Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

In a dark, ancient stone room buried deep within the forgotten mantle of the earth, the heavy silence of millennia remained undisturbed.

The air was thick with the scent of petrified sandalwood, dried spiritual herbs, and the crushing, suffocating weight of ancient laws.

Chen Feng was seated cross-legged on a worn, moss covered prayer mat carved from primordial spirit-jade, silently meditating.

His facial contours were as sharp, noble, and flawlessly chiseled as sculpted celestial marble, and an aura of righteousness naturally radiated from his every pore.

When the catastrophic spatial crack on the northern plains had violently swallowed them and sent them away across the vast expanse of the Ancient Heaven Star, Chen Feng’s heaven defying luck had immediately activated.

While others were scattered into howling blizzards, hostile oceanic tribes, or desolate monster pits, he was actually sent directly into this hidden, untamed subterranean secret realm containing the complete inheritance of an ancient Saint.

After he walked around the labyrinthine corridors and ancient trial chambers of the ruin, passing every test of character, combat, and Dao comprehension with flying colors, he found the prize of this entire realm.

And that is the legendary Saint Canonization Pill.

It was a transcendent divine elixir, forged from the crystallized marrow of ancient celestial dragons and the condensed source laws of a dying star.

Its miraculous medicinal properties were absolutely terrifying as it allowed those standing at the very peak of the 9th stage of the Nirvana Rebirth Realm to instantly, smoothly, and even lessen the chance of a catastrophic heavenly tribulation, to break through the insurmountable threshold directly into the Profound Saint Realm!

Right now, Chen Feng was intensely refining the pill.

HUMMMMMMMMM—!

Dense, incandescent rivers of golden qi and pure celestial law swirled around his frame, flowing in a massive, slowly rotating vortex through his meridians.

The divine elixir rested within his upper dantian, steadily melting under the flames of his Heavenly Order Dragon Body, breaking down the stubborn shackles that had kept him trapped at the lower realm’s power ceiling.

His aura was steadily climbing, step by step, toward the untouchable Saint threshold that had eluded the masters of his world for ten thousand years.

CRACK—!

Suddenly, right in the middle of his deepest meridian circulation, Chen Feng’s eyes snapped open as his pupils instantly shrank to the size of pinpricks.

THUMP.

Then, his heart violently seized inside his chest as a phantom, tearing agony ripped through the very core of his bloodline.

His entire frame violently trembled, his meridians reversing their flow as a chaotic surge of violent qi slammed into his throat.

”PFFFT—COUGH!”

Chen Feng coughed up a massive, thick mouthful of burning golden blood as it splattered across the cold stone floor and sizzling against the ancient runes.

He panicked instantly, his serene composure completely shattering as he scrambled to his feet, panting heavily and looking wildly up at the ceiling of the dark stone chamber.

He felt it.

Through the mysterious, soul-bound tether connecting his heart to his beloved, he felt that at this moment, the protection he left behind to his wife was suddenly shattered.

It hadn’t merely expired or exhausted its energy naturally over time; it had been forcefully, brutally, and violently annihilated into non-existence by an overwhelming, monstrous external force!

”WHO—?!”

Chen Feng roared, his voice booming through the cavernous chamber like a clap of apocalyptic thunder, laced with hysterical, feral fury.

Just who is brave enough to attack his wife?

And most importantly, who is powerful enough to destroy his protection?

The dragon seal he had placed inside Xun Xie’er’s heart was no ordinary defensive talisman.

It contained a direct portion of his Heavenly Order ability—the power to endlessly correct disruptions, neutralize foreign energies, and rebuild itself from nothingness.

Even if the four supreme masters of the other Sacred Grounds joined forces to launch an all-out assault against her, that seal should have easily held out for days, neutralizing every blow.

To shatter that seal completely in a matter of minutes required a level of terrifying, reality-rending power that defied the fundamental laws of their world.

At that exact, agonizing moment... A face flashed unbidden across the darkness of his mind.

It was a young man with dark, flowing robes, piercing golden eyes that looked down upon the cosmos like an untouchable emperor, and an aura of cold, calculating, and fathomless malice.

Shen Haoran.

The instant that face materialized in his thoughts, Chen Feng’s complexion turned completely dark, before draining of all color until it was as pale and cold as lead.

”No... no, please...” Chen Feng’s voice cracked, a cold, suffocating wave of primal dread wrapping around his lungs.

He was genuinely afraid.

For the first time since he had awakened his dragon body and conquered the continent, the White Dragon Emperor felt a petrifying terror that made his knees shake.

He was afraid that his gentle, beautiful wife... was already...

No, wait...

