Villain: Manipulating the Heroines into hating the Protagonist

Chapter 904: Weakening the Array Formations

While Wang Jian and his handpicked retinue flew south towards the promise of chaos and treasure, the seeds of a far more insidious threat were quietly taking root within the very heart of the Mystic Peak Sect they had left behind. The Silent Puppet Guild's silent invasion was proceeding with a chilling, flawless precision.

The Flesh-Woven Mimic, wearing the face, the memories, and the authority of the now-deceased Senior Brother Zhao Wuji, had integrated perfectly back into the fabric of the sect. In the weeks following his return, he performed his duties with a diligence that earned him quiet praise, his interactions with his peers a perfect echo of the real Zhao Wuji's personality. No one suspected a thing.

One morning, the mimic received his daily assignment from the Outer Sect's Deacon of Armaments, a stern, harried-looking man named Deacon Li.

"Disciple Zhao," the Deacon said, not looking up from the stack of reports on his desk. "The diagnostic talismans have detected a minor energy fluctuation in the western conduit of the Armory's Earthen Shell defensive array. A variance of less than one percent, but with the sect on high alert, the Elders want all systems at peak performance. Take these calibration tools. Stabilize it. Report back to me when the task is complete."

"As the Deacon commands," the mimic replied, its voice a perfect imitation of Zhao Wuji's respectful, confident tone. It took the pouch of specialized tools, gave a crisp bow, and walked out.

The Outer Sect Armory was one of the most heavily guarded locations in the entire region. It was a massive, semi-subterranean fortress of black, rune-etched stone, humming with the contained power of the thousands of spirit artifacts stored within. Two squads of elite inner sect disciples stood guard at its massive bronze gates, their expressions grim, their spiritual senses sweeping over every person who approached.

The mimic walked towards them with the easy, familiar stride of the real Zhao Wuji.

"Senior Brother Zhao!" one of the guards, a young man named Fen, called out, a respectful smile on his face. "Come to keep the old place from falling apart on us again?"

The mimic offered a wry, familiar smile in return, a perfect copy of the one the real Zhao had used a hundred times before. "Someone has to, Junior Brother Fen. Deacon Li has me chasing down another energy fluctuation. You know how he is. A single mote of dust in an array core is enough to give him sleepless nights."

The guards chuckled. The mimic's casual, perfectly in-character complaint was so believable, so Zhao, that it disarmed any possible suspicion. They nodded respectfully and allowed him to pass through the gates without a second thought.

He walked through the echoing halls of the Armory, his footsteps the only sound, until he reached a small, heavily reinforced door that led to the formation core chamber. After verifying his identity with his disciple token, the door slid open, revealing the array's beating heart.

The chamber was a small, circular room, its walls a solid, seamless web of glowing runes and crystalline conduits through which rivers of pure, golden spiritual energy flowed. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and the low, powerful hum of the Earthen Shell array.

The mimic moved with a calm, methodical purpose. He walked to the western wall, where the conduit in question pulsed with a slightly irregular rhythm. He opened the control panel, a complex lattice of interlocking silver plates and focusing crystals. His task was simple: to slightly adjust the flow rate of three minor crystals to re-stabilize the energy output.

The real Zhao Wuji could have done it in ten minutes.

The mimic, however, had a different objective.

Its fingers, which looked perfectly human, moved with an unnatural, inhuman precision, a speed and dexterity that no Qi Condensation disciple could possibly possess. It performed the required calibration perfectly, the conduit's light evening out to a steady, stable glow.

But then, its work truly began.

Its spiritual sense, a cold, alien thing hidden behind Zhao Wuji's familiar spiritual signature, delved deep into the array's core programming runes. With a touch as light as a phantom's breath, it began to weave a new, infinitesimally small thread of its own unique, Guild-forged spiritual energy into the main runic sequence.

It was a masterpiece of forbidden puppet craft, a parasitic rune cluster so subtle it was practically invisible. It did not disrupt the array's normal function. It did not drain its energy. It did not trigger any of the dozens of diagnostic and anti-tampering wards built into the system.

Instead, it created a "resonance feedback loop."

A tiny, elegant piece of malicious programming that would, precisely at the stroke of midnight, and again at the stroke of noon, every single day, cause the array's entire spiritual detection grid to momentarily de-phase. A flicker. A single, breathtaking, one-second-long blind spot in the fortress's otherwise impenetrable defenses.

It was a flaw so fleeting, so perfectly timed and so subtle, that it would be completely undetectable by any standard diagnostic sweep. It was a secret key, a hidden back door, planted in the very heart of the sect's military might.

The mimic finished its work. It closed the control panel, its movements returning to the normal, slightly clumsy gait of a human cultivator. It had completed its task flawlessly.

It exited the core chamber, the heavy door sealing behind it. It gave the guards at the main gate another friendly, familiar nod on its way out.

"All stable now, Senior Brother?" Junior Brother Fen asked.

"Stable as a mountain," the mimic replied with a confident smile. "She won't give you any trouble for at least a few months."

It walked away, a perfect, unassuming disciple melting back into the bustling crowds of the sect.

It had planted a seed of destruction, a fatal vulnerability that would lie dormant, waiting, until the day its masters decided to activate it. And as it walked, its cold, logical core processed its next objective, its next target, its next act of silent, invisible sabotage.

The horror was not in the act itself. It was in its perfection. The greatest danger to the Mystic Peak Sect was not the armies gathering at its borders. It was the friendly, familiar faces already walking its halls.

