The Villain Saint is my secondary account

That's fucking weird...

The co-helmsman quickly turned around and climbed over the railing, not daring to think any further. But just as he had stepped halfway over, the oil lamp that had been providing illumination at his waist suddenly went out.

"Grass!"

When the human eye is accustomed to a certain amount of light and is suddenly plunged into darkness, even if that darkness is not truly pitch black, it will still cause temporary blindness.

The co-helmsman's right foot slipped, and he nearly fell off the railing.

Fortunately, he reacted quickly and grabbed the railing tightly with both hands to steady himself.

In the pitch-black rainy night, without any lights, he couldn't find the rope's location. He quickly shook the oil lamp hanging from his waist, hoping to fix it as soon as possible.

Fortunately, the dim light finally came on again, but this time, because he was lying on the railing with his eyes down, he was shocked to see a figure squatting by the railing.

As the second helmsman noticed them, the other person also slightly raised their head.

It turned out to be a little boy with a face covered in mud, holding something in his hands, his eyes peeking out from the shadows, staring blankly at the co-pilot.

There really was a little boy?

The co-helmsman was surprised, but since they had encountered a survivor, he felt it best to offer assistance. So he reached out his hand to the boy, "Come here, I'll take you away..."

Before he could finish speaking, he saw the little boy's entire face emerge from the shadows, revealing the lower half of his face stained with blood.

What he was holding was a human face that had not yet been completely gnawed off.

The second helmsman's eyes widened, and he frantically scrambled over the railing, but the boy on the ground instantly lunged at him like a demon, his mouth full of fangs.

The crew members waiting in the small boat below suddenly heard a heart-wrenching scream from above.

They instinctively looked up, and suddenly a corpse fell from the sky, crashing into the small boat and causing blood and flesh to fly everywhere.

"What the hell!?" "Oh my god!?" "By the God of Light!"

The crew members on the small boat were immediately startled. Some of the bolder sailors recognized the corpse as the helmsman who was waiting at the back. They quickly told the crew to cut the ropes and leave the eerie escort ship.

The small boat, carrying the co-helmsman's body, glided slowly. The sailors struggled to propel the oars, while the timid signalman clasped his fingers together and chanted prayers incessantly.

"May the God of Light protect you, may the God of Light protect you..."

But with his eyes closed, he didn't notice that the co-helmsman's body was slowly bending over in the rain...

……

Half an hour later.

In the passenger cabin of the merchant ship, Ye Xiao, who was fast asleep, was unexpectedly awakened by the sound of loud footsteps outside the corridor.

He turned his head to look at Greta, who was drooling and fast asleep beside him, took the little hand off his neck, carefully got up, covered Greta with a blanket, put on his coat, and went to the door of the room.

Chapter Fifty-One: The Doctor

Pushing open the door, a group of guards hurried past in the corridor.

"What happened?" Ye Xiao asked, grabbing one of the guards in confusion.

As he spoke, he used the raven familiar's vision to observe the situation of the ghost ship, but he didn't see anything unusual.

However, Ella's crows couldn't fly during the torrential rain, so they couldn't see the whole picture. Although they were a species corrupted by Ella, they were only slightly stronger and faster than ordinary crows. In such terrible weather, they could only fly a few meters before being swept into the sea by the gale.

"The captain has summoned us to the deck," the guard replied truthfully to Ye Xiao. "But you don't need to worry, there are still some guards patrolling in the cabins, so you can rest in your room."

"I know the captain quite well, I'll go see if there's anything I can do to help."

Ye Xiao was no longer sleepy, so he simply followed the guards all the way up to the deck.

As soon as they stepped out of the cabin, a fierce wind carrying icy rain hit them in the face; clearly, the storm was much bigger than they had initially observed on deck.

Upon reaching the bow, Ye Xiao saw a row of bodies covered with white sheets laid out on the ground. Captain Castor was smoking a hookah, and the crew had fallen into silence.

"Brother Ye?"

Unexpectedly, Li Cheng was also on the deck. When he saw Ye Xiao, he greeted him familiarly.

"Hey Li Cheng, you're not asleep either?" Ye Xiao patted his good friend on the shoulder.

"Hehe, I was planning to have a few drinks with Miss Kexi in the lounge, but a guard suddenly ran over and asked if there was a doctor." Li Cheng pointed to a woman with long blue hair, wearing a raincoat and squatting next to the bodies.

"Miss Kexi?" Ye Xiao looked in the direction the woman was pointing and recognized her as the one Li Cheng had approached at the restaurant earlier. "You mean this one? Is she a doctor?"

"To be precise, I was a doctor," Li Cheng shrugged. "Later, I found being a doctor too troublesome, so I used my savings to open a hotel in the capital. Then I ran into the imperial selection incident, and I felt uneasy, so I thought about leaving by boat and developing my career in another place."

"You guys are discussing this in quite a lot of detail." Ye Xiao raised an eyebrow. "What happened to the ship's original doctor?"

