Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The cold mountain wind skimmed across the vast surface of the lake, stirring ripples that lapped rhythmically against the pebbled shoreline.

Towering, mist-wreathed crags hemmed in the water on all sides, as silhouettes pierced the overcast sky like broken ribs of an ancient titan.

At this moment, Tang Lin was talking with the four sect disciples who had found them when they first got thrown here.

The four youths wore the matching silver-trimmed midnight-blue robes of their sect, their crests pinned over their hearts, belts adorned with defensive jade pendants and scabbards for their swords and sabers.

When they had first stumbled upon Tang Lin and Shen Ying, blades had half-cleared sheaths in defensive panic.

But with Shen Ying’s beauty, along with Tang Lin’s smooth tongue, self-effacing mortal smile, and practiced posture of harmless humility, had quickly disarmed their suspicion.

A few well-placed flatteries about the prestige about their sect and a fabricated story of being scattered rogue cultivators had softened their guards into loose-lipped camaraderie.

"I’m telling you, brother Tang," the eldest of the four, a youth named Lu Feng with a broad face and eager eyes, whispered conspiratorially while kicking aside a cluster of calcified river stones, "the map we found had writings on it that match the writings of a divine era millions of years ago. If we can find it, we might find an inheritance related to a god!"

"That’s right. We’re only telling this to you since we’re brother, not even our clans and sects knew about it." Said another disciple.

And though they said that, they couldn’t help but keep glancing towards that golden haired woman who was observing them.

Tang Lin noticed this, and almost wanted to tell them that, unless your name is Shen Haoran, getting involved with this kind of woman will ruin your life.

But in the end, he said nothing. Instead, he turned his gaze towards Shen Ying.

She stood away from them, now wearing a new set of clothes that once again hid her curvaceous figure, arms crossed, staring at them.

The soaked, clinging garments she had worn after their plunge through the spatial turbulence had been swapped for a loose, gray robe, tied tightly at the waist with an unassuming black sash.

The thick, gray fabric completely concealed the soft, voluptuous curves that had previously threatened to burst free.

Her arms were folded tightly beneath her chest, her posture rigid, sharp, and radiating an unapproachable chill that lowered the ambient temperature around her by several degrees.

Her piercing red eyes remained half-lidded, utterly detached from the conversation.

She leaned her shoulder lightly against the mossy trunk of a willow tree as she looked upon the four chattering disciples as if they are a noisy, insignificant flies buzzing around the perimeter of her vision.

Tang Lin gulped, before quickly looking away, deciding to distract himself to that possible inheritance site.

His fingers idly turned a smooth river pebble as his mind raced through the fragmented, blood-soaked archives of his memories.

An inheritance site of a god... on an isolated mountain lake...

Then, his eyes lit up!

A cold, electrifying spark of realization detonated in his chest as the fog of time rolled back, pulling him straight into the bloody rumors of his previous life.

He remembered hearing in his past life that Shen Tao, the strongest of Haoran’s subordinates, found an inheritance site on a lake, but he failed to defeat the guardian, and fled!

Shen Tao! The name sent an involuntary shudder down Tang Lin’s spine.

In the future he had lived through, Shen Tao was an apocalyptic calamity in human flesh—a ruthless, cold blooded killer whose physical body had been tempered to their absolute limits until even Imperial Artifacts could barely scratch his skin.

He was the undisputed right hand of Shen Haoran, a terrifying beast who tore through enemy battle lines with his bare hands, butcher of entire regional alliances!

He remembered hearing after the trials that Shen Tao actually found a divine inheritance under a lake and tried to take it to offer to his master, Shen Haoran, but even with his strength, he was unable to defeat the guardian and can only flee.

Could it be this very lake?!

Tang Lin’s breath hitched in his throat as he looked across the silent water, then down at the pebbled shallows.

The geographical layout, the enclosing ring of sheer slate cliffs... it aligned with horrifying precision to the vague rumors he had overheard in his past life.

’It is! It’s the exact same lake!’

He didn’t even question how he was sure that it’s this place when he had zero reference.

’But why is Shen Ying here instead of Shen Tao?’

Tang Lin’s brow furrowed, his eyes darting toward the silent, gray-robed woman leaning against the tree.

’In my past life, Shen Ying was supposed to be mingling with those Ishtar Divine Cult, learning drugs and all sorts of shady stuff from them. Why was she here?’

’A butterfly effect of my rebirth? Yes, that must be it!’

His own interventions, his altered choices, his early maneuvers to get more opportunities, the slight deviations he had caused, all those had rippled across the grand tapestry of causality.

The spatial turbulence had shifted, spitting Shen Ying here while likely scattering Shen Tao across entirely different coordinates.

Finally realizing this, he immediately went back to helping the four people look for the entrance.

"Let me check the sediment along this outcrop," Tang Lin called out smoothly, crouching down near the waterline and pretending to meticulously inspect a line of submerged, algae-slick basalt flagstones.

He used a dry willow branch to poke at the gaps between the rocks, playing the part of an earnest, helpful companion to perfection.

Although, the four people’s attention would sometimes drift towards Shen Ying.

