Villain: Manipulating the Heroines into hating the Protagonist Chapter 1039: Plundering the Dragon Vein

The twelve pairs of heavy, pitch-black iron boots did not kick up a single cloud of silt as they marched out from the deep shadows of the canyon walls. Forged from Nine-Folded Profound Iron and powered by Peak Grade 6 Demon Beast cores, the twelve Profound Iron Dao Soldiers moved with synchronized, mechanical precision. Each construct stood nine feet tall, holding a tower shield in its left hand and a rune-etched halberd in its right, forming an unbroken iron cordon around the six-thousand-foot basin of the Dragon-Spine Trench.

Atop the flat, horned skull of the slain Grade 7 Abyssal Chimera-Wyrm, Ye Fan froze. His bruised left hand remained extended inches away from the six-foot gap between the hundred-foot stone doors of the Primal Dragon Grotto.

His heart hammered against his bruised ribs. Even with less than ten percent of the Liquid True Essence and Core Fire remaining within his energy reservoir, his sharp combat instincts screamed that the sudden drop in water temperature was no natural deep-sea current.

"Who goes there?!" Daoist Cang Song wheezed from the black silt below, struggling to prop himself up on his chipped Azure Wave Spirit Sword. Across the basin, the one-armed Daoist Mo Jue and the surviving elders of the Holy Nether Sea Organization tried to raise their bone-shields, their faces pale with dread as they stared at the twelve towering iron constructs sealing their only path of retreat.

No voice answered Daoist Cang Song’s challenge. Instead, the dark water three hundred feet above the sunken threshold parted with a low, humming vibration.

Two female figures descended slowly from the pitch-black abyss above, flanked by a silent retinue of veiled guards.

On the left floated Su Binglan. Draped in floor-length, translucent glacial-silk that fluttered gently in the deep currents, her tall, curvaceous frame radiated a blinding, lunar-white frost light. Behind her alabaster shoulders, the phantom image of an ethereal, three-inch Infant Soul sat cross-legged within a blooming lotus of pure blue ice—the unmistakable manifestation of an Early-Stage Nascent Soul Grandmaster.

On the right descended Mu Lianhua. Dressed in flowing crimson-and-gold alchemical robes that hugged her ripe, mature figure, she held a wisp of the Azure Sky Heart Phoenix Flame upon her open palm. Despite the six-thousand-foot ocean depth, the surrounding seawater within ten rods of her body boiled into shimmering silver vapor, pushed back by the vast, suffocating spiritual pressure of a second Early-Stage Nascent Soul sovereign.

"Nascent... Nascent Soul Seniors!" Daoist Mo Jue’s remaining hand went limp, his bone-shield clattering onto the basalt floor as his teeth chattered uncontrollably. "Two of them?!"

Before a single Core Formation elder on the seabed could bow or beg for mercy, Su Binglan and Mu Lianhua extended their jade-white hands downward in unison.

Neither woman chanted a long incantation. They simply released the coiled weight of their Nascent Soul spiritual domains, overlapping extreme glacial cold with searing phoenix heat across the three-hundred-yard basin.

HUMMMMM—CRACK!

A sound like a mountain range settling into the earth echoed through the water. The ambient Spiritual Energy across the seabed locked into a solid, unyielding crystal cage.

Down in the silt, Daoist Cang Song, Deacon Lin Feng, Daoist Mo Jue, and the other surviving Core Formation cultivators did not even have time to gasp. The overlapping Nascent Soul pressure slammed down upon their shoulders with the crushing weight of ten thousand catties of star-iron. Every single cultivator in the basin was driven flat onto their stomachs in the black mud. Their protective water-parting barriers froze into solid blue ice shells that pinned their limbs to the stone, and the revolving Golden Cores inside their lower energy reservoirs ground to a dead halt.

Atop the skull of the dead Abyssal Chimera-Wyrm, Ye Fan gritted his teeth until his gums bled, locking both hands around the hilt of his heavy black broadsword as he tried to keep one knee raised off the beast’s scales. Inside his chest, the Temporal Jade Bead grew icy cold, shielding his mind from passing out, while the hidden golden flame inside his Dantian flickered wildly against the invading frost.

Yet the chasm between the Mid-Stage Core Formation Realm and two genuine Nascent Soul Grandmasters was as wide as the heavens and earth.

CRACK.

The frozen scales beneath Ye Fan’s boots fractured. With a muffled groan, Ye Fan’s supporting knee buckled under the immense spatial pressure, slamming his chest and chin down against the horned skull of the dead wyrm. Frost crept over his salt-stained leather armor, freezing his fingers to the hilt of his broadsword so he could not twitch a single knuckle, leaving only his neck free enough to look up toward the descending shadow above the gate.

