The Villain Saint is my secondary account

"First of all, I must congratulate you both; you made a very correct choice."

Meanwhile, Ye Xiao had already led Henry Morgan and Francis to a secluded corner inside the cave.

"Have you two heard of the God of Life?"

The two looked at each other and shook their heads.

"Is the deity you speak of the one whose name you shouted in the fortress earlier?"

"Ah... no, that is the great demon god of hell, 'Greed'. Although, to some extent, I am also one of his followers."

As Ye Xiao spoke, she noticed that the kitten perched on her collar had proudly raised its neck, looking just like a tall nut.

"It's alright, it doesn't matter if you haven't heard of it, you still know about the God of Light."

The two pirates nodded obediently.

“Very well, then let me tell you all that we are to pledge allegiance to Lydia, the daughter of the great God of Light and the supreme God of Life.”

"Lydia...? Isn't that the goddess worshipped by the Dark Shepherds?"

Morgan quickly realized what was happening.

"No, no, no, that was just an imposter who stole the name of this deity, so you see, I was sent here to deal with the problems that guy caused."

Ye Xiao mysteriously raised a finger, "The one we are to pledge allegiance to is the true 'Lydia,' the offspring of the current God of Light and God of Life, the true God of this world who simultaneously holds the authority of Holy Light and Life."

"How about it? Don't you two feel extremely honored?"

"Honor...honor?"

"Of course, you swear allegiance to me, and I swear allegiance to that god, which is equivalent to you also swearing allegiance to Him. And that god is so great, isn't it an honor for you to be able to swear allegiance to Him?"

"Wait a minute……"

Henry Morgan's lips twitched; he began to realize something was wrong.

However, Ye Xiao clenched his fist excitedly and began to look forward to the future before Morgan could finish speaking. "I never thought that our maritime branch would be able to gather two of the most outstanding figures in the pirate world so soon after its establishment. The future is already bright, and my lord's reputation will surely be further enhanced."

"No, I think there might be some misunderstanding between us..."

Henry Morgan roughly understood that the heir of the pirate king before him had directly recruited him into the cult.

But putting aside the fact that the name of this deity is obscure, the description of his identity alone sounds very strange—"the offspring of the God of Light"? Has the Holy Temple ever recognized such unofficial history? And what about that God of Life? It's a name that sounds very prestigious but is actually unheard of.

With such a bizarre and absurd historical background, what kind of legitimate deity could it be?

In fact, Henry Morgan's reason for recommending the Pirate King was not because he was particularly law-abiding or loyal, but because he wanted to take this opportunity to expand his own influence.

Because of the distant history of the Pirate King, many new pirates are gradually no longer respecting these veteran pirates.

Like Edward, more and more new pirates are now trying to challenge their position.

Today's gathering was indeed unexpected, but Henry Morgan knew that this was not an isolated case. Not to mention the new pirates emerging in other regions, even many of the smaller leaders in his own fleet had recently wanted to set up their own ships.

Therefore, Henry Morgan and Francis secretly plotted in the cave, deciding to take this opportunity to introduce a new pirate king, using his name to expand their territory, recruit more men, and make up for their losses.

As for actually treating the other party like a pirate king and obeying his every command, that's naturally impossible. It's just that he's young and can be fooled.

Unexpectedly, this guy turned out to be a cult leader.

Just as Henry Morgan was struggling with how to politely refuse, his good friend Francis spoke up.

"But I only believe in our Beast God."

The big guy's statement was more straightforward: as a pirate, he still adhered to his basic beliefs as a green-skinned orc.

"It's okay, it's okay, there's no conflict."

Ye Xiao raised his hand and patted the orc on the shoulder, "Lydia is a very tolerant deity. She will not tolerate you just because you also worship other gods."

"But……"

Before Francis could even voice his opinion, Ye Xiao had already familiarly put his arm around the other's shoulder. "And you're very lucky. As the third member of our sect's branch at sea, you will have the honor of having your own divine messenger."

"But I didn't say I wanted to add..."

"Look, the divine messenger has landed on your shoulder, and oh, it has brought a message with it."

Francis turned his head in the direction Ye Xiao pointed and saw a crow perched on his shoulder.

The crow was carrying a small blue object in its beak; upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a projection crystal.

