Raising the Villain in Wrong Way

The boys were ripped, the maidens were lethal, the elders were subservient, and the Ice Demon was plotting domestic terrorism.

But as Ji’an and Zechuan walked out to skip priceless fungi across a toxic lake, Lin Ji’an finally felt like she had regained control of the kitchen.

The morning of the Azure Dragon Sect’s final martial examination did not dawn with the crisp, inspiring light of orthodox glory.

It bled through the toxic, hazy green canopy of the Eastern Basin like a bad omen.

In the center of the Grand Obsidian Arena, surrounded by towering, bioluminescent acid waterfalls, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.

Hundreds of local disciples, clad in their pale green and black scale-armor, stood in rigid, terrified formation. Opposite them stood the sixteen elite disciples of the Celestial Sword Sect’s Vanguard Retinue.

High above the arena floor, sitting on a massive, opulently carved throne of petrified swamp-wood, was Lin Ji’an.

She was still suffering from the cosmic glitch of her Body Fusion ascension.

Her long, ethereal silver hair cascaded over the shoulders of her Szechuan Red combat silk, catching the sickly green light and turning it into a halo of divine, untouchable beauty.

Her artifact... holding on to the masculine jawline, leaving her looking like a devastatingly beautiful, celestial deity.

But her expression was anything but divine.

Ji’an’s silver-flecked eyes were dark, flat, and completely devoid of mercy. She was radiating a level of pure, petty spite that was causing the humidity to curdle.

She remembered the eighty men proposing to her in the mud, the Azure Crane maidens staring at her like a certified romantic novel protagonist, the density of the second-hand cringe that had plagued her existence for the last three days.

Today was the final exam.

And Ji’an was the overseer.

’You all wanted my attention so badly,’ Ji’an’s internal Head Chef sneered, casually swirling a cup of neutralized plum juice in her hand. ’You wanted to court the fairy maiden. You wanted to prove your virility. Well, welcome to the kitchen, boys. Let’s see how you handle the meat grinder.’

***

At the edge of the elevated VIP platform, Elder Viper stepped forward, leaning heavily on his emerald-serpent staff. He raised his hands, silencing the murmuring crowd of local and visiting disciples.

"The final crucible of the diplomatic exchange commences!" Elder Viper’s raspy voice echoed through the amphitheater. "The rules are traditional. A bracketed, single-elimination combat tournament. You will fight in pairs. The victor advances. The final disciple standing shall be crowned the apex of this generation. You may yield if the pain becomes—"

"Hold that thought, Elder."

Ji’an’s baritone voice, slightly hushed and husky from the artifact’s strain, cut through the arena like a serrated carving knife.

She didn’t stand up.

She simply leaned forward, resting her chin on her knuckles, looking down at the assembled prodigies with a smile that promised agonizing trauma.

"Traditional rules are boring," Ji’an announced, her voice amplified by her Qi. "You are not here to play tag. You are Nascent Soul immortals and elite poison-masters. If I wanted to watch a bunch of peacocks politely tap each other with sticks and ’yield’ when they get a boo-boo, I would have stayed on the Drunken Peak."

She pointed an unforgiving finger at the arena floor.

"New rules," Ji’an decreed. "There is no yielding. If you tap out verbally, you fail the exam, you forfeit your diplomatic standing, and you scrub the latrines for the next century. A match only ends under two conditions: absolute unconsciousness, or a compound fracture."

A collective, horrified gasp rippled through the local Azure Dragon disciples.

"A... a compound fracture?!" Senior Brother Kui choked out, staring up at the VIP box. "Vanguard Leader, that is barbaric! We are orthodox cultivators, not demonic brawlers!"

"I want to hear bones snap, Kui!" Ji’an roared back, fully leaning into her despotic tyrant persona. "If the bone hasn’t pierced the skin, you’re still in the fight! Furthermore, my Vanguard Retinue will participate on equal footing! You will fight the locals, and then you will fight each other! I want carnage! I want leverage! I want to see you utilize kinetic mass until your joints scream!"

She leaned back, crossing her legs, unsympathetic to their terror.

