The Villain Saint is my secondary account

The ship has become one with the tree roots, the trunk of which grows on its wide deck, and some abandoned cannon muzzles can still be seen through the portholes on the ship's walls.

For some reason, Ye Xiao felt that the ship in front of him seemed somewhat familiar, but it was so badly damaged that it was covered with moss and roots, and the markings on the bow were so rotten that they were unrecognizable.

There was a decayed hole at the bottom of the cabin, which allowed everyone to climb up and finally escape the icy cold lake water.

There were human skeletons at the bottom of the hold, embedded in the rotting wooden planks, mingled with moss. Because some colorful wildflowers grew beside the corpses, the scene wasn't particularly eerie; rather, it had a strange harmony to it.

As an expert-level elemental mage, Ye Xiao could directly use his magic to separate the water, so he didn't get much water on his body. While waiting for the other knights to wring out their water-soaked clothes, Fisher suddenly tugged at his sleeve.

"Mr. Ye, he's right here."

"He's here?" Ye Xiao was momentarily stunned by Fei Xue's abrupt words, but then immediately realized that "he" might be referring to Prince Aslan.

In this godforsaken place?

Ye Xiao's gaze swept over the moss-covered cabin with surprise. The next second, when he saw the clothes on a skeleton that were not yet completely decayed, he suddenly realized why the ship seemed somewhat familiar.

He had seen it before when he accidentally traveled back in time during the ghost ship incident. It was Edward's pirate ship, the one that kidnapped Prince Aslan!

Chapter Forty-Eight: The Cocoon of Time and Space

It's a shame Ye Xiao didn't recognize it when he first saw it. If it weren't for the slightly recognizable clothes on the skeleton, it would be hard to imagine that a ship he had seen just half a month ago could have decomposed to this extent in such a short time.

After all, it was so rotten that the people inside were all skeletons. It's possible that the ship sank here for half a year.

Ye Xiao looked at the rotten wooden planks on the surrounding ship walls and felt puzzled.

Continuing along the corridor inside the cabin, a damp, fishy smell permeated the air.

The black dog led the group around some thick roots and arrived at a wooden door that was sealed off by intertwined dark tentacles.

"The smell is inside."

The black dog sniffed the door from top to bottom and came to a conclusion.

Ye Xiao glanced at it, then aimed the spellcasting ring in his hand at the tentacle sealing the gate, silently chanted an incantation, and summoned a deep red fireball.

"Didn't you say before that it would disturb the original being that grew these tentacles?"

Seeing this, Reinaldo asked with some concern, "How dare you burn it directly now?"

“We’ve already seen it on other people’s faces, we should have noticed it long ago.”

Ye Xiao looked completely indifferent.

Flames roared, and the dark tentacles turned to ashes and fell to the ground.

The expected commotion did not occur. After the tentacles were burned, the intact parts simply shrank back like earthworms, opening up the previously sealed gate, and then there was no further movement.

Ye Xiao then pushed open the door.

Inside was a small room, like a storage room for this collection, but the boxes and barrels piled up were already rotten beyond recognition, so they probably couldn't store anything anymore.

But what is most striking is the image on the wall: a pale-faced man is entwined by countless dark green vines, resembling a crucified Christ hanging high on the wall.

Beneath its feet, black tentacles and vines intertwined, twisting and contorting in a bizarre way to resemble a crawling human, as if performing some kind of religious ritual.

Ye Xiao recognized the man at first glance; it was none other than the long-lost prince, Verian Aslan.

Miss Fisher, the maid, naturally recognized him as well. She slowly stepped forward and looked at the dense vines and tendrils wrapped around the prince, but she was somewhat troubled.

"These tentacles actually grew from the tree roots?"

Reinaldo said in a low voice.

As he said, some parts of the twisted tentacles and roots are connected to each other, just as the original roots grew and suddenly turned into dark tentacles from a certain point.

This kind of thing that defies common sense is somewhat unsettling to look at.

"There's no need to try to understand how these things exist."

