Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Zhu Ziyan was completely not expecting getting thrown into the middle of a tribal people performing a sacred ritual after she was swallowed by that chaotic spatial crack on the battlefield.

And she most certainly was not expecting for the tribal people to scream in joy and made her seat regally upon a massive, carved obsidian throne, perched atop the apex of a colossal, nine-tiered stone pyramid deep in the humid heart of an uncharted primordial jungle.

The sheer absurdity of the situation made her breath catch in her throat.

The heavy smell of burning aromatic copal incense, crushed jungle orchids, and hot stone washed over her senses.

Below the towering pyramid, an endless sea of bronze-skinned tribal warriors, priestesses draped in leopard pelts, and village elders were slamming their foreheads against the blood-stained stone steps with bone-rattling devotion.

Deep inside, Zhu Ziyan was utterly nervous, anxious, and timid.

She was a cowardly cat who will run on the first sign of trouble, and right now, her heart was hammering against her ribs like a frightened rabbit, and her delicate, velvety black cat ears twitched erratically against her silky hair beneath the sudden sensory overload.

Yet, having spent time by Shen Haoran’s side and trained under the iron discipline of his inner circle, she forcefully clamped down on her panic and acted completely normal, schooling her delicate facial features into an impassive, majestic mask and doing her best to appear calm, untouchable, and aloof.

She crossed her slender legs gracefully on the wide obsidian throne, resting her chin lightly against her delicate knuckles.

She kept her posture impeccably straight, her skin tight bodysuit clinging to her, emphasizing her well endowed body, and projecting the cold, enigmatic aura of an ancient deity observing mortal ants.

’Haoran also sits like this sometimes... I should look the part, right?’

And indeed, seeing her calm, unblinking gaze sweep across the plaza, the thousands of worshippers broke into an even louder, near-hysterical chorus of worship.

”THE PROPHESIED ONE HAS DESCENDED!”

”LOOK UPON HER SACRED VISAGE! THE EARS OF THE NIGHT! THE SHADOW-WALKER OF THE PRIMORDIAL CANOPY!”

”PRAISE BE TO THE DIVINE BLOODLINE! THE TRUE DESCENDANT OF OUR PATRON GODDESS, BASTET, HAS RETURNED TO CLAIM HER THRONE!”

The tribe continued praising her relentlessly, banging massive hollow-log drums, chanting in a rhythmic, guttural tongue, and kissing the stone steps where the shadow of her pyramid fell.

At that moment, the tribe’s High Priest—an ancient, withered man whose skin was painted with intricate white feline stripes, wearing a headdress crafted from the skull of a saber-toothed apex beast—crawled up the final tier of the pyramid on his hands and knees.

He reached the foot of the throne, prostrating himself three times before raising his trembling hands into the air.

”O Divine Incarnation of the Hunt! O Sacred Flesh of Bastet!” the High Priest rasped in a raspy, reverent voice. ”Ten thousand moons have passed since our clan received a sign from the stars! In accordance with the ancient covenant of the First Claw, we have gathered the purest, most virile vitality of our nine ruling bloodlines to serve your divine pleasure!”

The High Priest clapped his weathered hands twice.

From behind the grand stone pillars of the upper platform, nine young tribal men were led forward by masked temple guardians.

Every single one of them was tall, muscular, and exceptionally handsome by tribal standards, their bronzed skin glistening with fragrant spiritual oils, wearing only sheer, ceremonial white silk loincloths.

The High Priest bowed deeply, presenting them like an offering of fresh fruit.

”Nine pure-blooded champions, untainted by the lower world! We offer these nine young men to warm your sacred bed, attend to your every mortal desire, and receive the heavenly seed of your divine favor!”

Hearing the old man casually offering a harem of nine half-naked strangers to share her bed, Zhu Ziyan’s delicate brow twitched violently beneath her bangs.

A wave of visceral disgust washed over her, and she nearly broke her composed facade right then and there.

Zhu Ziyan immediately rejected them without a single second of hesitation.

”No,” Zhu Ziyan stated, her voice icy, sharp, and cutting cleanly through the thick incense smoke. ”Take them away. I have no need for such trivial, unnecessary offerings.”

She couldn’t help but shiver, her stomach flipping upside down as if she was about to puke.

The High Priest froze. His wrinkled face paled to a stark, ash-grey hue, his cloudy eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated horror as if the sun had just fallen from the sky.

He turned toward the nine kneeling youths, his expression instantly contorting from fawning reverence to utter, venomous condemnation!

”WHAT A SIN!” the High Priest shrieked, his shrill voice echoing down the nine tiers of the stone pyramid. ”THE SACRED DESCENDANT HAS REJECTED THEM! THEIR SOULS ARE IMPURE! THEIR FLESH CARRIES A HIDDEN TAINT THAT HAS OFFENDED THE DIVINE EYES OF BASTET!”

He turned back to the trembling crowd, pointing his jagged bone dagger at the nine terrified young men.

