The Villain Saint is my secondary account

No, it wasn't a "human" figure.

Ye Xiao carefully examined the object that he had just chopped in two with a single stroke. It turned out to be a large rag doll with steel claws embedded in its limbs and an appearance resembling a wild dog.

Blood was still stained on the wolf-shaped doll's paws. Ye Xiao tilted his head slightly and observed the gate out of the corner of his eye. He saw several guards lying on the ground there and guessed that this thing had probably killed the gatekeepers silently.

Although Ye Xiao cut the thing down with a single strike, its strange ability to conceal itself was actually a great threat in this environment with poor visibility.

If several more were to launch a sneak attack together, even Ye Xiao would find it troublesome.

"You actually killed Peipei!" The girl's childish voice, drifting through the hall, sounded somewhat surprised, then changed to a hint of resentment, "Looks like you're a bad guy!"

Ye Xiaocai ignored the childish remarks, which were like those of a giant baby, and directly used his strength to turn around and cleave the tightly closed door open with a blade of light.

The gate was originally covered by a solid magical barrier, but Ye Xiao cleaved it open with a single, effortless strike.

He didn't actually use much force with this strike; rather, he saw through the fact that the barrier formation hadn't fully formed in such a short time and directly broke through its weak point.

After his physical attributes reached the master level, his heightened perception allowed his grandmaster swordsmanship to no longer be a simple matter of brute force, but also a more delicate and precise micro-management.

This meant that even though his two strikes could kill a mysterious assassin who could hide and conceal his presence with a single blow, and break through a pre-arranged magic array barrier with a single strike, the eldest princess and her guards, whose strength was inferior to that of a grandmaster, could not detect anything amiss.

Some people might not even have noticed that Ye Xiao had just slashed a dangerous dog with a single blow, or that there was a magical barrier set up on the gate.

Ye Xiao then shielded Skadi and urged everyone to evacuate the mansion first.

"Hey! Running away is against the rules!" The voice echoing in the hall turned surprised.

Even though Ye Xiao's strength is already considerable, he would not do something as foolish as relying on his superior martial arts skills to engage in a battle with an enemy whose strength he does not know well without preparation.

Ye Xiao originally planned to bring Skadi along so that she could communicate with Isaac. After all, the eldest princess's status was definitely higher than Ye Xiao's, and only by having her communicate with Isaac could he win her over.

But now that Isaac is in trouble, Ye Xiao's safest option right now is to ensure Skadi's safety and get her out of this dangerous place where the enemy has already laid an ambush.

"No... you don't need to worry about me so much, Ye Xiao," Skadi said softly, feeling a warmth in her heart as Ye Xiao protected her. "I am, after all, one of the top swordsmen in the academy!"

Ye Xiao's two strikes were actually performed with very low force, but they were extremely precise. As a result, Skadi even felt a little ashamed that she had acted far more dazed than Ye Xiao, despite her superior swordsmanship.

Ye Xiao smiled and patted Skadi's little head, "Alright, alright, then we'll rely on you next time, Your Highness."

This brief exchange between the two was just a minor incident; after only a few steps, the group had already retreated back to the vicinity of the carriage on the street.

Skadi quickly boarded the carriage, and the guards mounted their horses as well. But they soon discovered that no matter how they tried to urge the horses on, their legs seemed to be made of lead and they refused to move forward an inch.

"Damn it, why aren't these beasts moving?!" a royal guard cursed as he whipped his horse's rump.

Ye Xiao, who noticed the strange occurrence outside the carriage, frowned slightly as he looked at the deserted end of the street before casually closing the carriage door.

Skadi, who was alone in the carriage, saw this and asked in surprise, "Hey, Ye Xiao, why are you..."

"Your Highness, please wait in the carriage for a while and do not come out." After giving these instructions, Ye Xiao touched the long sword at his waist and walked to the front of the carriage.

The next moment, a deep, husky male voice rang out.

"Hahaha, no way."

"With so many royal guards here, they're all completely disoriented, yet you, a mere brat, managed to spot me?"

In the darkness, a cold glint suddenly shot out from the side.

It was a sharp, thin scalpel, which, in Ye Xiao's blind spot, transformed into a deadly straight line and hurtled toward his neck.

Although nothing appeared in his field of vision, he immediately sensed the faint air currents stirred up by the blade as it was about to hit Ye Xiao's throat.

In the nick of time, he reacted quickly and blocked with the hilt of his knife, barely managing to knock the hidden throwing knife down from mid-air.

"Good skills, kid."

"You flatter me, old man."

Ye Xiao narrowed his eyes, staring at the tall, thin figure in a black tuxedo and top hat who slowly walked out from the shadows at the street corner.

