Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!-Chapter 63: Little Boy

It was chaos.

The air of the Seven Treasure City, once filled with the serene scent of incense and the rhythmic hum of cultivation, was now a thick, suffocating slurry of smoke and copper-scented blood.

Ning Xiao stood upon the command pavilion which was situated in the city wall, his hands trembling as he stared in grief at the sight before him.

The city he had spent his life governing, the sanctuary he loved with every fiber of his being, was being overrun by the Allied Kingdom soldiers like a plague of locusts.

He saw his clansmen—men and women he had known since they were children—getting cut down in the streets.

He saw young disciples, barely past their Body Refining stage, being trampled under the boots of seasoned killers.

Their ancestral buildings, repositories of thousands of years of knowledge, were getting burned and destroyed, the parchment of ancient scrolls fluttering in the air like charred butterflies.

He looked toward the sky and felt his heart shatter. There was Old Jian, the Sword Saint, a man who had been a pillar of the clan for a century, already missing an arm, the stump cauterized by his own fierce Qi, yet he remained insistent on fighting Buo He.

Blood matted his white hair, and his breath came in ragged, wet gasps, but he swung his sword with a desperation that defied his age.

Then he looked at Old Hu, the Bone Dragon, who had only just recovered from the first star-arrow.

He was currently locked in a frantic aerial dance with Dai Xuan, his skeletal dragon spirit chipped and cracked, struggling to keep the Grand Archer from firing another world-ending shot.

Does the heaven want my Ning Clan to be destroyed!? Ning Xiao screamed internally, his eyes welling with tears of pure, helpless frustration.

"Roar!" The sound that was less human and more beast came from Buo He, his skin glowing a sickly, demonic red, as he found a gap in Old Jian’s defense.

With a speed that distorted the air, he lunged forward and pierced through Old Jian’s chest with his bare fist, the sound of ribs snapping was audible even over the din of battle.

Old Jian stiffened, coughing up a fountain of blood that painted Buo He’s grinning face.

But before the light could leave his eyes, a small, vibrant blue orb—a soul—flew out of Old Jian’s body.

This was the ultimate survival mechanism of those who have reached the Nascent Soul realm or higher; they can leave behind their physical husks when they feel the tether of mortality snapping.

Unfortunately, even though they can survive this way, the path forward is treacherous as unless a cultivator knows the forbidden, evil techniques of body possession—which the righteous Sword Saint would never stoop to—the only way for them to live is to undergo a painstaking process to create or find a new, compatible body.

Without one, the soul would eventually dissipate unless they can find some treasures that strengthens the soul.

"Old Jian!" Ning Xiao screamed in worry, his voice cracking.

Thankfully, Old Jian’s soul was able to flicker and escape through the air with the speed of a lightning bolt.

Unfortunately, Buo He was not finished, as the Undying monster turned his head, his white eyes fixed on the fleeing blue orb, and began to chase it with predatory hunger.

Just then, BOOM!

A heavy object was thrown with such force that it shattered the upper city wall and when Ning Xiao rushed to look, his eyes widened in horror.

There was Old Hu. The Bone Dragon was bloodied and broken, his limbs pinned to the stone rampart by several arrows made of solid, vibrating light.

He was alive, but he was like a butterfly pinned to a board, unable to move as the light-arrows burned through his meridians.

"Old Hu!" Ning Xiao’s voice was a whisper of despair.

He turned slowly toward the sky, where Dai Xuan hovered, and the Grand Archer’s black bow was already drawn to its limit, the tip of a starlight arrow aimed directly at Ning Xiao’s heart.

"Farewell, Clan Master Ning," Dai Xuan said, his voice cold and devoid of pity. "Be honored that you will get to die by my arrow. Not many in this Desolate Region are worthy of being my target."

As he spoke, Dai Xuan released the string.

The arrow flew like a meteor, trailing a tail of white fire that vaporized the moisture in the air.

Ning Xiao stood still. He didn’t try to run, after all he knew that he couldn’t outrun the speed of a falling star.

And in those final seconds, his mind didn’t dwell on his clan or his titles, but instwad, his last thoughts were merely for his daughter.

Xueli... please, live a good life. That person... ah, I hope he takes care of her...

BOOM!

An explosion occurred right on where Ning Xiao is, causing a shockwave of heat and light so intense that it knocked the surrounding soldiers off their feet.

"Patriarch!"

"Patriarch!"

The clansmen and disciples who saw the flash screamed in grief, falling to their knees as they assumed their leader had been vaporized.

Even Dai Xuan grinned, lowering his bow as he watched the smoke billow. To him, the head of the snake had been cut off, so the battle was essentially settled.

But as the wind swept the smoke away, the battlefield fell into a stunned, eerie silence.

