Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!-Chapter 38: Awakening

Once Xueli was fully healed, the two of them continued their journey deeper into the heart of the inheritance realm, their footsteps echoing against the obsidian floors.

"So, how did you beat your phantom?" asked Haoran, walking in front of her, his hands were clasped behind his back, his stride steady and rhythmic.

"Honestly? I don’t know. I just wanted to win, badly. And for someone like me who knew nothing of combat, I was just swinging around my dagger like a wild woman," said Xueli, her face flushing with a mix of embarrassment and lingering adrenaline.

She felt that her performance lacked the elegance of a true martial artist.

Haoran nodded, though he didn’t turn around. "No need to feel embarrassed. Any shame will be washed away by victory. It doesn’t matter if one has to lie or cheat; as long as you win in the end, that’s all that matters."

He paused for a moment, the silver light of the corridor casting long, sharp shadows across his profile. "The world itself isn’t fair, and only the victor can be remembered. The losers will be left forgotten by time, their stories rewritten or erased."

Xueli also stilled behind him, staring at his profile.

"Pride? Dignity? You can feed those useless things to the dogs," he continued, his voice cold and devoid of sentiment. "What is the use of such things when you lose? At that moment, your so-called pride and dignity will be trampled upon by the victor. They are merely shackles for those who fear to do what is necessary."

"....Is that how it is?" asked Xueli.

During her time in the Ogre Academy, the Grandmaster and the teachers always emphasized that they must hold themselves up with pride, and that even if they lose, they must lose with dignity.

It was the "way of the warrior" she had been raised on.

But now, looking at Haoran’s back, those teachings felt like bedtime stories for children.

"Of course." Haoran turned to stare at her, his golden eyes burning with a terrifying intensity—a will that demanded absolute dominance. "Loss is unacceptable. That’s why, Xueli, you must always win, and use whatever means necessary. To lose is to cease to exist."

Xueli stared into his eyes and couldn’t help but gulp.

She felt like a small bird caught in the gaze of a predator, but surprisingly, she couldn’t look away from those eyes, eyes that seemed to know nothing of defeat and only Victory.

She nodded, her voice barely a whisper. "Yeah, I understand."

Haoran nodded back, satisfied with her answer, and the two continued walking.

Finally, they arrived in a massive hall that defied the laws of architecture.

The ceiling seemed to reach the very sky, lost in a swirling vortex of silver clouds and starlight.

In the center of the hall, a grand staircase with exactly 999 steps rose toward the heavens.

At the very top, shrouded in a divine silver mist, sat an ancient altar.

"This must be it..." Xueli muttered, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"Hm." Haoran nodded, his gaze fixed on the summit.

Just then, the booming, ancient voice once again resounded through the space, more powerful than ever before.

"FINAL TRIAL: TRIAL OF ENDURANCE! CLIMB THE IMPERIAL STAIRS AND CLAIM THE INHERITANCE OF THE EMPEROR!"

"Let’s go," Haoran said, and he immediately took the first step.

The moment his foot touched the stone, he felt a weight press down on his shoulders—a spiritual pressure that attempted to grind his bones into the floor.

However, at this level, it was weak and could be easily shrugged off by anyone with a decent foundation.

Even for Xueli, this much was nothing.

They began to climb, slowly but surely.

The first hundred steps were bearable, even easy. But the moment they stepped onto the 101st step, the pressure suddenly spiked.

It felt as though the air had turned into lead.

After a careful observation, Haoran noticed that the pressure exerted on him was significantly heavier than what Xueli was experiencing.

He realized the stairs were intelligent; the gravity was being adjusted to match their respective cultivation levels.

They continued to climb, and by the time they reached the 201st level, Xueli’s face was pale, and suddenly dropped to her knees, gasping for breath, her sweat soaking into the stone.

Haoran frowned and stood over her. "Relax. Don’t fight the pressure; channel it. Circulate your Qi through your meridians and use this weight to hammer your bottleneck. Breakthrough to the Foundation Establishment realm right here."

Xueli, exhausted and trembling, stared up at him in disbelief. "B-But, I just broke through to the 9th stage of Qi Gathering earlier today! This... this isn’t good, is it? It’s too fast!"

"No, it’s just right," Haoran countered. "A breakthrough under extreme pressure is far more stable than a breakthrough achieved through pills or peaceful indoor cultivation. The pressure acts as a forge, compressing your Qi until it soldifies. I said it earlier, didn’t I?"

Xueli nodded weakly, trusting him implicitly as she immediately sat cross-legged, ignoring the crushing weight, and began to forcefully circulate her Qi.

