Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!-Chapter 125: Departure

The three days had passed with a relentless, ticking finality, and today was the promised day, a moment that would be etched into the annals of the Saint Burial Realm as the day the heavens opened for those who dared to defy its will.

In the central hall of the Conferred Pagoda, the air was humming with a dense, spatial vibration that made the torches flicker in rhythmic patterns.

Ling Luochen stood beside her master, Shangguan Mu’er, in front of the ancient Altar.

The massive stone structure was covered in ancient runes that had not been fully lit since the day Haoran and Qing’er descended.

Now, it was just waiting for the blood of a true sovereign to awaken them once more.

Ling Luochen gazed toward the distant, hazy horizon visible through the high windows, letting out a long, quiet sigh.

The past seventy-two hours had been a whirlwind of frantic preparation and bittersweet departures.

She had literally spent every waking moment with the Ling Clan, wanting to make sure that her clan was stable before she leaves this realm.

She had almost emptied her storage rings, distributing mid-grade and high-grade pills like common sweets to ensure that her clan would remain standing long after she was gone.

Through a series of bone-cleansing pills and Qi-condensing elixirs, she had forced his stagnant cultivation to shatter its bottleneck, propelling him into the 1st Stage of the Core Formation Realm.

It is a hollow foundation. Because it was forged through pills, he is significantly weaker than an average Core Formation expert who climbed the mountain with their own feet.

But in thar backwater region, he can be considered a local tyrant. No one will dare touch the Ling Clan while he breathes.

And she hadn’t stopped there.

She had forced several of her uncles and the clan elders to consume high-grade Foundation-Establishing pills, pushing them to the 7th and 9th stages of the realm.

She also left behind a library of pill recipes that would make the local Alchemist Guild weep with envy, dozens of middle-tier cultivation techniques, and even a Tier 3 Artifact—a protective bell—to serve as the clan’s final deterrent.

She didn’t know how long her stay in the Upper Realm would last, but she knew, with a heavy heart, that she probably wouldn’t be back for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years.

She hoped that by then, her clan would still be thriving, their banners flying high above the stone walls she had reinforced.

Shangguan Mu’er, in contrast, had spent the three days in absolute, focused silence.

She sat in her residence, meditating to stabilize her demonic Spirit Avatar.

She had no clan to protect, no descendants to dote upon, and no lovers to mourn. So her only attachment in this world was the Conferred Pagoda itself, the institution she had served for the better part of her life.

But since the Pagoda was merely a branch of the Upper Realm’s authority, she knew it would continue to function with or without her.

Her heart was already elsewhere, drifting toward the mountains of the Prime Origin Realm.

Just then, the space in the center of the hall rippled like a disturbed pond as Shen Haoran and Qing’er stepped out of the void.

The local elders, who had been standing at the periphery, immediately dropped to their knees, their foreheads hitting the cold stone in a display of absolute, shivering respect.

"Are you two ready?" Haoran asked, his voice echoing with a slight, metallic resonance. He didn’t even look back at the Pagoda Elders; his golden eyes were fixed on the zenith of the ceiling. "Make no mistake: once we cross the threshold, we won’t be back here for a very long time."

Ling Luochen and Shangguan Mu’er stepped forward, their expressions hardening into masks of absolute resolve.

"We are ready, young master," they said in unison.

"Good. Come." Haoran motioned for them to step onto the altar’s raised platform.

He withdrew his silver communication artifact, the device shimmering with a faint violet light as he initiated a high-frequency channel, one that bypassed the dimensional layers to reach the high-altitude palaces of the Shen Clan.

"Aunt Leng Shuang," he whispered into the device. "Everything has been resolved. Open the gate."

Instantly, the ceiling of the Pagoda seemed to dissolve as a massive, cylindrical pillar of pure, incandescent golden light descended from the heavens, piercing through the roof and the atmosphere.

It struck the altar with the force of a falling star, engulfing Haoran and the others in a shimmering, vertical sea of energy.

Ling Luochen and Shangguan Mu’er looked out through the golden veil of light one last time.

They saw the kneeling elders, the stone walls of the Pagoda, and the familiar sky of the Saint Burial Realm they had called home for their entire lives.

A profound, aching melancholy washed over them as it finally dawned on them that they were truly leaving the world of their birth.

Perhaps when they returned—if they ever returned—everyone they knew would likely be nothing more than ashes scattered on the wind, their names forgotten by the flow of time.

