Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!-Chapter 110: The Garden

At this moment, inside the floating fortress.

The throne hall of this architecture was truly a masterpiece of ancient, forbidden geometry.

The walls were lined with ancient and unknown materials, and etched with cuneiform scripts that pulsed with a faint, rhythmic gold light, humming with the power of an era lost to the tides of time.

Jiang Chen sat upon the central throne, his eyes closed in deep, agonizing concentration as beads of sweat rolled down his pale forehead, evaporating before they could hit the floor due to the sheer friction of the spiritual energy swirling around him.

He was in the process of refining the throne—the literal heart and brain of the fortress.

According to the lingering consciousness of the Heaven Piercing Saint, this entire floating monolith was known as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

It was one of the two legendary Imperial Artifacts of a once-prosperous ancient empire known as the Babylonian Empire, which had flourished on a distant, hidden continent within the Prime Origin Realm millions of years ago.

The history of such an empire had been scrubbed from most modern records, yet its power remained manifest in this obsidian citadel.

As Jiang Chen delved deeper into the throne’s consciousness, the blueprint of the artifact unfolded in his mind like a divine map.

The Hanging Gardens consisted of three distinct levels, each more terrifying than the last.

The First Level was the foundation of utility.

It granted the user access to the Great Library of Babel—a repository of every technique, scroll, and historical record collected by the empire.

Furthermore, it served as the bridge, allowing the user to pilot the Gardens through the void of space and across different dimensions.

The Second Level was the heart of the empire’s industry.

It housed the Great Forge, the Alchemy Laboratory of the Gods, a vast Treasury filled with Saint-grade minerals, and an Armory capable of equipping an entire legion.

Most importantly, this level contained the birthing vats for the Homunculi—sentient artificial lifeforms engineered for perfection.

These warriors never tired, required no sustenance, and possessed combat prowess that could rival Golden Core Experts, and most importantly, they can get stronger if the user used a superior material to create thrm.

They were the ultimate workforce and the ultimate army, capable of being mass-produced to drown an enemy in a sea of unfeeling artificial flesh.

The Third and Final Level was the fortress’s ultimate evolution: Combat Mode.

When fully activated, the Gardens would erect a multi-layered conceptual barrier capable of withstanding the concentrated, world-ending strikes of genuine Supreme Emperors.

In this mode, the fortress would reveal hidden apertures designed to fire concentrated pillars light known as "Origin Light"—beams of pure annihilation capable of erasing entire star systems from existence.

It was this very mode that the Heaven Piercing Saint had utilized hundreds of thousands of years ago to defy the Shen Clan.

With the Gardens’ power, he had achieved the impossible: the slaying of a Shen Supreme.

When Jiang Chen discovered the true nature of the treasure he had "inherited," his soul trembled with a mixture of shock and predatory joy.

Even in his past life as a Sword Venerable, he had never even laid eyes upon a genuine Imperial Artifact, let alone stood at its helm.

To him, this was the ultimate sign that he was truly the most favored son of heavens.

’With this... I can rebuild everything,’ Jiang Chen thought, his heart racing. ’I will create an army that even the Shen Clan cannot ignore.’

Unfortunately, the reality of his current cultivation was a cold splash of water.

At his current level, he could only partially open the gateway to the Library, and he calculated that he would need to reach the Nascent Soul Realm just to have full authority over the first level.

To access the Second Level and the Homunculus vats, he would need to be at the Nirvana Rebirth Realm.

And to command the Final Level—to fire the pillars of light—he would need to step into the Heavenly Saint Realm.

"Heh," Jiang Chen smirked, his fingers tightening on the armrests of the throne. "Just you wait. That Shen dog... once I get out of here, I will spend every waking moment growing until I can rain fire upon your clan. That will be the time of your dea—cough!"

The world suddenly went cold.

Jiang Chen’s eyes snapped wide open, the golden light of the throne room blurring.

A violent, searing heat erupted in the center of his chest, followed immediately by a numbing, icy void as he let out a ragged, wet cough, and a spray of dark crimson blood immediately painting the ancient floor.

His refining was interrupted instantly, and the feedback from the throne hit his meridians like a sledgehammer, but that pain was secondary to the sensation of the cold steel protruding from his sternum.

Slowly, trembling with a mix of shock and disbelief, Jiang Chen raised his head.

In front of him stood a figure draped in luxurious robes, looking as if he had just stepped out of a casual stroll through a garden.

"You....!?"

The cold, emotionless golden eyes of Shen Haoran stared back at him, reflecting the flickering light of the dying fortress.

