Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The dark void around them seemed to ripple, the very fabric of existence trembling under the weight of the secrets being unraveled.

Shen Daiyu stood before Haoran, her petite figure now radiating a terrifying clarity that transcended the physical realm.

The glowing map of the Central Region below them pulsed like a living heart, a vast web of fate that she was preparing to teach him how to tear apart.

"To that end," Shen Daiyu smirked and pointed a slender, pale finger directly at his chest, her eyes locking onto his with a predatory gleam. "To be able to shoulder the Heaven’s Will, to be able to once again produce an Immortal.... We must plunder the luck from others. Xueyu told me about those ’Protagonists’ and ’Villains’ that you found from the memories of that cousin of yours. It was a fascinating revelation. So, our path is simple: we search for these people, these nodes of destiny, and we either kill or subdue them."

Haoran leaned back slightly, his golden eyes narrowing as he processed the cold pragmatism of her statement.

"Is there a difference between killing them or subduing them?" he asked, his voice steady. "In the end, are they not both removed from the board?"

Shen Daiyu nodded, her expression becoming clinical. "A significant difference, lad. You probably never noticed it because you’ve lived your life at the peak, but killing those with great luck, those the world seems to bend for, would directly increase your own personal luck. This is a rule set by the Heavenly Dao itself, a brutal survival-of-the-fittest mechanism so that its chosen can plunder the luck of the entire plane, concentrating it into a single, unstoppable spearhead."

Haoran nodded slowly. It made sense. If luck, the invisible currency of fate that decided whether a cliff-fall led to death or a hidden cave with an ancient manual, was a limited resource, then selection and plundering were the most logical actions for a supreme power to take.

It was cosmic Darwinism.

"And second," Daiyu continued, "if you choose to subdue those with great luck, if you break their will and force them into your service, that luck doesn’t just vanish, but attaches itself to the organization you represent. It would instead increase the collective luck of the power that you belong to. In your case, it’s the Shen Clan. By gathering these ’Chosen’ under our banner, we make the clan’s destiny unshakeable."

In other words, killing the protagonist would increase Haoran’s own luck, while subduing them would increase the luck of the entire clan.

Haoran remained silent for a moment, his mind racing. "...Grandmother, there is something I find fundamentally strange about this system. Just why is the Heavenly Dao creating these protagonists in the first place? If it wanted a champion, if it wanted someone to fight for it and plunder the luck of the world, why didn’t it just find one perfect candidate and give the entire sum of luck to that person from the start? Why the theater of conflict?"

As he asked that question, the space around them suddenly groaned.

It was a deep, guttural sound, like the grinding of tectonic plates or the protest of a god.

The void shivered, and a cold, oppressive wind began to swirl around Haoran’s feet.

But Shen Daiyu just snorted, a look of pure, unadulterated contempt crossing her face as dhe flicked her wrist as if shooing away a bothersome fly, and the oppressive pressure vanished instantly, the void returning to its eerie calmness.

Haoran’s brow furrowed, his senses on high alert. "What was that?"

"Never mind that. Just some old fools." Shen Daiyu said dismissively, her eyes returning to him. "As for your question... it’s a good one. It shows you’re looking at something beyond just the surface. But before I answer that, I must ask you: what do you think the Heavenly Dao actually is?"

Shen Haoran stared at her, his mind flipping through the thousands of ancient texts he had memorized in the library.

"The standard definition," he began, "is a force that exists at the top of all theories in every dimension. It is the source of all events and phenomena in existence. It exists outside of space and time, acting as a living archive that stores information of all possibilities, past, present, and future. It is the Ultimate Law, the goal of every cultivator who seeks to transcend mortality."

Shen Daiyu chuckled, a dry, melodic sound. "A textbook answer. But... you’re wrong."

Haoran tilted his head, his golden eyes flashing with a rare spark of surprise. "How so?"

"What you said is correct in terms of its function," Shen Daiyu explained, her smirk widening into something dark and mocking. "However, it is not a ’force.’ It is a person. Or rather, a consciousness with an ego."

"...What?"

She watched with visible amusement as Haoran’s eyes widened. "And it is also a thief. An incredibly arrogant, conceited, paranoid, and manipulative thief."

