I Really Am A Villain

Yin and Yang, these two forces represented the balance of all power. The black and white dragons coiled around each other like an enormous rope, their overwhelming force plunging down from the heavens. Everything in their path was obliterated. Finally, the twin dragons crashed into Xu Zimo’s body, and an immense pressure spread across the sky, swallowing everything in its wake.

“Back away!” spectators shouted in panic.

People retreated in haste, but those too slow to evade were instantly erased by the shockwave. Even a mere ripple from the blast carried the might to annihilate a Saint, so one could only imagine what kind of force Xu Zimo, caught in the very center, was enduring.

A deafening explosion thundered through the air. Many instinctively sealed their hearing, for the roar was unbearable. The forms of the black and white dragons gradually merged, channeling every ounce of their destructive might into a single dive. A towering mushroom cloud erupted into the sky.

“He… should be dead, right?” Flame Sovereign muttered uncertainly.

Everyone stared toward the spot where the cloud boiled, but it refused to dissipate. The black smoke continued to churn and spread.

“There’s something wrong with that cloud,” someone said suddenly.

“That’s not smoke from an explosion, it’s demonic energy! That mushroom cloud is formed of pure demonic energy!” another exclaimed.

The Five Elements Saint Sovereigns all sensed the anomaly. The five quickly withdrew. Within the storm of dark energy, a figure began to appear, Xu Zimo.

He had unleashed the Hell-Suppressing Demon Physique. Towering waves of demonic energy surged skyward, as if threatening to devour the heavens. His entire being radiated demonic might. His eyes glowed with pure demonic fire; violet runes crawled down from his neck across his body. Even his weapon, the Shadow Tyrant, pulsed with malevolent energy, roaring and trembling in resonance.

The power didn’t stop there. The demonic aura around him burst upward, flooding the sky.

The heavens had changed again, once filled with the blazing fire of the sun, then with the primordial chaos of the Primogenitor Feather, and now, ruled by demonic will.

Xu Zimo’s gaze swept across the battlefield. He was no longer just a warrior, he was a Demon King incarnate.

“Kill him!” the Five Elements Saint Sovereigns roared in unison.

Their combined elemental forces converged again, forming another pair of yin-yang dragons that dove from the heavens to devour him.

Xu Zimo only sneered. “So this is all you’ve got left?”

“Ten Forms of Demon, First Form: Realm Demon. No boundaries, no limits, where illusion becomes divinity.”

These Ten Forms of Demon were techniques passed down from the previous Infernal Lord. Xu Zimo had rarely used them, his other divine arts were already enough to dominate peers within his realm. But facing five Saint Sovereigns whose powers intertwined and counterbalanced one another, he decided it was time.

This first form embodied the pinnacle of spatial control.

With a flick of his hand, the very fabric of space split in two. Above him, the yin-yang dragons roared violently, but above the Five Elements Saint Sovereigns, an identical pair of dragons appeared, descending toward them with unstoppable fury.

Everyone watching froze in disbelief.

“It’s… an illusion?” said the Wood Sovereign first.

“Have you ever seen an illusion this real? This powerful?” Flame Sovereign shouted, feeling the crushing pressure of the dragons’ descent.

“Move! Get away!” he yelled, but it was already too late. The range of the attack was too vast; escape was impossible.

Twin explosions detonated simultaneously, one over Xu Zimo, and one over the Five Elements Saint Sovereigns.

The black dragon tore apart the clouds, its energy sweeping across the entire battlefield. The clash of the five elements met itself in a storm of annihilation.

The screams of the Saint Sovereigns rang out as they were engulfed. The assault had come too suddenly for them to muster their defenses.

When the fury finally faded, the battlefield was in ruins. The Five Elements Saint Sovereigns lay broken and bleeding on the ground, even the Wood Sovereign, usually the healer, completely drained of life force.

“At best… it’s mutual destruction. He can’t have survived that either,” Flame Sovereign rasped, forcing the words out through pain.

They turned their eyes toward Xu Zimo’s side, and froze.

The yin-yang dragons that had fallen upon him were gone. Xu Zimo stood unharmed.

“Fourth Form, Celestial Demon.”

Power surged around him as he raised his hand. It was as if he held heaven and earth themselves, as if he could pluck stars from the sky. When the twin dragons lunged toward him, he reached out, and grasped them.

The mighty dragons struggled, their pride as divine forces defied, but in Xu Zimo’s grip their resistance was meaningless.

“Futile,” he said coldly.

With both hands, he crushed their throats, then struck forward with a single blow.

Boom!

Their heads exploded into mist. The overwhelming force that could annihilate mountains had been snuffed out as if it were nothing.

“Do you have any other tricks?” Xu Zimo said, his voice steady, contemptuous. “If not… you’ll have no chance left.”

The Five Elements Saint Sovereigns glared back, gritting their teeth. After exchanging a look, they all nodded once.

They raised their palms, releasing five lights, each representing an elemental color.

“Five Elements As One, Saint Phenomenon!”

Their bodies went still, life extinguished as they fell where they stood. Yet at the point where their powers converged, five-colored radiance erupted, and from the fusion of their energy, a figure slowly emerged.

“Th-the Five Elements Saint Sovereign…?” Even Shangguan Xiongba, watching from afar, stammered in shock.

The Five Elements Saint Sovereign had once been the pride of the Shangguan Heavenly Clan, the one most likely to ascend to Infinite Dao. Though the later generation had revived five separate Saint Sovereigns, they were merely fragments of the original.

The true Five Elements Saint Sovereign had once embodied all five forces in one body, Earth, Fire, Water, Wood, and Metal, perfectly balanced. That was the Sage Monarch. That was true power.

None had expected that the fusion of these five would resurrect the original being.

This secret, perhaps, was known only to the five of them.

“How many ages has it been…” the figure murmured as he stepped forth.

Five lights, each color of the elements, flowed across his body in perfect harmony, as though heaven itself had decreed that this was the natural order of things.