The Villain Saint is my secondary account

Ye Xiao then noticed that the back of the wardrobe was actually connected to another room.

However, these interconnected wardrobes don't seem like they're meant for serious business.

"Little Holgard, after eavesdropping for so long, you should be able to decide whether or not to explain to the Knight, right?"

“Lord Asamonte, thank you for your kind intentions,” Holgard’s face was also flushed, “but could we please choose a proper place and sit down to discuss the issue properly?”

Alright, it seems even His Highness the Prince isn't entirely immune to the demon god Slaanesh.

"No way, a soft, big bed is a girl's home."

Ye Xiao and Holgard exchanged a glance, both seeing the speechless look on each other's faces.

But Laxia was unwilling to move, so they had no choice but to communicate in this awkward position.

"You must be the knight appointed by my sister Skadi?"

"Your Highness may simply call me Ye Xiao."

"Ah~"

"...I apologize for deceiving you before and showing you a rude side. I actually had my reasons for hiding here."

"I understand, everyone has their own secrets."

"Mr. Knight, come and explore this little secret of mine."

"Well, the reason might be a bit complicated to explain, it has something to do with our royal bloodline."

"Your Highness, are you perhaps referring to the divine curse within the royal bloodline?"

"Ah~ Mr. Knight's fingers are surprisingly strong."

"Your Excellency Fingers... no, I mean Your Excellency Knight, since you know about this, have you perhaps seen the remnant soul of my father?"

"...Yes, I saw His Majesty once before in the Dead Sea prison in Stormport."

"They have the sea here too, but you'll have to come inside to see it, Mr. Knight."

"Ah ah ah ah ah!!!"

Ye Xiao finally couldn't take it anymore, jumped up, grabbed the blanket next to him, and covered the girl's upper body.

"Ugh! Ugh!" The girl's two slender legs trembled outside the blanket, but the sounds inside finally stopped coming out.

After hastily wrapping the other person in the blanket, Ye Xiao pulled out his belt and tied the blanket around, wrapping the other person up like a loaf of bread with two white silk stockings, and rolled them around on the bed.

“Ugh! Ugh!!”

"Damn! It's so much quieter now!" Ye Xiao wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Ah, um, forgive my rudeness, Your Highness, where were we?"

Chapter Ninety-Four: The Source of the Curse

Without Laxia's interference, Ye Xiao's conversation with the Fifth Prince, Holgard, went much more smoothly.

Holgard was also aware that the royal bloodline contained a divine curse.

“I don’t know if Father told you about this. After discovering the bloodline curse inherited in our family, Father made a pact with an artifact called the Dream God and became its chosen one.”

"He attempted to use the power of the Dream God to perform a purification ritual to remove the curse from his bloodline, but he failed."

Purification ritual?

Ye Xiao remembered that Skadi had also mentioned the name of this ritual, and couldn't help but ask, "Is this some kind of ritual specifically used to remove curses?"

“It can be considered a ritual used to remove impurities from the soul,” Holgard explained, “returning the soul to its original state, cleansing and purifying it, thus becoming a purification ritual.”

"The purification ritual initiated by the power of the gods should theoretically have almost no souls that cannot be purified, but the ritual failed in a strange way."

"Not only did they fail, but my father also suffered a backlash from the insane curse in his bloodline and went insane."

"Wait a moment, Your Highness," Ye Xiao asked in surprise, "Are you saying that His Majesty Harold was also affected by the Mad Curse after that?"

"Yes, madness drove him to see his own offspring as bloodline inheritors who would bring disaster, leading him to attempt to kill me and my brothers and sisters with his own hands."

"In addition, the tyranny and madness that the curse planted in his soul also caused him to commit many sins that a king or even a father should not have committed."

"The royal family was thus thrown into chaos."

“I am not very willing to recall what happened during that time, but the cruelty of a king and father showing tyranny to his subjects and family is unimaginable.”

Fortunately, that terrifying period did not last long, and the effects of the madness and tyranny were limited to the royal family and did not spread to the entire country.

"Later, my father received help from the God of Dreams, and combined with his strong willpower, he was finally able to temporarily regain consciousness one day."

"After regaining his senses, he realized what he had done during that time, and therefore, he understood that he had to do something before he was controlled by madness again and made a big mistake."