"The ship's doctor was reported missing. His assistant was a newcomer and quite young. He was completely terrified when he saw the gruesome state of the body."

Ye Xiao nodded, looked around and found that there were still many other passengers watching on the deck. It seemed that the guards' commotion had woken up quite a few people.

After examining the body, Miss Kexi silently covered it back with the white sheet.

"How is it, madam?" Captain Castor inquired.

"The situation is complicated. There are lacerations similar to those caused by wild animal fangs, knife cuts, and even crescent-shaped crushing wounds caused by some human teeth. There are skin and hair remnants in the fingernails of the corpses, although it cannot be confirmed at present, but it is very likely that they also came from these bodies."

Captain Castor looked serious, as if deep in thought. Ye Xiao walked through the crowd and greeted him.

“Mr. Ye,” the captain said, raising his hand in response as he saw Ye Xiao, “I’m sorry to have made you witness such an unpleasant scene.”

"Was it caused by that ghost ship?"

"It has nothing to do with that ship..." The captain, with a hookah between his fingers, exhaled a smoke ring and recounted the search and rescue operation to Ye Xiao.

"When the small boat returned, only three crew members remained. Two were dead, and one had passed out after rowing the boat back to the vicinity." The captain sighed softly. "The last one was barely alive when the doctor's assistant arrived. He uttered one sentence and then died."

"What did he say?" Ye Xiao asked in surprise.

"Mermaids..." the captain murmured, then put the hookah back into his mouth and began to smoke in silence.

"A team of eight in total, so the other five are still on the escort ship?" Ye Xiao rubbed his chin.

“To be honest, I can’t be sure,” the captain said in a low voice. “One of the bodies here belongs to a signalman, so I have no way of knowing their condition.”

"But we can't send another support team either. The meteorologist reported that the storm has already developed into a Category 8 storm, and it will reach Category 9 in at most half an hour. At that time, it will be extremely dangerous for people to stand on the deck here, let alone ordinary small boats..."

"Is your small boat still usable? I can go to that escort ship and look for them."

"...So I suggest the passengers go back to their rooms first, uh?" The captain suddenly paused halfway through his sentence, "No, Mr. Ye, this is no joke!"

"Of course I'm serious. Don't worry, I'm not going to die. I have my own methods." Ye Xiao had Ella draw a portal so they could return to the ship at any time. This storm was a huge threat to ordinary people, but it was nothing to him.

If it weren't for the fact that the crows couldn't fly to the escort ship to serve as a teleportation anchor point in this terrible weather, Ye Xiao wouldn't even need to borrow a ship to teleport there directly using the spatial gate.

But the captain could not possibly agree to Ye Xiao's suggestion, which sounded like he was playing with his life. Ye Xiao wanted to explain further, but suddenly heard a burst of angry curses from the side.

"What are you doing in the middle of the night?!"

Ye Xiao looked in the direction of the sound and saw two noble servants in raincoats walking over, cursing, "By the God of Light, you bunch of bumpkins, don't you know that the upper deck is the noble cabin?? Our master is a light sleeper, and you're making such a racket down there, how is our master supposed to sleep?!"

"what?"

Ye Xiao's lips twitched. He immediately rolled up his sleeves and was about to go over and reason with him when Captain Castor patted his shoulder and then turned around to bow his head and apologize.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, gentlemen. Something has happened here. Please pass on our message to the master. We'll resolve this matter soon."

"A bunch of country bumpkins, their stench can make your nose hurt from far away in this weather. I really don't understand why such a big merchant ship would need to sell tickets to you bumpkins..."

The servant approached with a look of disgust, covering his nose with a handkerchief. The crowd parted, and his gaze inadvertently fell on the body covered with a white sheet on the ground. "...Huh?? What is this? Is this a corpse??"

"By the God of Light! What bad luck, what bad luck! Throw him down right now! What are you all standing there for? Do you want to travel with a corpse...?"

"boom"

With a powerful punch aimed straight at his face, the noble servant's sarcastic voice came to an abrupt halt.

His sunken nostrils gushed out like jet engines at full power, sending two streams of blood spurting out as he flew backward with his tall, thin body.

Captain Castor's eyes widened. "What are you doing?! They are noblemen's squires!"

Ye Xiao also looked surprised, because the punch was not thrown by him, but by the blue-haired girl standing next to him who had just finished examining the corpse.

Chapter Fifty-Two: Second Search and Rescue

"You!!? You damn country bumpkin... Do you even know what you're doing?!"

Another short, stout nobleman's servant pointed incredulously at the girl, but she expressionlessly grabbed his outstretched finger and twisted it casually.

With a cracking sound of bones breaking, the servant let out a pig-like scream.

"Are you sure she's just a tavern owner?" Ye Xiao asked Li Cheng jokingly from the side.

"A part-time job, I guess...?" Li Cheng scratched his head. "After all, our capital is so chaotic, it's normal to know a few tricks up your sleeve."

"Miss Kexi! That's enough, that's enough!" Captain Castor hurriedly stepped forward to stop her, and the girl finally let go of his hand, causing him to tumble and crawl to help his companion who had been punched to the ground, his face contorted in pain as he covered his fingers.

