Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The grand dining pavilion, which only moments earlier had hummed with sweet flutes and clinking porcelain, turned into an open butcher’s pen.

Shrieks ripped through the air as dark-masked killers poured past the smashed cedar doors.

They came in waves, armed with curved sabers, hooked polearms, and serrated iron daggers.

The paralysis from the poison had already turned nine out of every ten guests into helpless sacks of meat lying limp beneath the tables.

”Protect the main table! Stand your ground!”

A desperate roar rose from the few family guards and branch elders who had only taken half a cup of wine or had arrived late to the feast.

A fierce battle of those who can still move against the assassins erupted across the polished floor.

An elder from the western armory, his knees wobbling from the creeping numbness in his veins, pulled a massive broadsword from his belt and slammed it into the neck of the first charging assassin.

The blade bit deep, spraying dark crimson across a shattered platter of roasted duck.

”Filthy rats!” the old guard captain barked, blood trickling from his own mouth as he forced his sluggish spiritual channels to ignite.

He swung his heavy iron spear in a frantic circle, knocking three masked men off their feet and cracking their ribs with dull, heavy snaps.

Beside him, two junior swordsmen from the outer halls stood back to back, their teeth clenched so hard they cracked.

They parried desperate thrusts, sparks leaping into the dimming lantern light as cold iron met cold iron.

Even with their limbs growing heavy as waterlogged logs, they slashed, kicked, and shoved tables forward to form crude barricades.

Yet the tide of attackers was relentless.

The assassins did not waste breath shouting battle cries.

They moved with silent, machine-like cruelty, slipping beneath the slow guards, stabbing through unprotected armpits, and slitting the throats of paralyzed guests lying on the floor.

Dishes shattered, wine jars burst open, and rivers of thick red fluid mixed with spilled lotus broth across the white flagstones.

One by one, the standing defenders were dragged down by multiple blades, their shouts choked off in wet gurgles.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Heavy, steady footsteps sounded from the wide entryway, drowning out the frantic sounds of clashing blades.

The Five Elders of the Five Major Families walked slowly into the center of the hall.

At their head walked Old Master Zhao, a hulking brute with a bare, scarred chest and a jagged battle ax resting across his shoulder.

Flanking him were the patriarchs of the Qian, Sun, Li, and Zhou houses, their robes clean, their faces twisted into ugly, arrogant smirks as their eyes swept over the carnage.

”Look at the mighty ruler of Ye City,” Old Master Zhao sneered, his gravelly voice scraping over the groans of dying men.

He lifted his booted foot and stomped down hard on the skull of a fallen branch nephew, cracking the bone like a dry walnut without even glancing down.

”Sitting in the dirt like a paralyzed hound while his own blood waters the floorboards!”

”Where is all that pride and arrogance now, Brother Liuman?” the Li patriarch mocked, chuckling as he used the tip of his slender cane to nudge an elder’s lifeless hand away from his path. ”You spent centuries treating our five houses like draft mules, taking seventy percent of our hard-earned spirit mines. You thought your family’s banner would hang over these towers forever!”

”Tomorrow morning, when the sun rises over these walls, every flag bearing the Ye surname will be burned in the street,” Old Master Qian laughed, his eyes glittering with long repressed greed as he pointed his iron knuckle-duster at the high dais. ”The vaults, the cloud docks, the dragon horses, everything of the Ye Family belongs to our five houses now! And your skull will sit on a spearhead right above the southern gate to welcome the new dawn!”

Ye Liuman knelt on the raised platform, his fingernails digging deep into the cracked wood of the floorboards.

His vision swam with black, oily spots, the deadly poison coursing through his veins like frozen grease, locking his meridians up one by one.

But seeing his nephews, his loyal retainers, and the branch brothers who had shared wine with him for hundreds of years butchered like pigs on the stone below, a ferocious, burning madness erupted from the depths of his chest!

”Traitors!” Ye Liuman roared, his voice hoarse, ragged, and thick with blood. ”Vultures born from the mud! You think you can take my city?!”

He reached into his inner robes with trembling, blood-slicked fingers.

CRACK!

In the palm of his hand, a small, blood-red jade talisman shaped like a roaring lion shattered into fine powder!

