Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

In the middle of a dense, primordial forest where ancient ironwood trees stretched hundreds of feet into the overcast sky, a young man was walking slowly along a narrow, overgrown dirt trail.

He had messy, short jet-black hair that fell loosely around his forehead and striking, sharp crystalline blue eyes.

He was dressed in rugged black and orange robes tailored for wilderness travel, holding a thick wooden skewer in one hand and chewing contentedly on a succulent, well-seasoned piece of roasted spiritual boar meat.

CRACK-BOOOOOOM—!!!!!

Just then, without the slightest hint of natural warning, the tranquil sky directly above his head violently cracked open like a sheet of brittle glass.

Jagged, pitch-black dimensional tears spiderwebbed across the azure firmament, screaming with volatile spatial turbulence that bent the massive ironwood canopies flat against the earth.

The young man jumped back, spitting out a piece of bone, his jaw dropping in pure astonishment as he stared at the churning void rift.

”What the...!? Is someone breaking through to Nirvana nearby?!”

At that exact moment, the ancient, blackened bronze ring resting quietly upon the middle finger of his right hand began to pulse with a gentle, ethereal silver radiance.

Then, a cool, melodious, and profoundly ancient female voice resounded directly within the deep chambers of his mind, carrying an unmistakable tone of calm, analytical authority.

”A mere Nirvana Realm cultivator cannot manipulate or shatter spatial dimensions to such an extreme degree. A Half-Saint possessing profound spatial comprehension might barely manage a minor fissure. But judging from the erratic, fluctuating resonance of this energy signature, it is a chaotic natural phenomenon caused by an unnatural, violent external circumstance.”

The young man nodded eagerly, swallowing the meat in his mouth as his eyes sparkled with curiosity. ”I see! Teacher, you truly know an incredible amount about Saints... Are you perhaps one of those legendary, untouchable Saint powerhouses from the ancient eras when you were still alive?”

”Don’t ask such irrelevant questions,” the female voice replied coldly, brushing aside his query without hesitation as her tone sharpened with sudden urgency, ”Prepare yourself. Something is being forcefully ejected and coming out of that spatial crack right now.”

SWISH—!!!!!

Just as that cool voice faded from his mind, a dazzling, incandescent beam of pure crystalline light suddenly shot straight down from the churning spatial crack.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

The falling meteor-like projectile smashed violently into the dense forest floor barely a hundred meters away from where he stood.

The catastrophic detonation sent a deafening shockwave tearing through the undergrowth, splintering dozens of ancient trees into flying wooden shrapnel, kicking up a colossal cloud of thick dust, and creating a violent, localized earthquake that shook the ground beneath his boots.

The young man stared at the rising mushroom cloud in complete shock, his heart hammered furiously against his ribs.

He hesitated for a brief, tense moment, debating whether he should turn around and sprint in the opposite direction—

’No, what if it’s a heaven-defying treasure falling from the sky? Or a dying elder leaving behind an inheritance ring?’

Tempted by the boundless opportunities of the martial path, he immediately decided to sneak closer through the undergrowth and take a careful look.

*

*

*

Barely a hundred meters away, at the center of a deep, still-smoking crater surrounded by pulverized stone and burning timber...

Xia Mengyao slowly got up.

Her slender, elegant frame was draped in noble, flowing aristocratic robes that had accumulated a thin layer of grey ash during the sudden dimensional transit.

She calmly patted her dusty robe with her delicate hands, brushed away the stray soot, and smoothed out the refined silk until it was perfectly straightened and pristine once more.

Her eyes showed not a single shred of panic, and with a subtle flick of her wrist, she immediately took out a sleek, unnamed steel sword from her storage ring, gripping the leather-wrapped hilt with practiced, lethal precision as she cautiously looked around at the towering, unfamiliar forest trees.

”So we really got separated by that chaotic spatial collapse,” Xia Mengyao murmured softly under her breath, her melodious voice tranquil despite the unfamiliar surroundings.

However, after considering their situation, she shook her head with a faint, confident smile.

She lightly tapped the warm academy token hanging at her waist, the intricate formation runes embedded on its surface were pulsing steadily with azure light.

