Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The Sword Emperor’s calloused, blood-soaked left hand gripped the pitch-black edge of Azathoth so tightly that iron sparks hissed between his skin and the dark steel.

His eyes burned with three millennia of savage, unhinged wrath, his hot, sour breath brushing against the pale cheeks of the youth before him.

The flame licking the obsidian blade ate into his flesh, but his grip remained frozen in place, an ancient titan refusing to concede an inch of dirt to a junior.

”You... You will pay for this...”

”Pay? You don’t deserve to utter such words.” Haoran smirked, ”Genesis Protocol...!”

CRACK!

A sound that did not belong to the mortal heavens tore through the rusted expanse of the Ten Thousand Sword Domain.

It was not a sound of metal snapping or stone crumbling. It was the low, primordial hum of reality being rewritten from its very foundations.

At that moment, the grey, stagnant smog that had blanketed the blighted graveyard of rusted blades peeled back like rotten parchment tossed into a roaring hearth.

The rusted daggers, the jagged broadswords, and the shattered cleavers embedded in the crimson dirt dissolved into streaks of grey ash, pulled violently backward by a terrifying, all-consuming vortex that opened directly beneath Haoran’s boots.

Where the dead grey ground had stretched into infinity, brilliant, verdant emerald light erupted from the earth!

Pure, primordial vitality burst forth in fountains of liquid spiritual dew, washing away the foul stench of ancient rust and clotted marrow.

Giant, primordial roots as thick as sleeping dragons tore through the fractured bedrock, rapidly weaving together to form rich, black soil that breathed with ancient, untamed life.

”What!?”

Sword Emperor was shocked.

His eyes bulged in raw, disbelieving horror, his grip on the black sword slackening as the ground beneath his boots was violently stripped away.

His domain—a metaphysical territory forged across thousands of bloody battles, refined through centuries of solitary contemplation on the wind-swept peaks—was being eaten alive!

As far as he knew, only Supremes can use a domain.

After all, a domain was the absolute pinnacle of spatial comprehension, the divine marker that separated those who crawled on the mortal earth from the supremes who walked among the stars.

To manifest a domain required one’s soul to comprehend the boundary of rules, to seize a fragment of the heavenly law and bend it into a personal cage.

Even in the recorded history, and in the past and present, the only beings who had ever manifested a domain before reaching the Supreme realm were those three terrifying madwomen of the Shen Clan—monsters whose monstrous talent and bottomless bloodline authority allowed them to brute-force the laws of the universe through sheer, unbridled will.

Yet this youth before him was not a Supreme.

He had not even become a Saint!

He gritted his teeth and roared, ”Domain of Iron, Obey My Will! Stand Firm!”

The Sword Emperor’s hoarse roar shook the fractured heavens!

He severed the connection to his own meridians, forcing thirty percent of his remaining ancestral bloodline essence directly into the sky!

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

A blinding, deafening metallic shriek resonated across the boundary!

The crumbling grey sky violently halted its collapse.

Tens of thousands of phantom blades, wreathed in thick, rusty killing intent, slammed down from the smog, driving their points into the earth like heavy iron stakes, anchoring the remaining space and locking Haoran’s expanding territory in a violent stalemate!

Now in this realm, behind the golden haired young master, an awe-inspiring, primeval expanse stretched out toward a distant, golden horizon.

Massive, thousand-year-old spirit trees with leaves of jade and sapphire towered into the clouds, their colossal canopies whispering with the breath of fresh mountain winds.

Towering mountain ranges of pure, unpolished purple crystal rose like sleeping behemoths, while roaring, crystal-clear rivers of liquid spiritual nectar cascaded down emerald valleys, feeding boundless, deep-blue seas that sparkled with living starlight.

The air was sweet, pristine, and thick with the heavy, pulsing heartbeat of an untouched paradise.

Behind Sword Emperor, a realm filled with infinite sword.

The contrast was absolute and horrifying.

In Sword Emperor’s domain, the sky remained a suffocating, leaden tomb of dark grey smoke and falling soot.

