Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!-Chapter 93

The void rippled like disturbed water in a remote, forgotten corner of the Northern Continent, thousands of light-years away from the ruins of Fragrant Flower City.

The old man stepped through the jagged spatial rift, his boots hitting the damp earth of a limestone cave hidden deep within the heart of an ancient, overgrown forest.

He stumbled, the sheer weight of his injuries finally catching up to his Heavenly Saint foundation.

He didn’t waste a heartbeat, and with his remaining hand, he flicked his wrist, sending out a dozen high-grade formation flags that embedded themselves into the cave walls.

A shimmering, translucent veil of Qi expanded, weaving together complex obscuration and sound-proofing runes.

He had to be absolute; he was currently in a realm administered by the Shen Clan, and the heavens that had protected them during the fight would not shield them from the divine sense of a vengeful Shen Haoran.

Once the formations were humming with stability, he unceremoniously dropped the unconscious Jiang Chen onto the cold stone floor.

The youth looked like a charred husk, his purple aura now a mere flickering spark deep within his chest.

The old man slumped against the cave wall, his breath coming in ragged, bloody hitches.

His left side was a gruesome sight—the bone of his shoulder was scorched black, and the Supreme’s Sword Intent still hissed in his wounds like invisible acid.

He reached into his storage ring and pulled out a jade bottle containing Heavenly Rebirth Pills.

He didn’t take one; he devoured the entire bottle, the potent medicinal energy exploding in his stomach like a miniature sun.

"That damn brat..." the old man wheezed, his voice a hollow rasp.

He closed his eyes, circulating his Qi with a desperate intensity to force the Supreme Intent out of his marrow. "Just how... how does a Golden Core brat have so many of those killing artifacts? A fragment of a Supreme’s will? Just how much does the Shen Clan spoil him!? That was enough to slay a Saint, and he threw it like a common firecracker!"

Slowly, painfully, the miracle of Heavenly Saint regeneration began to take hold.

Under the influence of the pills, his cells began to knit together, and new muscle fibers wove across his exposed ribs, and a fresh layer of pink skin began to crawl over the scorched bone of his face.

It took hours of agonizing concentration, but eventually, his flesh was whole again.

However, the internal damage was profound; his soul-foundation was cracked, and his Qi reserves were dangerously low.

He opened his eyes and stared at the unconscious Jiang Chen, and for the first time, a seed of doubt began to sprout in his mind.

He wondered if the Sect Master of the Golden Cloud Immortal Sect had truly calculated the risks correctly.

Was offending the most ruthless clan in the universe truly worth keeping this one boy alive?

He thought back to the secret council meeting held in the High Heavens. The Sect Master, a man who had glimpsed the threads of the Great Prophecy, had been clear: "A young man, bearing the absolute fate of the world, will be born in the lower graveyard. He is the variable. He is the one who will eventually shatter the old order and rebuild the heavens. We must secure him, at any cost."

Because of that prophecy, this old man had risked everything to sneak into the Saint Burial Realm to protect and nurture the boy.

Usually, such a feat was impossible, after all, this realm was Leng Shuang’s personal garden, monitored by her perceptions that encompasses twelve realms.

Anyone entering or leaving her domain would be flagged by the laws of space she personally authored.

But there was a single, tiny loophole.

When a high-ranking member of the Shen main line—like Haoran—descended with a Saint-level escort like Qing’er, the sheer mass of their "Upper Realm" karma would temporarily destabilize the local laws of the Saint Burial Realm.

It was like a giant walking through a doorway; for a few seconds, the frame would rattle, and the sensors would be overwhelmed.

The old man had used that split-second window of chaos to slip in unnoticed, masking his aura as a stray wisp of cosmic dust.

He had thought this would be a simple mission, after all He never imagined that the "Child of Fate" would be the primary target of the very person whose descent he had used as a distraction.

"The Shen Clan... they are arrogant, but surely they won’t go to war over one minor target in a lower realm, right?" he whispered to himself, trying to find comfort in the silence of the cave. "It’s just one guy. They have billions of subjects. Why would they burn the High Heavens for a single grudge in the Saint Burial Realm?"

He tried to rationalize it. After all, he hadn’t actually harmed Shen Haoran or Qing’er; in fact, he had acted as a human shield, taking the brunt of the damage himself.

He was the victim here! The Shen Clan owed him an apology, technically!

