Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The cold mist clinging to the gorge seemed to freeze in place, unwilling to disturb the fragile, fading silhouette perched upon the moss-slick boulder.

Spirit Xu Xiansu’s lower body had already completely dissolved into upward-drifting plumes of silver-blue starlight.

Her remaining translucent shoulder was thinning by the second, her celestial robes fraying into the gentle mountain breeze like burnt gossamer.

Yet her glowing orange eyes held neither panic nor despair.

She looked through the young Xu Xiansu and Xia Mengyao, looking past the shattered and blood-soaked earth, gazing straight into the unfathomable depths of an erased eternity.

Her voice rose—soft, clear, and carrying the terrifying, resonant weight of a shattered universe.

”....It was a grand era.”

The words fell like golden bells ringing across a quiet morning.

”On that day, Shen Haoran had ascended to Immortality, stepping beyond the shackles of the mortal plane with grand majesty that made the heavens themselves bow their heads.”

Xu Xiansu and Xia Mengyao immediately grew interested.

”You cannot fathom the beauty of that momwnt,” the spirit woman murmured, a faint, melancholic smile softening the corners of her fading lips. ”We had lived in a world where cultivators clawed at the dirt for scraps of spiritual stone, where sects butchered each other over meager spirit springs, and where the heavenly tribulations were an iron ceiling designed to keep us small. But Haoran... The moment Haoran ascended, he looked up at the golden gates of the Immortal Realm, laughed in the face of the ancient gatekeepers, and tore the boundary open with his bare hands.”

She closed her eyes, remembering the magnificent, golden deluge that had descended upon the cosmos.

”Rivers of liquid immortal essence poured from the sky like celestial rain, the withered mountains bloomed with nine-leaf herbs, the barren deserts turned into fertile seas of spirit soil, the spiritual veins of every mortal kingdom, every hidden realm, and every border province swelled a thousandfold in the span of a single breath.”

”And most of all, across all Great Thousand Realms, the Shen Clan became the radiant heart of creation, illuminated by an eternal, unsetting dawn of pure heavenly grace.”

The Great Thousand Realms, it refers to three thousand continents that is located at the most barren part of the Prime Origin Realm, separated from the Immortal Realms by a sea of stars that stretched to infinity.

The Emperor Burial Realm where the Tian Yuan Empire and the Shen Clan is located is part of it.

”Because of what he had done, we were no longer bound by the petty, suffocating ceilings of the lower heavens,” Spirit Xu Xiansu continued, her voice drifting like a forgotten hymn through the ravine. ”We don’t need to leave the realm after ten thousand years once we became Immortal, we don’t need to wait ten thousand years for the Heavens Will to reappear. We can now, on our strength, cultivate to Immortality.”

”Because of that, the entire Great Thousand Realms underwent massive development, and in a short hundred thousand years, it developed to an independent Immortal Realm of its own.”

Spirit Xu Xiansu sighed, her eyes distant, reminiscing of that ancient era, an era she will never forget, till the day she dies.

”Immortal cities floated upon sea of clouds made from condensed immortal qi. Immortal dynasties governed trillions of cultivators who walked the heavens. Academies stood, teaching the younger generation of how that prosperous age came to be.”

”It was truly a glorious era, an age where the impossible had become the mundane, and the horizon of cultivation seemed limitless.”

Xia Mengyao and Xu Xiansu also sighed dreamily, as if they were seeing that era with their own eyes.

Oh how beautiful that world is.

”At the zenith of this golden age stood Shen Haoran.” Spirit Xu Xiansu continued, ”Having already reached the pinnacle of the Immortal Emperor realm, he achieved what no being in the annals of time had ever accomplished: he located and absorbed all nine ancient fragments of the primordial Dragon God Physique.”

”And, with that, the blood of the Dragon God within him surged like condensed stars, each beat of his heart vibrating with the power to reforge the laws of creation.”

”He stood on the absolute precipice, gathering his boundless comprehension to take the final, unprecedented step—to break through beyond the Immortal Emperor realm and become an existence unbound by any law.”

”But, the cosmos was not without a master.” She turned solemn, her eyes burning with hatred, ”High above the mortal and immortal realms, weaving through the invisible fabric of existence, sat the Heavenly Dao.”

”But the Heavenly Dao is not an unfeeling, impartial system of universal laws,” she continued, her voice dropping into a venomous, bone-chilling rasp that made the surrounding air curdle with cold dread. ”It is a parasite. A gluttonous, paranoid consciousness that sits atop the firmament, demanding that every soul remain an obedient sheep within its pen. And when a cultivator grows too strong, it sends down tribulations to cull them. And Haoran... Haoran was about to become larger than the pen itself.”

The young Xu Xiansu stood motionless, her dagger lowering slightly, her sharp orange pupils locked onto the spectral woman’s face, hanging onto every syllable with breathless intensity.

”Just as Haoran reached the critical juncture of his breakthrough, when his soul was splayed across the infinite laws to grasp the realm beyond, the Heavenly Dao unleashed a foul and merciless ambush.”