For as far as the eye can see, no, even further behind, endless ranks of jagged, blood stained blades were thrust into dry, cracked earth—a desolate, frozen purgatory of endless war, where no green grass could ever take root and no bird could ever sing, smelling only of cold iron, dried gore, and the lingering curses of a million slaughtered souls.

Sword Emperor frowned, ”No... that isn’t a domain... that’s... a complete world!? How is this possible?”

His voice cracked into a hoarse, ragged whisper, his single eye darting across the crystal peaks and roaring sapphire rivers behind Haoran.

Domain and a complete separate world are two completely different things!

The difference was as vast as a puddle of stagnant rain compared to the boundless celestial ocean!

A domain merely rejects the world and replaced it with the user’s image, giving them advantages in fights such as increasing their power while suppressing the enemies.

It was a temporary distortion, an illusion of authority maintained solely by the user’s continuous expenditure of spiritual energy.

The moment the master’s breath faltered or his dantian ran dry, the domain would shatter back into empty air.

A complete separate world means you can literally form life there, with rules and laws you can absolutely control!

It meant the existence of independent cosmic seasons, of self-sustaining spiritual leylines, of an internal cycle of reincarnation, and the sovereign authority to dictate life, death, gravity, and the flow of time within its borders!

To carry a complete, living world inside one’s soul was something not even ordinary Supremes could achieve; it was a divine miracle whispered only in the ancient myths of primordial creators who existed before the separation of heaven and earth!

How could a boy who had barely lived twenty winters hold a living cosmos in his palm?!

Cold sweat washed over the old emperor’s wrinkled brow, soaking his grey beard.

But he was, after all, an ancient monster who had climbed out of mountains of severed heads.

The shock shook his foundation, but it did not break his feral resolve.

But he quickly snap out of his shock, ”So what? You’re still just a Spirit Ascension! Shen Haoran, I will give you one last chance! Give me some face and withdraw, and I will forget this ever happened.”

He barked the words through clenched, bloody teeth, trying to anchor himself in the reality of cultivation realms.

A complete world or not, the boy’s mortal vessel was still constrained by the limits of the Spirit Ascension realm!

An ant holding the scepter of an emperor was still an ant!

If Haoran pushed this to the bitter end, the old monster was ready to burn his very soul to drag this peerless genius into the grave alongside him!

Haoran chuckled, ”So much noise.”

The young master’s golden eyes flickered with effortless, lazy amusement.

He did not waste breath arguing over face or realms.

To a dragon looking down from the nine heavens, the desperate bargaining of an injured wolf in a ditch was nothing more than irritating static.

He snapped his fingers.

SNAP.

The quiet, crisp sound echoed across both realms with the finality of a cosmic decree.

HUUUUUUMMMMM!

The jade-tinted sky behind Haoran tore open along a colossal horizontal seam!

Descending slowly through the golden clouds came an architectural titan of divine majesty.

It was thr Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

”That’s...” Sword Emperor froze... ”An Imperial Artifact... How can you have an Imperial Artifact!?”

The old man’s breath caught in his throat, his eye widening until the corners split, tears of pure, helpless disbelief welling in his gaze.

Imperial Artifact are the highest level of Artifact that an Artificer can forge.

They were mythical armaments that defied the natural order of craftsmanship.

They could only be made using the Natal Artifact of a dying Supreme, just like Sword Emperor’s sword, which he had nurtured since he was a Profound Saint.

For thousands of years, from the moment he had stepped onto the path of cultivation as a young, hungry boy in the mud, he had fed his own blood, his own spiritual marrow, and his deepest soul-intent into his treasured dadao chopper, refining it day and night, hoping that when his life-lamp was finally extinguished, that notched iron blade might be tempered into an Imperial Artifact to pass down to his successor.

Yet here, hovering casually behind this youth like a garden ornament, was a fully awakened, ancient celestial fortress of imperial grade!

Even for a genuine Supreme like him, an Imperial Artifact is a dangerous weapon capable of killing him if used properly!

In the hands of an experienced master, an Imperial Artifact possessed the terrifying might to shatter star systems, level immortal sects, and sever the lifespans of ancient sovereigns!

