Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

"Master?" Chu Yan stared at Xiao Long, his eyes full of absolute, unwavering dependence.

That’s right, in his desperate mind, Xiao Long was a true hidden master, his ultimate number one backer, far surpassing even the trust he had with Elder Mu.

To Chu Yan, this master of his was the only anchor keeping him grounded in this chaotic, terrifying reality.

He trusted Xiao Long with his life, fully believing that no matter how dark the storm became, his master would always find a way to shield him and guide him toward supremacy.

Xiao Long felt a heavy, sickening wave of guilt wash over his soul as he looked into his disciple’s trusting eyes and instantly felt a deep, twisting conflict.

Should he use his own accumulated personal luck, permanently damaging his future cultivation path, lowering his system level, and escape alongside the boy?

Or should he ruthlessly use the remaining luck of his own disciple, sacrificing the boy’s destiny to successfully escape alone?

Just then, the atmosphere around them turned utterly freezing.

Haoran pulled out his massive, terrifying Black Imperial Sword, Azathoth, from his storage ring.

The moment the dark hilt left his hand, his dense gold and purple qi immediately flared out like a roaring dragon, completely dominating the local airspace and crushing the ambient clouds into white mist.

"First... you’ll have to die!" Haoran cold voice echoed.

Moving with a blinding, catastrophic velocity, Haoran rushed directly towards Chu Yan, the blade of Azathoth cutting a massive horizontal rift through the air.

The sheer, impending terror of that lethal strike shattered the remaining remnants of Xiao Long’s moral hesitation.

Faced with immediate, absolute annihilation, he pushed down his guilt and screamed at the top of his lungs, "System! Do it! Use Chu Yan’s luck!"

Chu Yan froze completely, his pupils contracting into tiny pinpricks as he heard the frantic, shout. "System... my luck? Master... what are you doing?"

His master had a system? Is he also part of the transmigrator army?

No, more importantly, take my—!?

He didn’t even get the chance to think about it a single second more as a sudden, horrific agony ripped through his core.

He instantly felt as if his very soul, his destiny, and his entire spiritual essence were getting violently sucked away by an invisible, bottomless vortex.

His body went rigid, and the bright, fading colors of his world luck were ruthlessly torn from his skin, feeding directly into the system’s ravenous engine.

*CRACK-BOOM!!!*

The moment the transfer completed, the bright blue sky darkened into an unnatural, pitch-black void within the blink of an eye.

A cataclysmic, blinding golden lightning bolt struck down from the heavens, slamming squarely into the space between them, directly targeting Chu Yan’s position.

The raw, explosive force of the cosmic discharge was so immensely strong it sent Haoran tumbling back through the air, causing his silver flying sword to wobble and shake violently under the kinetic shockwave.

Meanwhile, the giant shadow hand that Qing’er had been using to pin their avatar was instantly shattered into thousands of harmless, dark particles under the pressure of the lightning.

She was about to continue attacking, but seeing her master lose balance, she completely forgot about the enemy; instead, she immediately transformed into a streak of shadows and hurried directly towards Haoran’s side to assist him, wrapping her arms around him to help stabilize his flying sword in the turbulent air.

"Young master, are you okay?" Asked Qing’er.

"Hmm." Haoran nodded, "Yeah, I’m fine."

System... He frowned deeply as he steadied his footing on the silver blade, his golden eyes narrowing into dangerous, icy slits.

He had actually clearly heard Xiao Long’s frantic scream just a moment prior.

"Another system user... how incredibly annoying."

Indeed. Out of all the diverse, logic-defying protagonists he had encountered across the past few years, system users were always the absolute most tedious and annoying to deal with.

They possessed cheat codes that could bypass the standard laws of cultivation, pulling emergency protocols out of thin air when cornered.

However, after the initial annoyance faded, a cold, predatory smirk resurfaced on Haoran’s lips.

This unexpected development was also highly beneficial.

After all, his brilliant aunts back in the Shen Clan Dimension were still desperately needing more live system users to experiment with, dissecting their soul structures to reverse-engineer their cosmic codes.

Xiao Long would make a perfect specimen.

At that moment...

"... Endless Sand Territory."

A completely transcendent, terrifyingly ancient power erupted from Xiao Long’s floating form, his voice, sounding so mechanical, resounded throughout the area.

The sheer, overwhelming gravity of the energy didn’t just push the air away—it began to physically overwrite the surrounding reality.

Slowly, the familiar view of the academy’s majestic green peaks, the rocky cliffs, and the drifting clouds began to fade, dissolving like ink in water.

The physical environment was being literally replaced by a vast, endless expanse of pale golden sand that stretched out toward a barren horizon.

Above them, a completely clear, brilliantly blue sky emerged, devoid of a single cloud, yet radiating a dry, suffocating heat that parched the throat instantly.

Within a matter of seconds, the entire landscape had transformed into a seamless, eternal desert.

Haoran and Qing’er found themselves standing firmly on the loose, hot sand, the golden grains shifting beneath their boots.

Qing’er’s brow furrowed into a sharp, defensive frown.

She immediately tried to channel her qi to fly and regain high ground, but she found to her shock that she couldn’t lift herself even an inch above the sand.

Not to mention her standard flight, her innate ability as a Saint to distort, bend, and manipulate the local space was completely restricted, locked down by an invisible, immovable law.

She immediately realized what happened.

"A domain..." she whispered, her voice tight as her hand gripped her black dagger. "This is a localized domain that can completely suppress all laws."

Haoran frowned, his golden eyes scanning the endless sand with a calm, analytical focus.

