The Villain Saint is my secondary account

Ella had touched him enough with her little paws, so she happily withdrew her hand.

Skadi sat back down in the chair behind her desk and sorted through the papers Ye Xiao had piled up. "Sigh, I can't do anything about you two anyway, and it seems that you two are surprisingly well-matched when it comes to being shameless."

"Hehe." Ella smiled shyly.

"I'm not praising you!" Skadi exclaimed, her face darkening. "And Ye Xiao, now that everything is over, can you tell me everything you and Ai... that wicked woman, did during the entire royal selection?"

“Sure.” Ye Xiao naturally wouldn’t refuse, as he had originally planned to tell Skadi the real process of this royal selection.

Don't lie to me this time!

"How could that be?" Ye Xiao chuckled awkwardly.

Then, just like countless times before in the academy lounge, Ye Xiao carried Greta and sat down next to Skadi.

This time, Ella was there too. She sat on the other side of Skadi, pulled the curtains open again, and opened the window.

Then, Ye Xiao slowly began to speak, recounting what had happened so far.

Skadi, as always, rested her chin on her hand and listened quietly.

Listen to those treacherous and cunning conspiracies and games, the unbelievable humanity and gods, and the thrilling adventures in Storm Harbor and Howling Mountains.

Ye Xiao and Ella's plan, the diverse characters among player groups and the imperial high command, the bizarre mystery of Grey Gold Town, and even the Caesar Corporation and the God of Life...

Skadi was immersed in the story's twists and turns. As one of the characters, she never expected that behind the succession to the throne lay such a complex and dramatic plot.

Like gentle streams in a brook, they eventually converge under the warm winter afternoon sun, forming a long and mysterious river of stories—

Sunlight streamed softly into the room through the stained-glass windows, like a golden veil woven by fairies, gently draped over the shoulders of the young girls.

Outside the window, birdsong is melodious, a gentle breeze blows, and clouds drift and swirl in the clear blue sky.

Looking out into the snow-covered garden, in a corner of the bedroom, the fourth prince Raymond sat leisurely by the window. Although the crown had left him, his gaze followed the crows perched on the windowsill, and a faint smile appeared on his lips, as if he were recalling a graceful figure.

Suddenly a gust of wind blew by, and crows took flight, their gaze sweeping across the courtyard and pointing directly into the still-under-repair hall. Duke Holman and Earl Isaac stood side by side, gazing at the magnificent panoramic view of the city below the mountain while engaging in a lively discussion about the grand blueprint for the future of the empire.

Following the spray from the waterfall down to the shore of Mirror Lake at the foot of the mountain, the Fifth Prince, Holgard, leaned alone against an old tree. His eyes were deep, and he seemed to be talking to himself or telling a story to the lake.

Extending along the central avenue outside Mirror Lake, the towering Loren Church stands majestically, where the red-haired priest Chloe, carrying his bag, is conducting a solemn farewell ceremony with Archbishop Holmes.

Inside the Seven Luminaries Society's mansion, Li Cheng and Wen Dao raised their cups in a toast, their laughter and conversation echoing through the hall, accompanied by the flickering flames of the bronze candlesticks.

In front of a newly opened dessert shop on a corner of the street, Lucy Villa held a freshly baked cake in her trembling hands and carefully handed it to Marilyn in front of the counter.

Marilyn took the cake and walked toward Dong Muge and Eunice, who were patiently waiting. Beside them, an exquisitely decorated royal carriage of Aslan slowly drove by. Inside the carriage, Princess Femihill leaned against the wall, her brows still revealing deep thought about the mystery of the recent defeat.

A bustling crowd moved through the vibrant streets, lined with shops and filled with the lively atmosphere of the marketplace.

In a peaceful atmosphere, the story of the imperial city finally came to an end.

End of volume remarks

First of all, as always, thank you all for your support, hahaha!

Unbelievably, more than half a year has passed since the book was first published. The number of subscriptions has grown from a meager fifty to more than two thousand seven hundred. It even won an award in an original writing contest, which is simply unbelievable, hahaha!

I must say, this book wouldn't have come this far without everyone's support! So, once again, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the esteemed readers who have made it this far!

Returning to this volume, as you can see, it is significantly longer than the previous volumes.

This story was actually quite a challenge for the author.

A large cast of characters (don't tell me you can't remember them all, even the author often forgets some characters while writing, hahaha!), the power struggles between various factions, the intrigue between gods and humans, the intersection of the royal selection storyline and multiple hidden plots, and the unveiling of the world's lore...

While ensuring the story's logic is reasonable and clear, it's also necessary to devise ways to create engaging plots.