It was only then that the eldest princess's guards noticed that there was actually someone hiding there.

They drew their spears and swords, glaring angrily at the slowly approaching figure.

But the other party didn't seem to take those guards seriously at all. Instead, he looked at Ye Xiao and asked with some curiosity, "Hey, I've never heard of the First Princess having a guard with skills like yours?"

No sooner had the man finished speaking than another languid voice rang out from a building on one side of the street.

"This is really troublesome. Why are there so many people again?"

"If only I had gotten more holy blood from that stingy old woman, sigh."

"Oh dear, it's all your fault for running around everywhere." The cloaked girl who had been lurking in the hall of Isaac's mansion appeared at the mansion's entrance. Her eyes, hidden in the shadows under the hood, stared at the guards on the street with a hint of helplessness. "Wouldn't it have been better if you had just obediently let me kill you? Now I'll have to give away all my system rewards."

"Who are you?!" the royal guards standing at the head of the convoy shouted angrily. "Do you know that you are attacking a royal convoy?!"

Ye Xiao raised an eyebrow. Why couldn't he have thought of those extra lines that the royal guards were reciting?

Should he learn to say things like "Stop! You're violating imperial law!" or "If you don't back down, I won't let you off the hook!" to lower his profile and avoid being constantly bothered by princesses, countesses, or young ladies?

However, to be fair, these three guys are indeed quite strange.

Especially the last thing the cloaked girl said... "System reward"?

These three obviously odd guys are actually players?

Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Outsider Player

Based on Ye Xiao's understanding of players, combat strength is basically reflected in the arena rankings.

But clearly, Ye Xiao had never seen these three players in the arena before.

Something unusual must be going on. When it came to this strange "player," Ye Xiao immediately thought of "Zhu Jun" and "Dong Muge," whom he had encountered in the Sharp Howling Mountains.

Ella had seen Zhu Jun through the eyes of the Raven Familiar when Aslan's player guards entered Greygold Town last time.

Clearly, this situation suggests that there are some special players.

Although the origins and purposes of these players are currently unknown, and it is also unknown whether Zhu Jun is in the same group as them, after all, even Ye Xiao in his previous life did not have a deep understanding of the World Tree System.

But since the other party has kept such a deep secret and has done so much behind the scenes to influence the Royal Selection and Grey Gold Town, there must be some secrets worth exploring.

Ye Xiao was somewhat relieved that he hadn't completely revealed his strength. Otherwise, if the other party had observed him and realized he wasn't someone to be trifled with, they might have all run away and hidden themselves away. Who knows when they would have discovered these guys' secrets again?

Just like when Ella passed through Grey Gold Town, there was no trace of "Zhu Jun" at all, and the whole town looked perfectly normal. If it weren't for Aslan's group of player guards accidentally entering Grey Gold Town, Ella probably wouldn't have known that the town was hiding so many strange things.

With this in mind, Ye Xiao roughly formed a plan.

He immediately turned to the captain of the guards beside him: "Captain, something is wrong. We'd better find a way to protect His Highness and get him out of here."

"This is my command area, it's none of your business to interrupt." The captain of the guards gestured to his men to form a battle formation around Skadi's carriage. "Royal Guards, prepare to take down these reckless fools who dare to provoke the Imperial Family!"

Ye Xiao shrugged. He had roughly expected the captain of the guards' answer. There were more than a dozen royal guards in formation here. In the captain's opinion, there was no reason for them to be chased by a mere three people.

Ye Xiao stopped trying to dissuade him and instead stepped back to Skadi's carriage, mounting the horse that was connected to it by the reins.

His words weren't actually meant to protect Skadi's evacuation, since with him around, Skadi certainly wouldn't encounter any danger.

His main purpose was to find a reason to get the other royal guards out of this mess as well.

In this brief standoff, white mist began to gradually rise from the street.

This was not just some kind of illusion spell appearing in their location. From the perspective of the raven familiars that Ella had spread throughout the city, the entire imperial city could be seen being gradually shrouded in fog.

In mid-October, the climate in the mountainous region of Walund is prone to fog at night.

After a moment of silent confrontation, the moon's silvery glow was obscured by layers of clouds in the night sky, and the swirling mist drifted by like a veil of white gauze.

At the end of the road, the figure wearing a top hat suddenly disappeared into the mist.

The next moment, a cold glint appeared, and the sharp throwing knife transformed into several crescent moons, slicing past the front row and heading straight for the captain of the guards' throat.

However, the guards responsible for protecting the eldest princess were elites in the palace, and even the captain of the guards saw the trajectory of the flying knife in an instant and immediately swung his sword.