Ye Xiao cautioned, "Thinking about the indescribable phenomena caused by the evil god will draw your soul toward Him and attract His attention."

Just as the doctrine states that comprehending the Holy Light is communicating with the God of Light, comprehending this chaotic thing is equivalent to communicating with the evil god behind it.

The God of Light will bestow the knowledge of holy light, but it's hard to say what the evil god will bring.

Reinaldo quickly dismissed the confusion that had been creeping into his mind, trying to convince himself that it wasn't strange for a tree to grow tentacles.

"cough……"

Just then, a soft cough suddenly rang in everyone's ears.

Everyone immediately looked up and gazed at Prince Aslan on the wall.

This guy is still alive?

"Cough...cough..."

Prince Aslan's eyes were slightly closed, and the sound of his pain seemed to be caused by the tentacles binding his chest too tightly.

"Let's see if we can save this guy first."

As Ye Xiao spoke, he rubbed another fireball radiating high temperature in his palm.

But Reinaldo immediately waved his hand, "Let me handle it. Using fire magic directly might burn that guy up there."

Holy light was equally effective on these tentacles. Reinaldo drew his longsword from his waist, wrapped the blade with holy light, and slashed down at the tentacles covering the wall. It was like a hot knife cutting through butter, easily severing a large number of tangled tentacles.

As the tentacles fell, Prince Aslan's battered body slid off the wall and was caught by two Templar Knights.

The prince's limbs, visible from his sleeves, were covered in bloody marks from being strangled, indicating that he had suffered considerable hardship.

Even so, Reinaldo remained cautious and deliberately summoned a ball of holy light in his palm, pressing it onto Prince Aslan's forehead.

Fortunately, the Holy Light did not cause any harm to the prince, which means that Prince Verian was not a corrupted being.

The black dog sniffed Prince Aslan with its nose, then shook its head. "The source of that scent is not on him."

However, this does not mean that we can be completely at ease. Ye Xiao clearly remembers that Yi Fei said she had seen this prince in the Dark Shepherd's hidden stronghold on the island.

Whether this guy is also a member of the Dark Shepherds, or whether his mind has been corrupted, is still hard to say for the time being.

However, the other party is currently unconscious and the situation is unclear. Since we have seen him, we might as well take him with us for now. This guy is still a very important mission target for both Fisher and Reinaldo's sanctuary.

Anyway, with Reinaldo's men carrying it, Ye Xiao doesn't need to bother carrying this guy.

Next, everyone needs to find the source of the evil spirit hidden here and deal with it.

The evil god's power that controls the corrupted and the tentacles on the island both originate from here. Even if it's not the evil god's true form, there must be something here.

So far, everything has been so calm, which gives Ye Xiao a sense of unease.

"Behind this wall."

After confirming that the aura of the evil god did not come from Prince Aslan, the black dog wandered around the room again, and then fixed its gaze on the wall where Prince Aslan had just been hanging.

Upon hearing this, Reinaldo swung his sword and easily smashed open the already rotten wooden wall.

Unexpectedly, a pile of corpses wrapped in black cloaks poured out of the broken wall hole all at once. Due to the great force of the impact, they even collapsed the entire wall along the cracks in the hole.

The corpses rolled out with a clatter, so suddenly that everyone present was stunned.

"By the God of Light, what the hell is this?"

A Templar whispered.

Ye Xiao frowned and looked over, discovering that the black cloaks were the robes of the Dark Shepherds.

Are all these corpses followers of the Dark Shepherd?

He wondered why it was always pirates and orcs fighting against Theresa's army, thinking that the Dark Shepherd Cultists were all hiding and secretly plotting something. But now he saw that they were all dead here.

why?

The scene before him was utterly perplexing, and even Reinaldo, who had dealt with the Dark Shepherd before, showed a look of confusion on his face.

The black dog climbed up the mountain of corpses, poked its head through a hole in the broken wall, and looked up. "No way, after chasing for so long, this is all we get?"

Curious about what the black dog had seen, Ye Xiao stepped over the dead Dark Shepherds and went to the hole in the wall, looking up.