Far to the south, the Serpent Scale Soarer descended from the heavens, the clean, crisp air of the high altitudes giving way to something thick, foul, and heavy.

The stench hit them first. It was a nauseating, coppery miasma of blood, rot, and the rank, musky odor of a thousand unwashed beasts. It was the smell of a slaughterhouse the size of a city.

As they flew lower, the sheer, horrific scale of the devastation came into view.

The beautiful, idyllic Green Terrace Paddock was gone. In its place was a vast, churned wasteland of dark, blood-soaked mud and gore. The carefully maintained terraces had been completely obliterated, the fields of precious Spirit Rice trampled into a foul, rotting sludge. The entire valley was a scar on the face of the earth.

The ground was littered with corpses. The massive, mangled bodies of spirit beasts lay in tangled heaps, their strange, multi-colored blood pooling in the muddy craters left by their death throes. And scattered among them, like broken dolls, were the bodies of the Mystic Peak Sect's disciples, their green robes torn and stained a dark, horrific crimson.

In the distance, the constant, deafening roar of the Beast Tide was no longer just a sound; it was a physical pressure wave that vibrated in their bones, a promise of the unending, mindless violence that still raged just beyond the horizon.

Yue Lingshan's hand flew to her mouth, her face pale with horror. Liu Ruyan let out a small, choked gasp, her own heart aching with a mixture of pity and a dawning, terrible guilt. Even Chen Ying's icy composure was cracked, her beautiful face a mask of cold, controlled fury at the sheer, unadulterated chaos of the scene.

Wang Jian's expression, however, was one of grim, focused intensity. His eyes, dark and predatory, scanned the wasteland, not with horror, but with the keen, assessing gaze of a hunter.

"There," he said, his voice a low, sharp command as he pointed towards the east.

Following his gaze, they saw it. Amidst the endless devastation, a faint, flickering shimmer of pale blue light. It was a defensive array, still holding, a tiny, defiant island in a sea of death and destruction.

As they flew closer, they could see the situation. A small, rocky knoll rose from the center of the ruined paddocks, and around it, a powerful, but clearly weakening, defensive shield pulsed with a desperate light. Outside the shield, dozens of hulking, boar-like beasts, their eyes glowing with a feral red light, slammed their massive bodies against it, each impact causing the shield to flicker violently.

And within the shield, huddled together, were the survivors.

It was the young disciple, Li Mei, who had, in a moment of desperate, terror-fueled clarity, saved them. When the main paddock array had shattered, she and the other survivors had been thrown into the maelstrom of the first wave. While others had frozen or fled in random directions, she had remembered a story, a legend told by an old, drunken Deacon about the sect's history. A tale of a past conflict, a hundred years ago, when a small, emergency "stronghold" array had been built around a minor spiritual spring in the very heart of the valley, a last-ditch bastion for a besieged patrol.

Praying to the heavens that the story was true, she had led a desperate, suicidal charge through the chaos, a handful of other terrified disciples following her lead. They had found it, a small, unassuming stone altar, and had poured the last of their Qi into it, activating the ancient, powerful defensive formation just moments before they were trampled into paste.

Now, two days later, they were all that was left. Two dozen disciples, most of them wounded, all of them exhausted, their faces pale and gaunt. Their spiritual energy was almost completely depleted from the constant, desperate effort of feeding the weakening formation. The shield, once a strong, solid dome of light, now flickered like a dying candle flame, threatening to extinguish itself with every fresh impact from the snarling beasts outside. Their hope was a fading ember.

Wang Jian saw it all in a single, sweeping glance.

He guided the Serpent Scale Soarer down behind a high, rocky ridge a few miles from the knoll, concealing it from the sight of the main horde. The moment the artifact touched the ground, the four of them stepped out, the ground trembling beneath their feet from the distant, unending stampede.

The sheer, overwhelming presence of the Beast Tide, the sound, the smell, the raw, chaotic energy of it all… it was far worse up close than they had imagined.

The three women looked to Wang Jian, their expressions a mixture of grim determination, horror, and a dawning awe at the sheer, magnificent chaos before them.

He said nothing. He simply drew his weapon. Not the clean, righteous Glacial Bite, but the cruel, curved demonic saber, its dark metal seeming to drink the corrupted, blood-soaked air, its blade humming with a low, hungry, and deeply malevolent energy.

He led them to the crest of the ridge.

The sight that met their eyes was one of apocalyptic grandeur. The valley before them was not a valley at all; it was a river. A living, roaring, stampeding river of tens of thousands of enraged spirit beasts.

In the center of the horde, a colossal beast stood out, a mountain of muscle and rage. It was a massive, Fourth Grade, three-horned Ironback Bull, its hide like a sheet of dark, pitted iron, its three great horns crackling with a raw, untamed lightning energy. It let out a bellow, a sound so powerful it seemed to shake the very mountains, a challenge to the heavens themselves.

The three women felt a primal jolt of fear at the sight of such a monstrous, powerful creature.

But Wang Jian's eyes… his eyes gleamed with a wild, predatory light. He saw not a threat. He saw a prize.

He turned to the three beautiful, powerful women beside him, a wide, thrilling, and utterly fearless grin spreading across his handsome face.

"Remember the plan," he commanded, his voice a low, excited growl that was barely audible over the roar of the horde. "Capture, don't just kill. Assess their worth."

He then turned his gaze back to the colossal Ironback Bull, his demonic saber humming in his hand, his entire being radiating an aura of absolute, dominant power.

"Let's go hunting."