Of course, he doesn’t have the guts to demand explanations.

He let out a long, heavy sigh, his gaze lingering on Jiang Chen’s charred form. "Sect Master... I pray to the heavens that you made the right bet. Because if you didn’t... then the Golden Cloud is about to be eclipsed by a storm of blood."

*

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*

At this exact moment, back in the Imperial Capital of the Shen Domain.

Leng Shuang sat upon her golden throne at the apex of her thirteen-story pagoda. Her eyes were closed, her breathing deep and rhythmic.

She was in a state of deep resonance with the Saint Burial Realm, her consciousness drifting through the spatial ley lines.

Suddenly, she felt a sharp, discordant vibration. It was the feeling of a "tether" being cut—specifically, the defensive formation she had woven into the fabric of the Saint Burial Realm to protect her son.

She snapped her eyes open.

Her tyrannical aura erupted instantly, the pressure so great that the priests on the floors below were slammed into the ground, unable to breathe.

She reached into the air, and a crystalline communication artifact appeared in her hand, a high grade artifact so high it could transmit data across entire dimensions and through the heaviest spatial storms.

She stared at the message that flickered across the surface. It was a message sent by her nephew, detailing the interference of a foreign Heavenly Saint and the subsequent injury of Qing’er.

CRACK.

Leng Shuang’s fist clenched so hard that the artifact that could survive a supernova—was crushed into a fine, sparkling powder.

The entire pagoda began to groan and shake.

The vibration didn’t stop at the walls; it rippled outward, causing the entire Shen Domain to tremble.

Floating islands shifted in the sky, and the silver Qi of the atmosphere grew turbulent.

Within seconds, the space in front of her throne began to warp.

The Seven Enshrined Elders appeared first, their faces pale and confused. Then, in two separate flashes of light, Chu Xueyu and Feng Yuyan appeared, their expressions sharp with alarm.

"Leng Shuang! Calm your anger!" the First Elder shouted, his white hair whipping around his face. "You are destabilizing the clan’s core formation! Tell us what has happened to cause such a breakdown!"

"Sister," Chu Xueyu stepped forward, her golden eyes flashing with a mother’s instinctual dread. "Did something happen to Haoran? Is he hurt?"

"Surely not," Feng Yuyan added, her brow furrowed as she scanned Leng Shuang’s face for a sign of grief. "With Qing’er there, no one in that lower realm could touch him."

The Seven Elders stood in a semicircle, their auras flared in defense against Leng Shuang’s leaking pressure.

They waited for her to speak, the silence in the hall heavier than a lead casket.

Finally, Leng Shuang took a breath, the tyrannical light in her eyes cooling into something far more dangerous: a cold, focused intent to kill.

"Those bastards from the Golden Cloud Immortal Sect," she hissed, her voice sounding like the grinding of tectonic plates. "They have invaded my domain. They have bypassed my borders, interfered in my internal affairs, and dared to raise a hand against my nephew’s execution of justic, and most importantly, hurt Qing’er!"

"What!?"

The reaction was instantaneous as the hall erupted in a chorus of outrage.

Even the First Elder, who spent his days plotting to diminish the main line’s influence, felt a surge of genuine fury. In the Shen Clan, there was one law that superseded all politics, all grudges, and all bloodlines:

The Shen may bleed each other, but the world is not allowed to touch a Shen.

"The Golden Cloud?" Feng Yuyan’s eyes turned a dark, sickly violet. "Those third-rate ’cultivators’ who think they are holy because they hide behind a wall of fog? They dare to enter our backyard and play hero?"

"They interfered?" Chu Xueyu’s voice was soft, but the temperature in the room plummeted to absolute zero as her Dao of Slaughter began to hum, a sound like a million screaming ghosts. "They stopped my son from finishing his work? And they hurt Qing’er?"

Leng Shuang nodded, her gaze fixed on the space where the mirror had been. "If they want to interfere in our affairs, then we shall give them the only response the Shen Clan knows."

She looked at the Seven Elders, then at her sisters. "War. Total, unyielding war. We will erase the Golden Cloud from the maps of the High Heavens until not even the memory of their name remains."

The First Elder stepped forward, his previous hesitation gone as he cupped his hands. "The Grand Enshrined Hall supports the decree. Mobilize the legions. We shall show the universe why the Shen Clan is the only heaven they need to fear."

At this moment, Shen Clan was truly and absolutely, united.