The communication and tracking function of the token still works perfectly fine here within the planetary atmosphere, which meant she could effortlessly communicate with Haoran and the others, and could even accurately know their exact coordinates and distance relative to her position across the continent.

Along with the fact that they have all broken through to Nascent Soul realm, there is truly no need to worry about their safety in this lower realm.

With that, Xia Mengyao lightly kicked off the crater floor, leaping gracefully out of the smoldering pit and landing atop a high mossy boulder at the edge of the clearing.

She looked around at the endless sea of green canopies stretching toward the horizon.

”Hmm, I should probably look around and survey the immediate perimeter first,” she mused, adjusting her grip on her blade.

A short distance away from the crater, completely concealed under the thick, leafy bushes and tangled wild roots, the young man peeked through the foliage, his eyes widening to their absolute limit in a mixture of profound shock, awe, and shameless appreciation.

B-Beautiful! Simply too breathtakingly beautiful!

The young man’s breath caught in his throat as his gaze locked onto the noble, porcelain-skinned woman standing gracefully atop the boulder.

She looked like an immortal goddess who had descended directly from the celestial moon.

Her short, silky auburn hair drifted elegantly in the forest breeze, her delicate facial features were carved with aristocratic perfection, and her regal, composed demeanor radiated an intoxicating grace.

And most striking of all—those chest!

Even her loose, flowing, and somewhat baggy noble robes couldn’t completely hide how astonishingly large, voluptuous, and well-proportioned they truly were!

Every subtle breath she took caused the fine silk over her bosom to rise and fall in a mesmerizing, breathtaking silhouette that made his blood surge with heat.

’Teacher...’ he called out frantically in his mind, his eyes still glued to the magnificent beauty on the boulder. ’Teacher, just how strong is that woman? What level of cultivation does she possess?’

He was adventurous, but he wasn’t completely suicidal; he definitely didn’t want to foolishly walk out of the bushes and immediately get pulverized into meat paste by an enraged female powerhouse.

However, he waited in the silent brush for several long, agonizing minutes, but his usually sharp and talkative teacher didn’t send out any response whatsoever.

The blackened bronze ring on his finger remained completely cold, inert, and dead silent, as if the ancient soul inside had deliberately vanished or forcefully concealed its entire presence from the world.

’Teacher? Are you there?’ he called out again, sweating nervously. ’Why aren’t you answering me?!’

At that exact moment—

FLASH—!!!!!

A blinding, razor-sharp flash of cold, silver sword intent suddenly erupted from the boulder.

CRACK-SHATTER-SWISH—!!!!!

The crescent wave of sword qi cleaved effortlessly through hundreds of ancient, thick ironwood trees, cleanly slicing the towering trunks in half like stalks of wheat.

The dense bushes and tangled roots he was hiding beneath were instantly shredded into millions of floating green particles.

”WAH!”

The sheer, overwhelming force of the passing sword intent knocked the young man completely off balance, causing him to lose his footing and fall flat backward onto his butt in sheer, unadulterated shock.

Cold sweat instantly drenched his spine, his heart leaping straight into his throat as he gulped heavily, a dry, suffocating lump forming in his neck—

And before he could even realize what had happened or attempt to scramble to his feet, the cold, razor-sharp steel tip of an unnamed sword was already pointed directly at the center of his throat, barely a millimeter from his skin.

Trembling slightly, the young man slowly looked up.

Standing directly in front of him, looking down with icy, unfeeling, and deeply suspicious eyes, was the breathtaking noble woman he had just been ogling.

Xia Mengyao held the sword with a steady, unbreakable wrist, her gaze sharp enough to pierce through his dantians as she interrogated him with cold, aristocratic disdain.

”Who are you? And why are you hiding in the shadows spying on me?”

*

*

*

On a vast, sun-baked desert stretching endlessly beneath a blazing, golden sun, shimmering heat waves distorted the endless yellow dunes.

Standing in a loose circle over the colossal, blood-drenched corpse of a three-story-tall, armored Sand-Horned Rhinoceros Beast were six individuals wearing identical loose green robes adorned with a crude, embroidered serpent badge on the chest.