Every three breaths, one of these disciples would conveniently pause his searching, wipe nonexistent sweat from his forehead, and steal a long, lingering glance toward the tree where the woman stood.

Lu Feng, in particular, kept clearing his throat, adjusting his sword sash, and posturing with an exaggeratedly noble stance whenever he walked within twenty paces of her.

Honestly, Tang Lin couldn’t blame them.

After all, not counting her bitch personality, she possessed top tier face paired with top tier figure.

Even wrapped in baggy, shapeless gray cloth that looked like it had been cut from a monk’s discarded curtain, Shen Ying was impossible to ignore.

Her skin possessed the pristine, unblemished radiance of cold milk-jade, untouched by the dirt and grit of the wilderness.

Her facial contours were breathtakingly sharp—high, regal cheekbones, dark, expressive brows that curved like drawn bowstrings, and lips naturally shaped into an elegant, haughty pout that looked down upon the world with effortless disdain.

And despite the oversized robes, the way she leaned against the trunk, the natural breadth of her hips and the firm, proud lift of her chest still asserted themselves with undeniable, magnetic authority.

She was like a venomous, sharp-tongued snake who would gladly snap a man’s collarbone for stepping too close to her shadow, but visually, she was a peerless masterpiece that would make any hot blooded young cultivator lose his train of thought.

Tang Lin continued to look, his fingers sifting through wet gravel, though he couldn’t help but think deeply on the grim reality of their situation.

Could they stand a chance against a beast even that freak of nature Shen Tao couldn’t defeat?

The cold truth hung like an iron weight around his chest.

Shen Tao was a monster whose raw physical power bordered on the demonic.

When his self created Cultivation system reached the level comparable to a Heavenly Saint, he was able to go blow for blow against an Imperial Beast, all the while dodging the attacks and countering a dozen other Heavenly Saint experts.

If Shen Tao, with his terrifying constitution and destructive combat arts, was forced to tuck his tail and run for his life, what hope did a ragged band of four ordinary sect disciples, a reincarnated mortal relying on wits, and one grumpy drug lord have?

He had no idea what kind of abomination slumbered beneath this silent black lake.

An ancient abyssal serpent?

A stone golem forged from celestial meteorite?

A slumbering evil demigod?

He has no idea, so right now, he placed all his hopes at Shen Ying.

’She’s of the Ten Crowns of the Shen Clan,’ Tang Lin reasoned coldly, keeping his eyes glued to the rocks while his mind worked furiously. ’Her talent is deep, her alchemy skills is top notched, and she carries the pride of an apex lineage. If that monster wakes up, she is our only wall.’

He didn’t need her to conquer the guardian beast, nor does he need her to slay it.

He is just hoping that she can at least buy time for him to escape.

Tang Lin was a pragmatist to his very bones; his primary objective in this second life was survival and change his fucked up life.

Once they encounter that guardian beast, he would gladly let Shen Ying draw its aggro, while he will go and take thag inheritance for himself.

CLINK.

Down by a submerged fissure twenty paces to the left, where the shoreline met a sheer vertical wall of dark slate, one of the younger disciples had jammed his iron crowbar between two massive, moss-encrusted megaliths.

The young man’s eyes widened in manic ecstasy.

He tugged at the stone, clearing away thick clumps of moss to reveal an ancient, glowing bronze ring etched with cosmic constellation runes.

"I FOUND IT! BROTHER LU, OVER HERE! I’M SURE THIS IS IT! I FOUND THE ENTRANCE!"

The youth’s triumphant shriek echoed across the desolate lake, bouncing violently off the towering cliffs.

Without waiting for the others, caught in the blinding, foolish greed of claiming the discovery, the disciple grabbed the ancient bronze ring with both hands and gave it a violent, forceful wrench.

CRACK-HUUUUUUUUM—!

The bronze ring clicked backward into the rock face.

And in that instant—

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!

An Earthquake occurred!

The entire earth violently convulsed!

The tectonic bedrock beneath their boots groaned and ruptured as an apocalyptic, subterranean shudder tore through the foundation of the earth.

Cracks as wide as carriages split across the pebbled shoreline, swallowing stones and muddy water in yawning chasms.

High above, colossal boulders and shattered slabs of slate dislodged from the sheer cliffs, tumbling thousands of feet downward in a deafening, thunderous avalanche that pulverized the willow trees into kindling.

The surface of the lake, which had been as flat as a mirror half a heartbeat prior, suddenly detonated.

A colossal whirlpool over two hundred meters wide opened in the dead center of the water, its spiral draining toward the depths with a terrifying, hollow roar that sounded like the weeping of ten thousand drowned souls.

The atmospheric pressure dropped precipitously, the air turning dense, freezing, and choked with the suffocating, ancient aura of an awakened primordial beast.

"What is that?!" Lu Feng shrieked, losing his footing and tumbling onto the shaking gravel, his face turning paper-white.

From the leaning tree, Shen Ying’s half-lidded eyes snapped wide open.

Her relaxed posture evaporated in a fraction of a second, her pupils flared with sharp, lethal vigilance.

Then, at that moment, from the whirlpool, a massive stone gate had emerged!

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