But what they saw was a hollow tree hole, like the inside of a tree trunk hollowed out by termites, with a huge, dark green cocoon hanging in mid-air.

However, the cocoon had a large hole in it, and it looked shriveled. The unknown thing that was originally inside it had long since disappeared.

"...So what directions did you give everyone?"

Ye Xiao's lips twitched. "Everything inside is gone."

“I assure you, this is the place on this island where His presence is most concentrated.”

The black dog, displeased by Ye Xiao's questioning, stomped its paw on the ground. "My senses can't be wrong, or that guy must have already left... Ugh, why... I... Ugh..."

"What are you doing?"

Ye Xiao looked at the black dog with surprise and confusion. "Did it choke on saliva?"

"No! That's not right... Hey, why!??"

The black dog suddenly rolled on the ground, baring its teeth and showing a pained expression.

"Hey?? What's wrong with you???"

Ye Xiao squatted down and worriedly stroked the black dog's head, but he couldn't sense anything unusual about the dog's body until Greta peeked out from Ye Xiao's collar, looking astonished.

"What's wrong with her, Greta?"

"She...she's dead..."

Greta looked on in rare astonishment and said, "Her soul vanished, along with the threads of her destiny, without any warning, just suddenly... gone."

"what???"

Ye Xiao's throat moved slightly.

After the black dog rolled over and stood up again, the divine aura it once possessed was completely gone, and it had completely reverted to being just an ordinary dog.

It looked at its unfamiliar surroundings and let out a terrified scream.

"Woof woof woof!?"

Chapter Forty-Nine: A Change of Fate

died?

A supreme deity of extremely high status, whose background even includes being a descendant of one of the highest-ranking gods in the present world—the sea god Undine—died without any warning or explanation.

There was no battle, no curse, and the magic in the air was so thin that it was almost imperceptible. What could kill a god so silently, right in front of the original sin demon god Gretia?

Surely it couldn't be that the black dog's soul, in order to reclaim its body, used its willpower to kill the god's soul, could it?

If it's that powerful, this black dog should definitely be a main character.

Ye Xiao looked the black dog up and down, but at this moment it was indeed just an ordinary dog, babbling and sticking out its tongue, looking around in confusion and fear.

"What's wrong?"

Reinaldo wasn't quite sure what Ye Xiao and Greta were talking about. To him, it was as if the black dog, which somehow knew how to speak human language, had suddenly become stupid.

Ye Xiao didn't explain too much to Reinaldo, but continued to examine the strange cocoon hanging in the tree hole. He only found that the material of the cocoon was somewhat similar to tree bark and was not a rare material.

Further searching revealed nothing more noteworthy in the tree hollow, only countless vines and tendrils.

"Zi La"

Just then, a slight sound suddenly came, and a Templar Knight exclaimed in surprise, "Damn it, why are these corpses moving?"

Everyone turned to look and saw the corpses of the Dark Shepherds on the ground suddenly begin to gather into the tree hole like quicksand.

It was as if there was an invisible vortex beneath the tree hollow, sucking these corpses into it.

At the same time, Ye Xiao noticed that the large cocoon on his head was also beginning to collapse, the shriveled outer skin was squeezed together and then gradually became smaller and smaller.

Ye Xiao immediately picked up the black dog, and with his nimble skills, he lightly stepped on the moving corpses a few times, and climbed out through the hole in the cabin wall.

Reinaldo casually fired a holy light bullet at the corpses that had started to move, but the golden ball of light only pierced a fist-sized hole in the chest of one of the corpses before it stopped moving.

The crowd watched as the corpses seemed to be sucked back into the hole in the wall, as if water in a bathtub had been drawn into the ground inside the tree hollow, and then disappeared without a trace.

Ye Xiao leaned through the hole in the wall to check where the corpses had gone, but could only see the intertwined roots on the ground inside the tree hole.

Did the tree eat those corpses as nutrients? Ye Xiao wondered, and at the same time, the cocoon in the tree hole disappeared.

"Something's not right. The fate of this island has changed."