From the parted waters between the two Nascent Soul Grandmasters, a tall, broad-shouldered man in dark, gold-trimmed robes drifted down to the threshold of the Primal Dragon Grotto.

Wang Jian did not wear a mask or a bamboo hat. His handsome, chiseled face was calm, his dark eyes holding a cold, ancient indifference as his boots touched the stone steps before the hundred-foot gateway. Walking half a pace behind his left shoulder were Shangguan Wan’er and Lin Wanyue, both wearing dark, identity-concealing cloaks woven from spirit-baffling silk.

Walking directly at Wang Jian’s right side, however, was a woman who wore no veil at all.

She was dressed in a form-fitting, high-slitted gown of midnight-black silk that left her snow-white shoulders bare and clung tightly to the lush, heavy swell of her breasts and the wide, rounded curve of her hips. Her long raven hair was pinned up with a familiar jade sword-hairpin, and her delicate, breathtakingly beautiful face glowed with a rosy, humid flush.

Pinned atop the wyrm’s skull ten paces away, Ye Fan’s eyes widened until the blood vessels in his sclera burst red.

He recognized that face. He had seen it in his dreams every single night for the past two years as he bled and fought through the outer waste oceans. He had sworn a blood oath upon his Golden Core to return to Abyssal Pearl City, rebuild the fallen Silver Gale Sect, and rescue her from whatever dark fate had befallen Azure Peak.

"Tea... Teacher...?" Ye Fan forced the hoarse, strangled word out through his frozen throat, his voice carried across the short gap by a trembling thread of spiritual sense. "Teacher Shen Mengqi...?"

At the sound of his voice, Shen Mengqi paused on the stone steps.

She turned her head slowly, looking down at the battered, blood-stained young man pinned to the beast’s skull. Recognizing the familiar spiritual fluctuations of the heavy black broadsword and the fierce eyes beneath the crushed bamboo hat, a flicker of surprise crossed her delicate brows—followed instantly by a cold, haughty disdain that pierced Ye Fan’s chest deeper than any demonic bone-spear.

Shen Mengqi did not rush to help him. Instead, she stepped closer to Wang Jian, wrapping both of her slender, pale arms around Wang Jian’s muscular right arm and pressing the heavy, soft weight of her large breasts directly against his bicep for warmth.

"Master," Shen Mengqi spoke, her voice—once as crisp and aloof as mountain snow when she lectured the disciples of the Silver Gale Sect—now dripping with a sweet, sultry, and unmistakably submissive devotion. "This filthy rogue on the beast’s skull is Ye Fan, that former outer-court disciple of mine who fled Azure Peak like a frightened rat. I did not expect him to still be alive, much less hiding beneath a fake face to do the manual labor of breaking this gate for you."

"Teacher...!" Ye Fan stared at the way Shen Mengqi pressed her lush, half-exposed breasts against the dark-robed man’s arm, his mind reeling as if struck by a celestial lightning bolt. "What... what has this bastard done to you?! Did he poison your soul?! Wake up, Teacher! It’s me, Ye Fan! I forged a Golden Core to save you!"

Shen Mengqi let out a soft, mocking laugh, tilting her head to rest her flushed cheek against Wang Jian’s broad shoulder while looking down at Ye Fan as though he were a worm wriggling in the mud.

"Save me?" Shen Mengqi purred, her right hand sliding down to caress the front of Wang Jian’s muscular chest with intimate familiarity. "You delusional little boy. When I was the sword fairy of the Silver Gale Sect, I wasted decades cultivating a flawed wind manual in a barren pond. It was Master Wang Jian who opened my eyes, shattered my foolish pride, and bestowed upon me the supreme Nine-Turn Profound Yin Scripture. Every inch of my body, my Golden Core, and my soul belongs to my Master. Who asked a pathetic street rat like you to save me?"

To prove her words, Shen Mengqi raised herself onto her tiptoes right in front of Ye Fan’s horrified gaze, pressing her soft, crimson lips against the side of Wang Jian’s jaw in a lingering, worshipful kiss while arching her back so her wide, curvy hips brushed against Wang Jian’s thigh.

"No... impossible..." Ye Fan’s vision swam with crimson blood-tears, a suffocating agony tearing at his heart that hurt ten times worse than the horn wound in his ribs. The pure, untouchable goddess he had worshiped in his heart—the very anchor of his martial path—was rubbing her voluptuous body against the man who had orchestrated this entire abyssal trap, looking at him with the glazed, lovesick eyes of a thoroughly conquered woman.

