Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The colossal, cosmic pupil carved into the torn firmament pulsed with incandescent, celestial fury.

Around the jagged tear in reality, the atmospheric pressure reached levels capable of turning iron into liquid slag, yet the eye’s burning, golden gaze remained fixed on the solitary silhouette hovering in the sky.

Haoran simply stared at the eye.

He did not tremble, nor did he lower his head in reverence. His three divine eyes met the gaze of the cosmic entity with cold indifference.

The straight, pitch-black blade of Azathoth rested loosely in his right hand, its tip dripping with wisps of consumed tribulation thunder, reflecting the celestial light with hollow hunger.

The Heavenly Dao stared back.

At this moment, Haoran had really angered it.

To the supreme, fundamental will governing the balance of the mortal and immortal planes, what Haoran was forging was an unforgivable sin against creation itself.

The Nine Dragon God Physiques were deliberately shattered into nine isolated fragments after the death of the Nine Headed Dragon God, scattered across various immortal realms and sealed within separate vessels specifically so that their combined power would never re-emerge.

Each physique represented an immutable pillar of primordial authority that governs the laws of all creation, and to hunt their hosts, rip the Physique from their bodies, and weave their divine laws into a singular complete physique once more is to bieth a cosmic monster that stood beyond the design of fate—a transcendent entity that the laws of heaven could neither regulate nor constrain

Just like the Nine Headed Dragon God of yesteryear.

Looking up into the pulsing, golden iris of the cosmic eye, Haoran’s lips curved into a faint, mocking smile as he tilted his head.

”Tell me, overseer of this stagnant cage,” Haoran’s voice drifted upward, soft and leisurely, yet carrying an arrogant, soul-striking weight that penetrated through the layers of the void. ”Why are you so obsessed with preventing the unification of the Nine Dragon God Physiques? Are you terrified that once the nine dragons become one, this fragile balance you guard so dearly will be ripped apart like rotten silk beneath my boots?”

RUUUUUUUMBLE!

The sky shuddered as though a thousand continental shelves had cracked in unison!

The golden iris turned a deep, apocalyptic crimson, the veins of celestial law branching around the ocular boundary throbbing with boundless, venomous hatred.

”INSOLENT MONGREL!”

The voice detonated directly through the leylines of the Northern Domain, turning ancient mountains hundreds of leagues away into powdery dust.

”YOU DARE QUESTION THE MANDATE OF HEAVEN?! DO NOT THINK THE BOUNDARIES OF THE LOWER REALMS WILL HIDE YOU FOREVER! I WILL STRIP MY SIGHT FROM THE TEN THOUSAND STAR DOMAINS! I WILL FORSAKE THE BALANCE OF THE OUTER SPHERES AND MARSHAL THE TOTALITY OF MY WILL TO SEIZE YOUR EXISTENCE! NO MATTER WHAT VOID YOU FLEE TO, NO MATTER WHAT DYNASTY PROTECTS YOUR BONES, I WILL HOUND YOU THROUGH THE END OF TIME UNTIL YOUR VERY SOUL IS CRUSHED INTO PRIMORDIAL DUST!”

The celestial vow echoed with the force of an absolute, immutable curse, burning a mark of eternal cosmic enmity into the spiritual fabric surrounding Haoran.

Haoran was about to mock the heavens, but stopped and swallowed his words when a massive blue screen popped out before the eye of the heavens.

The cosmic atmosphere abruptly froze.

The blue screen hummed with an unnatural, digital frequency that did not belong to the Daoist principles of yin and yang or the five elements; it was an intrusive, foreign construct operating on a paradigm entirely separate from the natural universe.

The crimson veins within the celestial eye rapidly receded, replaced by a sudden, jarring stillness.

The colossal golden pupil contracted, darting back and forth across the colossal, glowing lines of text and scrolling symbols that flashed across the digital canvas.

The furious, apocalyptic pressure weighing down upon the lower realm paused, momentarily arrested by whatever administrative notification had forcibly inserted itself into the localized sector.

The massive, golden gaze shifted downward, locking onto Haoran’s cold, smiling countenance with lingering, suffocating malice.