The clang of metal against metal caused a flash of sparks to appear in the darkness.

He deflected both throwing knives, but one of them still grazed the skin on the captain of the guard's jaw.

A streak of blood trailed along the shallow wound. The captain of the guard touched the throbbing spot and only now began to feel a sense of horror.

Just now, Ye Xiao casually deflected the flying knife that attacked him from the shadows without warning, but now that it was his turn, he almost didn't react to the three bright flying knives thrown at him.

"Hey... how come everyone can block two of my knives?"

The deep, weathered voice rang out again, and at that moment, the tall, thin figure in a tailcoat suddenly appeared before the captain of the guards.

The royal guards who were still stationed at the front line were all startled when they heard the voice behind them and turned around in unison.

But their momentary distraction prevented them from noticing the silhouette that suddenly appeared in the fog above their heads.

"Here comes the teddy bear~" The cloaked girl's teasing voice echoed in the night sky.

When the giant teddy bear falling from the sky was reflected in the pupils of the front-row guards, their fate was to be smashed into mincemeat.

But at this critical moment, Ye Xiao's figure suddenly flashed out in mid-air, instantly intersecting with the giant bear.

With a flash of light, the teddy bear, which had fallen with the force of a thousand pounds, was cut in two.

The gravity magic surrounding it suddenly collapsed, and the bear's head and body turned into two rags filled with cotton fluff that rolled to the ground.

"Hey!! Why are you only targeting my dolls?! Aren't you going to care about the other two?!"

The cloaked girl standing at the entrance of the mansion was stomping her feet in anger.

Ye Xiao certainly didn't just abandon the situation; he simply wanted to let these royal guards experience the pressure from the other side.

But he certainly wouldn't stand idly by if the giant bear were to fall and cause widespread casualties.

Although, theoretically, the safest approach might be to sit on the sidelines and watch the royal guards test these guys' methods with their lives before making a move, like those classic villains do.

Unfortunately, Ye Xiao still couldn't quite do this. Even though Ella, who shared the same origin as him, was the ultimate villain of this world, he couldn't do the things that only villains would do.

Having just slain the giant bear, Ye Xiao immediately turned around.

"I didn't expect the knight to have the leisure to be considerate of others. Well, your princess is... sigh!" The middle-aged man in the top hat in front of the captain of the guard was halfway through his sentence when his gaze suddenly fell on the cloaked figure still squatting on the eaves of a building on the side of the street. "Hey, why don't you do some work?!"

"Ugh...what a nuisance." Only then did the other person lazily stand up, revealing a long, jet-black sword beneath the slightly fluttering hem of their cloak.

Ok?

Ye Xiao felt that the knife looked familiar, but in the pitch-black night and surrounded by fog, he couldn't see it clearly for a moment.

The next moment, the man gripped the hilt of his knife, and a phantom image of an eagle suddenly appeared around him.

The eagle spread its wings and soared into the sky, carrying the figures in a sudden arc across the battlefield, heading straight for the eldest princess's carriage.

Wow, this guy can actually fly?

Ye Xiao raised an eyebrow and quickened her pace toward the carriage.

But the next second, a cold glint flashed in his peripheral vision.

Ye Xiao immediately turned his head, dodging the flying knife that was heading towards his temple in a split second.

Immediately afterwards, a tall, thin figure emerged from the mist, wielding a scalpel, and thrust it straight at Ye Xiao's brow.

Ye Xiao parried with his sword, but his steps faltered slightly as a result.

"Now that you've left, don't even think about going back, Sir Knight."

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Hunter and Prey

A sinister smile crept across the tall, thin figure's lips beneath the brim of his top hat, but after a moment, he did not see the panic he had imagined on Ye Xiao's expressionless face.

On the contrary, the chilling killing intent emanating from those cold eyes made him feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

A swordsman is someone who excels in close combat.

No matter how high a rank you reach, the limitations of your class and skills will always leave you with some unavoidable shortcomings.

One of the weaknesses of swordsmen is their lack of ranged attack methods.

Ye Xiao's mage skills haven't reached a certain level yet, so if these guys are all far away and just running around in the fog, kiting and killing the surrounding guards, he'll really have a hard time dealing with them.

The grandmaster's sword strike, capable of unleashing a sword aura that could sweep across an entire street, was a bit too imposing. Among the group of guards here, it was hard to say how many of the other princes were spies. Revealing unnecessary information might put them in a passive position later.

He couldn't reveal his trump card at any time, but he also couldn't kill all the guards because of this.

Therefore, Ye Xiao deliberately did not display any particularly strong strength, just to wait for an unlucky guy to get close to him.

With patience, bad luck will eventually come knocking on your door.

Like now.