The Reincarnated Villain Can Break the Fourth Wall!

Chapter 256: Inside the Galactic Fringe!

Bang!

Bang!

Twin booms echoed across the heavens.

High above, two radiant stars blazed in the sky, piercing blue and molten gold. Seven moons hung on the opposite side of the firmament, casting shifting shadows over the land below.

This was the Cosmic Isle—

A floating realm suspended between dimensions, where the sacred Star Guardian Tournament was held once every year.

A trial of honor.

A spectacle of power.

A stage where destinies were forged and legends made.

But now?

It had become something else entirely.

"Guardian Guang! Are you alive?!"

A voice rang out—shaken, urgent.

In the heart of a vast forest, Perched atop a jagged cliff, Wings unfurled in a brilliant flash of white light. Descending from the sky was a woman clothed in celestial armor, her presence elegant, and filled with suppressed divine pressure.

Guardian Ye An.

Supervisor of the tournament.

BOOM!

She landed beside a collapsed figure, guardian Guang Huan.

His robe was torn.

Blood stained his lips.

He lay sprawled on the stone, unconscious.

Surrounding them were nine injured participants, their bodies twitching, faces pale, some barely able to breathe.

Nearby, a crater gaped like a wound in the earth, smoking, glowing faintly with residual devastation.

Ye An knelt beside Guang Huan, slapped his face once—

Twice—

A third time.

No response.

Because this wasn't just a battlefield

Everything was being broadcast live to the White Cloud Star.

What began as a competition... had become a massacre.

Somewhere in the white cloud star, audience members were screaming.

Sects were scrambling.

Families were panicking.

Ye An stood.

Her voice, sharp as a divine sword, slashed across the cliff like thunder.

"What happened here?!"

She turned to the surviving participants,

Wounded, trembling, their eyes wide.

Nine survivors.

Hundreds had entered this region!

And one crater too large to explain.

The winds howled.

And none of them spoke.

"G-Guardian Ye…"

Until one of the survivors coughed up blood and raised his head. It was a young man with a cracked blade across his lap, his right arm missing, bandaged with strips torn from his robes.

"G-Guardian Ye…" he coughed, "They weren't… they weren't beasts…"

She turned to him instantly. "Speak."

He winced. "Hunters... Dozens of them. No… hundreds... Coordinated... Disciplined."

Another disciple leaned against a jagged rock, one eye swollen shut. He wore the crest of the Jade Eagle Sect, with tattered blue robes. "Not just ordinary Hunters," he muttered. "They moved like an army. Like they were trained. Led."

Ye An's brows furrowed. "Led? By who?"

A third survivor, taller, gritted his teeth.

He had a proud bearing despite the gashes running down his chest, a red badge hanging from his waist.

Zhao Xun, Third Young Master of the Crimson Hall.

He spat blood and groaned in pain, "A man… tall, armored, half his face like cracked stone. He called himself… General Czaar."

Ye An's expression froze.

Czaar.

That name wasn't in any record.

"What did he want?" she asked.

"To seize the Nebula Gate," Zhao Xun said.

"To break the boundary and march on White Cloud Star."

Another disciple from the Emerald Sound Sect added softly, "He had… banners. Uniforms. He didn't speak like a monster.

He spoke like a commander."

Ye An's fists clenched.

"And Guang Huan?"

"…He fought to hold the Gate," Zhao Xun replied. "Rallied a handful of us. We were too few. He… destroyed the Gate himself,

So they couldn't pass through."

Ye An's heart dropped.

The Nebula Gate… destroyed?

That meant White Cloud Star was safe, but this realm, the Cosmic Isle, was now a sealed hunting ground.

And every participant inside… was prey.

She turned to them sharply.

"Where is this Czaar now?"

None of them had an answer.

One disciple from the Snowtail Clan, a quiet girl with white lashes and bloodstained boots, whispered, "He left after the Gate collapsed… We don't know where."

Ye An's eyes trembled. Then they narrowed into blades.

"You let him go?"

She didn't wait for an answer.

Her divine aura erupted, wings unfurling in a burst of blinding white. Whoosh! And she soared into the sky, a comet of holy fury through the clouds.

Above the Isle!

Boom!

She hovered above, overlooking the vast, fractured landscape below.

Hundreds of sect heirs, young talents, lone geniuses, all trapped beneath her, scattered across this cursed realm.

And somewhere out there…

A corrupted general was hunting them.

She clenched her fists.

Without the Nebula Gate, White Cloud Star was cut off.

Reinforcements couldn't arrive in time.

And Czaar?

He wouldn't waste time.

He'd catch them.

Use the participants as leverage.

Corrupt them, turn them, force them to kill each other.

By the time the Gate was rebuilt—It would be too late.

She stared at the horizon. Faint plumes of smoke rose in the distance.

One by one.

Dozens.

A silent war already underway.

"I swear by the Celestial Oath…"

"Czaar… I'll find you. I'll burn every trace of you from this world."