”A spear of primordial judgment, condensed from the cold malice of universal rules, plummeted from the highest void.”

”It pierced through Haoran’s defensive arrays and struck him in his most vulnerable moment.”

”The backlash was catastrophic. The cosmic energy he had gathered turned violently against him, his ascension collapsed into ruin, and Haoran also suffered injuries so grave that the divine light of his Dragon God Physique was nearly extinguished on the spot.”

The silence in the gorge was deafening, broken only by the ragged breathing of the two living girls.

”When word of the Heavenly Dao’s treacherous strike rippled across the domains, the sorrow turned instantly into an epoch-shattering fury.”

”The entirety of the Shen Clan, bound by blood, honor, and pride, raised their ancestral war banners.”

”They did not bow their heads in fear, instead, they rallied the entire newly forged Immortal Realm to rise in open rebellion against the Heavenly Dao and every fanatic sect that pledged allegiance to its tyrannical will.”

”It was a war that completely shook the entire Prime Origin Realm down to its core, entire universes were created and destroyed, gods and immortals fell like ants, and stars were plucked from the void and hurled like flaming catapult stones,” she whispered, her eyes distant, reliving the cataclysm.

”Independent domains clashed with such catastrophic violence that the fundamental concepts of light, mass, and time unraveled.”

”An immortal who could swing a blade and sever an entire universe in two, only to be pulverized into formless ash by an descending bolt of Heavenly Punishment the very next second.”

”Gods fell screaming into the burning void. Entire civilizations were born, aged ten billion years, and decayed to dust within the span of a single afternoon’s skirmish.”

”The entire existence wept blood for ten thousand years.”

”At that moment, even while broken and bleeding, Haoran refused to kneel.”

”Seeing his kin slaughtered and the realms burning, he made the ultimate, tragic choice: he ignited his very soul, sacrificing his vast, boundless lifespan as fuel to forcefully wrench open the final gate.”

”Wrapped in a blaze of dying, golden light, Haoran shattered his shackles and successfully achieved the breakthrough beyond the Immortal Emperor realm.”

”Rising from the ashes of his mortal longevity, he took to the battlefield as a peerless supreme, commanding powers that rivaled creation itself, trading blows with the formless avatar of the Heavenly Dao in a duel that cleaved entire concepts in two.”

For a fleeting, magnificent moment, the rebellion had seemed within their grasp.

The sky was cracked, and the Heavenly Dao had bled.

”Yet... we underestimated the boundless depravity of an entity that views existence as its personal farm.”

Spirit Xu Xiansu’s jaw tightened, her expression hardening into fathomless disgust.

”It felt true fear,” she whispered. ”And in its terror, it abandoned every pretense of being a guardian of order. To sustain its supremacy and swell its strength beyond measure, the Heavenly Dao opened a maw beyond the void and began siphoning infinite universes containing infinite dimensions, reaching its tentacles backward and forward across infinite timelines.”

”Trillions upon trillions of worlds were drained of their essence in an instant; stars collapsed into hollow husks, timelines were dragged into a central vortex of hunger, and countless civilizations were snuffed out without ever knowing why the sky had turned to ash.”

”With its newfound power, and Haoran still injured, the tide of war once again turned, as Haoran slowly began to lose.”

”Watching Shen Haoran wither away in his desperate clash against the bloated, all-consuming Heavenly Dao, Huo Yue and I could no longer stand idly by.”

”Bound to him by deep bonds of love, loyalty, and shared ideals, we resolved to cross the threshold as well, desperately attempting to break through beyond the Immortal Emperor realm to stand at his side.”

”Tragedy, however, struck with unsparing brutality. The Heavenly Dao, aware of the battlefield even as it battled Haoran, caught the ripples of Huo Yue’s ascension, and before Huo Yue could weave the laws into her soul to finalize the breakthrough, the Heavenly Dao attacked.”

”The attack descended with the weight of stolen universes, and Huo Yue’s defensive techniques and treasures shattered like brittle glass; her immortal body broke, and before she could even utter a final farewell, her soul was obliterated into nonexistence, scattered into the winds of the dying cosmos.”

A single, translucent tear of dying starlight broke from the spirit woman’s eye.

The young Xu Xiansu’s hands trembled violently, her knuckles turning white around the hilt of her dagger, her teeth digging into her lower lip until blood beaded on her skin.

Huo Yue... that annoying, stubborn woman she constantly bickered with... erased like dust in the wind.

”And I...” Spirit Xu Xiansu took a shuddering breath. ”I went mad with grief.”

”I unleashed the Sun Moon Divine Physique to its forbidden extreme. I reversed the flow of causality, opened the temporal river, and began gorging my soul on the energy of parallel realities, If the Heavenly Dao could grow omnipotent by devouring reality, then I would do the same.”

”But, the Heavenly Dao witnessed my terrifying progress and recognized the threat.”

”If two beings beyond the Immortal Emperor realm opposed it, its rule would end forever. And in its supreme arrogance and spite, the Heavenly Dao decided that if it could not own this creation, no one would...”

