Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!-Chapter 49: 2 Years, Huo Yue

Two years.

It has been two years since the silver gates of the Bright Silver Emperor’s tomb first groaned open, and in that time, the Eastern Region has been remade in fire and blood.

The fragile peace that once held the desolate lands together has shattered, replaced by a landscape of shifting loyalties and escalating war.

The catalyst for the chaos had occurred exactly one year ago, during the finals of the Youth Regional Battle Tournament where the world watched in horror as one of the members of the renowned Ogre Academy was exposed as a reincarnated Demonic Beast.

And that revelation was met with cold, clinical brutality; the "student" was slaughtered on the spot, her essence refined into pills and her bones forged into artifacts.

In the ensuing madness, Tang Shan, the leader of the Ogre Seven, tried to save her and had even revealed himself as a survivor of the Tang Clan—the former strongest power of the Eastern Region.

But it was for naught.

If his father, Tang Mao, was still alive, perhaps things would’ve been different. But unfortunately, he died in the hands of Qinq’er.

So Tang Shan was suppressed and was about to be killed as well, but just as the executioner’s blade was about to fall, the hidden remnants of the Tang Clan staged a daring rescue, whisking him away into the shadows.

Enraged by the presence of "monsters" and "rebels" in her domain, the Queen of the Spirit Kingdom, who doubled as the Supreme Pope of the Spirit Hall, issued a decree of absolute extermination.

The Ogre Academy was razed to the ground.

Those who remained loyal were slaughtered while those who fled were scattered like dust in the wind, forced to seek refuge in the dregs of lesser academies.

Angered by the overbearing tyranny of the Spirit Hall, the remaining Kingdoms and Sects formed the Grand Allied Front to wage war against the Pope.

Truthfully, they expected a swift victory through sheer numbers, but they had underestimated the depth of the Spirit Hall’s foundations.

It was during this war where the Pope unleashed twenty Spirit Ascension Realm experts—monsters who swept through the battlefield like a force of nature, suppressing the Allied Front at every turn.

The Allied Kingdoms turned to the Seven Great Clans, said to possess strength comparable to the Spirit Hall when combined, but the response was bleak.

Two had already knelt to the Spirit Hall.

The Tang Clan, the strongest of the Seven remained in hiding and were hunted down by the Spirit Hall for harboring Tang Shan.

And the Ning Clan—the richest of the seven—clung to a precarious, profit-driven neutrality.

Only three clans joined the Front, leaving the war in a brutal, grinding stalemate where only the cultivators bled, while the common folk watched from the sidelines in terror.

Amidst this geopolitical storm, far away in the scorching expanse of the Great Tao Desert, a figure walked across the shifting dunes.

She was an incredibly beautiful woman with hair as red as a sunset, her silhouette obscured by a heavy brown cloak.

Strapped to her back was a weapon that defied logic: a massive, obsidian-and-crimson ruler that seemed to pulse with a low, volcanic heat.

This girl was Huo Yue.

Two years had transformed the girl into a woman, her cultivation, once stunted and "trash," had surged forward with a terrifying momentum, reaching the 7th Stage of the Core Refinement Realm—a speed that dwarfed her previous reputation as a child prodigy.

"Master, are you absolutely sure there is a Heavenly Flame located in this furnace of a place?" Huo Yue asked, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow.

Just then, her ring pulsed with a soft, ethereal light as a voice echoed in her mind. "Of course! Centuries ago, I discovered the aura of the ’Blue Lily Earth Flame’ in a hidden ruin buried beneath these sands. Since I already possessed my own Heavenly Flame at the time, I left it as a gift for a future fated one."

"You better be right," Huo Yue muttered, her eyes scanning the horizon. "I don’t want to damage my skin with all this dry heat. What if Haoran doesn’t want me anymore because I look like a piece of sun-dried leather?"

"You..." Fairy Liu, the remnant spirit hidden within the ring, was left momentarily speechless. "You are already a Rank 4 Alchemist! Forging Beauty-Retaining Pills or skin-soothing elixirs is as easy for you as breathing! Why are you worrying about such trivialities?"

"Eh? But then I won’t be all-natural! What if Haoran dislikes artificial beauty?"

"You... You unfilial disciple...!" Fairy Liu retreated into the depths of the ring, refusing to dignify the comment with a response.

Huo Yue hummed a cheerful tune as she continued her trek.

Despite her constant teasing, the bond between her and her master was the bedrock of her strength.

Every step she took was for her own ascent, but every breakthrough was a tribute to the man and woman who had set her on this path.

BOOM!

A massive explosion erupted from the far eastern side of the desert, sending a pillar of sand and fire screaming into the violet sky.

Huo Yue stopped, her hand instinctively drifting to the hilt of the red-and-black ruler, her expression turned thoughtful. "Master, should we go check it out? That didn’t sound like a natural sandstorm."

"...That is up to you, child. But where there is conflict, there is often opportunity," the voice replied tiredly.

"Let’s go!" Huo Yue grinned, her eyes flashing with a predatory excitement.

She had a feeling that whatever—or whoever—was causing that commotion would definitely be more interesting than counting grains of sand.

*

*

*

Deep in the eastern expanse of the Great Tao Desert, where the shifting dunes hold secrets of both life and death, a desperate hunt was nearing its end.

Zhu Ziyan sprinted across the scorching sands, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.