"...Is that so?" Haoran whispered, the revelation echoing in the hollow of his mind. "A thief?"

"Yes. You may not know this, but this continent, this very world we stand upon, actually has its own consciousness. It is a primal, ancient thing, born from the core of the Prime Origin Realm. It is impartial; it simply wants its inhabitants to develop, to thrive, and to return their energy to the earth when they die. It is a cycle of balance."

Haoran nodded, listening with a focus that felt like a physical weight.

"In fact," Daiyu continued, "it’s not just this continent. Every landmass, every star, even those minor realms you visited... all of them have their own localized consciousness. And the ’Heavenly Dao’, this interloper from wherever hell it crawled out of, wants to devour those consciousnesses for its own use. It wants to be the sole architect of reality."

She paced around him, her footsteps making ripples in the dark void. "However, each Plane’s Consciousness possesses a tremendous amount of luck as a natural defense. If the Heavenly Dao were to forcefully devour them all at once, it would suffer a catastrophic backlash. It would be like trying to swallow a sun while your throat is made of paper."

Shen Daiyu smirked again, her eyes piercing. "You asked why that thing would give away luck to many individuals? It’s simple, Haoran. It’s an investment. It gives pieces of luck to these ’Protagonists’ so that it can use them as parasites. They go out, they conquer, they ’unify’ the world, and in doing so, they slowly plunder the luck of the Plane’s Consciousness on the Dao’s behalf. They are the harvesters, and of course, if you want to do it quick, you hire more harvesters."

She stopped in front of him, her face growing serious. "In fact, we in the Supreme Hall have known about these so-called protagonists for a long time. We don’t know the specifics of their nature before Xueyu told us, but we know them. We know they possess a tremendous, illogical amount of luck. We know they are protected by the laws of the world. We know they are the tools of an ego-driven heaven. So, we simply referred to them by their true title: The Dogs of Heavenly Dao."

Shen Daiyu shrugged, a gesture of rare frustration. "Unfortunately, no matter how much we try, we Supremes are simply unable to harm those people effectively. No... that’s not right. We can harm them. We can beat them. But killing them? Truly extinguishing their soul before they can reach the peak? It has proven impossible, and reality itself will warp to save them. Either a wandering Supreme Emperor will accidentally intervene, or a spatial rift will swallow them whole just as the finishing blow is dealt."

Haoran frowned, his mind going back to the Cao Yun Kingdom and the events surrounding Chu Fang. "Grandmother, from what I’ve observed, those people don’t have that much luck at the very beginning, in other word, they are vulnerable, and they need to plunder luck from others to grow their ’plot armor.’ Although it’s simply my theory, it’s supported by a fact that my shadow guard, Qing’er, was able to kill one of them. She struck down a protagonist before he could rise."

Shen Daiyu shook her head, her expression grim. "You don’t understand the scale of the failure we’ve faced. After we first discovered these templates, the Shen Clan sent out dozens of elite assassins. We had them search for these ’lucky’ youths and try to kill them in their cradles. But none of them succeeded. Not one. They would slip through fingers like water, protected by the most absurd coincidences. As for Qing’er’s case, there is only one possible explanation for her success."

She leaned in, her voice hushed. "It is because you were near them. It was because the action was taken under your direct orders."

"Me?" Haoran tilted his head, his golden eyes reflecting the sea of stars below. "What does my presence change?"

Shen Daiyu stared at him, her gaze so intense it felt as though she were trying to see the Trinity soul within him. "Have you ever wondered, Haoran, why your mother, the Ruthless Empress who has personally extinguished entire lineages, specifically sent you to kill your father’s reincarnation? Have you ever wondered why she insisted you handle it yourself, even though she or your aunts could have wiped him from existence with a single thought?"

Haoran’s breath hitched. He had indeed wondered about that, but never really thought much of it, thinking that it was just a form of training.

But thinking about it, if Aunt Leng Shuang had taken action, killing Jiang Chen while he was still a weakling in the Southern Region would have been as easy as crushing an ant.

But they didn’t.

"The reason is simple," Shen Daiyu whispered. "Because you are special, Haoran. Much more than you think. So special that to the Heavenly Dao, you aren’t just another piece on the board, but is an anomaly that it cannot account for. You are the only one who can truly kill a ’Dog’ and make it stay dead."