Ning Xiao was standing there, completely unharmed, his eyes were wide with shock, staring at the two women who had appeared out of thin air to stand beside him.

One of them was an incredibly beautiful woman with long, flowing black hair and piercing red eyes.

She wore a sleeveless, black, skin-tight bodysuit that seemed to absorb the light around her, and she hovered just an inch above the stone floor, her aura so vast it felt like the ocean itself was pressing down on the city.

Beside her was a beautiful young woman with short black hair and deep purple eyes, wearing a blue dress that fluttered in the cooling breeze.

They were Qing’er and Ning Xueli.

"Xueli..." Ning Xiao’s voice was choked. He stared at his daughter in shock, and most importantly, worry and dread.

The thing he least wants to see is for Xueli to be in danger!

However, before he could say anything, Ning Xiao immediately felt a bright silver qi flared out of Xueli, and he couldn’t help but take a deep breath in surprise.

From what he could sense, Xueli’s cultivation had actually reached the very peak of the Core Formation Realm!

That Supreme’s Inheritance actually raised her Cultivation by this much!?

"Father, sorry I’m late," Ning Xueli said solemnly, her voice was steady, and her eyes fixed on Dai Xuan in the sky with a cold, focused intensity that made her look like a different person.

Qing’er turned her head slightly toward Xueli, her red eyes indifferent to the million-man army. "Young lady, do you want me to get rid of them? It would only take a moment."

Although the orders given to her by Haoran were simply to escort Xueli back home safely, Qing’er was a peak Profound Saint Realm expert, so to her, this "massive" army was nothing more than an annoyance.

If Xueli asked, she could wipe them out as easily as brushing a speck of dust from her clothes.

"No need," said Xueli, her voice cold as ice as she took a step forward, her blue dress fluttering.

Up in the air, Dai Xuan frowned as he stared at Qing’er, feeling a primal sense of danger he couldn’t explain, but then his gaze landed on Xueli, and he grinned, his arrogance returning. "Well, well, are you perhaps the daughter of Ning Xiao? That’s good. Coming here yourself saves me the trouble of pulling out the roots. I’ll send you to join your ancestors."

Xueli ignored his taunts entirely as she looked out over the sea of millions of soldiers currently looting her home, before turning towards Dai Xuan.

"Tell me," she asked, her voice carrying across the battlefield, "what do you think is the best weapon? A weapon you don’t have to fire but can invoke fear? Or a weapon that you can repeatedly use to kill and bring fear?"

Dai Xuan’s frown deepened. "The hell are you talking about, girl? A weapon that can kill is a good weapon!"

Xueli nodded slowly. "Indeed. But for me... the weapon you only need to use once is the best weapon."

From her storage ring, she pulled out a small, eight-pointed gem.

It was beautiful, translucent, with what seemed to be a miniature, swirling star sealed deep inside its core.

This was a treasure left behind by the Bright Silver Emperor, each one of these things could absorb the energy of the stars for millennia, storing it in a hyper-compressed state.

They could also be used as the ultimate spirit stones for cultivation, but they had another, more violent use where once injected with a specific frequency of Qi, the compression would fail, and it would let out all those energy at once.

"This thing doesn’t have a name yet..." Xueli said, a small, haunting smile playing on her lips as she looked up at Dai Xuan. "But if I had to give it a name, well... how about... Little Boy?"

The moment she finished speaking, she snapped her fingers, injecting a sliver of her refined Qi into the gem.

Dai Xuan’s eyes widened. As a Spirit Ascension expert, his sense of danger was acute, and immediately knew that whatever it is that Xueli is holding, is incredibly dangerous.

So without hesitation, he frantically fired several arrows at her in a desperate attempt to stop her, but Qing’er merely waved her hand with a bored expression, flicking the star-arrows away as if they were pesky gnats.

"Tch! Buo He! Retreat!" Dai Xuan didn’t hesitate as he burned his essence and turned into a streak of light, traveling thousands of miles away in a literal heartbeat.

Buo He, hearing his call, stopped chasing after Old Jian’s soul, and turned towards him who already vanished from sight, and without hesitation followed him.

"Sister Qing’er, please protect the city..." Xueli said softly as she released the crystal.

The gem didn’t fall, but flew toward the center of the Allied Army still gathered outside the walls, glowing brighter and brighter until suddenly... it surpassed the sun!

In that instant, the world turned white.

There was no sound at first, only a heat that turned the sand to glass and the air to plasma.

Then came the roar—an explosion so massive it caused a mushroom cloud to billow tens of thousands of feet into the atmosphere.

The space itself began to distort and crack under the sheer thermal output.

A million soldiers, their dreams of conquest, and the very ground they stood upon were simply erased.

The shockwave leveled the distant mountains, and for a hundred miles in every direction, the night was turned into a blinding, eternal day.