Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!-Chapter 35: Trial of Will

Outside the gates.

"Let’s go as well," one of the youths in the crowd suggested, his voice tight with a mixture of greed and hesitation.

However, despite the allure of the silver gates, no one dared to make a move.

The atmosphere outside the portal had become toxic, thick with the murderous intent of the desperate old men, who had seen their path to immortality barred by the age restriction, and were now like cornered beasts.

They were the "rotting wood" of the cultivation world—possessing high cultivation but no future—and they looked ready to slaughter every youth present simply out of a petty desire to see no one else succeed where they had failed.

Just then, a cold, mocking laugh rang out.

"Hmph! You people who don’t even have the courage to move forward, how dare you call yourselves cultivators? I am ashamed to be at the same level as you all!"

It was Ao Long, the Crown Prince of the Blue Wind Kingdom.

He stepped forward with his chin held high, the scabbard of his ornate spirit-sword clicking against his thigh.

His blue robes fluttered in the gale of spiritual energy, and his aura flared with the intensity of a 1st Stage Golden Core expert.

At thirty years old, he was hailed as a legendary talent in the outskirts of the Central Region, and he had no intention of letting a few "corpses" block his destiny.

Just then, one of the rogue cultivators, a man with yellowed teeth and a face like a dried plum, snorted. "Heh. Don’t get cocky, you brat. You think a title makes you invincible?"

"That’s right!" another piped up, his eyes bloodshot with madness. "We have nothing left to lose anyway. If we die, it’s alright—we were dying anyway! But you... you still have a long life ahead of you. If you agree to share some treasures with us, to help us extend our lifespans, then we can let you pass. If not... then no one goes in!"

Despite seeing the horrific death of the rogue cultivator who had been ground into mush by Haoran’s shadow earlier, these people were still willing to take the risk.

They were like gamblers at the end of their rope, betting their lives on the chance that they could extort these people.

After all, just like they said, they have nothing more to lose.

"Old Hei!" Ao Long roared, his patience snapping.

Suddenly, a powerful, suffocating aura of a peak Nirvana Rebirth Realm expert exploded behind him as an old man with a long, flowing beard and eyes like thunderclouds materialized, his presence instantly pushing back the weaker rogues.

It was Old Hei, the Royal Eunoch who serves Ao Long’s father, a peak Nirvana Rebirth realm expert!

"All you old fellows protecting these juniors! Listen well!" Old Hei’s voice boomed like a physical blow. "Let us work together and stop these shameless fellows! Once our juniors are safely inside, whoever is capable can have the inheritance! But we must not allow these low-lives to make a move on our children!"

At his call, the shadows of the various Profound Arks rippled.

Several powerful figures—experts whose cultivation ranged from the Spirit Ascension to the Nirvana Rebirth Realm—descended from the sky.

"Very well, let us work together!"

"Juniors! Let us old people pave the way for you! All you need to do is move forward! Leave these rats to us!"

The unity of the established powers fueled the rage of the rogue cultivators.

"You damn bastards! Why won’t you let us have any share?!"

"We aren’t asking for much! Just something to extend our lives! Is a thousand years of peace too much to ask?!"

"Fine! If you want a war, then have one! Who’s afraid of who?!"

And just like that, a chaotic war erupted outside the gates.

The mountain range shook as powerful battle techniques and ancient artifacts clashed, the sky turning into a kaleidoscope of destructive energies as the "old guard" began to slaughter each other while the youths sprinted for the silver light.

*

*

*

Inside the Inheritance Realm.

Haoran and Xueli stood in a vast, open field that stretched toward a horizon of rolling hills.

The sky here was a constant, shimmering violet, and the air was so saturated with spiritual energy that it felt like breathing silk.

Xueli’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, her breath catching in her throat, "Haoran, am I seeing things? Look! That’s a Phoenix Tail Sun Flower! And over there, by the stream... that’s a Clear Spring Lily! And that one’s a Golden Striped Ginseng!"