Wang Jian did not even spare Ye Fan a glance. He reached his right hand around Shen Mengqi’s narrow waist, his large, calloused palm resting possessively upon the round, firm swell of her silk-clad backside, giving the lush flesh a slow, deliberate squeeze that made Shen Mengqi let out a breathy, shameless sigh in front of her former disciple.

"Hold the outer perimeter for two quarters of an hour, Binglan," Wang Jian said calmly, addressing the silver-haired Nascent Soul Grandmaster hovering above the basin. "Do not let a single fish enter or leave this canyon. Lianhua, Wan’er, Mengqi—with me."

Leaving Ye Fan pinned to the freezing skull with his world shattering around him, Wang Jian walked unhindered through the six-foot gap in the hundred-foot stone doors, stepping into the golden-lit interior of the Primal Dragon Grotto.

The moment Wang Jian’s boots crossed the carved stone threshold, a prehistoric water-repelling barrier hummed overhead, holding back the six-thousand-foot ocean depth and keeping the cavernous interior completely dry.

The air inside the Primal Dragon Grotto was warm, heavy, and saturated with a misty white fog of pure Spiritual Energy that smelled of aged ambergris and ten-thousand-year stalactites. The grotto was shaped like a vast, vaulted dome carved out of crimson seabed jasper, supported by eight pillars formed from the calcified rib bones of ancient flood-dragons.

Along the outer stone walls stood three rows of corroded bronze weapon racks and carved jade alchemy shelves. Upon those outer shelves sat a dozen sealed porcelain bottles containing Rank 3 Core Formation pills, five chests overflowing with roughly twenty thousand Mid-Grade Spirit Stones, and seven glowing herb boxes holding Three-Thousand-Year Blood Coral and Purple Sea-Ginseng.

Shangguan Wan’er paused beside the outer shelves, her pale blue eyes scanning the open chests. "Master, these outer racks hold roughly three hundred thousand Mid-Grade Spirit Stones worth of Rank 3 elixirs and Spirit Herbs, along with four intact Magic Treasures. Shall I sweep them into my Storage Ring?"

"Leave every single coin and herb on the outer shelves untouched," Wang Jian instructed without breaking his stride, his boots echoing across the dry jasper flagstones toward the raised altar at the far end of the dome. "Only sweep three of the herb boxes onto the floor and smash two empty pill bottles by the doorway so it looks as though someone looted the entrance in a frantic hurry while injured."

Shangguan Wan’er’s eyes lit up with immediate comprehension. "You intend to leave these secondary spoils for the survivors outside. When the investigators from the Myriad Ocean Palace and the Holy Nether Sea Organization arrive and perform a spiritual audit of the basin, the lingering aura of the broken gate and the missing outer herbs will point straight to the mercenary Han Feng."

"A hunting dog only runs well when you toss him a meaty bone to carry in his jaws," Wang Jian said calmly. "If the grotto were swept clean down to the dust, the old monsters of the Myriad Ocean Palace would immediately suspect a hidden Nascent Soul faction with massive spatial storage capacity. Leaving three hundred thousand Spirit Stones worth of Rank 3 resources scattered around the entrance matches the exact appetite of a desperate, wounded Mid-Stage Core Formation rogue."

Mu Lianhua walked beside him, her crimson robes fluttering as she waved her hand, sending two controlled wisps of her Phoenix Flame to crack two empty jade vials near the threshold without leaving any trace of her high-tier fire aura.

Wang Jian ascended the nine steps of the inner sanctum’s central dais.

Carved from the massive, petrified skull of a Grade 9 Deep-Sea Flood Dragon, the central altar sat directly over an open, six-foot-wide fissure in the jasper floor. From that deep-earth fissure surged a blinding, viscous river of liquid silver-white Spiritual Energy—the exposed heart of the Fourth-Grade Spiritual Vein.

Hovering three feet above the flood-dragon skull, cradled in a vortex of condensed earth and water essence, was a fist-sized sphere that shone like a miniature full moon: the Dragon-Vein Spirit Pearl.

Directly beneath the floating pearl, pooled inside a concave basin carved into the forehead of the flood-dragon skull, sat roughly thirty catties of thick, golden-red liquid that radiated a vigorous, booming heartbeat and a rich, medicinal fragrance: Ten-Thousand-Year Golden Dragon Marrow. Flanking the basin rested a pair of dark, curved bracers forged from overlapping dragon scales—a complete set of defensive Ancient Treasures known as the Twin Abyssal Scale Guards.