They let out a collective, final sigh, their voices lost in the roar of the ascending light.

"Farewell, Saint Burial Realm," they whispered.

*

*

*

At this moment, in the Prime Origin Realm, Tian Yuan Empire, Southern Region, a very different kind of energy was brewing.

In a grand, bustling auction house within a major trade city, the atmosphere was shrouded with the scent of perfume, expensive oils, and greed.

The lights were low, focused on a central podium where a small, tattered piece of ancient parchment was displayed under a protective jade glass.

"65 thousand spirit stones!"

Huo Yue, sitting comfortably in a lush velvet chair within a private VIP booth, called out her bid.

Her eyes were fixed on the fragment of the map with the intensity of a predator, and if she wasn’t alone, she would’ve probably licked her lips like she was thirsty.

Beside her, Zhu Ziyan was lazily drinking a cup of premium jasmine tea, while Medusa was slowly sipping from a chalice of dark, spiced wine.

When they heard her bid, both women stared at Huo Yue as if she had suddenly grown a second head.

"Sister Yue, why did you bid so much for a piece of an incomplete map?" Ziyan asked, her cat-ears twitching in annoyance. "65 thousand is an exorbitant price. Even if it’s a map leading to a Supreme Treasure or something, we have no idea how many fragments it has. We could spend our whole lives searching and never find the rest. It’s a gamble with terrible odds."

"It’s better to have it than not," Huo Yue replied, a confident, slightly manic smirk on her lips. "Besides, I’m an alchemist. The very least of my worries are Spirit Stones. I could make hundreds of pills and and earn back the stones I wasted, and then some."

The two stared at her and shrugged.

It was true.

Aside from when they lost their spirit rings and Huo Yue actually resorted to robbing—although it didn’t go according to pla—she was basically always swimming in mountains of resources.

"65 thousand going once! Twice!" The auctioneer’s gavel slammed down with a resonant crack. "Sold to the lady in VIP booth 81!"

Huo Yue pumped her fist.

Now...only unknown number of fragments to go.

At this moment, below the booth, in the crowded general seating area, a young man wearing a deep, shadowy cloak felt his heart stop.

His fists clenched so hard his nails drew blood from his palms as he glared up at the darkened glass of booth 81 with a gaze filled with a poisonous, unadulterated hatred.

This young man was Yun Li.

He was the "anomaly" who had managed to snatch the heavenly grade cultivation technique from right under the noses of Jin Pei and Ao Long back in the Bright Silver Emperor’s Legacy Realm.

But that single act of theft had triggered a cataclysm.

Back then, after they returned, Ao Long told his father about what happened, and their fury had been so great that the Blue Wind Kingdom had mobilized its entire army, systematically exterminating every member of the Yun Clan they could find.

Yun Li even went and begged the Luo Clan for help, using the excuse that he and their heiress, Luo Mingye, were close and had even held hands before.

Unfortunately, he was ignored and was even thrown away.

Thankfully, with the help of his father and grandfather, he managed to escaped and decided to flee into the Southern Region like a hunted rat, living in sewers and mountain caves just to survive.

He had spent the three years scavenging for resources, fighting rouge cultivators for items that he would’ve ignored back when he was still the young master of the Yun Clan.

Thanks to his efforts, he had managed to break through to the 3rd Stage of the Golden Core Realm, and with the help of his Falling Immortal Sutra, which came with him after he transmigrated, he was a monster in combat, and he could fight opponents at the 5th or 6th Stage without breaking a sweat. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

During his desperate travels, he had stumbled upon a fragmented map that his instincts—and his own hidden "Luck"—told him led to a treasure that would allow him to take his revenge on the world.

He had been searching for the other pieces for years, and it was only by a miracle that he had found the second fragment at this auction.

But he was a fugitive. He was poor. He didn’t have 65 thousand spirit stones to fight for it!

The best he can offer was 15 thousand, and that was the price before that bitch from the VIP booth immediately added 50 thousand directly.

"You..." Yun Li hissed, the spiritual energy around him beginning to curdle. "You pampered natives... you really think you can take what belongs to me? You really like to court death, don’t you?"

He stood up and faded into the shadows of the auction house exit, his mind already spinning a web of murder and theft.

He didn’t know who was in that booth, but he knew one thing: he would have that map, even if he had to paint the city red to get it.