”Those who are rejected by the living goddess have no right to draw breath beneath her sky! They have brought eternal shame upon their lineages and must be executed immediately to cleanse the altar of their failure!”

The temple guardians instantly drew serrated obsidian blades, forcing the nine weeping youths down against the cold stone slabs.

Zhu Ziyan blinked in sheer disbelief, her composed mask slipping for a brief second.

What kind of twisted, backwards logic is this?!

Zhu Ziyan quickly raised her hand and told them that there was absolutely no need for them to die over a simple misunderstanding.

”Wait! Wait! Wait just a minute!” she called out, panicking, ”There is no taint upon them! They did nothing wrong, and there is no need for anyone to die today. Simply dismiss them and send them back to their families.”

The High Priest paused, holding his bone dagger mid-air as he looked up at her with frantic, hopeful eyes, kneeling closer to the throne.

”The Great Mother is merciful!” the High Priest gasped, his voice trembling with desperate hope. ”If your Divine Grace does not wish their blood to stain the altar... does that mean you are willing to accept them into your bedchambers after all? Shall we prepare the sacred silks and lead them into your private sanctuary tonight?”

Zhu Ziyan’s eye twitched again. She looked at the nine half-naked tribal youths, then back at the fanatical, unhinged old priest.

Zhu Ziyan once again replied with an absolute, flat, and uncompromising: ”No.”

The High Priest’s face dropped into an expression of grim, fanatical finality.

”Then the decree of the ancient law is absolute!” he bellowed. ”Off with their heads!”

SWISH! SLASH!

Without waiting for another word, the High Priest swiftly proceeded with the execution, signaling the temple guardians to cleanly slice through the throats of all nine young men in a single, practiced motion!

Crimson blood splattered across the white ceremonial stones, staining the altar as the crowd below erupted into renewed, rhythmic chanting to celebrate the ritual cleansing.

Sitting on the high obsidian throne, watching the nine corpses being dragged away to the jungle pits below, Zhu Ziyan slowly leaned back and let out a long, helpless, and exasperated sigh.

Oh well... if they’re dead, they’re dead.

She lightly rubbed her temples, her cat ears drooping slightly.

She truly couldn’t just accept nine random, half-naked tribal men into her bed just because she didn’t want them to die, right?

That would be completely, utterly insane!

Besides, even if she had out of some naive, misplaced pity agreed to spare their lives by taking them in... the moment Shen Haoran eventually tracked her coordinates down and found out about this absurd tribal harem, even if she didn’t as much as touch them, he will definitely, mercilessly butcher those nine men, grind their souls into dust, and probably level this entire stone pyramid to the bedrock just to make a point about possession and dominance.

’So no matter what, they are dead anyway. Better let them believe they died for their beliefs,’ she reasoned internally, letting the dark reality of the cultivation world settle her nerves.

’Still...’ as the rhythmic drums continued to echo through the steaming jungle below, a quiet, contemplative thought drifted into Zhu Ziyan’s mind. ’Do gods actually exist in this lower realm?’

She wondered, the quiet curiosity pulling at her thoughts.

In the Prime Origin Realm and within the Imperial Academy, ’gods’ were usually just a fantasy conjured by mortal minds to cope with all the sufferings they endured and to have someone to blame for their mistakes.

As for those genuine gods... They don’t exist, at least, to her knowledge.

Slowly, Zhu Ziyan turned her head, looking behind the massive obsidian throne toward the towering, forty meter tall monolithic wall that formed the back of the pyramid’s summit.

Carved directly into the ancient, moss-covered black stone was the colossal, breathtaking relief statue of the so-called patron goddess, Bastet.

Zhu Ziyan inspected the intricate, weathered details of the ancient carving depicting a peerless and majestic woman draped in flowing ceremonial robes and celestial silks, holding a crescent moon blade in one hand and a staff of dark lightning in the other.

Her facial contours radiated an ancient power that felt profoundly foreign yet eerily familiar...

And resting gracefully atop the statue’s sculpted head... was a pair of delicate, sharp feline ears—looking almost exactly like her own.

*

*

*

At this exact moment, thousands of leagues away from the coastal islands and deep primordial jungles, the atmosphere was bathed in a tranquil, ethereal calm.

Luo Mingye was holding her beloved jade zither securely in her arms, walking completely alone along an ancient, winding cobblestone pathway enveloped by an endless, sea-green bamboo forest.

Towering stalks of verdant spiritual bamboo stretched gracefully into the sky, their slender leaves rustling softly in the cool, mountain breeze, filtering the afternoon sunlight into gentle emerald ribbons across the mossy forest floor.

Yet it was not the scenic tranquility of the grove that guided her steps.

Rather, a mesmerizing, profoundly soothing zither sound drifted through the misty bamboo corridors, vibrating across the very spiritual fabric of the air, subtly and irresistibly leading her way forward.

