I Truly Am The Villian

Xu Zimei and Xiao Guizi returned to the inn and planned to leave Mixed Yuan Ancient City.

"Senior brother, are we just going to let the assassination attempt slide?" Xiao Guizi asked in confusion.

"Nobody can escape. It’s just not convenient at the moment, to avoid startling the snake by hitting the grass," Xu Zimei said with a smile, shaking his head.

"Senior brother, do you already know who the assassin is?" Xiao Guizi asked.

"Don’t you have an answer in your heart as well?" Xu Zimei said with a smile.

In the afternoon, the two of them rode the Dark Heaven Tiger and the Green Jiao Horse out of Mixed Yuan Ancient City.

The twilight and the glow of the sunset interwove at the edge of the sky, and the world seemed brighter after a snowfall.

It was refreshingly new, as if it had been washed clean.

On a secluded street in Mixed Yuan Ancient City, there was a small tea stall.

Perhaps due to its remote location, the tea stall didn’t have much business.

An elder sat in front of the tea stall, thoroughly engrossed in a book about tea.

"Grandpa, that brother Ye Lingtian is so pitiful," a small girl with a ponytail and chubby cheeks protested indignantly: "That Ye Family, despite being a big family in Mixed Yuan Ancient City, has no principles in their actions."

"Pitiful?" Hearing the girl’s words, the elder chuckled and shook his head, closing the book and saying, "Qi, you should understand.

Everyone in this world has their own struggles. Everyone is working hard to live their lives; there is no question of who is pitiable or not.

The path one chooses is their own, and no matter the outcome, one must face and accept it with composure."

As he said this, the elder seemed to recall something, sighing wistfully and gazing into the sky with a profound look.

"Elder Yue, brew a pot of Sunsetting Red," a voice interrupted the elder’s thoughts.

"Alright," the elder quickly said with a smile, getting busy.

...

Xu Zimei and Xiao Guizi left Mixed Yuan Ancient City and, after identifying their direction, headed towards the Baili Family.

The snowfall had ceased, and the distant mountains were enshrouded in a vast mist.

In this utterly silent winter, hardly any travelers were seen around Mixed Yuan Ancient City; the surroundings were desolate.

It wasn’t long before Xu Zimei and Xiao Guizi saw a black dot on the distant horizon, growing increasingly rapid.

In the blink of an eye, the black dot had approached close to them.

It was a figure, more precisely an old man.

The old man, clad in a black robe with a stooped figure, stood between heaven and earth; his presence wasn’t particularly formidable, yet it was overwhelmingly oppressive.

"Hand over the Azure Cloud Battle Body Bead and the information on the third Battle Body," the old man said indifferently: "I can make your deaths quick."

"And here I thought the Ancient Nether had been scared out of their wits already," Xu Zimei replied with a smile.

This old man was the very shopkeeper from the Wild Desolation Tavern before.

...

"It seems you lured me here on purpose," the old man said, frowning slightly as he spread his divine soul but did not sense other presences in the vicinity.

As a peak powerhouse of the Saint Vein Realm, he was confident in his own strength.

"You Ancient Nether really have some nerve. The disaster that struck Mixed Yuan Ancient City all those years ago was brought by you, and now you still dare to appear openly in the city," Xu Zimei said.

"So what," the old man shook his head slightly and replied, "Back then, with such a good opportunity, if it hadn’t been for some fools in our clan messing things up, it’s still uncertain who would be the harbinger of this new era."

Hearing the old man’s words, Xu Zimei fell silent for a moment.

Although he had not lived through the Age of Ancient Nether, he had empathetically felt the terror of that great catastrophe through the evolution of the River of Fate.

That was the era of Wild Desolation Monster Beasts, when the human race had no status and Monster Beasts dominated everything.

People often say there are three thousand races in this world.

But the world’s races are far beyond what the number three thousand could summarize.

Perhaps back then, no one truly knew about the Ancient Nether race.

It wasn’t until they secretly gathered strength and eventually re-emerged into the world, launching an invasion over the Yuan Central Continent, that people truly witnessed the terror of this race.

Even the powerful Monster Race had to avoid their sharp edge then, but in the tens of thousands of years of battle resisting Ancient Nether, the contribution of one race was particularly outstanding.

That was the Giants, who were once the second-largest race after the Monster Race during the Wild Desolation era.

Pity that in the battle against Ancient Nether, they spared no effort and, although they eventually won tragically, they almost reached the state of annihilation.

...

The Giants’ strength was reduced to one-tenth, and this recognition was also to honor their contributions to the entire continent.

All the powers of the continent reached a consensus not to kill any of the Giants recklessly.

This rule has been followed to this day, and even after True Martial Great Emperor founded the Era of Emperors, it was not overturned.

However, as time passed, people gradually forgot many of the Giants’ past glories.

Many even started to kill members of the Giants in secret.

Just like before, when Xu Zimei was in the Hundred Thousand Mountains, Chi Qianxue was ready to hunt that Giant for a life-attribute treasure.

...

"I really want to know what backup plan you’ve prepared," the old man’s aura of the Saint Vein Realm’s peak spread out as he said with a faint smile, "What’s your purpose for luring me here?"

"You will know very soon," Xu Zimei smiled.

Beside him, a huge vortex emerged, with a roar that seemed to come from the ancient past shaking heaven and earth.

An enormous Chaos body slowly crawled out of the vortex.

"Ancient Monster Beast," the elder stared fixedly at Chaos, saying with some disbelief, "It’s really hard to imagine that an Ancient Monster Beast could still survive to this day, and is willing to become your Vein Beast."

"Old man, that aura of yours is truly annoying," Chaos replied with an indifferent voice.

For Monster Beasts who had lived through the Ancient Nether era, it wasn’t just the human race they detested, but also the Ancient Nether race.

When Chaos raised its left claw, carrying boundless hurricanes and the space compressed with a "boom" as it struck down towards the old man.

Only then did the elder’s face change drastically, as dark gray Spiritual Energy surged around him, coalescing into a deep-colored gray mist.

As Chaos’s right claw struck the mist, a scream was heard as the mist instantly dispersed and the ground was smashed into a several tens of meters wide chasm.

The elder’s figure had already appeared in mid-air, with his True Fate emerging above his head.

That was also a mass of gray mist, within which red lights were flickering.

Like the Sea of Blood from the hell of the underworld, countless ferocious monsters roared within it, and sharp, piercing screams began to sound.

The mid-air seemed to be reflected in this terrifying gray mist, looking up, the world that was once clear and bright was still unclear, only the gray mist enveloped everything around.