This volume also features more romantic subplots than the previous volumes, especially in the character development of the eldest princess, transforming her from a "suspected villain disliked by readers" into "one of the most beloved members of the harem"... I must say, the author's brain cells were constantly burning up while writing this volume, hahaha!

With so many complex elements piled up, the article inevitably becomes quite long.

(The author isn't actually very good at writing romance scenes, haha, so I didn't write too much about them in the previous volumes. But seeing the feedback in the comments that everyone enjoys reading about them, I've tried to write more about them in this volume.)

However, judging from the current situation, they have managed to hold up this complex framework and have done their best to present a wonderful story to everyone.

I wonder if everyone is satisfied with this volume? Hahaha!

Of course, the author knows that there are still some plot points that everyone is looking forward to, such as certain indescribable activities (which will appear in the chapters before the second volume, so don't worry, hahaha!), the truth of some things, and the aftermath of the characters, which will also appear in the later volume.

However, I should also give you a heads-up that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, the next volume, Volume 5, will likely be the last volume of this book (tentative, just tentative, haha, not absolutely).

The world-building in this book is indeed quite vast, but it won't be entirely explored by the protagonist. After all, no matter how grand the story, it always takes place in a corner of a world. Rather than having a protagonist forcibly traverse the entire world and break through the void, the author prefers to describe the different experiences of different characters in a realistic and grand world.

However, every story eventually comes to an end, so there's no need to feel disappointed. The author's greatest joy is being able to leave everyone with a wonderful experience through a complete ending!

Getting back to the point, in the next volume, Ella and Ye Xiao will embark on a journey to the Holy City, so it will be a story chapter similar to a road trip.

Places that previously only existed in the background—the Aslan Empire, the Kingdom of Valen, the North, Molten Castle, and so on—will all appear in this volume. There will be many smaller stories, all connected by a grand main storyline.

So, this concludes Volume 4. Thank you all for your company, and see you in the next volume! Hahaha!

Volume 5: Fog and Moon Shadow

Chapter 1 2.0

On the first day of the Holy Month, when Ye Xiao opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the system's azure fluorescent subtitles.

[World Tree system update complete]

The new features "Bloodline System," "Talent System," "Faction System," and "Forging System" are now available.

The "Task System" now includes a new task type: "Faction Tasks".

[Dear players, welcome to version 2.0 of Mortal Empire]

Have a pleasant journey!

"Ah." Ye Xiao, who had finally had a good night's sleep, yawned, got up, and drew back the curtains.

Outside the window, the streets, still adorned with snowflakes, were bustling with traffic, and colorful ribbons clung to the buildings, as if the afterglow of a celebration lingered.

Yesterday, on the last day of the rest month, the new king of the Loren Empire, Skadi Betis, officially ascended the throne.

This time, there were no further surprises. The entire imperial city was brightly decorated, and the streets were deserted as everyone celebrated the birth of the new king.

The much-discussed power struggle within the imperial selection process has truly come to an end, and the capital city is no longer filled with fear. The city's restoration work, undertaken through the paid recruitment of mage students and adventurers, is now largely complete.

The 2.0 World Tree system introduced a bunch of other random features. From then on, the tasks issued by the system had a chance to reward talent points and talent skills, and the shop also had many more options for purchasing professions, bloodlines, and talents.

As mentioned before, depending on the different tasks each player has completed, the available sales options in the shop will also vary. Some items that were previously exclusive to certain regions, such as the Holy Water of the Ocean Sanctuary, are now marked as requiring reputation and gold from the corresponding faction to purchase.

However, based on Ye Xiao's experience in his previous life, the items unlocked at the beginning are usually not of particularly high quality, especially things like bloodlines, which are particularly troublesome to change once you decide to do so.

But Ye Xiao still clicked to browse the store, and to his surprise, it contained quite a few strange and unusual items:

[Item: False Sprout of Life]

[Description: A fake product imitating the Tree of Life, a branch of a false sacred tree, capable of converting life force into impure divine life force]

[Unlock Requirements: 2000 Caesars Reputation]

[Consumption: Universal Points*10000]

[Purchase limit: 5]

Ye Xiao's lips twitched. Although he certainly wouldn't waste his Universal Points to buy this thing, the sheer amount he could buy was a bit outrageous.

We can only pray that this item only appears on his store page and that other players can also buy it, lest something incredible happens again.

[Item: Stormport Ocean Scepter]

[Description: The personal ceremonial staff of the former Stormport Ocean Sanctuary Bishop, accidentally lost in battle. It has an extremely high affinity for ocean magic and water spells.]

[Unlock Requirements: 2000 Ocean Sanctuary Reputation, 1000 Loren Reputation]

[Consumption: Universal Points*2000]

[Purchase limit: 1]

"..." Ye Xiao did have a vague recollection of it; when he fought the fake saintess in Storm Harbor, the scepter Vanessa lent him was missing from the back.