Her long black hair, streaked with subtle strands of purple, whipped behind her, and her feline ears twitching frantically to catch the sounds of her pursuers.

Her black, skintight bodysuit was torn and soaked with crimson; a deep gash along her side bled heavily, painting the golden sand with her life’s essence.

Behind her, six men followed with the relentless persistence of desert jackals, with all of them being seasoned cultivators at the 4th and 5th stages of the Foundation Establishment realm, their auras flared in a sickening display of predatory greed.

Zhu Ziyan gritted her teeth as she thought about how she ended up in this situation.

Two years ago, she had been a rising star of the Ogre Seven, one of the most talented youths in this era, but when the Spirit Hall’s shadow fell over Ogre Academy, she had be the first to flee the academy.

Her fiancé, Tai Yuhao, had pleaded with her to stand and fight for their "honor", and she had only looked at him like he was a madman before turning her back on the academy forever.

’What a joke,’ she thought, clutching her bleeding side.

She had never stayed with Tai Yuhao because of love; she stayed because his strength was like a shield, but when that shield cracked, she will flee.

Loyalty was a luxury for the dead, and she never wanted to die.

Facts proved that she was correct as Tai Yuhao and the fools who remained at the academy were now nothing more than fertilizer for the Spirit Hall’s ambition.

In the two years since, she had lived a shadow’s life.

Rejected by every reputable institution for her past associations, she had joined the Grand Order, a mysterious ancient mercenary guild.

Then, with the constant life-and-death struggle, she had been tempered her into a weapon and had surged from the 9th Stage of Qi Gathering to the 7th Stage of Foundation Establishment at just twenty years old.

But her luck finally had run out.

During a high-risk mission, she had secured a mysterious, ancient map, and word had leaked, and now, the jackals had caught her scent. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"Give it up, Zhu Ziyan!" one of the men roared, his voice distorted by the desert wind. "You can’t run forever in this heat!"

"Give us the map and we might give you a quick death!" another screamed, his eyes gleaming with malice.

Ziyan remained silent, her jaw set, and just as she crested a dune, a sharp twang echoed behind her.

"Ah!?" An arrow, infused with wind-attribute Qi, whistled through the air and pierced her thigh as she let out a sharp cry of agony, her legs giving out as she tumbled down the sandbank.

She tried to crawl, her fingers digging into the hot sand, but a heavy boot suddenly slammed down on her hand, crushing her fingers into the grit.

"Hehehe, if you had just handed it over, you wouldn’t be suffering like this," sneered the leader of the group, grinding his heel into her hand.

The others caught up, surrounding her in a circle of filth.

Just then, one of the men licked his lips, his gaze wandering over the curves of her tattered bodysuit.

"Hehehe, Boss... look at her. She’s a real beauty, isn’t she? How about we have our way with her before we finish the job?"

"Oh, I heard about that fiancé of hers, Tai Yuhao," another mocked, his voice full of lewd suggestion. "He was a famous womanizer, always had a different girl on each arm. Such a pervert must have trained you quite well, right? Why don’t you show us the skills you learned from him?"

Ziyan gritted her teeth, her eyes cold even in her despair. In fact, she prepared to bite her own tongue, ready to end her life before her chastity and dignity was stripped away.

One of the men crouched down, holding a jagged knife in his hand. "Let’s see what you’re hiding under this tight suit. With breasts this huge, that Tai Yuhao probably enjoyed himself every night, didn’t he?"

But as he reached out to rip the fabric, a crisp, clear female voice rang out from above, cutting through the heavy atmosphere like a blade of ice.

"Hey! A bunch of creeps ganging up on a wounded girl... have you no shame at all!?"

The men spun around, startled.

There, standing on the crest of a nearby sand hill, was a woman bathed in the golden glow of the setting sun.

Her long red hair flowed like a river of fire, and in her hand, she gripped a massive, intimidating black-and-red ruler.

It was Huo Yue, she stared down at them, her eyes narrowed with a killing intent that made the air temperature drop.

"Fuck off, brat! This is Grand Order business! It’s none of your concern!" the leader barked.

"That’s right! Get lost if you don’t want to be the next one we play with!"

Huo Yue didn’t respond with words, but her grip tightened on the ruler, and her 7th Stage Core Refinement aura erupted like a volcano.

"You want something to play with? Fine, I’ll give you" she whispered.e swung the massive ruler in a wide, horizontal arc. "Wave Splitting Flame!"

A colossal, crescent-shaped blade of dark crimson fire roared forth.

It traveled with such speed that the men didn’t even have time to scream as the flames sliced through five of the pursuers, bisecting them instantly before the intense heat reduced their remains to gray ash blowing in the wind.

The only survivor was the one who had been crouched over Ziyan, but he shrieked in terror, falling back onto his buttocks, his crotch dampening as he stared at the charred earth where his comrades had stood a second ago.

Huo Yue leapt down from the hill, landing softly in the sand before she walked toward the trembling man, the tip of her heavy ruler leaving a smoldering trail behind her.

She pointed the weapon at his throat.

"Scum like you... you don’t really deserve the air you breathe," she said, her voice devoid of mercy.

Without hesitation, she brought the flat of the ruler down, and the impact cracked the man’s skull like an eggshell, killing him instantly.

Zhu Ziyan lay in the sand, staring up at the majestic, red-haired figure of her savior in a daze.

The setting sun silhouetted Huo Yue, making her look like a goddess of war descended from the heavens.