"You barbaric country bumpkin! You're finished, you're doomed!!" The nobleman's attendant, after helping his companion to his feet, continued his threat, "Do you know who our master is? Attacking an attendant is the same crime as attacking a nobleman. You're dead..."

"Who is your master?"

“Our master is an earl of the Kingdom of Dante… Damn it, who are you?!” The servant, seeing another man suddenly step out from the crowd and speak to him, roared in fury, “You country bumpkin, you don’t think you can get away with this just because there are more of you…”

Before the words were even finished, a petite figure burst out of the crowd, and in the blink of an eye, the servant was pinned to the ground by that person.

A small, fair hand emerged from the sleeve of a black raincoat, gripping the nobleman's neck like a pair of pliers.

She was a short girl with a black and white striped scarf covering most of her face under her hood, revealing only a pair of dark gold amber eyes and a few gray hairs hanging over the edge of the hood.

Compared to the short, stout servant beneath her, she looked like a small doll sitting on him. But looking at the servant's fleshy face, which was flushed red from almost suffocating, it was clear that his seemingly delicate hands were incredibly strong.

But more than the other onlookers, Ye Xiao was more concerned about those amber eyes, with their dark pupils narrowed into elongated shapes, unlike anything a human should have.

Dragon Eyes...?

Ye Xiao was puzzled, but before he could see clearly, the voice of the man who had been talking to the short, fat servant earlier rang out again, "Alright, Qina, there's no need to kill him."

As soon as she finished speaking, the amber color in the petite girl's eyes faded, returning to a pair of dark red human pupils.

With a cold gaze, she walked to the side without saying a word and silently watched the short, fat servant lying on the ground, panting heavily.

"You...you..."

"Stop talking about 'you guys,' you just said your master is the Earl of Dante?" The man took off his hood, revealing neatly trimmed short black hair, and then casually tossed a badge onto the ground in front of the servant.

"Dant... I remember it's a vassal state of my duchy? Coincidentally, I'm also an earl of the Duchy of Tedeh. Based on the humiliation you just inflicted on me, sentencing you to death... isn't too much to ask, is it?"

Windsad, Ye Xiao recognized the man as the member of the Principality of Tedeh who had cooperated with Ella.

This guy... seems unusual. Not only is he carrying a strange coffin, but he also has a guard who might be a dragon.

Ye Xiao pondered to himself.

The short, stout nobleman's attendant was stunned for a moment, then tremblingly picked up the badge from the ground. After glancing at it, his previous arrogance instantly turned into fear. Ignoring his injuries, he lay down on the rain-soaked deck and began to kowtow skillfully.

"M-Sir!! I...it was my fault, please have mercy!!"

He was utterly dumbfounded, like he'd seen a ghost. Why would a nobleman be here in the middle of the night with a group of people, looking at a corpse and getting soaked in the rain?!

"Alright, get out of here." Wend pulled his hood up over his head and gave the servant a disgusted look.

After the other party dragged his companion away in a scramble, he walked up to Miss Kexi and said, "Madam, please allow me to praise your actions."

“I simply hate people who insult the dead,” Miss Kexi replied softly.

Councilor Wendt smiled, then turned to Ye Xiao and said, "By the way, regarding the suggestion made by this gentleman earlier, I actually had the same idea."

"Hmm?" Ye Xiao raised an eyebrow.

"Although the situation on the escort ship was perilous, it was a matter of life and death, and on the other hand, it was a very huge potential threat."

"Excuse my bluntness, but the escort ships are all equipped with trained elite naval soldiers from the Loren Empire. If something like that could silently destroy an escort ship, what would happen if it got onto our merchant ship? This storm is clearly going to last for a long time, and if we don't find out the true nature of the danger, the situation may develop in a way that is worse than we imagine."

“But… sir…” Captain Castor stammered, “The guards on merchant ships are limited in number. Although there are quite a few, the ships themselves are too big… and there are even fewer special personnel such as ship's doctors and signalmen. If we were to send more men out…”

He wanted to say bluntly that sending more people out would be tantamount to suicide, especially since once professionals like doctors were all gone, let alone dealing with threats, even continuing normal voyages would be a problem.

“I understand your concerns, Captain. That gentleman just said he would go by ship to investigate.”

Representative Wendt raised his hand and said, “Therefore, my bodyguard and I can also go together to support this gentleman. As you have all seen, my bodyguard is quite capable, and although I am not very strong, I have some knowledge of signaling and the operation of steamships, and can take over the duties of the helmsman and signalman.”

ha?

Now it was Ye Xiao's turn to be surprised. As a grandmaster of swordsmanship, he was highly skilled and daring, and he could return to Ella's portal at will, so he wasn't afraid of any trouble. What was this guy going to do with her? Was he crazy?

Something unusual must be going on. Ye Xiao didn't really believe that this guy wanted to make a contribution to everyone, even though he seemed to be speaking righteously.