I Really Am A Villain

“I’m fine,” Xu Zimo said casually, smiling. “I don’t have any enemies here anyway. But you, aren’t you afraid of being recognized?”

“What’s there to be afraid of?” Wu Zhaodi replied, though her tone was uneasy. “Either way, it’s death.”

“But your revenge isn’t done yet, is it?” Xu Zimo asked.

“Seriously? You’re just going to let yourself be captured like this?” Wu Zhaodi said incredulously.

“If you want to escape, I can help you,” Xu Zimo replied. “But me, I actually want to meet this Dragon God Imperium’s ruler.”

“Who said anything about running? Fine, we’ll meet him. He’s only the ruler of the Dragon God Imperium,” Wu Zhaodi said stiffly, trying to sound confident.

“Relax,” Xu Zimo chuckled. “With me here, nothing will happen to you.”

The group followed the official road forward. By late afternoon, the sky was dimming, and a strange wind began to stir on the horizon.

That wind carried sand and dust with it.

“Why is it getting darker?” one of the blue-robed soldiers muttered.

“Yeah, there was sunlight just a moment ago.”

Several of them murmured in confusion. Vast Cloud frowned, raised a hand, and ordered, “Stop!”

“What is it, Grand Tutor?” someone asked.

“Don’t you notice something’s wrong?” Vast Cloud said.

“What’s wrong?”

“The sky,” he said, glancing upward, then fell into thought.

“It’s a formation,” Xu Zimo quietly told Wu Zhaodi beside him.

The formation was extremely subtle, blended seamlessly with the world around them.

Of course, Xu Zimo’s perception immediately picked it up. In fact, they’d already been trapped within it for some time without realizing.

“If we keep following this road, we should reach Dragon God City, right?” Vast Cloud asked one of his men.

“Yes, sir,” the man nodded.

“Then keep moving,” Vast Cloud ordered.

But this time, he no longer rode carelessly forward. Instead, he slowed down, studying the landscape around them as they went.

“Something’s wrong,” he said again after a while, halting everyone once more.

“We’ve been walking in circles. Haven’t any of you noticed?”

Realization dawned on several faces. Vast Cloud’s sharp eyes swept the surroundings as he called out loudly, “Whoever is hiding here, show yourself!”

His voice echoed through the empty air, but no reply came.

“Looks like they just want to trap us,” one of the blue-robed soldiers muttered.

“Then we’ll break the formation,” Vast Cloud snapped coldly.

A powerful aura erupted from his body, the aura of an Immortal Monarch.

So that was his true strength. It made sense; if someone like Wu Zhaodi, with her God Meridian cultivation, could be captured, their captor had to be on another level entirely.

Immortal power swept through the air, manifesting as countless blades of wind.

His mastery lay in the Nomological Truth of Wind.

The storm raging around them became his weapon, the sands whirling faster and faster around his body.

“Tempest Rend!” Vast Cloud shouted.

With a wave of his right hand, violent gusts tore through the heavens, uprooting trees in their path.

The warhorses panicked, crouching low against the ground, their eyes stung by the sandstorm.

The violent gales converged on a single point, ripping at the very fabric of space.

“Break!” Vast Cloud roared again.

The void trembled, fissures forming in midair as space itself cracked open.

Just then, a longsword of ice materialized from afar and slashed toward him.

“I knew you wouldn’t just stand by and let me destroy your formation,” Vast Cloud sneered.

He swung his left hand, a palm strike so fierce that the air shattered layer by layer.

“People of the Vast Heaven Imperium, so sneaky and cowardly,” Vast Cloud mocked. “Like rats hiding in the dark.”

“Well now, Grand Tutor, what a temper,” a laughing voice answered from the void.

A moment later, a short old man, barely one and a half meters tall, stepped out from the air.

“Dark Monarch, it’s you,” Vast Cloud said sharply.

“When did you start working for the Vast Heaven Imperium?”

“And how do you know I’m here on their behalf?” the small old man chuckled.

“Who else but the Vast Heaven Imperium would dare fight our Dragon God Imperium for a legacy?”

“Clever,” Dark Monarch said, still smiling. “I didn’t want to be your enemy, but their offer was too good to refuse.”

“Dismiss the formation and let us go,” Vast Cloud said coldly. “Do that, and I’ll forget this ever happened.”

“No can do,” Dark Monarch said with an amused shake of his head. “The Vast Heaven Imperium’s people will be here soon. My job is to keep you busy until then. And since I’ve taken their money, I have to show some professional integrity.”

“Enough talk,” Vast Cloud snapped.

Wind howled around him again as he took to the air, light and graceful like a soaring wild goose.

Wind, gentle enough to carry, fierce enough to destroy.

Countless blades of gale-force energy formed and shot toward Dark Monarch.

But the old man’s figure flickered, and in the next instant, he reappeared elsewhere entirely.

“Pointless, Grand Tutor,” Dark Monarch said with a grin. “Outside this formation, maybe you’d have a chance. But in here, what can you do to me?”

Vast Cloud’s frown deepened. The storm around him grew more violent, sand and wind tearing through space itself.

But all of it was useless. Unless one found the formation’s core, two evenly matched powers could battle endlessly without breaking it.

“Save your strength,” Dark Monarch said mockingly. “You’ll need it when the Vast Heaven Imperium’s forces arrive.”

“Dark Monarch, you think the Vast Heaven Imperium has backup, but you think the Dragon God Imperium doesn’t?” Vast Cloud suddenly said, smiling now instead of scowling.

“What do you mean?” Dark Monarch asked warily. “Trying to scare me?”

“By my count,” Vast Cloud murmured, glancing upward, “it should be about time.”

“Time for what?” Dark Monarch demanded.

But before he could react, the world itself began to shake.

The ground trembled; the sky spun.

Dark Monarch’s expression changed drastically, someone outside was attacking the formation.

Before he could even respond, there was a thunderous boom. A massive explosion tore open the sky, punching a hole straight through the barrier.

Dark Monarch turned pale as a black-robed figure stepped through the rift.

It was a young man, pale-faced, with two sharp horns jutting from his head. His lips and eyes were dark purple, his hair a deep, fiery red.

He exuded an air of unrestrained arrogance, wild and flamboyant.

“The Dragon God Imperium’s Grand Chancellor, Demon Minister Wei?” Dark Monarch asked uncertainly.

“Well, well,” the newcomer said with a broad grin. “Didn’t know I was so famous.”

He held a thin stick, almost like a toothpick, idly picking his teeth as he spoke, completely indifferent.

“You’ve got guts,” he said, smirking. “Making me come out here in person. Do you have any idea what that means for you?”