Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The wind along the barren ridge turned dead, thick, and suffocating.

Sword Emperor stared at him, and although he was fuming, he reigned in his temper.

His weathered knuckles, scarred by three thousand winters of slaughter, loosened slightly against the coarse hemp wrapping of his iron chopper.

The veins along his thick neck bulged like knotted ropes, his teeth grinding together with a harsh, grating crunch that could be heard over the whistling draft.

In his long life, no greenhorn had ever dared to stand five paces before him and demand that he scram.

Yet behind that golden-haired youth stood the shadow of three mad women and the boundless war fleets of the Shen Clan.

Even a wandering Supreme had to weigh his pride against total annihilation.

He forced his dry, raspy voice down, speaking through clenched teeth. ”Very well, you can have her. But the treasure, I must get it.”

Haoran simply smiled.

He did not offer a nod, and he did not lower the dark blade in his hand. He merely stood there under the cold moonlight, his black and gold robes hanging straight and untouched by the dust, his golden eyes unblinking, watching the old swordsman as if looking at a stubborn merchant trying to bargain for scraps in an empty market.

Sword Emperor clenched his fist.

The blunt refusal in that quiet smile tore at his remaining patience as a dark, ugly flush crept up from his collar, his blood boiling behind his eyes.

”Boy, even if you are from the Shen Clan, you must learn not to offend certain people.”

His voice fell low, thick with the weight of someone who had chopped down kings and shattered sects.

It was a warning carved from three thousand years of blood.

Background could protect a disciple in civilized halls, but in the untamed wilderness where blood washed away tracks, pushing a cornered tiger too far was an invitation for a blade to the throat.

Haoran chuckled.

The sound was light, careless, and dripping with natural arrogance, as if the old man’s grave threat were nothing more than a passing breeze.

”If I can’t even do what I want, then me being the heir of Shen Clan would’ve gone to waste.”

The words dropped onto the stones with effortless contempt.

He had been born with the purest immortal bloodline of the highest skies, with the wealth of myriad star systems resting beneath his family’s boots.

If he had to look at the sour face of an old vagrant before deciding who lived or died, the name of Shen would have been a laughingstock across the universe.

Sword Emperor remained silent. The heavy pressure rolling off his shoulders seemed to settle into a cold, flat pool of mud.

He did not argue, he doesn’t dare to.

He did not shout, it’d be embarrassing to lose to a junior in an argument.

Then, at that moment...

BOOM!

The bedrock beneath the old man’s boots dissolved into white powder as he moved with terrifying, blinding speed!

His left hand shot down like an iron talon, clamping mercilessly around Wei Zhingyi’s slender shoulder, hauling her battered, shivering body off the dirt before she could even draw breath!

With a deafening sonic boom that shattered the clouds, the old rogue transformed into a streak of dirty grey light, piercing straight through the firmament, crossing hundreds of thousands of miles within a blink of an eye, intending to vanish into the deep, trackless void where even the Shen Clan’s fleets could not trace him!

Down on the shattered mountain, Haoran stood entirely still, his golden eyes did not even widen.

He had already anticipated this.

With that, a snapped his fingers and took out an item from his storage ring, and immediately, a small, ordinary looking knife appeared on his hands.

The knife was barely seven inches long, chipped along the dull iron spine, looking like an old kitchen tool used by common mortals to scale carp.

Yet the moment Haoran’s pale fingers flicked it forward in an easy, casual backhand toss, the world stopped breathing.

SHING.

A vast, universe cleaving sword intent rushed out of the knife, breaking time and space itself!

It was not a beam of light, it was not a gale of wind. It was a boundless, pale silver line of pure concept that tore through the fabric of the universe like a hot wire through sheep fat!

The countless stars hanging above the sky shook, flickering and even dying.

The laws of distance, the flow of seconds, and the curvature of the void collapsed into a straight, empty scar.

Time ceased to flow, the seconds folding flat as the strike disregarded the boundaries of mortal space entirely!

*

At this moment, Sword Emperor was far beyond the blue atmosphere of the Tian Yuan Empire now, surrounded by the silent, frozen dark of the outer void.

Distant nebulae flickered like cold embers around his shoulders as he tore through the spatial currents, dragging the fox woman along with ruthless speed.

Yet right at that instant, every single hair on his flesh stood straight up!

A cold, greasy terror seized his soul, clamping around his spiritual core like an iron band packed with frost!

In three thousand years of near-death trials, he had never felt his life flicker so violently.

It felt as though a grand ancient sovereign had stepped out from the river of time, raising a finger to snuff out his tiny flame!

He turned around, and saw that the endless black void behind him slowly shattered into billions of glass-like fragments!

Then, through the gaping cosmic rift, a tidal wave of silver sword intent rushed forward, expanding until it dwarfed entire asteroid belts!

It did not merely seek to cut flesh; it carried the unbending decree that everything in its path must cease to exist, grinding the stars, the dust, and the very ether into grey nothingness!

”Competing with me in Sword Intent!?”

Sword Emperor roared, his ancient pride flaring into a wild, hysterical frenzy!

He was a Supreme Emperor of the Blade!

He had spent three millennia carving his own path through mountains of bone!

How could a brat, no matter how talented, contest him in the art that defined his very life?!