Every pluck of the distant strings resonated with an unfathomable, heart-stirring clarity.

The music flowed like a pure mountain spring meandering through glacial caverns, soaring like an unchained immortal crane ascending into the azure firmament, and descending with the quiet, bittersweet melancholy of autumn leaves returning to the earth.

It was a melody that carried the weight of cosmic cycles, weaving universal laws directly into sound waves that made Luo Mingye’s own dantians thrum in sympathetic harmony.

As she walked deeper into the grove, Luo Mingye’s brow furrowed into a deep, bewildered frown, her mind racing with growing astonishment.

She was sure that the academy elders, during their grand assembly before the dimensional descent, had clearly and authoritatively stated that the strongest indigenous beings in this lower realm were merely capped at the Half-step Profound Saint realm, with the standard peak powerhouses lingering around the Nirvana Rebirth level due to the planet’s withered laws.

Yet how could this be possible? she asked herself, clutching her zither tighter against her chest.

How come this transcendent music she was hearing with her own ears was not only superior to any mortal master she had ever encountered, but was fundamentally even better than her own Grandfather?

Luo Mingye’s grandfather was not some ordinary clan elder from a backwater realm; he was a genuine Earthly Saint Realm zither cultivator—a legendary supreme grandmaster revered across the upper domains, widely celebrated and officially known as the undisputed number one zither player in the entire central mainland.

When her grandfather played his ancient celestial zither, he could summon astral tempests, mend fractured mountain ranges, and cleanse the demonic hearts of millions with a single sweep of his fingers.

Yet, listening to the subtle nuances, the effortless soul-weaving harmonics, and the unfathomable Dao principles embedded within the gentle melody echoing through this bamboo grove, comparing her grandfather’s lifelong musical mastery to the one playing this music she was hearing right now was like night and day.

It was like comparing the flickering glow of a single oil lamp to the blinding, omnipotent radiance of the noon sun.

Her heart beating with a mixture of immense reverence, profound curiosity, and artistic obsession, Luo Mingye continued walking along the cobblestone trail, parting the drooping bamboo branches with gentle hands.

Before long, the dense bamboo parted to reveal a secluded, tranquil mountain clearing blanketed in soft white mist.

At the center of the clearing stood a simple, unadorned bamboo house constructed with rustic elegance.

The thatched roof was woven from golden grass, and on the open veranda, sitting serenely on a polished bamboo chair beside a low table of petrified jade wood, an incredibly beautiful woman was gracefully playing the zither.

The woman was breathtaking beyond the scope of mortal imagination.

She was draped in flowing, gossamer robes of midnight indigo and starlight silver that seemed to be woven from the celestial firmament itself, shifting and shimmering with every subtle movement.

Her long, lustrous dark hair tumbled down her back like a silent waterfall of liquid silk, adorned with subtle hairpins forged from ancient, glowing constellations.

Her skin was as flawless as untouched snow illuminated by moonlight, and her delicate, slender fingers danced across the seven strings of an ancient, lacquer-carved zither with an effortless, divine grace that defied the mortal laws of rhythm and sound.

Luo Mingye stopped dead in her tracks at the edge of the clearing.

She stood there, completely motionless, trapped in a profound, breathless daze, her divine sense was utterly submerged in the ethereal cadence of the melody.

For several long, suspended moments, she felt as if she were floating across the birth and death of stars, watching the primordial cosmos take form from the primordial silence, guided entirely by the vibration of the strings before her.

TING—

Finally, with a single, resonant note that hung in the still air like a fading drop of morning dew, the melody reached its natural, breathtaking culmination.

The final note dissolved into the emerald mist.

The magnificent woman stopped her hands, letting her fingertips rest gently above the silent strings.

She slowly raised her head, turning her deep, starry obsidian eyes toward the edge of the grove where the young cultivator stood.

A warm, gentle, and utterly mesmerizing smile blossomed across her radiant, immortal features.

”I am impressed,” the woman spoke, her voice carrying the soft, melodious resonance of a thousand harmonious instruments chiming together in perfect cosmic unison. ”A mere mortal from the fragmented worlds below was actually able to perceive the true harmonic frequencies and hear my music. It seems you are extraordinarily compatible with me, young one.”

Luo Mingye snapped out of her trance, a sudden shiver of primal awe coursing down her spine as she felt the unfathomable, bottomless aura radiating from the seated figure.

She took half a step forward, holding her own jade zither with both hands in a deep, respectful scholar’s salute, her voice trembling slightly with suppressed emotion.

”Who... who are you, Senior?” Luo Mingye asked, her breath catching in her throat.

The woman on the bamboo chair smiled warmly, rising gracefully to her feet as her starlight robes drifted around her slender silhouette like shifting nebulae.

”Names are merely mortal anchors in the vast sea of eternity, yet if you must address me, you may call me Enheduanna,” she replied softly, her serene gaze piercing directly into the depths of Luo Mingye’s soul.

”The Goddess of Music.”