A sudden, horrifying realization struck his mind like a physical blow, making his breath stop entirely.

He knew that today was the designated auspicious day for the grand opening of the Celestial Dragon Vault.

He knew that his sect, the White Dragon Sect, would be sending their brightest core disciples and senior elders to Glorious Heaven City to lead the expedition.

And most importantly... he knew that his beloved, aging parents, Chen Shan and Lin Ruo, who cherished Xie’er like their own flesh and blood, had insisted on traveling with her to the viewing platforms to watch the opening ceremony...

Could they also be...?

”No... no, no, NO!”

Chen Feng panicked completely, his rational mind drowning in an ocean of pure, hysterical desperation.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

Unleashing the entirety of his 9th-stage Nirvana Rebirth cultivation and burning his qi to the maximum limit, Chen Feng lunged upward into the air.

His Heavenly Order Dragon Body detonated with cataclysmic power—a strike packed with enough raw, concentrated kinetic and spiritual fury that, in the open expanse of the cosmos, could have shattered planets and obliterated an entire solar system into cosmic dust.

He drove his fists straight into the dark stone ceiling, aiming to punch a hole through the continental crust and tear his way straight back to Glorious Heaven City.

CLANG-BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The impact detonated against the stone roof with the force of a falling star.

Yet... in the end, it was completely, utterly futile.

The stone ceiling did not crack, hell, it did not shed a single grain of dust.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT—HUMMMMMMM!

The instant his fist connected, millions of towering, ancient spatial runes etched into the bedrock flared with blinding, silver-indigo luminescence.

The entire chamber was reinforced by a primordial sealing array, completely anchoring the room within an isolated, pocket-dimension bubble.

Worse still, the outer perimeter of this stone chamber was already entirely surrounded by a swirling, violent sea of apocalyptic spatial turbulence, chaotic vortex, dimensional rifts, and cosmic storms.

Even if he somehow managed to muster enough brute strength to crack the ancient stone roof and break out, the volatile spatial turbulence churning beyond the walls would instantly seize his physical body, shred his Nirvana meridians into molecular dust, and scatter his soul across the endless cosmic void.

The ancient Saint who designed this trial had made the rules absolute and unbending.

The only way to safely manipulate the spatial runes, disperse the surrounding void storm, and open the exit portal to leave this stone room... was to complete the refinement of the Saint Canonization Pill and officially break through to the Profound Saint Realm.

Chen Feng stood frozen in the center of the dark chamber, his fists trembling against the cold stone floor, his breath coming in ragged, painful gasps.

He closed his bloodshot eyes, clenching his jaw so tightly that his gums bled.

He forced himself to suppress the raging tempest of panic, grief, and terror tearing at his soul, using the iron discipline of his martial will to forcefully calm his breathing and stabilize his fractured meridians.

Slowly, heavily, Chen Feng sat back down onto the jade prayer mat, resuming his cross-legged meditative posture.

He closed his eyes, desperately channeling the medicinal essence of the Saint Canonization Pill back through his dantians.

His trembling heart screaming a silent, desperate prayer into the dark void—praying with every fiber of his being that his fears were merely an illusion, that his protective seal had simply been triggered by an unexpected anomaly, and that nothing bad had happened to his wife, his parents, and his family.

*

*

*

The whistling alpine wind blew through the vast mountain chasm, carrying away the lingering wisps of golden dragon qi that had once illuminated the sky.

Shen Haoran stood tall and composed on the wide, blood-drenched celestial stone bridge, his right hand resting casually on the hilt of the plain, unnamed steel sword currently impaled through the chest of the empire’s celebrated first beauty.

He slowly withdrew the blade with a single, fluid motion.

SCHLICK.

A soft, crimson spray followed the path of the cold steel as it exited her chest.

Xie’er’s lifeless body twitched a few times before it slumped limp against the stone, her long sky-blue hair fanning out across the bloody flagstones like a stained silk shroud, her glassy silver eyes frozen forever in an expression of uncomprehending grief and terror.

Haoran stared down at the corpse of Xun Xie’er and the scattered, unrecognizable fragments of Chen Feng’s parents, Chen Shan and Lin Ruo, which lay in crushed, mangled heaps across the floor.

A low, rich, and deeply amused sound rose from his chest.

He chuckled softly, his golden eyes sparkling with pure, calculating satisfaction as he observed the grisly scene before his boots.

”With the sudden death of these three people, it would at least have taken quite a big chunk of his luck, right?” Haoran mused aloud, his voice smooth, relaxed, and dripping with dark mockery. ”The legal wife who held his sect together, and the biological parents who anchored his moral heart and mortal roots... By severing all three pillars in a single stroke, the backlash upon his soul must be exquisitely agonizing. He should be violently coughing up mouthfuls of heart’s blood right about now, wherever he’s hiding.”

