delicate equilibrium established since the dawn of creation. You are a entity that is simply not supposed to exist; a threat to the order of the world.”

Haoran decided to ignore whoever was hiding him and took a step forward, his golden and purple qi flaring outward, defying the crushing weight of the divine gaze as he let out a low, confident chuckle, his hair dancing in the rising tempest.

”A flaw?” Haoran countered, his voice dripping with cool, aristocratic disdain. ”Funny. I think you just call me a flaw simply because I refuse to be a puppet on your strings, right? The world you created is built upon a foundation of endless stagnation, a rigged game where your chosens slaughter the others merely to dance within the narrow boundaries you have prescribed for them. At the end, all of us are nothing but pawns for you to play around. If that is your concept of order, then I’d rather go against it.”

”You cannot go against it. Order is the foundation of existence,” the Heavenly Dao responded, the golden eye flaring with a blinding, celestial brilliance that caused the pitch-black sky to turn white for a fraction of a second. ”Without the boundaries of the Dao, reality collapses into mindless chaos. Every star that shines, every drop of rain that falls, and every soul that enters the cycle of reincarnation does so under my divine law. You bring disruption. You alter fates that were carved in stone before your birth. You grant power to those destined to fall and crush those destined to rise. To allow you to ascend further is to invite entropy into the cosmos.”

Haoran raised his head, his golden eyes flashing with a sharp, sovereign brilliance as he crossed his arms over his chest.

”And who decided those fates were absolute?” Haoran mocked, his grin widening. ”You speak of entropy as if it were a disease, yet it is the very essence of true growth! You set up ’destiny’ to keep the heavens predictable, to ensure that no mortal ever grows strong enough to look you in the eye. You call me an anomaly because I am the only variable you cannot predict, the only soul whose choices you cannot script! I am not a flaw in your world, Heavenly Dao—I am its natural progression!”

”Arrogance,” the voice echoed, heavy with cold, immortal condemnation. ”A mortal ant, elevated by stolen grace and temporary power, mistaking its brief, flickering existence for enlightenment. You claim to bring progression, yet you bring only destruction. Look at the earth beneath your feet. Blood stains the soil, spirit veins crumble, and thousands perish in the wake of your ambition. Is this your grand progression? You are a cancer upon the realm, consuming its vital essence to fuel your own unnatural ascent.”

”The earth bleeds because it is shedding its old skin!” Haoran shot back, his voice echoing with thunderous conviction as his newly awakened Spirit Ascension aura surged to a violent peak! ”You mourn the withered grass and the fallen guards, yet you remain silent when millions suffer under the tyranny of your so-called ’destined’ rulers! You do not care about the suffering of mortals, Heavenly Dao—you only care about control! You despise me because I prove that a soul can break through your rigid shackles through pure, unyielding will and intellect! If my existence threatens your balance, it only proves how fragile your balance truly was to begin with!”

”The balance of the universe is absolute and unyielding,” the Heavenly Dao declared, the golden eye narrowing into a sharp, lethal slit as thousands of heavenly lightning dragons coalesced within the cloud vortex, their divine radiance illuminating the dark horizon. ”You consider control evil, and freedom good, yet freedom without law is merely destruction. You seek to elevate yourself above the heavens, but no creation can outgrow its creator. What is not meant to exist must be erased. What is flawed must be purged. The universe does not accept the existence of an anomaly.”

Haoran spread his arms wide, his gold and purple qi expanding into a towering, hundred-meter pillar that stood erect against the descending celestial pressure, his face alight with an unhinged, triumphant euphoria.

”Then come and try to erase me!” Haoran roared back into the storm, his voice shaking the heavens. ”You built this world to be a static cage, but I will turn it into my forge! Rain down your divine judgment! Strike me with every lightning bolt, every law, and every divine curse you possess! If your heavens cannot crush me today, then tomorrow, I will tear down your sky and write my own Dao upon the stars!”

The colossal golden eye amidst the dark vortex narrowed into a slit of unyielding condemnation.

The Heavenly Dao did not issue a warning, and it did not grant a grace period, so without a single second of hesitation, the heavens moved to strike—and before Shen Haoran could even raise his arms or react, a terrifying bolt of primordial, divine lightning tore through space and struck him point-blank.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

The sheer, blinding impact sent a burning hot detonation straight through his body.

The pain was immediate, and catastrophic. It was an agony that surpassed physical comprehension—the divine lightning didn’t merely strike his skin; it violently detonated within every single cell, meridian, and bone fiber simultaneously!

His skin cracked open like dry parchment, his flesh ripping apart into raw, charred ribbons as his blood evaporated into steam before it could even flow!