Ye Xiao took the projection crystal from the crow's beak, tapped it twice, and a flashing image was projected onto the stone wall.

The image shows Edward's head, enveloped by a group of tentacles, emitting a heart-wrenching scream.

"I was wrong!!! Please forgive me!!! Please forgive me, ahhh!!!"

The shocking scene made Francis and Henry Morgan pause for a moment, while Ye Xiao calmly said, "Oh, this seems to be an image of him lying to our God and being punished. The God's messenger brought this message to us to tell us that we don't need to worry about this guy anymore."

"Honestly, doesn't this guy know he can't just say things carelessly? He even dares to deceive the gods."

"By the way, Francis, what were you about to say?"

Francis scratched his head and gave a simple, honest smile. "Oh dear, look at my memory, I forgot it all at once."

Henry Morgan, who was standing nearby, almost choked on his breath when he heard this.

You cowardly orc, you surrendered way too fast!?

He was hoping that big, dumb Francis would help him show his refusal, but that coward turned around and defected. How could he dare to refuse on his own now?!

Henry Morgan's face turned pale as he watched the gruesome sight of Edward's head being torn apart.

Edward had just been dominating a group of them, but he ended up in such a miserable state because he offended the god this guy was talking about.

He dared not imagine what would happen to him if Ye Xiao found out that he only wanted to profit by pushing the other party to the position of Pirate King.

"Mr. Morgan, you don't look too good."

Ye Xiao turned her gaze over, "Oh, don't worry, I won't show favoritism. I just said Francis was the third to join because the second one was you, Mr. Morgan! How about that, isn't that quite a surprise?"

Ye Xiao opened his arms and gave Henry Morgan a big hug.

"Welcome to our big family. I forgot to mention that our sect is called the 'Holy Radiance Revelation Society'. Now that you two have made up your minds to join, we will be relying on you for many of the affairs of our Holy Radiance Revelation Society from now on."

Looking at Ye Xiao's hearty smile, many thoughts flashed through Henry's mind. From how easily Edward was dealt with by this guy, to the summoning of that astonishing hellfire that burned back Aslan's army, the image that finally froze on the scene of Edward's head screaming in agony.

Let's just agree for now. This guy's in high spirits, and if we refuse now and anger him, we'll just be asking for trouble.

After some thought, Henry Morgan finally managed a stiff smile and nodded slightly.

"...as you command."

Chapter Seventy: Return to the Underground Lake

When the two big pirates returned, dazed, and distributed the simple doctrines written on papyrus to their underlings as Ye Xiao had instructed, they were unaware of the enormous pitfall they had just stepped into.

The Holy Light Revelation Society, a sect arbitrarily named by Ye Xiao, began to truly sprout from this point on.

Meanwhile, Ye Xiao greeted Dekari and planned to go to the underground lake alone again.

"Before, at least it was a whole team. This time, you're going alone. Is that alright?"

Before leaving, Decari asked.

"To be honest,"

Ye Xiao put his hands in his pockets, "I can perform better without anyone holding me back."

"Fine, I shouldn't have asked you."

Dekari crossed his legs and lay back down in the corner, yawning. "I'll keep watch over things here for you. Have a safe trip."

……

When Ye Xiao went to the underground lake again, he didn't need to walk that rugged mountain road to the mountain village again.

With the raven familiar stationed in the underground lake as an anchor point, Ella, who is far away in the Loren Sanctuary, only needs to draw a spatial portal to bring Ye Xiao to her side, and then draw another spatial portal leading to the underground lake. Ye Xiao can then easily cross a distance of six or seven miles to reach his destination.

As the deep underground lake emerged from the ripples spreading in mid-air, a familiar yet damp scent wafted over.

Of course, there were also those annoying prawns.

However, Ye Xiao was alone this time, or rather, with a cat, but in any case, his agility was not enough to alert these big shots.

Ye Xiao nimbly skimmed over several reefs on the lake and approached the sunken ship that once belonged to Edward.

According to Edward, the entire ship, including its crew, became the object of sacrifice.

However, there was one thing Ye Xiao still didn't quite understand: Edward had only been on the island for half a month, and the sacrifice had occurred within a week.

However, the ship, including the remains on board, was decomposed far too badly. The skeletons scattered throughout the cabins and on the decks showed almost no intact soft tissue.

