Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Silence.

None dared to breathe too loudly, all eyes turned towards the severed head of the scholar, then back to Shen Haoran.

The scent of aged spirit wine now mingled with the sharp, metallic iron of fresh gore, and the guests, sovereigns of kingdoms and masters of sects, stood frozen in place, their hearts skipping a beat from fear and nervousness.

Xia Mengyao glanced at the severed head of the scholar, which had come to rest near a tray of crystalline grapes, and she couldn’t help but look at Haoran worriedly.

Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird as she knew the weight of what had just transpired.

In the Tian Yuan Empire, there was a tacit understanding among the powers: you do not kill a scholar of the Three Schools of Thought.

It wasn’t because they were physically formidable, as many were barely at the Golden Core realm, but because of the Karmic Backlash.

Scholars of the Confucius School spent their lives cultivating "Righteous Qi," a force tied directly to the moral laws of the Heavenly Dao.

To kill one was to invite a stain upon one’s soul, a karmic debt that often manifested as cultivation bottlenecks, lightning tribulations of doubled intensity, or a sudden, unexplained decline in personal luck.

To try and kill dozens of probably a full hundred of the scholars was to practically beg for a divine curse.

Luo Mingye, however, didn’t share her friend’s trepidation. She was staring at Haoran’s back, her eyes sparkling in raw, unfiltered admiration.

Ye Fang stared wide eyes at the scene. Holy fuck!? What is this!? What is this scene?! Isn’t in the original novel, Haoran decided to give them face?

So why?

In here, Haoran had simply drawn a sword and cut the knot, and the sheer, uncompromising dominance of it made his blood turn cold.

Haoran tilted his head, his golden eyes cold and flat as he stared at the remaining scholars.

"What’s wrong?" he asked, his voice chillingly melodic. "Come on, speak. Aren’t words supposed to be a scholar’s most powerful weapon? You were just telling me about my so-called tyranny. Surely you have more to say?"

"S-Shen Haoran! Aren’t you afraid of karma!?" Kong Xu shrieked, his voice cracking as he held up a jade talisman that pulsed with a faint, righteous light. "To spill the blood of a Sage’s successor in cold blood... you have invited the wrath of the Heavens! Every drop of blood you shed here today will be a shackle upon your soul!"

"Kneel? No matter what, we will never yield to evil!" another cried, stepping forward with a trembling resolve. "You may kill our bodies, but you cannot kill the Truth! The Confucius School is the conscience of this Empire! By striking us, you prove to the world that the Shen Clan has truly fallen into the path of the Demonic! You will be judged! The Heavenly Dao is watching, and your punishment will be swift and absolute!"

"He is right!" a third scholar bellowed, tears of rage streaming down his face. "Your luck will wither! Your foundations will crack! The history books will record you as a common butcher, a stain upon the Shen lineage that even a thousand years of washing cannot remove!"

Haoran listened to their "righteous" cacophony with the patience of a stone, and when the last echo of their shouting died down, he gave a slow, deliberate nod.

"Good," he said softly.

And then, he moved once more, and this time, he didn’t use a flashy movement technique, nor did he invoke his own Infinity Dragon God Physique.

He simply stepped forward, his arm became a blur of black steel, and with a single, sweeping swing of his sword, a crescent of dark energy tore through the air.

*Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.*

Dozens of heads began to roll across the jade floor like overripe fruit falling from a tree.

The "Righteous Qi" they had tried to manifest was snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane.

There was no divine intervention, no lightning fell from the sky to stop the blade.

There was only the sound of steel meeting flesh.

"Beast! You beast! How dare you commit such evil!" the survivors screamed, their high-minded philosophy instantly dissolving into primal terror. "How can the world allow this?!"

"The heavens will not tolerate your existence! You are a cancer upon the Prime Origin Realm!"

"You will be punished for your crimes! Your mother will weep for the monster she birthed!"

"Lady Chu Xueyu!" Kong Xu turned his desperate, bloodshot eyes toward the high throne, reaching out a hand as if seeking a savior. "Aren’t you going to stop your son? Look at the carnage! What he is doing will be condemned by the heavens! The Three Schools will call for a Holy War! Stop him before he destroys the reputation of your clan!"

Chu Xueyu remained silent.

She simply sat on her golden throne, the epitome of frozen, regal indifference as she crossed one long, silk-clad leg over the other and took a slow, methodical sip of her spirit wine, her eyes never leaving the scene.

She didn’t look angry, instead, she looked satisfied, as if she were watching a student master a difficult lesson.

Feng Yuyan was even chuckling. She was sitting on the right armrest of Chu Xueyu’s throne, her arm draped casually around her sister’s neck, her gold eyes dancing with amusement.

To her, the "Righteousness" of the scholars was just another form of stagnant creation that needed to be pruned.

