Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Ancient Heaven Star.

At this moment, a colossal spatial tear appeared in the firmament before it shuddered for a few moments, and eventually vomiting a brilliant cascade of celestial energy before violently sealing shut behind them.

BOOM!

On a vast, desolate plain stretching endlessly beneath a muted, slate-grey sky, tens of thousands of Imperial Academy students suddenly appeared.

The sheer displacement of tens of thousand cultivators descending simultaneously kicked up a massive squall of dry dust, flattening the wild, yellowed grass for leagues in every direction.

Banners representing prestigious academy factions, elite academy groups, and prominent clans and sects fluttered in the harsh, dry wind.

Shen Haoran stood at the vanguard of his group, perfectly poised, surrounded by his inner circle—Xu Xiansu, Qian Yunxi, Ling Luochen, Xia Mengyao, Ning Xueli, Luo Mingye, Huo Yue, Zhu Ziyan, and the Ten Crowns.

Together, they all looked around at this foreign, primordial world with sharp, evaluating eyes.

Almost immediately, a collective wave of discomfort rippled through the immense crowd.

Every student, especially the new ones who had spent their entire lives coddled inside the pristine, high-density cultivation manors of the upper realms or the rich spiritual gardens of the Academy Dimension, couldn’t help but frown deeply.

The spiritual qi here in this world was so thin, dry, and fundamentally impure it was practically making them choke!

The atmospheric energy felt sluggish and gritty, laced with ancient elemental impurities, decaying mineral sediment, and stagnant earth miasma that scraped unpleasantly against their refined respiratory pathways and sensitive meridians.

"Ugh! What is this wretched, foul air?!" a young master from an aristocratic merchant clan gagged, quickly covering his nose with a silk handkerchief embroidered with purifying runes. "The qi here tastes like rusted iron and rotting mud! How does anyone even gather a strand of qi in a garbage dump like this?!"

Even if they stay here for ten years, they doubt they can even advance one stage without getting any opportunities.

This isn’t a matter of talent, their bodies just weren’t adapted to this level of impurities, making it hard for them to gather qi, unlike natives of this world whose meridians have evolved and adapted for this world.

"It feels like I’m trying to breathe through a wet wool blanket," a female spellcaster from a prominent sect complained, her brow furrowing in disgust as she attempted to cycle her spiritual energy. "My dantian is actively rejecting the atmospheric essence! If I try to absorb this unfiltered sludge, it will take months of meridian-cleansing pills just to purge the toxins!"

"Is this really the famed Ancient Heaven Star?" another disciple sneered, kicking a clump of brittle, dead grass beneath his boots. "No wonder the academy uses it as an open hunting ground. A barren, godforsaken rock like this barely deserves to exist beneath the feet of our academy!"

While thousands of disciples were busy grimacing, waving protective fans, and complaining about the hostile atmosphere, Shen Haoran and Ling Luochen were completely okay, standing with effortless composure.

For Ling Luochen, she originally came from the brutal, desolate Saint Burial Realm—a nightmarish lower realm whose spiritual environment was infinitely more toxic, corrosive, and impure than this barren plain.

Having spent her formative cultivation years tempering her physique amidst that desolate world, this dry, thin qi of the Ancient Heaven Star was nothing more than a mild breeze to her; she wasn’t really affected that much at all.

For Haoran, he also went to and had fully adapted to the harsh conditions of the Saint Burial Realm in the past when he was hunting down his father, and he had honed his merdians against such constraints.

Now, with his newfound Spirit Ascension cultivation realm and the divine physique he possessed, his meridians naturally filtered and incinerated external impurities before they could even brush against his core, so he doesn’t mind this thin atmosphere much either.

He simply observed the horizon with cool, detached golden eyes.

Just then, breaking through the noisy complaints of the student body, a burly, imposing senior student stepped onto a elevated stone outcrop at the front of the gathering.

The man radiated the heavy, suffocating pressure of a genuine Peak Nirvana Rebirth Realm expert, his powerful voice amplified by his dense cultivation to boom like rolling thunder across the vast plains.

"SILENCE! All of you, shut your mouths and listen up!" the senior bellowed, his sharp gaze sweeping over the tens of thousands of disciples, instantly quelling the arrogant murmurs.

"Everyone, for those who are taking this trial for the first time, allow me to explain a few rules!" the senior shouted, crossing his thick arms over his armored chest. "First, this entire trial will last for a total of ten Ancient Heaven Star years! In that duration, you are entirely free to do what you like! You may hunt the native beasts for beast cores, excavate ancient ruins, claim unclaimed spirit veins, or challenge the local sects for their ancestral heritage! Every resource you gather, every indigenous powerhouse you slay, and every territory you map will earn you trial points on your academy tokens! There are no restrictions on trade, alliances, or private territorial claims—your only goal is to survive, conquer, and prove the glory of the Imperial Academy!"

Those words seemed to ignite whatever passion the students have, as they all cheered loudly, raising their fists.

However, tucked deep within the dense ranks of the outer crowd, Tang Lin, who was hiding among a cluster of ordinary disciples, was not listening to the senior’s speech at all.

Instead, his knuckles were clenched bone-white, his chest heaving with nervous, shallow breaths as his bloodshot eyes darted around the surrounding landscape with extreme, paranoid vigilance.

He already knew all the standard rules, guidelines, and point allocations of this trial from his previous life, so there was absolutely no need for him to waste his focus listening to a dead man’s speech.