"And just to make it interesting... I have instructed Sovereign Xie to randomly deploy patches of black ice across the arena floor during the matches. If you slip, that’s your fault for having poor footwork. Let the bracket begin!"

The local disciples turned pale.

To demand broken bones was insane.

To demand broken bones while an Ice Demon played Mario Kart hazards with the arena floor was unmitigated psychological terrorism.

They turned to look at the Azure Dragon elders, expecting them to immediately intervene and shut down the psychotic Chef’s mandate.

Instead, Elder Viper and Elder Hex were furiously taking notes on glowing jade slates.

"Brilliant," Elder Hex wept softly, adjusting her severe spectacles. "He removes the psychological safety net of the verbal yield, forcing the combatants to commit entirely to their survival instincts. It is the purest, most unfiltered expression of martial pedagogy I have ever witnessed."

"The True Dao of Suffering," Elder Viper hissed in reverent agreement, nodding sagely. "Only by shattering the mortal frame can the immortal soul truly crystallize. The Celestial Sword Sect’s teaching methods are delightfully horrific."

The elders weren’t going to save them.

The elders were actively taking pedagogical inspiration from a transmigrator who was punishing them for being too horny.

But while the local disciples despaired, the reaction of the Celestial Sword Vanguard Retinue was a completely different, infinitely more pathetic brand of psychological pathology.

Down on the arena floor, the thirteen male protagonists did not look terrified.

They looked up at the ethereal, silver-haired beauty sitting on the throne, demanding their blood and broken bones. Their deeply conditioned soap-opera brains short-circuited.

"He wants to test our resolve," Lu Jianheng, the Sword Lord, whispered, his icy-blue aura flaring with intense, tsundere romance. He gripped the hilt of his sword, his knuckles turning white. "He is demanding we break ourselves to prove our devotion to her! It is a courtship ritual of the highest, most brutal martial order! I will snap my own femur if it earns her gaze!"

"I will shatter every bone in my body for you, Fairy Brother!" Gu Zhiwei practically wept, his golden holy light strobing erratically. "I will be the most broken, devoted husband in the Azure Empire!"

"I WILL BREAK THEIR BONES, AND THEN I WILL BREAK MINE!" Hu Yanlie roared, pounding his massive chest, completely missing the point but matching the energy.

Sitting safely in the VIP box next to Ji’an, Shen Zechuan happily munched on a bag of roasted lotus seeds. "They seem very excited to go to the medical pavilion, Ji’an. Should I pre-order the bandages? I know a guy around here who makes very good splints out of petrified wood."

"Just eat your seeds, clone-boy," Ji’an sighed, rubbing her temples, exhausted by the volume of their masculine desperation.

Standing in the shadows behind the throne, Xie Wangchen slowly opened his ruby eyes. The Ice Demon looked down at the arena, a dark, sociopathic smirk curling his lips.

’She gave me permission to freeze the floor,’ Wangchen’s yandere heart sang with euphoric malice. ’I am going to turn this arena into a localized slip-and-slide of death. I will ensure every single one of those pathetic suitors shatters their kneecaps before lunchtime.’

***

The ceremonial gong rang, its heavy resonance vibrating the toxic waterfalls.

The first match of the day pitted Senior Brother Kui, the heavily tattooed local elite, against Wen Shiru, the calculating Fox of the Vanguard Retinue.

Shiru stepped into the arena, adjusting his silver glasses, his jade cane resting lightly against the obsidian floor. Kui unholstered two massive, curved daggers dripping with highly corrosive purple venom.

"You are a merchant, Shiru!" Kui sneered, trying to reclaim some of his lost pride. "You cannot buy your way out of a compound fracture! I will carve you into pieces!"

Shiru didn’t draw a sword.

He reached into his robes and pulled out a solid-gold abacus.

"The Vanguard Leader demands broken bones, Kui," Shiru stated smoothly, his jade eyes glinting with predatory capitalism. "But he did not specify how they must be broken. Kinetic trauma is merely a matter of applied leverage and localized mass."

The gong struck.

Kui lunged forward, moving with the terrifying, slithering speed of a swamp viper.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!