The Villain Saint is my secondary account

If so, this underground area is practically a giant natural maze.

He shouted twice upwards, and while waiting for the other players from the Seven Stars Guild to descend, he took a few steps around with the Radiant Stone Staff, briefly surveyed the surrounding area, and then surprisingly found a dirty cloth bag in a corner.

Li Cheng walked over, first poked the cloth bag with a twig, and then picked it up. Unexpectedly, the bottom of the cloth bag had rotted through, and with a soft clatter, the contents fell to the ground.

Xiao Deng and the other players climbed down using ropes and saw Li Cheng crouching in the corner, so they gathered around to investigate.

"Boss, have you found anything?"

"Look, these should be the water and food redeemed from the system shop?" Li Cheng said thoughtfully. "It's a bit strange. The bag is here, but there's no person or corpse in sight."

"Maybe he accidentally left his bag behind?"

"Hmm..." Li Cheng remained noncommittal, rummaging through the miscellaneous items into his bag and then tying a knot around the perforated part of the cloth bag. "Brothers, help search other places. Lao Hu, use the SMS crystal to ask the Holy Maiden if we need to continue exploring these holes in the rock wall."

“Okay.” The player known as Lao Hu fiddled with the crystal, while the others began to spread out and explore the cave.

The light emitted by several pyroxene rods illuminated the underground area, allowing the players to divide the search and thus increasing their efficiency considerably.

"The Holy Maiden said it's not necessary, just go up after you've explored this area." Old Hu quickly brought Li Cheng Ella's reply.

"How considerate, Your Majesty." Li Cheng grinned foolishly, then caught a glimpse of a dark shadow flashing past in a cave on the wall. "Hey, did you guys just see that thing?"

"What?" The player next to him leaned over to look at the small hole that Li Cheng was pointing to, and raised the sapphire rod, but could only see that the small hole was pitch black.

“There’s something in there.” Li Cheng frowned slightly and poked it with the branch in his hand.

With a soft "crack," the tree branch was suddenly snapped in two.

"Holy crap." Li Cheng pulled his hand back from the half-broken branch. "Did you see that? What was that thing just now? A fish?"

"That was a bit too fast," the player next to me said, scratching his head. "What kind of fish crawls in a hole...?"

"Hey boss, I found something too." Xiao Deng's voice suddenly came from another corner. He held up the object and shone it with his sapphire rod. "This looks like... shh..."

"Are you peeing here? What are you peeing about?" Li Cheng walked over, took the thing from Xiao Deng's hand, and looked at it.

It was a faded sachet, and the delicate characters embroidered on it were mostly worn away, with only a few simple letters faintly visible.

"Shh... Shelley?"

"what!!!"

Suddenly, a mournful wail echoed through the cave, making everyone's hearts skip a beat.

"Hey, what's wrong with you!?"

"My feet! My feet!!!"

Li Cheng quickly grabbed Xiao Deng's arm and looked down amidst the other's cries of pain. He saw a dark figure, about the size of a rat, flash by.

He shone the pyroxene rod on his companion's leg, where the trouser leg had been torn open by something unknown, and the flesh and blood on the calf was a blurry mess. From the gruesome wound, one could even vaguely see the deep white bone.

"Holy crap." Li Cheng hurriedly took out a healing potion from his spatial ring, bit off the stopper, and poured it on the horrible wound.

As the potion touched the wound, a bright red mist of blood spread across its surface. Li Cheng quickly helped Xiao Deng back to the cave entrance they had come from, and shouted to the other players nearby, "This place is weird, let's get out of here!"

After saying that, he wrapped the rope around his wounded companion and shouted towards the top of the cave entrance, "Hey! Brothers up there, pull down the rope, someone's injured!"

"Hello!? Can you hear me??"

However, there was only deathly silence above the cave entrance.

"Hey!? Your Majesty, can you hear me!?"

Freya!?

"Greta!?"

With a soft "thud," the rope connecting to the ground suddenly fell from the hole, leaving only a smooth half-section.

"What's going on..." Li Cheng reached his hand into the cave entrance, but after only half of his arm was inside, he touched the hard rock wall. "Huh?"

He groped around in disbelief, but it seemed to be a groove in a boulder, solid and not a hole at all.

How can this be?

Li Cheng was stunned. He immediately turned his head, wanting to ask Lao Hu if he could contact Ella using the SMS crystal, but all he could see was darkness.

The only thing still shining was the pyroxene rod he held in his hand.

All those players, and all those glowing sapphire rods they were holding, seemed to vanish in an instant.

……

At the same time, Ella, who was waiting by the big tree, suddenly felt that the position of the "fishman" she had enslaved had changed instantly. One second it was only about ten meters underground, and the next second it suddenly went deep into the ground, nearly a hundred meters underground.

"Li Cheng!?"

Ella immediately realized something was wrong and hurriedly ran towards the large tree hollow. At the same time, the little maid beside her shouted, "Saintess of Light, be careful!"

As the words fell, a barely perceptible ripple swept through the air and suddenly sliced ​​into Ella's snow-white neck.

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Plot to Slay the Gods

Blood splattered, and the silver-haired girl's eyes were filled with astonishment as the world spun around her.

But dark tentacles quickly emerged from the severed neck, forcefully grabbing the head that had detached from her body and shoving it back onto her neck with a "whoosh."