"You... Shen dog..." Jiang Chen’s voice was a mangled rasp, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. "How... how are you here?! This is the Inner Sanctum! The Saint... he chose me! You shouldn’t... Be here! How!?"

He gritted his teeth, squeezing out the words through the agony.

Shen Haoran tilted his head slightly, his expression one of mild, clinical curiosity. "How? I entered, of course. I walked through the door, climbed the stairs, and found you sitting on a chair that doesn’t belong to you."

"E-Entered?" Jiang Chen’s eyes widened, his pupils dilating in terror. "The barrier... the Saint’s will... it was meant to keep you out! You lie! How can you just enter on your own!?"

Haoran raised an eyebrow before his lips curled into a sharp, mocking smile. "Lie? I disdain lying. I simply entered. What? Did you honestly believe you alone were granted the right to step into this place? Did you think the Heaven Piercing Saint was a fool who would hand over an Imperial Artifact without a final struggle for the strong to claim? How funny. Tell me, Jiang Chen... did you honestly believe you were special? Did you think the universe revolves around your petty grievances?"

"You—" Jiang Chen tried to roar, but the effort only caused him to cough up another mouthful of thick, dark blood.

"Heh. Does it hurt? Don’t worry, I’m just starting."

Then, a new sensation took hold.

It wasn’t just physical pain; it was a conceptual tearing as Jiang Chen felt as if his very identity was being unraveled.

His bones began to ache with a hollow, empty hunger, and the purple aura that had once protected him began to leak out like a punctured lung.

His eyes widened in a final, realization-fueled horror. "You bastard! Don’t—stop it! Don’t touch my origin!"

Haoran didn’t respond with words, and with a single, fluid motion, he pulled his sword—Azathoth—out of Jiang Chen’s chest.

As the blade exited, a fist-sized orb of glowing, swirling purple light escaped through the wound, pulled by the gravity of Haoran’s intent.

Without hesitation, Haoran reached out and grabbed the orb, bringing it closer to his face.

Upon closer inspection, the light was not solid; it was a miniature, swirling nebula of violet gases and dark energy, pulsing with the frequency of the Void itself.

He let out a fascinated, almost gentle smile. "So this is it. The source of the Formless Void Divine Physique. Truly fascinating. To think such a high-level conceptual law could be housed in such a... mediocre vessel."

"Cough! Cough!" Jiang Chen collapsed from the throne, hitting the floor with a pathetic thud.

He tried to crawl toward Haoran, his hands clawing at the stone, his eyes bloodshot with a mixture of agony and insane rage.

"Give it back! Give me back my physique, you Shen Dog! That is mine! My destiny! My power!"

Haoran stared down at the pitiful sight of the "protagonist" dragging himself through his own blood.

"Huh? Are you trying to make me laugh?" Haoran asked, his voice dropping to a whisper. "That body doesn’t belong to you, ’Venerable.’ You are a parasite that crawled into a corpse and called it yours. You merely took it, and now, I am simply taking it back for the sake of the world."

"Shut up! I am the favored son of heaven!" Jiang Chen shrieked, his voice cracking as he reached for Haoran’s boot. "The heavens will judge you! I will definitely rise again! I will—"

Haoran didn’t allow him to finish as he lifted his foot and slammed it down onto Jiang Chen’s head, burying his face into the cold lapis lazuli floor with enough force to crack the stone.

The arrogant declarations of destiny were silenced, replaced by the muffled sound of grinding bone.

"There is no heaven left to save you, Jiang Chen," Haoran said, his voice flat and absolute. "You have already been abandoned by the heaven you so dearly loved. Right now, you are nothing more than a variable that failed to calculate the cost of standing in my path."

Haoran raised Azathoth high. The dark blade seemed to drink the golden light of the throne hall, its edge shimmering with a final, terminal intent.

Without a hint of hesitation or a flicker of regret, he brought the sword down.

The blade sliced through the neck of the Child of Fate with the ease of a knife through silk.

Jiang Chen’s head rolled across the floor, his eyes still wide with an eternal, impotent fury.

But Haoran was not finished, after all, he knew the resilience of these anomalies.

Without hesitation, he raised his left hand, and a spark of the Gold Incinerating Supreme Flame flared to life.

He flicked the spark onto the remains.

Instantly, the burning hot, divine flame erupted, engulfing both the body and the severed head as Haoran watched with cold eyes as the fire burned through the flesh, the blood, and the very soul of Jiang Chen.

He didn’t stop until there wasn’t even ash left—until the spiritual signature of the man once known as the Sword Venerable was completely erased from the records of the Saint Burial Realm.

"Now," Haoran said, turning his gaze back to the purple nebula in his hand. "Let’s see what this Imperial Artifact has to offer its new master."