She ran a few steps forward, her voice rising in pitch with every discovery.

"There are hundreds of them! Thousands! This is literally an alchemist’s paradise! One of those Sun Flowers would cause a war in the Cao Yin Kingdom!"

Haoran stood still, his gaze sweeping across the field with a detached, clinical air.

He didn’t speak, his brows furrowed as he felt Qinq’er’s presence disappear; it seems even she couldn’t enter the inheritance realm.

He looked around. He recognized every herb present, having studied all the Major Professions—including the intricate arts of Alchemy—he knew the properties, growth cycles, and values of everything in this "paradise."

But for him, the sight was underwhelming.

While these herbs were Rank 4 or Rank 5—precious treasures in the Eastern Region or the outskirts of the Central Region—they were as common as grass in the heart of the Imperial Capital.

In his mother’s private garden, such plants weren’t even used as decorative filler.

"Let’s go," Haoran said, his voice flat.

Xueli paused, her hand hovering over a particularly vibrant Clear Spring Lily as she looked at him in confusion. "Oh? Aren’t you going to pick them up? Even if you don’t need them, they’re worth a fortune!"

As she said that, she made no further move to even take a single herb and just hurried back to his side, following his lead.

"No need," Haoran replied, not even glancing back at the field of gold. "My space ring already contains more high-grade herbs than this entire garden. Harvesting these would be a waste of my time and space."

Xueli shrugged, "Well, alright. If you say so."

Since Haoran wasn’t interested, she wouldn’t insist.

Together, they continued walking through the lush, silent fields, heading toward the white jade palace that shimmered in the distance, unaware that the first wave of "geniuses" from the outside world had just entered the realm behind them.

And as they ventured deeper into the heart of the inheritance space, leaving the sun-drenched herbal fields behind.

The vibrant colors of the meadows soon gave way to a dense, prehistoric forest where the trees were so gargantuan their crowns were lost in a thick, silver-grey miasma.

This mist was no ordinary fog; it felt heavy, sticking to the skin like cold sweat and dampening the spiritual senses until the world felt only a few meters wide.

"Oh, this one’s different." Xueli muttered, "...It feels uncomfortable here."

Suddenly, a deep, ancient vouce reverberated directly within their souls, bypassing their ears entirely.

"WELCOME! YOUNG ONES!"

"TO OBTAIN MY INHERITANCE, YOU MUST FIRST PASS ALL MY TRIALS!"

"FIRST TRIAL! TRIAL OF WILL! THE HEART IS THE GREATEST FRONTIER. NO MATTER WHAT YOU SEE OR HEAR, MOVE FORWARD BRAVELY. TO HESITATE IS TO FALL!"

Haoran’s lips curled into a predatory smirk, his golden eyes flashing with a mix of amusement and curiosity. "A trial of the spirit? It seems this Bright Silver Emperor had a flare for the dramatic. Let’s go, Xueli."

"Honestly, it feels really creepy here." She muttered, but followed anyway.

They stepped into the curtain of mist together, but within three paces, the temperature plummeted.

Haoran reached out to steady Xueli, only to find his hand grasping empty air.

He frowned, it seemed this trial was a solitary path.

Haoran shook his head, his expression unbothered.

"You’d better not disappoint me, Xueli," he murmured, before turning his gaze forward.

As he walked, the silence of the forest was replaced by a low, discordant murmuring.

The voices were ghostly, overlapping in a chaotic jumble of unrecognizable dialects as they whispered of failure, of hidden sins, and of the inevitable rot of the soul.

The sound was intended to invoke a primal, skin-crawling discomfort, but Haoran’s face remained a mask of aristocratic boredom.

To a man who viewed himself as the center of the universe, the whispers of ghosts were merely background noise.

"Hmph. If this trial is only this much, then how disappointing."

Suddenly, the mist ahead churned violently as a terrifying pressure slammed into the clearing.