It looked once more at the scrolling azure interface, as though measuring a set of external constraints it was currently forbidden to breach, before its pupils narrowed into sharp, hateful slits.

”THIS IS NOT THE END, MORTAL,” the voice ground out, lower this time, vibrating with suppressed, venomous rancor. ”SAVOR YOUR PETTY REIGN OVER THIS PIT OF ASH. WHEN THE TIME COMES WHERE I FOUND WHERE YOU ARE, THE HEAVENS WILL PERSONALLY TEAR THE FLESH FROM YOUR BONES.”

With a final, spatial shudder that rattled the teeth in the earth, the massive, vertical slit of the eye began to fold into the dimensional strata.

The colossal golden pupil faded into the upper atmosphere, the torn edges of reality sewing themselves back together with fine threads of celestial light until the sky was once again empty, scarred only by drifting ash and cold, natural clouds.

At the same time, the gargantuan, glowing azure interface flickered with a sudden cascade of static, fractured into millions of tiny, digital particles of light, and vanished into thin air, leaving the silent firmament completely barren beneath the gaze of the young master.

Haoran frowned as he stared at the disappearing interface, looking confused.

The golden vertical eye on his forehead pulsed softly, its divine perception tracking the lingering, microscopic particles of digital light that dissolved into the empty void.

For all his knowledge of ancient texts, primeval bloodlines, and cosmic taboos, that massive blue window was something entirely foreign.

It did not belong to the Dao, and it carried no spiritual weight, no karmic residue, and no trace of the natural elements.

Yet, it had intervened in the Heavenly Dao’s judgment, reducing the supreme will of heaven to a mere observer forced to read its decree.

Haoran’s lips thinned. What kind of construct possesses the authority to stay the hand of heaven itself?

However, he didn’t have time to think about it as his Supreme Trinity slowly vanished, his body still unable to handle its power.

His third eye dissipated, and his eyes both returned to their natural bright golden color.

Then, he stumbled and almost fell to the ground, but he managed to catch himself at the last secong.

He grasped his forehead, frowning. ”...Using it for that long is still too much for me, it seems.”

*

*

*

At this moment...

Far beneath the high firmament, deep in the subterranean belly of the Rising Dragon Sect, the air was choked with blood mist and pulverized stone.

SHING!

A razor-sharp arc of dark crimson demonic qi cleaved through the gloom, whistling as it sheared the hair from the side of Yun Ming’s skull!

Yun Ming narrowly dodged a slash aimed at his neck, ’Shit! System! Where are you!? I’m going to die here!’

His heart hammered violently against his ribs, his knuckles were pale as he swung his golden halberd to parry, but the force of the strike shattered the golden runes along the shaft, sending a numbing shockwave up his forearms.

[... Apologies, Host.]

The voice echoed in his mind, but it was accompanied by an unnatural, erratic static, as though its connection had been stretched across dimensions to handle an emergency interface mere moments ago.

’Forget that, help me! I’m going to die here!’ Yun Ming roared internally, ducking beneath another horizontal cleave that cleaved a five-foot-thick stone pillar behind him into dust. ’Give me an emergency combat boost, or maybe unlock a divine-tier skill! Anything!’

[... Host—]

SHHK!

The dark red demonic sword pierced straight through his lower abdomen, bursting through his lower back in a shower of boiling crimson!

”Grhagh!?”

The cold, corrosive demonic qi clinging to the steel hissed as it bit into his flesh, devouring his spiritual reserves and sending waves of white-hot agony screaming through his nervous system.

”Hahaha, it seems you’re all bark and no bite, Sect Master Yun!” Ling Luochen laughed, ”To think you were all arrogant just now.”

Her manic cackle reverberated against the cracked subterranean ceiling like the screeching of an ancient ghoul.

Her black sclera and burning red pupils locked onto his agonized face, the dark tribal tattoos across her skin pulsing with sickening, ecstatic delight.

She violently twisted the blade inside his gut, grinding the steel against his abdominal wall.

”Where is all that confidence you had now?!” she sneered, her long hair waving wildly in the crimson aura of her Descending Asura Demonic Physique. ”Without your formation, without your undying army of puppets to hide behind, you are nothing! Just a weak, pathetic dog who stumbled upon treasures far beyond his station!”