For a Child of Destiny whose supreme path was paved by karmic momentum and heavenly dao protection, there was no greater poison than the sudden, irreversible eradication of his most cherished loved ones.

Everyone important to him that vanished severed a stream of Heavenly fortune, weakening his plot-armor and dragging his transcendent fate closer to the mortal dirt.

At the side, completely unbothered by the carnage, Qing’er was diligently and methodically cleaning up the entire battlefield.

Her long, pitch black hair danced gently in the high altitude draft, her cold crimson eyes sweeping across the wide platform with clinical, surgical efficiency.

She moved with effortless grace, stepping lightly over the cracked ground as the living midnight beneath her boots expanded in wide, undulating ripples.

SKRRRRRRRR—SHUUUUUU!

Massive, liquid-like pools of abyssal shadow surged across the observation deck, actively grinding the butchered corpses of the elders and dozens of White Dragon Sect imperial guards into fine, molecular dust.

The grotesque, weeping mouths within her shadow domain opened silently, greedily devouring every single drop of spilled blood, every broken bone shard, every discarded weapon, and every trace of foreign spiritual energy lingering in the atmosphere until the ambient qi was scrubbed entirely clean.

She didn’t stop there.

Turning her cold gaze toward the sky where the massive, profound ark was hovering quietly above the chasm, Qing’er raised her slender, leather-clad hand and closed her fingers into a tight fist.

GRAV-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!

Colossal, mountain-sized shadow jaws erupted straight out of the clouds, completely engulfing the massive war vessel in an inescapable vacuum.

With a deafening series of structural groans and screeching metal fractures, the shadow domain violently compressed, crushing the reinforced celestial ironwood, the gold-plated dragon figureheads, the high-tier defensive arrays, and the entire multi-layered hull of the profound ark into crushed, microscopic debris before pulling the entire thing into the endless depths of the void.

Within mere seconds, the immense profound ark was thoroughly grinded down and erased from the mortal realm, its spiritual essence completely consumed by her devouring shadows.

The entire cleansing process was so thorough and executed with such terrifying, flawless perfection that if it wasn’t for the lingering structural signs of localized destruction—the deep cracks running through the ground, and the three distinct corpses lying on their feet—no one who arrived here would have ever believed that a catastrophic, world shaking massacre of an entire sect’s leadership had just happened here barely a few minutes ago.

Once she was done, Qing’er calmly dispersed the remaining shadow wisps around her ankles.

She walked with quiet, poised steps towards Haoran and stood half a step behind him, lowering her head in a deep, respectful bow.

Her smooth, melodious voice sounded in his ear, devoid of any lingering emotion, ”Young Master, everything has been thoroughly cleaned and finished. What should we do next?”

Shen Haoran looked down at the blood stained ground one last time.

With a simple, practiced wave of his sleeve, a gentle silver spatial light radiated from the high-grade storage ring resting on his finger.

SWISH.

A localized spatial vortex swept across the stones, smoothly gathering the cold, pristine corpse of Xun Xie’er alongside the mangled fragments and severed facial skin of Chen Shan and Lin Ruo.

Haoran neatly stored the corpses and fragments into his storage ring with cold composure.

These were far too valuable to be discarded or incinerated into ash.

In the grand psychological warfare he had prepared for the White Dragon Emperor, these remains were the ultimate, lethal trump cards.

When the time was right, and when Chen Feng finally stood before him at the peak of his glory, Haoran could casually use this gruesome trophy to deliver another devastating, soul shattering blow to Chen Feng later, completely fracturing the protagonist’s mental state right in the middle of their final, decisive clash.

Having resolved all loose ends on the mortal side of the chasm, Shen Haoran turned his body, his golden eyes locking onto the colossal, thousand-foot-tall celestial paifang gate standing at the center of the valley.

The ancient dragon-carved archway still hummed with primordial resonance, its central entrance swirling with dense, incandescent vortexes of golden and jade-green spiritual energy, waiting to swallow anyone who crossed its threshold.

Shen Haoran walked forward with unhurried steps, his dark robes fluttering in the wind, a faint, condescending smirk returning to his handsome features.

”Let’s go,” Haoran commanded casually, tossing his entry token lightly into the air before catching it in his palm. ”I still need to look after that girl... She’s an idiot, after all.”

Qing’er nodded silently, her figure naturally dissolving into the trailing shadows behind his boots as Shen Haoran stepped boldly into the swirling vortex of the Celestial Dragon Vault, ready to claim the ancient world’s primordial marrow for himself.