But, his memory burned with horrifying clarity as he remembered every second of his past life’s trial.

The treasures and heritage sites, indeed, he remembered, but there is something that happened on their first day that he will never forget.

He remembered very clearly that it was around this exact time... on this very plain... mere moments after their arrival... when the nightmare began!

’It’s coming... it’s happening right now!’ Tang Lin screamed internally, his body tensing like a coiled spring.

HUMMMMMMMMMMM—!!!!!

At that exact, split second, the ground beneath their feet violently shuddered!

A colossal, blinding circle made of ancient, blood-crimson and pitch-black runes suddenly glowed into existence!

The massive formation stretched for dozens of miles across the plains, erupting from the earth with a deafening, reality-warping hum that instantly engulfed the entire tens of thousands of student body inside a towering cage of spectral energy!

BOOOOOOOM!

The moment the crimson boundary manifested, an ancient, terrifying conceptual suppression descended from the sky like a falling mountain range!

Every single student gasped in sudden, suffocating horror as they felt their immense strength suddenly getting brutally suppressed!

The connection between their soul and their dantians was severed by toxic, sealing runes; their physical bodies grew heavy as lead, and even circulating their internal qi through their meridians became an agonizing, near-impossible struggle!

High-tier spells fizzled out in disciples’ hands, glowing artifacts dimmed into useless iron, and flying swords crashed heavily into the dirt!

"WHAT?!"

"My dantian! My qi is frozen!"

"An ambush?! How could a lower realm have a sealing array capable of suppressing us academy cultivators?!"

Panic, chaos, and frantic screams erupted across the plains as proud young masters and arrogant prodigies fell to their knees, clutching their chests and struggling to breathe beneath the crushing gravitational lock!

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH—!!!!!

Before the academy vanguard could even attempt to analyze the formation, the grey clouds above violently tore open!

Then, hundreds of thousands of native cultivators appeared in the sky, blotting out the sun like a swarm of vengeful locusts!

Riding atop savage, winged apex beasts, floating upon ancient war galleons carved from dark iron, and brandishing blood-stained spirit weapons, over three hundred thousand indigenous warriors of the Ancient Heaven Star formed an inescapable, multi-layered aerial encirclement around the trapped academy students!

Floating at the very front of this colossal native army, descending slowly upon shimmering cloud platforms, were the undisputed rulers of the Four Sacred Grounds—the Four Great Masters:

The Sword Saint, wielding an ancient, unyielding sword intent that cleaved the clouds.

The Wind Emperor, draped in tempestuous azure robes, commanding howling gale dragons.

The Xuan Yuan Saint, radiating the ancient, heavy weight of primordial sealing scriptures.

And the Nine Lives Demon King, hovering with dark, predatory arrogance, his monstrous bloodline aura suffocating the air!

The Four Great Masters looked down at the trapped, struggling, and panicking academy geniuses like apex predators staring at trapped livestock inside a slaughterhouse pen, their faces twisting into expressions of deep, vindictive gloating and unbridled, triumphant malice.

"Hahahahaha! Look at them! Look at these high and mighty ’immortal prodigies’ from the upper realm!" the Nine Lives Demon King roared, his thunderous laughter shaking the sky, his sharp fangs bared in a cruel, mocking sneer. "Where has all your celestial arrogance gone, you parasitic little worms?! Where is your divine pride now that you are crawling on your knees like dogs in our dirt?!"

The Wind Emperor stepped forward, his eyes burning with centuries of accumulated hatred. "For ten thousand years, your wretched academy has treated our sacred world as your private pasture! You sent your disciples generation after generation to butcher our disciples, burn our ancestral forests, rip out our dragon veins, and rob our heritage, leaving our world so barren that our ancestors wept in their graves! You thought we were weak? You thought we would forever bow our heads and let you plunder our home without consequence?!"

"The wheel of fate has finally turned!" the Xuan Yuan Saint proclaimed, his voice echoing like an ancient, immortal death decree across the locked plains. "You fools walked directly into the Nine-Abyss Primordial Sealing Array, an ancient divine barrier we spent three hundred years restoring specifically for your arrival! Within this domain, your refined cultivation is chained, your spatial talismans are severed, and your upper-realm tokens cannot signal your masters! You are completely cut off from your heavens!"

The Sword Saint slowly drew his gleaming, ancient blade, the cold steel singing a lethal melody of slaughter as he looked down upon the struggling crowd.

"Ten thousand years of plundering ends today," the Sword Saint declared, his voice cold and merciless enough to freeze the blood in their veins. "This is finally our chance to get our absolute, blood-soaked revenge! Not a single one of you otherworldly devils will leave this plain alive! Today, we shall use the warm, celestial blood of thirty thousand academy geniuses to nourish the barren earth of the Ancient Heaven Star!"

Tang Lin immediately grew solemn. He remembered that to break this formation, half of the students here perished, their Nascent Soul destroyed, leaving them unable to resurrect.

Because of that, after the trials, the Academy had lost all its prestige, and Gu Clan and the Shen Clan teamed up and divided the academy, subduing half of the Ten Sages and killing the other half on the process.

He looked at the formation, and remembered that back then, it was Qing Yan who broke the formation, the man who will one day be known in the world as the Great Harem God, the Master of Ten Thousand Beauties.

But this time, the one who will break that formation, will be him!

However...

Unknown to him, a pair of golden eyes flashed with flickering rainbow light stared at him for a brief moment.

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