Xu Xiansu’s breath hitched, and Xia Mengyao stiffened. Both of them stared at each other, having realized what’s going to happen next.

”It resolved to eradicate all infinite timelines entirely, declaring into the screaming void that it would simply wipe the slate clean, reduce everything to zero, and forge an entirely new world from the silent nothingness—a world where it alone would reign over.”

The spirit woman looked up at the sky, her voice dropping into a terrifying, mechanical imitation of that supreme, indifferent cosmic entity.

”The Heavenly Dao’s final will manifested as a wave of conceptual erasure and swept through past, present, and future simultaneously.”

”Dimensional barriers shattered into glittering dust, parallel realities collided and imploded, the infinite timelines that branched through eternity were sheared away one by one until all existence, across every possible manifestation of reality, was reduced to total nothingness.”

”The stars died. The laws dissolved. The concept of space and time ceased to hold meaning.”

”In the end, the Heavenly Dao succeeded in its madness....”

Xia Mengyao fell to her knees beside the stone, her hand over her mouth, her blue eyes wide with petrified horror at the sheer, unfathomable scale of the extinction.

”How... how did you survive?” Xia Mengyao breathed, her voice trembling like a leaf in a gale.

Spirit Xu Xiansu looked down at her own fading, translucent chest, her eyes overflowing with a profound, eternal ache.

”In the very final instant of universal collapse, Haoran had abandoned all defense, and using the last ember of his lifespan and the entirety of his Dragon God essence, he wove a single, indestructible barrier of protection around me.”

Spirit Xu Xiansu remembered it like it was yesterday.

As the erasure consumed his flesh and soul, Haoran smiled through the white heat of oblivion, whispering his final, desperate faith into her mind.

”He believed in my unique abilities. He believed that if anyone could traverse the abyss and locate an unbroken thread, a single complete timeline untouched by the ruin, it can only be me, Xu Xiansu. Meanwhile, Haoran’s body dissolved into the void, his soul fading into eternity to ensure that I endured.”

Spirit Xu Xiansu paused, stared at her transparent body, and sighed in defeat.

”...When the cataclysm finally settled, there was only silence, and I found myself completely, utterly alone.”

”There were no heavens, no earths, no stars, and no spiritual winds. I drifted aimlessly through an endless graveyard of destroyed realities, surrounded only by the floating, dead husks of pulverized timelines.”

”Every friend, every enemy, every world I had ever known or fought for was gone, erased from the tapestry of existence.”

”Thankfully, the cataclysmic strain of annihilating infinite timelines, combined with the lethal wounds inflicted by Shen Haoran’s attacks, had backfired severely upon the Heavenly Dao itself.”

”Its consciousness was shattered, its divine might was stripped away until it was left profoundly crippled, rendered weaker even than myself.”

”Perhaps it was terrified. The Heavenly Dao shrank into the deepest, darkest crevices of the dead void, concealing its lingering essence in complete obscurity.”

”Eons passed, or perhaps mere seconds, I don’t know for sure, as time had no meaning in a graveyard of dead worlds.”

”I was solely driven by the echo of Haoran’s final words, and I drifted through the infinite expanse of crushed realities, my divine senses scanning the dead voids for a miracle.”

”I combed through the fractured corpses of infinite timelines, watching them dissolve into static gray mist, refusing to surrender to despair.”

”Then, one day, amidst the endless sea of broken temporal threads, my divine sense found this timeline.”

”It was a miracle. I thought then. Something, someone, seems to have interfered in this reality, causing it to escape the infinite parallel timelines, and became its own independent line, completely free from the influence of any outside forces.”

”Looking upon this lone sanctuary, a spark of fierce, unyielding resolve ignited within my hollow heart.”

”This was my only chance. It was the only place where I could restart, where the tragic end of my world could be overturned, where the sacrifice of Haoran and Huo Yue might not end in eternal silence.”

”Without hesitation, I prepared my spirit to pierce the cosmic veil and descend into this isolated timeline, determined to rewrite fate itself.”

”However, the hidden Heavenly Dao, lurking like a venomous serpent in the dark, sensed the subtle ripples of my movement and perceived this untouched timeline at the exact same moment I did.”

”It also wanted to enter this world, and continue lording over it like it did in my previous world, but in its severely crippled state, the Heavenly Dao lacked the strength to face me in open combat, nor could it physically cross into that foreign reality to occupy it directly.”

”So driven by desperate spite, the Heavenly Dao gathered the very last dregs of its remaining power, scraping through the shattered fragments of the dead multiverse, reaching into the ruins of destroyed parallel realities and dredged up the stray, wandering souls of foreign entities, champions, and transgressors from other timelines.”

”Infusing these alien souls with its lingering malice and dark mandates, the Heavenly Dao cast them like poisoned arrows straight into this timeline.”

Spirit Xu Xiansu looked at her younger alternate self, her form now eighty percent gone, only her face and shoulders lingering as translucent starlight.

”And right now, I can tell you...you are surrounded by them.”