’Hmm, no wonder those Ogre Seven in Chu Fang’s timeline broke through so fast,’ Haoran hummed to himself. ’This staircase was essentially a high-intensity training facility.’

However, he could feel that this level of pressure was only truly useful to those at the Core Formation realm or lower.

For him, this was still a walk in the park.

Not to mention his physique was far stronger than his own cultivation due to the trifecta of power within him: the Infinity Dragon God Divine Physique, the Heavenly Sword Dao Bone, and a childhood spent bathing in precious herbs and the blood of ancient beasts.

He stared at Xueli for a moment longer, seeing her enter a deep state of meditation, and decided to go on ahead.

Without hesitation, he began to sprint.

He easily climbed to 300, then 400, then 700, his speed didn’t slacken until he reached the 901st step.

At that level, he finally stopped, his brow furrowing as for the first time, he felt a genuine pressure, his knees trembled slightly, and his breath hitched.

But at the same time, something deep within his blood began to roar.

His unawakened Infinity Dragon God Divine Physique stirred.

"What...is happening?" He frowned, feeling his body trembling.

This physique had never truly been his; it was a treasure his mother had taken from a child of a branch family and surgically implanted into him.

Because it wasn’t his by birth, awakening its true power had been an incredibly tedious and frustrating process.

For over a decade, it had remained dormant.

But now, under the weight of a Supreme Emperor’s will, it was finally showing signs of life.

’Could the pressure from this place be the key?’ Haoran thought, a dark smile playing on his lips. ’After all, this physique originally belonged to a "protagonist," and this inheritance was also destined for one. Like calls to like, as they say.’

But he just shook his head, clearing the fog of confusion from his mind as he continued his ascent, but with every inch he gained, the atmospheric weight multiplied exponentially.

Right now, every step felt like a literal mountain was being stacked upon his shoulders, the gravity threatening to fuse his boots to the ancient stone.

But he endured. His back remained as straight as a spear, his posture as arrogant and majestic as it had been on the day of his birth.

For Haoran, he would never allow himself to kneel—not to an emperor, not to a god, and certainly not to a staircase.

His Dao of Supremacy was not a mere philosophy; it was a fundamental law of his existence that would never allow such a humiliating sight.

Finally, as he arrived at the 999th step, the threshold of the heavens, Haoran felt his Infinity Dragon God Divine Physique stirring wildly within his veins.

It was no longer a dull hum; it was a frantic, violent thrashing, as if a primordial beast was on the verge of tearing its way out of his body.

The pressure of the Supreme inheritance had acted as the ultimate catalyst, grinding away the layers of rejection between his soul and the stolen bloodline.

He sat down cross-legged at the very peak, the silver mist of the altar swirling around him like a cyclone.

He closed his eyes, focusing every ounce of his concentration on circulating his Qi to stir his physique even further, pushing the dragon blood to its absolute limit.

This was the best chance he had ever been granted to awaken this dormant power, and he would never let it go to waste!

Ignoring the pain, he forcefully stirred his physique, trying to awaken it from its slumber!

His ears, nose, and eyes began to bleed, veins bulging in his forehead as he endured the soul breaking pain that no man should be capable of enduring.

’Come on! Endure! Endure it! To reach the pinnacle, to climb beyond that apex...this level of pain is nothin!’

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of agonizing compression and refinement, a roar of a dragon resounded—not just through the hall, but throughout the entire Prime Origin Realm.

The sound was so profound it bypassed the physical and struck the metaphysical, waking even the ancient, slumbering Supremes in the furthest corners of the universe.

They felt it.

The rhythmic, thundering sound of a heartbeat that resonated with the cosmos.

This is the feeling of someone awakening of a Divine Physique!

Back in the Shen Clan, Chu Xueyu suddenly stood up from her throne, her golden eyes widened in a rare display of genuine shock, followed immediately by an overflowing, motherly joy.

Then, from the subterranean depths of the Shen Clan’s ancestral grounds, several Supremes who had remained in deep slumber for centuries began to stir.

Their ancient bloodlines boiled in anticipation, vibrating in sympathy with the frequency of the dragon’s roar.

They could feel it in their very marrow: their most promising descendant, the heir they had gambled the clan’s future on, had finally mastered the stolen gift.

Chu Xueyu let out an almost crazed, triumphant laughter that shook the foundations of the jade palace.

"Hahaha! Oh heavens above, have you seen that!?" she cried, her voice carrying the weight of a decree. "No matter how many anomalies or ’sons of destiny’ you throw at us, the fact will never change! This era belongs to the Shen Clan! Haoran has finally become the True Dragon!"