"Because this curse originates from the bloodline and erodes the soul, after thinking it over, my father used the secret method of the Dream God to separate the part of the soul that had not yet been eroded from the original body, and then destroyed the part of the soul that had been eroded."

"It sounds simple, but my father paid a huge price for it. His only remaining remnant soul, uncorrupted by the curse, could only be attached to a finger and severed from his original body."

Holgard's explanation of the whole story finally made Ye Xiao understand the cause and effect surrounding the royal bloodline.

The old king I met in the Dead Sea prison was just a remnant of his soul, like a candle flickering in the wind, and there were many things I couldn't explain to him.

"So your brothers were also affected by the curse, becoming like this... uh... evil?"

“That actually happened later. The purification ritual mainly affected my father at the time,” Holgard continued. “This curse is actually a subtle influence on character and soul, unconsciously leading people to negative and brutal behavior.”

"And this curse wasn't extremely strong from the beginning, otherwise the empire would have been destroyed many years ago."

"This curse is related to the deity associated with it. It is because as time goes by, the more deeply that deity is affected by madness, the stronger the curse that accumulates in our blood becomes."

"This is why, with the arrival of our royal family, the upper echelons of the empire have become noticeably chaotic."

Ye Xiao nodded. He had said that if every royal family was this eccentric, how had the empire lasted for so many years?

"The failure of the purification ritual was like a booster potion, greatly accelerating the process by which my father was corrupted by the curse."

“At that time, my brothers and sisters and I were not very old. Although the cleansing ritual did not completely eradicate the curse, it should have had some suppressive effect.”

"But because of the violence and cruelty that my father inflicted on my mother and my brothers and sisters after he went mad, the curse that everyone suffered from is also deepening."

"Therefore, after regaining consciousness, in addition to leaving behind a chance to fight the curse in the future by separating his own soul, the father did something else."

"He sealed your memories?" Ye Xiao realized almost immediately.

“Your Excellency Knight, you understand very quickly.” Holgard nodded. “To be precise, you used the power of the Dream God to tamper with some of our perceptions.”

No wonder Ye Xiao always felt that these royal descendants seemed to have a somewhat vague understanding of their father, His Majesty Harold.

The same thing happened when I talked to Skadi before. She seemed to know about His Majesty Harold's soul being separated, but she didn't know it very well, and she always subconsciously didn't care about it.

Normally speaking, this makes no sense, but now it seems to be influenced by the dream god.

"But after listening to all this, it seems that this Dream God has been helping you all along?" Ye Xiao stroked his chin with one hand and pressed down on the two legs that were moving around under the covers with the other. "I thought the curse in your bloodline was caused by the Dream God."

"No, the Dream God is just a deity that my father invited to help break the bloodline curse. If it were just a curse caused by the Dream God, it wouldn't have lasted for thousands of years, and our generations of royal descendants have tried their best to eradicate it."

"What kind of deity is that, that it could cause such an exaggerated impact?"

"Have you heard of the legend of the Twin Dragon Sword Saints? It mentions that the former king of the empire joined forces with a certain deity to open up the empire's first territory in a continent ravaged by demons."

"I've heard of it... uh, but that deity doesn't seem to be mentioned in the legends, twin dragons... could it be the Dragon God?"

"If it's the Dragon God's curse, then no wonder it's so difficult to deal with," Ye Xiao pondered.

“No,” Holgard shook his head. “Although the Empire’s historical records have intentionally obscured the account of the founding of Loren, simply recording it as such, you should be able to find stories in many places about the Knights Templar fighting alongside the Loren Empire’s army.”

“The Sanctuary…” Ye Xiao thought of the memories of the former Archbishop of the Loren Sanctuary, Evans, on the battlefield in the North, the Battle of Bards.

Indeed, the North is Loren's territory, and the Albert family, to which the Royal Knights Commander Sauron belongs, is the ruling family of the North.

That is still Freya's hometown.

Since Bishop Evans of the Loren Sanctuary and the Knights Templar fought against the barbarians there, it means that they were actually fighting a defensive war for the Loren Empire.

Since the Holy Temple helps the Loren Empire fight against foreign enemies, it means there must be some connection between them...

What is the connection?

Ye Xiao's lips twitched... Holy crap, no way?

Could this curse be...?

“It seems that Your Excellency the Knight has already understood,” Holgard sighed. “This mad curse comes from the God of Light whom the Sanctuary worships.”