Later, when they were cleaning up the battlefield, they couldn't find it. They thought it had been blown up when the fake saintess's meteor shower blew up the mountain.

I never expected that this system would pick it up.

How exactly did it find this thing?

Ye Xiao stared at the props in front of him, completely baffled.

In addition, there are some bloodline items such as "Hercate's Touch" and "Oshna's Sea People", but Ye Xiao knows too much about the gods behind these bloodlines and really doesn't want to touch them.

After flipping through a few pages, Ye Xiao realized that most of the dazzling array of products on the page were useless to him, except for a few decent talent skills that seemed worth buying.

But having something to sell is better than having nothing to buy, so Ye Xiao decisively bought them all.

The number of talent skills a player can equip depends on the number of classes they have and their class proficiency. Ye Xiao can equip eight, so even though they are just some common talent skills, such as "reduce sword skill consumption by 2%", Ye Xiao bought them without hesitation.

These minor talent skills can be upgraded and fused later, so buying them isn't a waste. Besides, he can equip them all now, which adds to his combat power.

At this point in time, Ye Xiao's development is far ahead of the average player, and every bit of improvement he makes is truly remarkable.

Furthermore, completing the royal selection mission earned him a considerable amount of universal points, especially since the reward tripled when choosing a princess as a supporter. Of course, some of these points would also have to be shared with the unfortunate members of the Seven Luminaries Society who chose other royal candidates, since that was the reason everyone's choices were spread out initially.

Those who choose the wrong mission will be given the bizarre debuff "The Blind Man's Sacrifice," which will halve the rewards for all missions from the "Loren Empire" for the next six months.

However, in return, those who complete the task will receive the item "The Visionary's Insight," which will increase the rewards of all subsequent tasks from the "Loren Empire forces" by 20%. Due to the three-fold coefficient, Ye Xiao's inventory even has a +2 suffix, resulting in a 60% reward increase.

The debuff will disappear, but the item will remain permanently.

On the other hand, Ye Xiao also discovered that he had actually completed 30% of the "Ancient Tomb" task, reaching the threshold for submission.

However, there's no rush to submit this. After all, it's an obvious big task that will earn you a lot of money once you complete it, so you can leave it for later.

In addition, during the imperial selection process, there were a bunch of small tasks from different sources that he himself didn't know when he completed, such as "destroying the Samuel Hermitage stronghold" and "destroying the fake Tree of Life" and other random things, which rewarded Ye Xiao with a bunch of general points.

After finally finishing taking inventory of everything, Ye Xiao put on her coat and left the bedroom.

After leaving the Seven Stars Society's residence, Ye Xiao took a carriage directly to Aslan's embassy in the capital.

It was a small villa located on Central Avenue in Xicheng District, near Mirror Lake. The outer courtyard wall was covered in silver in the winter, but the snow on the road in front of the door was cleared very clean.

Ye Xiao pushed open the car door, and as soon as one foot touched the ground, the gate of the villa suddenly opened. A tall girl with long gray-gold hair, wearing a dark blue short skirt, walked towards the gate under the protection of several guards.

It was Princess Femihir of Aslan. Then, she saw Ye Xiao, paused for a moment, and then showed an angry expression. "Oh, so you're here!"

"Huh?" Ye Xiao looked around in surprise.

"I'm talking about you, Mr. Ye Xiao. You haven't already forgotten our agreement, have you!?"

Chapter Two: Relics

"what???"

Ye Xiao's head started spinning at the mention of the word "agreement," especially coming from a princess.

No way! What kind of ridiculous agreement is this??

He didn't recall ever meeting this princess more than a few times. Was she trying to force him into marriage?

"What are you saying? Still pretending to be stupid?" Princess Femihill's tone was filled with anger.

Upon hearing the angry voice on the other end, Ye Xiao immediately opened the system panel, ready to find Li Cheng and ask him what was going on.

Damn it, how many messy things has this kid been up to behind my back?!

"Don't think that just because your eldest princess has become queen, the duel is off!" Femihir said, arms crossed. "I will make you pay for the swordsman's disgrace tenfold!"

duel?

Ye Xiao was suddenly stunned, and then she finally remembered.

During the academy exams, he had defeated the princess once, which led to her seeking him out. Ultimately, with Skadi as their witness, the two swore an oath to duel again...

Oh no, Ye Xiao has completely forgotten about this.

"Oh!! Hahaha, how could that be! How could I forget such a sacred promise with Your Highness!"

"Hmph, you know what's going on."

Femihill waved his hand, and a guard handed an envelope to Ye Xiao. "I searched the academy for ages but couldn't find you. I thought you were really planning to abandon Skadi's name and leave."