The massive beast lay in a wide crater of scorched sand, riddled with dozens of crude iron arrows, shallow sword cuts, and blackened burn marks.

”Ayyy! Finally down! Bro, my stamina bar was literally flashing red at 1%!” shouted the party’s vanguard, an overly tall player with the floating username [ThiccShieldNoBitch], as he tossed his dented iron buckler onto the sand and dramatically collapsed onto his back. ”That second-phase enrage mechanic was straight-up bullshit! Who designed a charge attack that tracks you around a sand dune?!”

”Quit whining, you barely held aggro for thirty seconds before running in circles screaming like a toddler,” scoffed their dual-dagger rogue, [SneakyBreeky69], who was already eagerly kneeling beside the monster’s shattered horn with a rusty skinning knife. ”Yo, party leader! How are we going to divide the loot? The guild rules say core materials go to the armory, but I put in at least 45% of the total damage. I call dibs on the Grade 2 Beast Core and at least three horn plates for my dagger upgrade!”

Standing at the front with a crude wooden staff, the party leader, [xX_DragonSlayer_Xx], adjusted his green robes and checked his floating virtual system menu. ”Relax, Sneaky. Standard rules apply. The beast core goes to the sect treasury so we can exchange it for sect contribution points, which we split evenly. The raw meat and hide get sold to the kitchen NPC for copper coins so we can buy more mana buns.”

”Man, screw the copper coins, can we just appreciate the graphics for a second?” chimed in their support caster, [HealBot9000], picking up a handful of warm desert sand and letting the fine grains slip through his fingers with a look of pure marvel. ”The haptic feedback in this closed beta is insane. The heat, the wind friction, the smell of burnt monster blood... I swear modern full-dive VR tech has hit a whole new dimension. It feels so realistic that sometimes I forget I’m lying in a gaming pod in my apartment completely naked.”

”Right?!” agreed their archer, [SniperNoSniping], unstringing his wooden shortbow. ”Even the pain simulation at 10% feels just spicy enough to make combat thrilling. And the physics engine was flawless as well. Though I heard the developers are dropping a massive world patch soon. Rumor on the official discord forums says the whole continent might get an open-world expansion with rival sects.”

”Don’t get your hopes up too early, the server only has like a hundred active testers right now,” muttered their second warrior, [BonkMasterFlex], leaning on a jagged iron greatsword. ”We haven’t even finished rebuilding the outer sect wall for the sect master yet—”

CRACK-BOOOOOOM—!!!!!

Just then, without a single second of warning, the bright azure sky directly above their heads violently cracked open like a sheet of fragile glass.

A jagged, pitch-black dimensional fissure tore across the clouds, shrieking with chaotic, violent spatial turbulence that sent a deafening sonic boom reverberating across the boundless desert dunes.

Startled out of their minds, all six players dropped their weapons and looked up in bewilderment!

”WHAT THE FUCK?!” [ThiccShieldNoBitch] scrambled to his feet, kicking up sand as his jaw hit the floor. ”Did the server just crash?! Is that a glitch?!”

”No, wait, look closely!” [xX_DragonSlayer_Xx] shouted, his eyes gleaming with intense gamer excitement as he pointed his staff toward the expanding void tear. ”The sky is literally shattering into black glass! Bro, this might be a brand new world event! A dynamic server-wide world boss invasion!”

”Or maybe it’s the main quest finally triggering?!” [HealBot9000] yelled over the howling wind. ”The sect master said the Rising Dragon Sect had a mysterious ancient history! Maybe an ancestral patriarch is dropping from the heavens to give us our class advancements!”

”Either that, or killing that rhino beast triggered a secret, ultra-rare hidden quest chain!” [SneakyBreeky69] grinned wildly, pulling his daggers back out. ”Quick, clip this! Record the footage and post it on the forums before someone else steals the world-first discovery—”

SWIIISH—!!!!!

Before he could even finish his sentence, a blinding, radiant beam of pale-pink and crystalline light suddenly shot straight down from the center of the spatial crack like a falling orbital cannon shell.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

The projectile crashed into the desert floor barely a few dozen meters away from their position.

The cataclysmic explosion sent a colossal tidal wave of superheated sand and pressurized air erupting hundreds of feet into the sky.