Chapter Ninety-Five: Reaching a Consensus

It's really stupid.

No wonder the old king, while in prison, only mentioned that a deity had planted a curse in the royal bloodline, but never specified which deity it was.

Ye Xiao thought that the other party had too many things to explain and didn't have time to explain this matter.

It now seems that the guy deliberately kept it a secret, probably because he was afraid that Ye Xiao wouldn't dare to take on the mission if he found out.

A curse that could drive even the God of Light mad—any normal person who knew this thing was spreading within the Imperial Royal Family would be incredibly brave not to simply flee Stormport by ship, let alone take the old king's finger back to fight against it.

No wonder the old king couldn't defeat it even with the help of the Dream God, and even fell into the desperate choice of separating his own soul and hoping that his descendants would exterminate all the royal offspring to ensure the safety of the empire.

Ye Xiao felt a little numb all over.

However, many things that happened before actually showed signs of being connected to this truth.

Greta mentioned the crazy rumors about the God of Light in the snack shop. The old king also said that the curse in the royal bloodline was mainly because the god who made a pact with the late King Loren had gone mad.

Unexpectedly, they were all referring to the same god.

Suddenly, a sentence that former Bishop Evans Arundel of Loren had once said in Loren Cathedral Square flashed through Ye Xiao's mind:

"The closer you get to the Holy Light, the closer you get to madness."

Ye Xiao glanced up at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and looking at the golden halo, she seemed to see the faceless face of the God of Light.

Now, when he recalls those words, he feels a chill run from his feet to his head.

With the God of Light descending into madness, is the Loren royal family truly the only one affected?

Putting everything else aside, the image of the insane bishop wanting to sacrifice millions of people in the square is still vivid in my mind.

What if one day even the Holy City...?

Ye Xiao swallowed hard; he seemed to have realized a terrifying truth.

“I understand your concerns, Sir Knight,” Holgard continued when Ye Xiaomo remained silent. “I thought the same thing back then.”

"Father used the power of the Dream God to alter our perceptions when we were young, thus delaying the outbreak of the curse. But Mother was old, and her soul had already taken shape, so she could no longer easily change her perceptions. Therefore, she could not withstand such mental pressure and jumped off Valond Falls."

“Since that day, the royal family has completely changed. It’s not just the curse, but also the unknown evil spirits that have taken the opportunity to infiltrate.”

"The eldest brother, Evans, collected the Queen Mother's body and said to have buried it somewhere in the royal city. He would often take the infant princess Erica to pay their respects, but no one knew where they went to pay their respects, and they never told anyone else."

“Occasionally, people would see the Empress Dowager’s figure wandering in the quiet, deserted courtyard.”

"The king's crippled body was helped onto the throne by his second brother, Ken, who seemed to believe that his father was still alive."

"The third brother, Barnard, and the fourth brother, Raymond, often stayed in their rooms and never went out. Sometimes I would see through the crack in the door that they seemed to be communicating with something I couldn't see, something they called 'the teacher'."

"I don't know which ones are because of madness and which ones are because of evil spirits."

“I don’t quite understand why the mad curse in my bloodline didn’t get worse and make me like my brothers. Maybe it’s because I was too young and the shock of my mother’s death wasn’t as great… But the strange things that often happened in the palace frightened me, so I chose to escape and left the palace.”

"After I left, I went far away from the capital. At first, I just wanted to escape, but later, I wanted to find the truth and a way to fight the curse."

"But after so many years, and after a lot of experience, I still haven't found a way to fight against that madness."

“I could even feel those violent and insane thoughts slowly growing inside me.”

"Now, I have some regrets, not about leaving, but about not taking my sister Skadi with me."

“I was so scared back then, and as a result, she grew up in that kind of environment…sigh…”

After listening to Holgard's account, Ye Xiao fell into deep thought.

While winning the royal election and fighting the evil spirits lurking within the royal family are the primary objectives at present, the truly deadly problem is the curse born from the madness of the God of Light.

Ye Xiao's feelings for Skadi are now somewhat complicated. He can't bear to see this girl eventually die because of that curse.

I wonder if Ella's tentacles can lift this curse?

Ye Xiao raised an eyebrow. He himself was quite confused about Ella's origins, as she seemed to have connections with both the God of Life and the God of Light.

Perhaps... we could even contend with it?