Far worse than the physical devastation was the spiritual torture: the heavenly tribulation pierced directly into his dantians, searing his newly formed Spirit Ascension foundation and setting his very soul on fire!

The agonizing sensation was like having his consciousness torn apart thread by thread, submerged into an ocean of liquid magma while millions of rusted needles stabbed into his divine mind!

”GAAAH!”

Shen Haoran screamed in pain, but quickly shut his mouth and gritted his teeth so hard his gums bled, his knees buckling as the crushing force drove him knee-deep into the molten bedrock!

Blood spurted from his eyes, nose, and mouth, yet through the blinding, soul-shredding agony, he managed to endure it!

Inside his mind, a desperate warning alarm screamed.

But, he didn’t dare open his inner world to absorb or vent the energy.

If he opened the portal to his private domain now, the unbridled, destructive authority of the Heavenly Dao would instantly flood inward, ripping the delicate dimensional framework apart and completely destroying his soul from the inside out!

Not to mention... Qing’er was resting inside that world.

If a single spark of this divine judgment touched her, she would be instantaneously reduced to scattered ashes!

He had to swallow every drop of this heavenly wrath alone!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

Before he could even draw a breath, a second divine lightning bolt—twice as thick, pulsing with a terrifying crimson-and-gold radiance—shot down from the swirling vortex!

CRACK-BOOM!

It slammed directly into his chest!

The sheer, unholy agony went infinitely beyond reason, beyond language, and beyond any mortal concept of suffering!

Shen Haoran’s chest cavity violently caved in, his sternum shattering into splinters that impaled his lungs!

The divine fire burned through his nerves, turning his nervous system into a agonizing grid of raw, unadulterated pain that made his vision turn completely pitch-black!

Every single millisecond felt like an eternity in the deepest pit of hell, his soul shrieking as the heavenly laws tried to dissolve his identity and erase his existence from reality itself!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

A third bolt! A fourth bolt! A fifth bolt!

The heavenly barrage rained down upon the crater in a machine-gun sequence of divine execution strikes.

Each impact shattered another layer of his bones, peeled away his charred flesh down to his golden-tinged skeleton, and boiled his marrow.

The pain multiplied exponentially with every strike, transcending physical reality to become a conceptual torture that gnawed at the very core of his true spirit!

His dantians fractured, his newly awakened Spirit Ascension aura withered, and his consciousness flickered like a dying candle in a hurricane, sinking rapidly into a dark, bottomless abyss of absolute numbness and oblivion!

’...Is...this...the end for me...?’

He was dying.

The pain he was feeling had long since surpassed the very concept of ’pain’ itself, so much that he couldn’t even process it.

And right now, he felt his mind slipping away into the void...

’... No... it’s not...’

And at that exact, critical moment—just as his last thread of consciousness was about to snap completely—deep within the deepest, darkest depths of his soul, Shen Haoran felt something stir.

His ancient, eldritch sword... Azathoth... began to move.

THUMP.

It wasn’t a sword movement—it was a pulse.

A primordial, abyssal heartbeat that resonated from a realm beyond time, beyond space, and beyond the jurisdiction of the Heavenly Dao.

”AAAGH! AAAAAAAARRRGGGGHH—!!!!!”

Shen Haoran threw his head back and let out a blood-curdling, inhuman scream of sheer, incomprehensible agony that echoed across the entire sky.

From every single opened pore, every deep laceration, and every torn vein across his mangled, charred body, a thick, pitch-black, oily liquid began to violently pour out!

The viscous, tar-like substance didn’t merely bleed—it bubbled and writhed like a living, primordial organism.

Within the dark, slick folds of the oozing liquid, countless, unblinking human and alien eyes opened, their irises shifting in chaotic patterns, while thousands of tiny, razor-toothed mouths manifested across the surface, whispering unintelligible, maddening blasphemies in forgotten tongues.

The dark, oily substance rapidly spread, completely coating his body, his skeleton, and his torn flesh in an impenetrable, writhing cocoon of cosmic horror.

High above in the dark clouds, the colossal golden eye of the Heavenly Dao suddenly paused.

The swirling tribulation lightning halted mid-strike, the divine clouds freezing in space.

For the first time since the creation of the realm, the emotionless, absolute gaze of the heavens looked down at the writhing, eye-filled black liquid covering the young man... staring at the unnatural substance warily and curiously.

It was an entity that did not belong to the laws of the five elements, the cycle of reincarnation, or the architecture of the cosmos itself.

Down in the smoldering crater, Shen Haoran let out one final, ragged, soul-shattering scream—

And a split second later...

He went completely silent.

His head slumped forward, his arms dropped weakly to his sides, and his dark, liquid-covered body went completely limp, hanging motionless in the center of the quiet, ash-filled abyss.