”Fire...” Haoran pointed at Sword Emperor.

His pale index finger extended forward, casual and relaxed, pointing straight at the old man’s chest.

Across the terraced marble battlements of the floating fortress, thirty six massive, interlocking circular arrays of radiant crimson and gold runes flared into existence!

Each circle was thousands of feet wide, spinning with blinding speed, drawing immense quantities of raw, primordial energy directly from the living world behind Haoran.

WHOOOOOSH!

Thirty six apocalyptic pillars of concentrated celestial light, each thick enough to swallow a mountain peak whole, erupted from the runic circles, tearing through the air with a deafening, world-ending shriek!

CLANG-BOOOOM!

The first golden beam slammed straight into the Sword Emperor’s hastily raised left palm!

The kinetic shockwave detonated like an exploding star, ripping the flesh from his fingers down to the bone!

The overwhelming, hydraulic force smashed into his chest, tearing him off his feet, hurling his battered frame backward across the grey earth for three leagues, forcing him away from the helpless, blood-soaked fox woman nailed to the stones!

Sword Emperor growled as he deflected all attacks.

”Bastard! Break for me!”

The Sword Emperor roared, blood spraying from his lips as he twisted his battered body in mid-air!

With only his left hand remaining, he formed his sword-fingers, his single eye bloodshot and burning with mad survival instinct!

He whipped his hand back and forth with blinding speed, throwing up a dense, hemispherical shield of grey sword-qi, batting aside the incoming beams of radiant annihilation!

Each impact felt like a falling comet smashing into his ribs!

The shockwaves pulverized the ground beneath him, gouging craters fifty fathoms deep, tearing the robes from his shoulders and searing his skin black, but his ferocious, unyielding will kept him standing in the storm of falling fire!

”Sword, come!”

At his command, an endless barrage of blades flew up!

SHING-SHING-SHING-SHING!

Across the leaden half of the domain, the infinite rusted blades embedded in the cracked earth began to vibrate violently!

One thousand!

Ten thousand!

One hundred thousand!

Ten million swords tore themselves free from the dirt in unison, screaming into the sky like a boundless, blackened swarm of locusts that blocked out the very concept of light!

The rusty blades spun together, aligning their razor tips, forming a colossal, grinding tidal wave of murderous iron that spanned millions of leagues!

He pointed at Haoran, ”Go!”

The two realms collided in an apocalyptic clash of sheer, unbridled destruction!

The sky shattered!

Space tore open in jagged, weeping scars of purple void, and the very concept of time buckled under the violent paradox!

From the heavens, the thirty-six divine pillars of radiant, golden-crimson light descended like the wrath of ancient gods, burning through the atmosphere with enough sheer heat to vaporize entire oceans!

From the earth, the ocean of ten million rusted blades surged upward, a screaming, whirling storm of jagged iron that tore reality into bleeding ribbons!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The collision produced a sound so catastrophic that the heavens and earth seemed to weep blood!

Where the beams of divine light met the tidal wave of flying swords, matter ceased to exist!

Millions of iron blades were vaporized into glowing hot metallic vapor in the fraction of a millisecond!

Yet, behind every shattered sword, ten thousand more surged forward into the blinding beams, their dense, ancient sword intent chipping away at the radiant pillars, grinding against the light with ear-splitting, metallic screeching that echoed across three star systems!

Shockwaves of pure conceptual force rippled outward in concentric rings, shearing the crystal mountains of Haoran’s world into smooth glass and grinding the leaden earth of the Sword Emperor’s domain into dust!

Lightning—black, red, and gold—arced through the chaotic vortex, cleaving the sky into shattered fragments as the two domains tore each other apart at the seam!

The clash was not merely a battle of weapons; it was an existential war between two fundamentally opposed realms—a vibrant, immortal creation seeking to swallow the cosmos, and an ancient, dying graveyard of iron refusing to yield to the grave!

The fabric of reality groaned, cracked, and began to collapse inward, turning the center of the battlefield into a swirling, chaotic storm of pure, unadulterated annihilation!