Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The ten stone pillars rose from the arena floor like jagged fingers of a titan, reaching toward the vault of the sky.

Each pillar was crowned with a magnificent throne carved from spiritual obsidian, and upon those thrones sat the ten figures who represented the apex of the Shen Clan’s current martial heritage.

Seven men and three women—each a storm of latent power, their auras manifesting as visible flickers of lightning, fire, and frost.

Xiao Nanan, hovering on her crystalline sword, gestured grandly toward them, her voice booming with infectious energy.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Residents of the Imperial Capital and guests from the far-flung reaches of the Central Region! I present to you the vanguard of our future! The ten most talented youths of the Shen Clan in this generation! Strength! Grace! Skill! These ten youths can stand arrogantly before the world and declare themselves unrivaled! Among the young generation of the Prime Origin Realm, there can be no one better than them... with the obvious exception of our Young Master, of course!"

In the high-altitude spectator stands, several talented youths from rival Immortal Clans and the Twelve Immortal Sects let out audible snorts of derision.

Xu Xiaojun, the Crown Prince of the Tian Yuan Empire, narrowed his eyes, while Bai Wenxin’s expression remained a mask of icy neutrality.

Which one of them wasn’t arrogant? Which one of them didn’t believe they were the true protagonist of this era?

While the Ten Crowns symbolized the pinnacle of the Shen Clan’s internal talent, many outsiders watching this battle believe themselves to be far superior to them.

Especially Bai Wenxin, although she looked cold and unbothered, she is actually incredibly prideful, treating everyone her age to be inferior to her.

However, despite the lavish introduction, the faces of the Ten Crowns themselves were not filled with pride.

Instead, they were etched with a volatile mixture of incandescent anger and burning shame.

Only minutes before the ceremony, they had been informed of the sudden change in rules where Shen Haoran had not merely requested to fight them; he had demanded they face him in a ten-versus-one all-out brawl, as if fighting them individually was beneath his dignity.

As geniuses who had been pampered and hailed as gods within their respective branch families, how could they bear such a blatant humiliation?

Shen Jian, the Second Crown, gripped the armrests of his throne so hard the obsidian began to crack.

His eyes were fixed on the opposite entrance, his breathing heavy with suppressed rage.

Beside him, the First Crown, Shen Fei, remained unnervingly still, though the dark Qi swirling around his body betrayed his lethal intent.

Only the Third Crown, Shen Tao, and the Fourth Crown, Shen Xinye, appeared unbothered—the former looking bored and the latter maintaining a serene, detached coldness that seemed to overlook the entire spectacle.

"And now!" Xiao Nanan’s voice reached a fever pitch, her voice-amplifying artifact vibrating with power. "Let us welcome the Heir of the Shen Clan! The man whose birth caused the dragon veins of the Prime Origin Realm to roar! He is the axis upon which all things turn, the beginning and the end made flesh. The heavens themselves dare not breathe without his leave. He is war given will, judgment given voice! When he rises, the world trembles, and when he speaks, even fate bows its head! He is the consuming fire that devours all things, the hand that shapes creation, and the weapon that shatters nations! There is nothing beyond him, nothing above him! He is the center, the pinnacle, the inevitable end! The man hailed as the most dazzling genius of the clan since time immemorial! The undisputed King of this generation! SHEN HAORAN!"

In the stands, Luo Mingye let out a piercing scream of excitement, her cheeks flushed as she jumped up and down, completely forgetting her status as a noble lady of the Luo Clan.

Xia Mengyao could only smile wryly at her friend’s antics, though her own heart was beating a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

She glanced at the host, Xiao Nanan, and thought, ’Could she be any more biased? She barely gave the Ten Crowns a sentence, not even giving their names, yet she’s introducing him as if he’s a living god.’

Every eye in the Divine Arena—hundreds of millions of them—focused on the dark tunnel opposite the pillars.

They waited for a grand fanfare.

They waited for a chariot pulled by divine beasts or a spatial rift that would shatter the sky.

None.

Seconds turned into minutes, and the silence became oppressive.

Then, the sound of steady, rhythmic footsteps echoed through the silent arena.

Shen Haoran appeared.

He didn’t fly. He didn’t teleport. He simply walked out of the darkness and onto the white sands of the arena floor, his hands were folded, tucked neatly into the wide, flowing sleeves of his signature black robe, which was embroidered with intricate golden dragons that seemed to writhe as he moved.