"A Supreme Realm? Did Xiao Long’s system temporarily boost his spiritual power all the way to the Supreme Emperor to save him? Or did he summon a genuine Supreme?"

Just then, moving with a silent, unnatural rhythm, a massive cloud of sand parted in front of them.

Xiao Long appeared, his physical body now completely radiating a terrifying, blinding aura of absolute authority.

Beneath his floating feet, the cold, lifeless body of Chu Yan laid motionless on the sand, his eyes wide open, entirely devoid of the spark of life—sacrificed and discarded the moment his luck had been completely drained by his beloved master.

However, that tragic, gruesome sight didn’t even enter Haoran’s eyes for a single fraction of a second.

Instead, his intense focus was entirely locked onto Xiao Long’s current demeanor.

Right now, that young master teaxher was fundamentally different from before.

The frantic panic, the fear, and the human desperation had completely vanished from his features.

His face was entirely expressionless, his eyes glowing with a cold, pale light that felt like a machine—utterly cold, analytical, and calculating.

It was like looking at a very uncanny humanoid puppet

"You..." Haoran spoke, his voice level and completely devoid of fear as he took a step forward on the sand. "Are you the system?"

[Correct,] the system replied, speaking directly through Xiao Long’s vocal cords, the voice echoing with a flat, mechanical, and layered metallic resonance that reverberated across the endless desert. [I have temporarily assumed the direct control of my host’s soul and body matrix to forcefully preserve his existence and save him from imminent danger.]

The system in Xiao Long’s body subtly shifted its posture, its cold eyes looking down for a brief millisecond at the lifeless, discarded corpse of Chu Yan lying in the dirt, before slowly turning its gaze back to lock onto Haoran and Qing’er.

[However, prior to the direct consciousness transfer, my Host has issued a final, binding directive to me: I am commanded to make you both suffer immensely today. I am ordered to make you feel a depth of physical pain and psychological despair that goes beyond human comprehension.]

"Is that so?" Haoran didn’t look a bit of afraid, instead, his tone even held a hint of mockery, "Big words coming from an artificial life form."

The system frowned. It was only for an instant, and it quickly went away, returning to his emotionless expression.

However, Haoran saw it, and he couldn’t help but chuckle.

"Ah, so you can feel annoyance." He smirked at the system, "Did being with a host allows you to develop feelings? So you’re not just an artificial lifeform, but a parasite as well."

[You—]

Qing’er didn’t stand there to listen to the machine’s response, and the very instant that the word was about to leave the system’s mouth, her newly awakened Yin Yang Origin Sacred Physique activated in full, terrifying strength within her soul.

Then, a massive, beautifully intricate circular symbol of the Yin and Yang appeared floating directly on her back, radiating a blinding light that cut through the desert heat.

At its current minor completion stage, this supreme physique allowed her a minor, yet thoroughly reality-defying core ability: the power to completely flip duality itself.

In other words, under the influence of her physique’s aura, any physical or spiritual attack she launched from the left would instantly materialize from the absolute right.

An attack aimed from below would come roaring down from above.

Every single physical concept of opposites—hot and cold, fast and slow, up and down—would be completely, flawlessly flipped according to her will, thoroughly bypassing the enemy’s standard visual and defensive perceptions.

With a sharp, fluid movement, Qing’er dissolved into a mass of liquid shadows, utilizing her flipped duality to launch a full-scale, earth-shattering assault.

"Die." She declared softly.

The system, however, just stared at her with his cold, emotionless eyes.

*BOOOOM!*

The battle that erupted across the endless desert was nothing short of apocalyptic, a clash of forces so immensely violent it felt as if the very heaven above was about to collapse into ruin.

Qing’er moved like a phantom of destruction, her form materializing simultaneously in a dozen different locations across the sand.

She thrust her black dagger forward from the absolute front, yet the lethal, space-tearing thrust instantly erupted directly from behind the system’s neck.

She slammed her palm downward toward the sand, and a colossal pillar of black shadow energy came crashing down from the clear blue sky above, the flipped duality creating a chaotic, unplottable matrix of absolute violence.

The sheer kinetic force of her strikes caused the endless desert to rise in massive, 100-meter-tall tidal waves of roaring golden sand, the shockwaves tearing through the domain like screaming dragons.

She utilized every single aspect of her Yin Yang Origin Sacred Physique, flipping the concepts of her speed so that her slowest, most deliberate movements struck with the instantaneous, supersonic velocity of a railgun, while her fastest dashes left deceptive, solid afterimages that confused the senses.

It was a flawless masterclass in Saint-level combat.

Yet, despite the earth-shattering ferocity of her continuous attacks, everything she did was entirely, completely useless.

The system, operating through Xiao Long’s reinforced body, stood completely motionless in the center of the sand storm.

Its pale eyes didn’t even twitch to track her movements.

Every single time a space-tearing dagger thrust or a mountain-crushing pillar of flipped energy made physical contact with its form, the attack would simply dissolve into nothingness, sliding off its skin like water off a duck’s back.

The system effortlessly absorbed, redirected, or completely neutralized every single shred of her reality-defying force without taking a single, solitary point of physical damage.

It stood as an unyielding, invulnerable monolith against the absolute peak of her sacred strength.

Seeing that, Qing’er immediately backed away, landing beside Haoran, kneeling, breathing heavily.

"Young master..." Qing’er tried to speak.

"Yeah, I know." Haoran interrupted her, eyes looking incredibly solemn, "It seems this time, we need to get serious."