A giant beast, a monstrosity of obsidian scales and jagged ivory horns, emerged from the gloom.

It stood fifty meters tall, and when it let out a roar, the vibration was so intense it caused Haoran’s soul to shudder within his chest.

In the face of such a behemoth, even a Nirvana Rebirth expert would likely have abandoned their dignity and fled in terror, but Haoran simply came to a halt, his hands tucked into his sleeves.

He didn’t even draw his Qi even as the beast lunged, its massive, razor-sharp claws descending like falling guillotines.

They tore through the air with a shriek, slamming directly into Haoran’s body, piercing through his chest and shoulders with horrific force.

Haoran felt the "pain," felt the cold steel of the claws through his vitals, yet his expression didn’t shift by even a hair’s breadth.

He stared into the beast’s glowing red eyes with a chilling clarity.

"Is this all?" he asked, his voice steady and sharp. "How boring."

As the words left his lips, the beast flickered like a dying candle and dissipated into a cloud of harmless mist.

The gaping wounds in his chest vanished, and his robes returned to their pristine, unbloodied state.

It was a perfect illusion, designed to break the mind through the body’s reflexive terror.

Haoran casually patted the dust from his shoulder and continued his trek.

However, the trial was far from over.

As he walked, a sudden, violent flood of memories surged into his consciousness.

These were not memories of his past, but visions of a possible future—a "him" that had continued the path of absolute supremacy.

He saw himself standing atop a mountain of corpses, the sole victor of the universe, only to be betrayed by his own Dao at the final moment.

He saw his own power turning into a poison that consumed him while he tried to climb the ultimate peak.

Haoran’s brow furrowed, but didn’t let those so-called memories affect him and continued walking.

"Hey," an old, weary voice rasped from the shadows of a rotting plum tree. "That’s hell you’re walking to."

Haoran turned his head, his golden eyes widening by a fraction.

There, sitting under the tree was a man who shared his features, but aged by centuries of sorrow.

This "older Haoran" wore ragged, filth-stained clothes; his hair was matted, his physique was skeletal, and his skin was covered in the weeping sores of spiritual backlash.

And just like that, new memories hit him like a physical blow: he saw this version of himself enduring eons of isolation, watching everyone he ever cared for die while he chased a cold, empty throne.

He saw himself go insane in the silence of the void, unable to handle the weight of the path he had chosen, until finally, he had turned his own blade upon himself to end the nightmare.

"The path you walk... your Dao... it is wrong," the older, broken version of himself whispered, his eyes full of a haunting, hollow regret. "It leads only to the void. To endless, silent suffering."

Haoran stared at the pathetic figure for a long moment. Then, he turned his back on the ghost and continued walking toward the heart of the forest.

"Hey! Didn’t you hear me?" his older self repeated, his voice rising in a desperate, ragged plea. "That is hell you are walking to! Turn back while you still have a soul!"

Haoran paused, a cold, arrogant smirk spreading across his face as he looked over his shoulder, "Who gives you the right to tell me what to do?"

The older him flinched, before saying, "I am your future—"

"You are a failure." Haoran cut him off, "You could not live with your own choices and decided to come back, hoping that by warning me, you can gain peace. How pathetic."

The older him remained silent.

"Listen well," Haoran continued, "I have chosen this path, and I will bear the consequences of my own action. I will have no regrets, for this is my dao."

"I walk the path of supremacy...regrets? Loneliness? None of that matter for I will rule above them all."

The "older self" under the tree froze, before a slow, knowing smile spread across the ragged man’s face, and he began to dissolve into silver light.

The oppressive mist shattered like glass, and the forest vanished in an instant.

Haoran found himself standing in a wide, mossy stone room.

The air here was cool and still, and the only sound was the faint hum of an ancient formation beneath his feet.

He had passed the Trial of Will, not by being unshakable will, but by being too arrogant for the universe to handle.