Sword Emperor summoned his dadao sword and poured his sword intent into it, and the notched, heavy chopper began to hum at an ear-splitting, agonizing pitch!

”Sundering Mountain, Breaking Heaven!”

He threw the entirety of his three thousand year of sword cultivation into the strike!

His spiritual sea dried up by half in a single breath, his muscles tearing under his weathered skin as a colossal, grey-iron blade of light, millions of miles long, erupted from the dadao, hurtling across the stellar dark to meet the descending silver tide!

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

Heaven and earth screamed.

Space and time seemed to lose its meaning.

The collision tore the fabric of reality into burning threads of cosmic static.

The light of distant constellations vanished, swallowed by the cataclysmic vortex of clashing wills.

Seconds dragged backward, the void itself groaning under the unbearable paradox of two supreme intents grinding against each other.

For a moment, it seemed like it was a battle between equals.

But soon, Sword Emperor’s sword intent was swallowed.

The grey-iron blade of light dissolved, consumed like a drop of dirty river water thrown into an infinite ocean of pure, pristine frost!

Meanwhile, the vast, universe-cleaving silver intent did not slow down by even a hair’s breadth.

It surged through the wreckage of his technique, parting the vacuum with cold, unyielding momentum!

”What!?”

Sword Emperor exclaimed in shock, his eyes bulging until the blood vessels ruptured, staining his vision in crimson.

He didn’t even have time to react as the sword intent cut off his right hand holding the sword.

SHCK.

There was no sound of tearing meat. The silver line passed through his limb smoother than light passing through clear glass.

The entire right arm, from the shoulder down, together with the heavy dadao chopper, was cleaved clean away from his torso!

The severed limb did not bleed immediately; the cut was so precise, so infused with profound sword intent, that the cells and bone along the wound were instantly severed across the spiritual plane!

He was stunned, he stared at his empty shoulder, then looked down to his falling hand, and screamed in pain, letting go of Wei Zhingyi.

”AAAAAAAGH!”

A high, ragged shriek of pure, humiliating agony ripped from the old master’s throat!

The severed arm, still clutching the iron chopper, tumbled down into the dark abyss of the void, dissolving into fine grey ash before it could travel ten leagues!

The shockwave of the missing limb violently knocked his balance aside, his left hand losing its grip on the lilac robes of the fox woman.

Wei Zhingyi fell through the cold cosmic draft like a stone dropped from a tower.

Yet, as the icy wind of the void bit into her exposed skin, the survival instinct of a thousand year old celestial beast flared through her veins.

She twisted her battered torso mid-fall, her nine broken silver tails lashing weakly against the spatial winds to bleed off her momentum.

Tumbling through the fractured layers of the lower atmosphere, she plummeted toward a cracked mountain basin near the outer edge of the province, her boots scraping violently against the jagged stone, carving two deep trenches before she managed to stop her slide.

She dropped to one knee, clutching her ribs, her breath coming in heavy, ragged wheezes, coughing dark blood onto the cold moss as her cloudy eyes darted toward the sky.

High above the shattered clouds, Sword Emperor clutched his empty, bleeding shoulder.

Thick, dark crimson blood poured through his trembling left fingers, staining his plain brown robes into a soggy, black mess.

His face was the color of a wet corpse, his teeth chattering uncontrollably as cold sweat washed over his wrinkled forehead.

If his sword intent didn’t offset that attack just now, it probably won’t just be his right hand that will be taken, but his life and soul as well.

The realization chilled his marrow deeper than the void itself.

That attack just now contained an intent so terrifying, so ancient, that it had almost erased his entire existence from the cycle of reincarnation.

It was definitely the boy. He had definitely unleashed a strand of power sealed within a relic by an entity that stood so far above a common Supreme that looking up would blind one’s eyes.

Down in the basin, Wei Zhingyi stared at the injured Sword Emperor.

She saw the missing limb, the river of red soaking his torso, and the trembling weakness in his breath.

She knew this was the only chance the heavens would ever grant her.

So without hesitation, she bit down hard on the tip of her tongue, spraying a mouthful of pure, silver heart-blood onto her pale fingers!

CRACK!

Her remaining spiritual energy ignited in a desperate, final burst, her fingers clawing at the empty air before her chest!

The space split open with a sharp, ragged screech, forming an unstable, swirling portal of deep crimson and silver light that led straight into the chaotic currents of the void!

She dragged her battered limbs forward, lunging headfirst toward the spinning rift to escape the nightmare once and for all!

”As if I’d let you!” Sword Emperor roared.

His eyes burned with rabid, blood-crazed madness!

He had lost his right arm!

He had suffered the greatest, most humiliating wound of his three thousand year life!

If he let the fox vanish with the relic after paying such a catastrophic price, he would become the laughingstock of the Great Thousand Realms, his dao heart ruined forever!

”Ten Thousand Sword Domain!”

The old monster drove his left hand into the sky!

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The sky above the mountain basin was swallowed by a dark void, and with it are ten thousand blades!

An infinite amount of ethereal, grey-iron greatswords, and dripping with rusty, murderous sword intent, manifested from the clouds and swallowed her.

Wei Zhingyi gritted her teeth. Again, she was back here again.

”Pin her down!” Sword Emperor commanded.

Then, the swords began pointing their razor tips straight down toward the earth, locking the space, the wind, and the crimson portal in a cage of slaughter!