Righteousness? Justice? If such things existed, she would’ve already been punished for robbing ancestral tombs and using their corpses for her creations.

Leng Shuang stood at the left side of the throne, her expression a mask of cold boredom.

She was holding a spinning ball that looked like a miniature planet, its continents and oceans swirling in a chaotic dance within her palm.

In fact, this was indeed a planet—a dormant world she had plucked from the Sea of Stars during her last excursion.

She looked far more interested in that ball than the heads that were rolling at this moment.

"AAAAHHH!"

"NO! NO! PLEASE!"

"GET AWAY! SPARE ME!"

The screams filled the hall, a dissonant choir of the damned as the "Scholar’s Pride" they had boasted of vanished when the reality of death closed in.

They began to run, their white robes stained with the blood of their brothers as they tripped over the bodies of their friends, crying and crawling like common beggars as they scrambled for the exits.

But the exits were barred by the silent, armored guards of the Shen Clan, who stood like statues of iron.

Finally, their numbers dwindled to a mere handful of a dozen or so and were cornered against a mural depicting the clan’s first Supreme, their backs against the cold stone, their "Righteous Qi" completely extinguished by fear.

Haoran slowly walked towards them, his boots making a soft clack-clack sound on the blood-slicked floor.

Some might say what he did was cruel, even for a member of the Shen Clan Main Lineage.

But Haoran didn’t think so, instead he was thinking of the words of his Great-Grandmother, Shen Daiyu.

He needed to strengthen the luck of the clan, he needed to clear the board.

He could be sure that Ye Fang and Xiao Chen were protagonists, the "Dogs of Heavenly Dao".

So if he took direct action against them right now, if he tried to execute them in the middle of this hall, the Heavenly Dao would surely go into a frenzy.

It would distort reality, summon a Saint to intervene, or send a rain of divine lightning so powerful that the entire Main Line City would be reduced to ashes just to protect its "investments."

He had seen how it protected Jian Chen; he wouldn’t risk the lives of his people for a premature kill.

So, for now, he decided to deal with the forces that surrounded them. He would cull their "Plot Armor" by slaughtering their allies, their moral support, and their political shields.

Of course, killing too many of these scholars would indeed cause a massive karmic backlash.

But Haoran looked up at the thrones. He saw his mother, his aunts, and he felt the dormant power of the Supreme Hall, and felt relief and confidence.

He believed that they would never allow the "backlash" to touch him. If the Heavens wanted to curse him, they would have to get through the entire Shen Clan first.

"Shen...Shen Haoran...." Kong Xu gulped, feeling as if he was staring face to face with death.

Haoran flicked his sword to swat away the blood that stuck to it as he stared at him, "I heard scholars like you loves poem. I have one with me, do you want to hear?"

Kong Xu was too afraid to answer.

But Haoran took that as a yes.

"Ink-stained sleeves, yet hands that never held a blade."

"You polish empty words while standing in your grave."

"Your bamboo scrolls recite of virtue, rites, and sky."

"But Heaven stays silent when the useless beg not to die."

"You speak of sages past, of order, law, and grace."

"Yet tremble like dry leaves when death stands face to face."

"A thousand lines of verse, yet none can shield your breath."

"What worth is borrowed wisdom in the jaws of death?"

He paused for a moment, bringing his face closer to Kong Xu, who turned as pale as a blank sheet of paper, while the scholars cowering behind him started crying.

"I walk the path you fear, where blood refines the Dao."

"While you kneel to hollow codes that break before me now."

"So clutch your fading scriptures, praise your saints above."

"Tonight, your final lesson: the weakness of your love."

Haoran smirked seeing their expression, a look of cold, dark amusement flashing across his face.

"What’s wrong?" He gently pointed a finger on Kong Xu’s neck, and the scholar trembled at the touch. "...scared?"

At that, the Kong Xu’s resolve broke completely.

He didn’t scream, nor did he argue. He simply collapsed to his knees, his forehead touching the blood-soaked floor in a kowtow of absolute submission.

"Spare me... please... have mercy..." he whimpered.

Soon, the others followed.

The "pillars of morality" were all on their knees, their white robes soaking up the blood of their successor.

They knelt in a row, their bodies shaking with the weight of their own mortality.

Haoran stared down at them, a look of profound disappointment crossing his face as he lowered his sword, the obsidian steel clicking against the floor.

"It seems my sword is indeed tougher than your dignity," Haoran said, his voice echoing in the sudden, eerie silence of the hall. "Thank you for the pointers, oh great scholars. You’ve taught me that ’Righteousness’ is a very flexible concept when your head is on the block."

He turned his back on them, walking toward the high throne.

"Clean this mess up," he commanded the guards. "And take that Xiao Chen in the garden and throw him into the dungeon. I have something to talk to him about."

The guards immediately followed his orders.

With that, Haoran turned to the other suspected protagonist.

Ye Fang.