A violent wave of crimson essence flared outward from his palm, burning like liquid fire as it shot outside the hall.

This was a talisman he had crafted a thousand years ago. When crushed, it will alert those who owns the same talisman.

There’s three of these, one is on him, one on Yan Renhua, and one is with Ye Hongyan.

He does not know if that girl kept the talisman with her after their falling out a thousand years ago, but this is his only chance.

Otherwise, they will really all die here.

BOOM!

The wooden dais beneath his boots splintered into a thousand jagged shards as Ye Liuman surged upward, his eyes bloodshot and blazing like two roaring furnaces!

”You bunch of traitorous scum! Die together!” Ye Liuman roared as he took out two handed golden saber from his storage ring.

The Five Elders snarled in unison, neither retreating nor showing fear.

They were all at the Peak of Earthly Saint realm, and normal circumstances, the gap between an Earthly Saint and a true Heavenly Saint was an impassable chasm.

A single slap from a Heavenly Saint could crush five Earthly Saints into meat paste before they could blink.

But today, because of the poison, Ye Liuman’s foundation was rotting from within, his spiritual sea was sluggish, his breath was short, and every movement tore his burning meridians to shreds.

The Five Elders leaped into the air together, five terrifying auras of Earthly Saint power erupting like jagged thunderbolts!

Their blades, axes, and iron canes whistled through the smoke, converging on the raised platform from five different angles!

CLANG! CLANG! BOOOOM!

The collision shattered the surrounding pillars, bringing down roof tiles and heavy timber beams in a blinding rain of dust!

Ye Liuman did not take half a step backward.

He planted his wide frame right in front of the carved wooden seat where his wife lay slumped.

His boots dug into the solid flagstones, locking his legs like two iron pillars driven into the earth.

His two-handed golden dragon saber slashed through the air with ferocious, desperate fury!

SHING!

He parried Old Master Zhao’s heavy battle ax with his blade, the kinetic shockwave rippling through his bruised chest, making him cough up a mouthful of dark, clotted blood.

But instead of letting the blood splash backward toward his wife, he jerked his head violently to the left, spitting the crimson gore onto the floor beside him!

”DON’T YOU DARE DIRTY HER WITH YOUR FILTHY BLOOD!” Ye Liuman roared, his voice carrying the wild, unhinged fury of an ancient beast protecting its mate.

He spun on his heel, swinging his saber with blinding speed.

The golden blade caught the Li patriarch’s iron cane, shearing the weapon in half with a deafening metallic screech!

The backswing of his elbow slammed straight into the Sun elder’s throat, shattering bone and sending the man crashing across three broken tables!

The fight was intense.

Iron clashed against iron, flesh tore against jagged steel, and the air smelled of ozone, burned hair, and scorched blood!

The Five Elders pressed in like a pack of starving wolves circling a wounded bear.

They feinted, slashed, and stabbed from the shadows, their weapons whistling inches from his skin!

A curved dagger sliced through Ye Liuman’s left shoulder, carving a deep gash down to the white bone.

A spiked mace hammered into his ribs, cracking three bones with a sickening crunch.

Blood poured from his wounds, soaking his golden-green robes until they turned black with gore.

Yet, no matter how hard they struck him, no matter how many blades bit into his flesh, his body stood as an unmoving wall of muscle and bone.

Whenever a spray of dark blood flew from a severed artery, he twisted his torso, using his broad shoulders, his wide sleeves, and his own chest to catch the spray, shielding the woman behind him so thoroughly that not a single speck of dirt, not a single drop of blood, touched the clean lavender silk of her dress.

”Damn it! Is this man really poisoned!?”

”How come he’s still as fierce as ever!?”

Ye Liuman was breathing heavily, his eyes barely even open, his hands holding the sword already losing all its strength, but even so, he remained firm.

Yan Renhua lay curled, her cheek pressed against the cold fabric of her sleeve, her trembling fingers clawing at the armrest.

Her body was paralyzed, her limbs heavy as lead, unable to summon even a sliver of spiritual energy to help him.

Tears welled in her pink, gentle eyes, spilling over her pale cheeks like warm river pearls.

She watched the broad, bleeding back standing between her and five vicious killers.