Even in such a microbial-rich environment, it would take several weeks for a corpse to completely skeletalize, which does not entirely coincide with the time Edward mentioned when the sacrifice occurred.

But the likelihood of Edward lying about this is extremely low.

Ye Xiao followed the surface of the lake and searched Edward's shipwreck again. After confirming that there was nothing of interest, he finally turned his attention to the deep lake bottom.

In the center of the lake, the azure water gradually turns into a deep, dark abyss. This giant lake, hidden beneath the island, seems so deep that it could reach straight to the bottom of the earth.

Even the most arrogant shrimp rarely approach the center of the giant lake, mostly swimming around the perimeter.

"Looks like it's time for your favorite part: diving."

The chubby golden retriever that was lying on Ye Xiao's collar saw what he was planning, twitched its whiskers, and popped out of the clothes on its own.

Given Greta's fastidious nature, she was naturally unwilling to dive into the underwater world, which was full of seaweed and microorganisms.

However, the little one can cast a gravity spell to float on the lake and wait obediently; this is the biggest compromise she can make.

"No, that can't be. It's all because of the pressures of life."

Ye Xiao quickly took off his shirt, did a few warm-up exercises, swallowed a mouthful of underwater breathing potion, tied his staff and sword to his back with strips of cloth, and plunged into the water.

Despite having expected it, the icy cold of the lake water still sent a chill down his spine.

However, thanks to his expert-level control of elemental magic, Ye Xiao used the spellcasting ring on his hand to create a thin hydrophobic film on his body, preventing himself from actually getting wet.

This water film can both insulate against water pressure and reduce the resistance Ye Xiao experiences when moving underwater.

Because now he doesn't need to do any swimming movements, he can simply manipulate the water flow to propel his body down to the bottom of the lake like a swordfish, which is extremely agile.

Then, he summoned a dazzling light from his palm, piercing through the darkness underwater and illuminating the objects hidden within.

In his line of sight, the swaying shadows were mostly just long, intertwined water plants, but Ye Xiao could also occasionally see some pale white bones entwined by those plants, floating quietly in the darkness.

The deeper you go underwater, the more skeletons you find, including not only human remains but also those of some unidentified animals.

It seems that this place was used for sacrifices long ago, and these bones were probably the offerings that were thrown into the lake.

Ye Xiao continued to descend, feeling as if he had already gone down at least a hundred meters, but he still couldn't see the bottom of the lake.

The shimmering light on the lake surface vanished completely beneath the deep water, and the immense water pressure also put considerable strain on the protective water film that Ye Xiao had released around his body.

In the pitch black, only the azure fluorescent light in Ye Xiao's hand remained, as he continued to probe downwards alone in the water.

One hundred meters... two hundred meters... three hundred meters...

This lake, which Edward called "the abode of the gods," seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance.

Just as Ye Xiao was wondering whether he should try to move a diving bell over, a somewhat strange corpse suddenly came into his view.

Unlike the piles of white bones above, this corpse was not completely decomposed, and still had patches of swollen, grayish-white muscle tissue, making it look like a skinned bullfrog.

This was not an isolated case. In fact, as Ye Xiao continued to descend deeper, more and more such corpses emerged from the deep darkness, one after another, and their condition became increasingly well-preserved.

This surprised Ye Xiaoxin. Why did the bodies closer to the bottom of the lake decompose less?

These corpses also defied common sense; instead of floating upwards, they lay quietly at the depth where they were found, like bizarre specimens.

Ye Xiao then used his magic to stop the water flow around him and halt his descent, wanting to examine the strange corpses more closely.

But he suddenly realized that his descent was no longer under his control; instead, he was falling uncontrollably towards the bottomless, dark heart of the lake, like a free fall.

This caused Ye Xiao to fall faster and faster, and countless corpses flew past him like floating bubbles.

He sensed something was wrong, but the suction force from below his body, as if being swallowed by a vortex, grew stronger and stronger, making it difficult to break free even when he activated the Flowing Water spell.

However, Ye Xiao did not panic because of this, and after realizing this, he simply stopped resisting.

After all, if he really wanted to leave, he could easily return to the lake surface in an instant with a teleportation technique. But he wanted to see what this thing that made the bottom of the lake like a flushing toilet was.

So Ye Xiao fell rapidly into the darkness until a faint light flickered out from the end.