The wind howled, casting a long shadow across the doomed isle.

The tournament was over.

The massacre had begun.

Everywhere... screams.

Explosions.

Flashes of light.

Horrible, wet tearing sounds.

The Hunter assault was not random.

It was precise, coordinated, and alculated. It was almost as if…They knew exactly when the Star Guardian Tournament would be held.

And worse, exactly where to strike.

Someone… had snitched.

Right now, in a shallow gulley veiled by dense undergrowth, a small group of less than a dozen participants crouched low,

Their clothes torn, their breathing shallow.

The ground smelled of blood and sweat.

The ground smelt burnt spirit stone ash, and around them, death prowled like a starving wolf.

"Ah—"

From deeper in the woods, came another round of blasts, followed by a scream that cut off mid-breath.

"Hold still," someone whispered, a voice calm, commanding.

At the center of the group knelt a tall youth,

spiked blue hair glowing faintly even in the darkness.

His aura was like a frozen blade in the throat.

This was Long Yushen, one of the direct heirs of the Azure Dragon Clan, Known as the Skyfang Prodigy.

Spirit Severing Realm, Initial stage.

His cultivation base carried the pressure of an apex beast barely held back by civility.

His gaze was sharp and emotionless.

His hand rested on the hilt of a jagged glaive embedded with a sliver of true dragon bone.

Around him, the others waited.

A smaller youth with a crimson cape was fidgeting nervously. His name—Zhou Ping, Fourth Young Lord of the Burning Cinder Sect, a fire-path cultivator whose talent hadn't yet caught up with his arrogance.

"This isn't how it's supposed to be," he muttered. "Where are the guardians? The emergency exits? This was supposed to be a test—not a culling—"

"Shut your mouth or I'll stuff it with spirit stones," growled a woman nearby.

That was Wen Luli, senior inner disciple of the Ironclad Lotus Sect, her sleeves scorched, knuckles bleeding, but eyes sharp.

Her Dao was Iron Defense, and she had already shielded two disciples from death—at great cost.

Beside her sat two twins—Ming Kai and Ming Xue, orphans from the Cloud Spiral Valley, dual cultivators of the wind path, known for deadly formation work.

Right now, both were deathly silent, forming talismans with trembling fingers.

"Six groups wiped out," whispered a boy near the edge of the clearing. A nobody from the Rising Dusk Academy,

But today, rank didn't matter.

Blood made them equal.

Long Yushen's voice followed, "They're not hunting. They're looking for someone!"

Zhou Ping swallowed. "What does that even mean?"

"It means," Wen Luli said coldly, "they're here to kill each of us!"

Long Yushen finally stood, his aura slowly bleeding out around him, a wave of blue qi rippling the air.

He glanced at the sky

No signs of help.

"The gate is gone," he said flatly. "No guardians are coming."

Zhou Ping's eyes widened. "What?! How do you kno—"

"I felt the ripple. The spatial anchor collapsed. Someone detonated the Nebula Gate."

The group fell silent.

Zhou Ping stepped back, pale and trembling. "Then… then we're trapped?"

Long Yushen nodded once, his gaze distant, voice steady, "It must be like that... We were never the original target. The Gate was the objective, they used it to breach this realm. Maybe Guardian Huan or Ye destroyed it, now the Hunters are lashing out. Taking out their fury on us…While trying to find—"

"Trying to find... what?"

A voice.

Not familiar.

Calm, and curious, not one of theirs.

Long Yushen hadn't noticed it until now, too focused, and oo deep in thought. Still, he answered grimly, his instincts sharpening.

"They're searching for key individuals. Leverage. Bargaining chips, they'll use them to pressure the Wuxia Province...Their main target must be—"

"Sun Lingxi," Wen Luli cut in, exhaling.

"She's the daughter of the Immortal Emperor. If they get her... it's over."

She paused.

"Then doesn't that mean the rest of us are... safe?"

Long Yushen's eyes turned ice-cold.

"Don't be naïve."

He glared at her.

"Not just her. Me. You. All of us. Don't forget your names, your sects, your bloodlines. Even if you're not useful—you're food."

The group went silent.

Everyone felt it... the pressure.

The doom they'd been trying not to name.

Long Yushen's jaw tightened, he hadn't come to this tournament for honor.

He had come to find Sun Lingxi himself, but how could he, when the world was collapsing around him?

Then—

"Hmm... senior, are you sure about what you said?"

That voice again.

Not one of them.

Yushen answered on reflex, still thinking.

"Not sure. But it's the most likely theory."

"Wow, senior is a genius!" the voice said cheerfully.

"Hmm…" Yushen muttered distractedly,

But his eyes narrowed a second later.

Wait.

Wait.

His instincts screamed.

He didn't recognize that voice.

He didn't recognize the presence.

And he was someone who remembered every aura in a battlefield.

"… Whose voice was that?" he said aloud.