”Cough!”

Yun Ming spewed a mouthful of dark, clotted blood, his hands desperately grabbing the edges of the demonic blade to stop her from gutting him entirely.

’System! I can’t hold on! Buy an emergency spatial escape talisman! Use my points!’ Yun Ming screamed in his sea of consciousness, his vision swimming with gray spots as he struggled to kick her away, barely managing to wrench himself backward off the blade.

He stumbled across the wet, broken flagstones, leaving a thick trail of blood in his wake.

His breathing was ragged, his hands trembling as he raised the dented golden halberd with fading strength.

[Negative, Host. That is impossible,] the system’s cold, synthetic voice chimed, completely devoid of empathy. [Host has already depleted all system points to execute the maximum-scale summoning protocol, bringing hundreds of thousands of auxiliary players into this realm for the final defensive war. Your current balance is zero.]

’Then take a loan! Open a line of credit! You’re a system, aren’t you supposed to keep me alive?!’ Yun Ming snarled desperately, parrying a savage downward thrust from Ling Luochen that gouged another deep furrow into his right thigh.

He swung the halberd in a frantic horizontal sweep, summoning a wave of golden flame, but Ling Luochen didn’t even bother to dodge.

The Asura tattoos along her arms flared, absorbing the kinetic shock, and she effortlessly stepped through the fire, her demonic blade leaving three jagged, weeping gashes across his chest!

[Warning,] the system intoned, its prompt flashing red in his mind’s eye. [Doing such action will incur an extreme karmic debt. The conversion cost requires biological life-force collateral. If Host chooses to enter debt, the physical bodies of the connected players currently residing in their original world will suffer catastrophic neural and somatic collapse. They will face severe organ failure, permanent coma, or death.]

Yun Ming hesitated as a sudden, chilling hesitation seized his heart.

Those players... they were real people on the other side of the screen.

High school kids, college students, office workers sitting in their bedrooms, strapping on neural headsets believing they were playing an ultra-realistic fantasy game.

To sacrifice them, to turn thousands of innocent youths into vegetable corpses in their own beds just to save his own skin—

BAM!

His hesitation was answered by an iron-clad palm crashing violently into the center of his face!

Ling Luochen’s cold, blood-stained fingers dug into his cheekbones with bone-cracking force, her black fingernails piercing his skin and drawing fresh rivulets of crimson!

”Hahaha! Die!” Without a pause, she slammed him down to the ground!

CRACK!

The back of Yun Ming’s skull violently shattered the granite floorstones, the concussive impact rattling his brain and sending a blinding flash of white across his eyes.

Before he could even draw a breath to scream, Ling Luochen stepped on his throat, her demonic blade raised high in both hands, brought down with the merciless weight of a falling guillotine as he stabbed him on the chest!

THUNK!

The blade pinned him directly to the earth, punching through his sternum, mere centimeters away from his beating heart!

The sheer, unbearable agony shattered his remaining sanity.

Blood gushed from his nose and mouth, bubbling between his teeth as Ling Luochen leaned down, her black and red eyes staring into his pupils with sheer, sadistic mockery, her hands slowly putting her full weight onto the hilt to drive the steel deeper into his ribcage.

”Before I kill you, sect master,” she whispered, her smile stretching from ear to ear. ”That thing you use to summon those guys... Transfer it to me. Or else, dying will be the least of your worries.”

Looking up at her manic, demonic face, feeling the cold steel grinding against his ribs and the shadow of death wrapping its icy fingers around his soul, the lingering morality in Yun Ming’s heart burned to absolute ash.

To hell with their original world! To hell with their lives! Why should he care about strangers who treated his struggles as mere entertainment?!

He was the Host of the system! He was the protagonist of his own story!

His blood-soaked hands gripped Ling Luochen’s wrists with feral, dying desperation, his eyes bulging as he roared within his mind.

’I DON’T CARE! KILL THEM ALL IF YOU HAD TO! SYSTEM, INITIATE THE DEBT! SAVE ME!’