"A natural Dragon-Vein Spirit Pearl formed over ten millennia, alongside uncorrupted Golden Dragon Marrow," Mu Lianhua breathed, her mature face flushing with alchemical excitement as she examined the golden-red liquid. "Master, this Golden Dragon Marrow possesses the physical vitality of a Grade 8 Demon Beast without a shred of beastly madness! If I combine half of this marrow with the nine-thousand-year Spirit-Condensing Lotus from our island gardens, I can refine three Peak-Grade Rank 4 Soul-Nurturing Pills complete with Pill Veins!"

"And the remaining half of the marrow, combined with the Dragon-Vein Spirit Pearl, will allow my Stellar Demonic Meridian Scripture to complete the final compression of my Golden Core," Wang Jian said, a dark, satisfied gleam appearing in his eyes.

He did not carelessly grab the floating pearl with his bare hand. Reaching into his Storage Ring, Wang Jian withdrew a pair of rune-inscribed jade tongs, a flat carving knife made of five-hundred-year cold-jade, and three heavy sealing boxes carved from Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Frost-Jade.

Step by step, Wang Jian circulated his Verdant Eternal Spring Essence into his palms, coating the cold-jade knife in a soothing, verdant green glow that mimicked the natural vitality of the earth vein. He slid the flat jade blade beneath the floating Dragon-Vein Spirit Pearl, severing the eight invisible threads of spiritual suction linking the pearl to the deep-earth fissure below without causing the vein to backlash.

As the fist-sized pearl settled onto the jade blade, the ambient glow inside the grotto dimmed by half. Wang Jian lowered the Dragon-Vein Spirit Pearl into the first Profound Frost-Jade box, slapping three gold-ink Five-Element Sealing Talismans across the lid to lock its aura inside.

Next, Mu Lianhua stepped forward with two wide-mouthed jade gourds. Using a gentle stream of her mental awareness, she lifted the thirty catties of viscous, golden-red Ten-Thousand-Year Golden Dragon Marrow from the skull basin in a single continuous ribbon, funneling every last drop into the gourds before stoppering them with red wax. Wang Jian swept the Twin Abyssal Scale Guards into his Storage Ring with a flick of his sleeve.

With the primary harvest secured in less than a quarter of an hour, Wang Jian turned around atop the raised flood-dragon altar.

Standing at the base of the steps was Shen Mengqi. Watching Wang Jian effortlessly claim treasures that could cause Nascent Soul sects to wage war for a century, and still buzzing from the cruel thrill of humiliating her former disciple outside, Shen Mengqi’s breathing had grown shallow and rapid. Her Nine-Turn Profound Yin Scripture was circulating automatically, causing a visible, misty frost-aroma to rise from the deep cleavage of her black silk dress as her thighs pressed tightly together.

Wang Jian looked down at her flushed, breathtaking face, then glanced toward the six-foot gap in the stone doors fifty yards away—through which the pinned, immobilized back of Ye Fan’s head was clearly visible atop the dead wyrm’s skull.

"Come up here, Mengqi," Wang Jian ordered softly.

Shen Mengqi shivered, her eyes glazing with instant, hungry obedience. She walked quickly up the nine steps of the dragon-bone altar, sinking to her knees right before him.

"You performed well outside," Wang Jian said, his large right hand reaching down to cup her delicate chin, tilting her face up before his fingers slid down her slender throat and hooked into the tight collar of her midnight-black silk gown. With a sharp tug, he pulled the silk bodice down below her ribs, freeing her massive, snow-white breasts with their stiff, rosy-pink peaks into the warm grotto air. "Did it feel good letting your former disciple see who owns you now?"

"Yes, Master...!" Shen Mengqi whimpered, leaning her chest forward to press her heavy, cool breasts directly against Wang Jian’s palms as he kneaded the firm, abundant flesh with rough, possessive fingers. "Seeing him stare at me while you squeezed my backside made my lower reservoir soak right through my undergarments... Please, Master, we still have half a quarter-hour before the siphon stakes are laid. Bend me over this dragon altar right here where he lies just outside the door!"

Wang Jian let out a low, dark chuckle. Without a word of hesitation, he spun the former righteous sword fairy around, pushing her upper body down across the warm, smooth bone of the flood-dragon skull altar so she was facing directly toward the parted stone gateway fifty yards away.

He flipped the high-slitted panels of her black silk dress up over her lower back, exposing her wide, curvy, porcelain-white hips and the soaked black lace thong clinging between her plump cheeks. Ripping the thin lace aside, Wang Jian unfastened his lower robe, gripped Shen Mengqi’s lush, juicy hips with both hands, and drove his thick, scorching manhood straight to the hilt inside her freezing, soaking Yin core in a single, merciless thrust.

"Hnnngh—!" Shen Mengqi bit down hard on the back of her own hand to keep her scream from echoing past the water-repelling barrier at the doorway, though her eyes rolled back in