The violent shockwave slammed squarely into the six green-robed players, lifting them completely off their feet and sending them flying backward through the air for over twenty meters before they rolled down the steep slope of a sand dune in a tangled, chaotic heap of limbs, sand, and flying iron weapons.

”COUGH! Cough! Ptui!”

Spitting out mouthfuls of dry, gritty sand, the party members groggily pushed themselves up, coughing and rubbing their eyes as the stinging dust storm slowly began to settle.

”What the hell was that?!” said [xX_DragonSlayer_Xx], wiping a thick layer of dust from his forehead as he shakily retrieved his wooden staff. ”Did an actual tactical nuke just drop on our heads?! My HP bar dropped by 40% just from the splash damage shockwave!”

”It’s definitely a hidden quest!”

At that, the six players quieted down, then stared at each other, their hearts pounding with intense adrenaline.

Without a single moment of hesitation, driven by the instinctual, reckless greed of hardcore gamers sniffing out loot and quests, they quickly scrambled back up the ridge and rushed together toward the smoking crash site.

Reaching the rim of the freshly blasted crater, they peered through the swirling haze of drifting embers and settling dust.

And there, as the yellow sand slowly settled down, their jaws dropped in complete, collective stupor.

Standing gracefully at the center of the crater was a breathtakingly beautiful young woman.

She possessed vibrant, silky pink hair neatly tied up into an elegant, high bun, with soft, delicate bangs framing a cool, refined face.

Her eyes were an enchanting, sharp shade of pristine crystalline pink, shimmering like polished gems amidst the dim smoke.

She wore a sleek, skin-tight black combat dress with an open-back design that boldly exposed the smooth, porcelain contours of her back—adorned with an intricate, mesmerizing black tribal tattoo that curved gracefully along her spine, glowing with faint, suppressed demonic power.

She looked effortlessly lethal, impossibly gorgeous, and utterly transcendent.

”Holy mother of rendering...” [ThiccShieldNoBitch] whispered, completely forgetting to close his hanging mouth. ”Look at those character textures... Look at that poly count! The lighting on her hair is insane!”

”Bro, whoever designed this female NPC model deserves a massive raise, a promotion, and the Nobel Prize for gaming aesthetics,” [SneakyBreeky69] murmured in pure awe, clutching his chest. ”That backless dress with the tribal tattoo is 10/10 design! The devs went all out on the visual budget!”

”Is it even possible to design her with one hand?” [SniperNoSniping] muttered eagerly, leaning closer. ”No, stop gooning! This is a hidden quest, boys! If we escort her back to the Rising Dragon Sect, the faction rewards will be off the charts!”

”Hold on, let me check her stats first,” party leader [xX_DragonSlayer_Xx] whispered, ”Let’s see what tier NPC we’re dealing with.”

Together, the group members activated the basic system skill: [Observe].

PING.

A translucent blue system window materialized in front of their vision.

[Name: Ling Luochen]

[Faction: Imperial Academy / Shen Clan]

[Level: 61]

The six players froze as if turned to solid stone, their eyes bulging out of their sockets as they stared at the floating golden number.

”HOLY SHIT! LEVEL 61?!” [xX_DragonSlayer_Xx] shrieked in sheer, hysterical panic, his voice cracking into a high-pitched squeak, ”Level 61?! That’s literally forty whole levels higher than the highest-level player on the entire server!”

”Forty levels?!” [ThiccShieldNoBitch] squealed, instantly taking five steps backward and hiding behind a boulder. ”She could sneeze on us and trigger a team wipe that uninstalls our game client!”

Down in the crater, having easily heard every single word of their bizarre, incomprehensible chatter, Ling Luochen frowned deeply.

She slowly dusted off the hem of her black dress, her sharp, pink eyes narrowing with cold, sharp vigilance as she looked up at the six strangely dressed men in matching green robes huddled atop the dune.

Her hand rested calmly on the hilt of the concealed blade at her waist, her pressure subtly weighing down the ambient air.

”You...” Ling Luochen spoke, her cool, crisp voice echoing across the quiet desert dunes with natural, bone-chilling sharpness. ”Where am I?”