She watched how every heavy blow made his shoulders shudder, how his breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps, and how his boots ground into the stone, refusing to give up an inch of ground.

Yes, this was the reason.

The memory of hundreds of years rushed through her blurred vision like a flowing stream of golden light.

She remembered the loud arguments in their private courtyard, the slammed doors, the broken teacups, and the bitter words they had thrown at each other over the years.

She remembered how pig-headed he was, how stubborn, how greedy for clan face, and how he had broken their daughter’s heart with his blind schemes.

Yet, beneath that coarse, clumsy, and pompous shell, there was a man who had loved her with a raw, unshakable devotion since the day they were teenagers running through the spring grass.

When a rogue dragon beast had raided their border camp a thousand years ago, he had thrown himself into its fiery jaws just so she could climb into the carriage.

When she had caught the cold-soul fever after giving birth to Hongyan, he had climbed the Frozen Sky Peak on his bare hands and knees, bleeding through the snow for forty days just to bring back a single stalk of warm-sun grass to boil for her broth.

He was arrogant to the world, foolish with his elders, and clumsy with his words.

But whenever the sky fell, he never looked back, never hesitated, and never counted the cost of his own life if it meant keeping the wind off her face.

This was the reason why despite how they always fight and argue, Yan Renhua had never once thought of leaving Ye Liuman.

Her heart wept with a profound, aching tenderness that cut through the terror of the blades.

To the outside world, he was the rigid, unbending Patriarch of the Ye Clan.

But to her, he was the same hot-headed boy who had stood in the pouring rain outside her window, swearing that as long as his lungs drew breath, no harm would ever touch the woman he took as his wife.

”Gah!” Old Master Zhao retreated two steps, panting heavily as he wiped the blood from his cheek, his cold, cunning eyes catching the way Ye Liuman’s stance was locked entirely around the wooden seat.

”The old dog cares more about his bitch than his own life!” Zhao barked, a cruel, vicious grin splitting his scarred face. ”Look at him! He won’t move his feet!”

”Kill the woman!” the Qian elder hissed, waving his iron claws toward the bench. ”Force his back open!”

”Die together!”

The remaining four elders shifted their formations instantly.

Instead of aiming for Ye Liuman’s throat, they unleashed their deadliest long-range techniques straight at the helpless woman lying down.

A barrage of poison-tipped bone needles shot forward like black rain!

A massive crescent wave of gray ax-wind swept horizontally toward her neck, while the Li elder hurled two exploding fire talismans directly at her chest, intending to tear her delicate frame into burned pieces!

”OVER MY DEAD BODY!”

Ye Liuman let out a deafening roar that shook the very foundation of the pavilion, a roar that carried the fierce, primeval madness of a cornered dragon!

He didn’t swing his sword to parry. The attacks were too wide and too scattered, not to mention there was no time to deflect them all with steel!

So without a fraction of a second of hesitation, Ye Liuman opened his arms wide, turned his back entirely to the flying blades, and threw his entire body over Yan Renhua!

THUD! THUD! SHCK! BOOOM!

The barrage struck him with merciless, sickening brutality!

Three black poison needles buried themselves deep into the meat of his neck!

The heavy gray ax-wind cleaved clean into his upper back, carving through muscle and bone until the blade reached his spine!

The two fire talismans detonated directly against his shoulder blades, tearing his flesh open and scorching his back into blackened, smoking coal!

A fountain of dark, hot blood erupted from his mouth, spraying across the empty floorboards beside the bench.

His vision went completely white as every nerve in his body screamed in blinding, unbearable agony.

His lungs felt as if they were drowning in molten copper, and his heart sputtered like a dying candle in a violent gale.

Yet his arms remained locked around her trembling shoulders.

His broad, battered chest hovered half an inch above her face, absorbing the heat of the fire, the flying splinters of wood, and the bitter wind, keeping her completely nestled in his dark, protective shadow.

He looked down through the haze of blood running into his eyes, his teeth painted crimson, his breath hot and ragged as it brushed against her wet eyelashes.

A faint, trembling smile pulled at the corners of his bloody lips, his voice barely a rough whisper in the smoke.

”Don’t... don’t be afraid, Renhua. As long as I still stands... no harm... no harm shall ever befall you.”