He walked with a nonchalant, leisurely pace, looking less like a combatant and more like a scholar taking a morning stroll through a private garden.

There was no grand entrance, no mind-blowing display of Qi, just a young man walking with a presence so heavy it seemed to pull the very air toward him.

Once he reached the center of the arena, he stopped and looked up, his golden eyes slowly scanning the towering pillars where the Ten Crowns sat perched like birds of prey.

The distance was nearly a hundred feet, yet Haoran’s gaze made the geniuses feel as though he were standing right in front of them, looking down.

Haoran raised one of his hands, beckoning Xiao Nanan to come closer.

Though confused and visibly starstruck, the host hurried toward him, her crystalline sword dipping low.

"Young master, do you need me for anything? Anything at all?"

Haoran reached out, took the sound-amplifying artifact from her trembling hands, and brought it to his lips.

His voice, calm and devoid of any theatricality, rolled across the arena like thunder.

"The ten of you... come down. I hate looking up at people when I talk."

A suffocating silence permeated the arena.

The audacity of the statement was so profound that even the elders in the VIP booths felt a chill.

Xiao Nanan stared at him with eyes brightening up in awe, ’So cool! As expected of the man I admire!’

A heartbeat later, Shen Tao, the Third Crown, didn’t hesitate as he stood up and jumped, landing lightly on the sand below.

Shen Xinye followed suit, her silver robes fluttering as she drifted down like a falling petal.

One by one, six others followed, their pride stung but their instincts telling them not to defy the man in the center.

The only ones who remained on their high thrones were Shen Fei, the First Crown, and Shen Jian, the Second Crown.

"Shen Haoran!" Shen Jian roared, his voice echoing from the heights as he stood up, his aura of wind and fire erupting from his body. "Don’t think that just because you have been coddled as the number one genius, you can order us around like servants! My talent and my bloodline are in no way inferior to yours! If you want us down there, come and get us!"

Shen Fei remained silent, but he leaned back in his throne, his chin resting on his hand as he looked down at Haoran with a sneer of pure disdain.

Shen Haoran didn’t argue, he didn’t even look annoyed, and he simply handed the artifact back to a wide-eyed Xiao Nanan and raised his right hand toward the sky.

His golden eyes flashed with a cold, terrifying brilliance.

"I said..."

He brought his palm down in a sharp, decisive motion.

"Come down."

At that moment, the sky above the arena seemed to fracture.

Then, a massive, translucent palm—shimmering with the luster of a diamond and the weight of a falling world—descended from the clouds.

It was so large it covered all ten pillars, its surface etched with ancient, indestructible runes.

Shen Jian and Shen Fei’s expressions shifted from arrogance to absolute horror in a fraction of a second.

They tried to circulate their Qi, to leap away, to mount a defense—but the gravity of the descending palm locked their space.

*BOOM!*

The impact was catastrophic as the massive stone pillars didn’t just break; they were pulverized into fine white dust instantly, causing the arena to shake violently.

The two "Crowns" were slammed into the arena floor, the shockwave causing the protective arrays of the stadium to groan under the strain.

In the spectator stands, a tall, muscular man with a shaved head and tattoos of vajra-spirits on his arms suddenly stood up, his chair clattering back as his eyes were wide with a shock that bordered on terror.

He was an Elder of the Diamond Titan Sect, a first-rate power known for having the hardest physical bodies in the realm.

"That is... the World Suppressing Diamond Palm?!" he gasped, his voice shaking. "That is the ultimate combat technique that can only be used after mastering the first stage of the Unbreakable Diamond Sacred Technique! That is our Sect’s core heritage! How... how does he know our secret technique?!"

He gripped the railing, his breath coming in shallow gasps. "Not only that... the pressure... the purity of the laws within that palm... it’s more oppressive, more perfect than the versions practiced by our own Sect Leader! How is this possible?! He isn’t even a member of our lineage!"

Down on the sand, the dust cleared and Shen Jian and Shen Fei were on their knees, coughing up blood, their thrones reduced to splinters behind them.

Shen Haoran stood ten paces away, his hands back in his sleeves, his expression as calm as a frozen lake.

"Now," Haoran said, his voice carrying clearly even without the artifact. "We can finally talk."