Ella staggered a few steps before straightening up. If it weren't for the fine tentacles wriggling at the seam of her neck, repairing her broken skin, it would have seemed as if nothing had happened.

"Holy crap?" Upon seeing this, Greta used an interjection she'd picked up from who-knows-where to express her surprise. "What is this?!"

"We meet again. You really are a monster." A sarcastic voice rang out, and a man dressed in a black ceremonial robe slowly emerged from the mist in the woods, a smile on his face. "Do you still miss me?"

Ella looked at the newcomer, tilted her head, and stroked her snow-white neck, its smooth surface now completely undamaged. "You are... the Crescent Priest who appeared in the Sanctuary dungeon before? I remember you should have been imprisoned in the prison tower?"

"Hehe, I am not very talented, but I have a little bit of self-preservation ability." The Priest of the Crescent Moon smiled slightly, his Adam's apple bobbing, his voice, which was meant to be relaxed, was actually a little trembling.

“This time, I should be able to kill you completely.” Ella frowned slightly, raised her arm, and several huge, dark tentacles burst out of the ground in an instant.

"Wait, wait, wait!!!" The Priestess of the Crescent Moon frantically waved her hands and shook her head from side to side. "I'm not fighting you! Where is that? Holy Maiden, where are you!?"

As the words fell, a girl with black hair and blue eyes slowly walked out of the mist.

Wearing a long black dress adorned with crimson silk ribbons, the black-haired girl's face was exactly like Ella's, the only difference being her pair of deep blue eyes.

Greta seemed to have anticipated their arrival and stepped in front of Ella and the other players.

“Wow, little one,” the Priestess of the Crescent Moon said with a mocking smile as she saw the little girl in the maid outfit dare to step forward. “This isn’t the place for you to show off…”

Before he could finish speaking, a bolt of dark lightning shot from the fingertip of the "little one" he was referring to, instantly transforming into a zigzag line in the air and striking right in front of him.

At the critical moment, a golden magic circle unfolded in front of the New Moon Priest, blocking the tiny lightning bolt. After a thunderous explosion, the magic circle shattered.

There was no earth-shattering force, but after this clash, the air in front of the Crescent Moon Priest was like a shattered mirror, and the view through that position was also broken into pieces.

"Huh?" However, the Crescent Moon Priest, who had reached the transcendent realm, was dumbfounded when he witnessed this scene. He already understood that if that little lightning bolt had hit him, he would probably have been reduced to ashes.

“Hey,” Greta frowned, turning her face slightly towards Ella behind her, “Are you really the Holy Maiden of Light? How come the authority of the God of Light is also in that guy’s hands?”

"You've stumped me with that." Ella shrugged, raised her hand slightly, and dark black sludge emerged from her palm, gradually coalescing into a long knife.

The rest of the players and the Templar Knights retreated slowly behind the tree, knowing that they probably couldn't help in the battle.

“I’ll handle the ‘little one’,” the black-haired girl said with a smile, patting the Priestess of Crescent Moon on the shoulder. “The Holy Maiden of Light will be on your shoulders.”

"Huh, wait a minute? Wasn't this what we agreed on before?"

"You don't need to beat her, just stall her for a minute."

"Are you kidding me?!" The Priestess of the Crescent Moon, seeing the black-haired girl and Greta vanish into thin air, leaving only the murderous Ella before her, looked as if she'd swallowed a fly. "Damn it, I risked my life to hold her off for even a minute?!"

The next second, Ella's ghostly figure flashed in front of the New Moon Priestess, and the blade in her hand, carrying black flames, suddenly slashed through the New Moon Priestess's body.

Not to mention a minute, in just a second this poor thing was cut in two.

The Priestess of the Crescent Moon's expression immediately turned to despair, until, in her vacant pupils, tiny specks of white light appeared.

His demeanor seemed to undergo an indescribable change suddenly, and his body, split in two, floated in mid-air. Pure white moonlight spilled from his seven orifices like blood, enveloping his broken body like a pale cocoon.

"Boom-"

It seemed as if a dull bell suddenly rang out in the mountains and forests. What was once a clear daytime sky was now covered with patches of black fungus, which gradually eroded the sky and formed the abruptly descending night.

A huge, bright moon rose from the ground, its enormous size resembling a giant meteorite about to crash into the earth, making the entire mountain appear tiny beneath it.

“Moon Goddess.” Ella recognized the poignant and mysterious aura, her gaze turning cold.

"To deal with your avatar, I have no choice but to go all out." A gentle yet cool female voice appeared in the sky, seemingly coming from all directions, or perhaps just from everyone's mind.

The body of the New Moon Priest gradually shattered and dissolved in the white light. He was directly used as an expensive sacrifice, becoming a medium for the Moon Goddess to interfere with the mortal world.

Ella slashed a black, fiery blade at the crescent priest's mangled body, but the body was easily reduced to ashes, like a cicada shedding its skin after fulfilling its purpose, and there was no point in destroying it.

"The divine kingdom cannot banish you from this world, but in a moment, it will destroy everything here except you," the moon goddess said in a gentle voice, as if telling a simple story.

As those gentle words fell, the moonlight that fell from the sky enveloped the entire earth, and everything seemed to begin to fade like ink, gradually dissolving into that radiance.

Even though Ella possesses three divine powers, it is only the power that she can wield as a chosen one.

She still cannot fully comprehend the methods used by the gods.

The world seemed to be dissolving. The players by the tree, the Templars, and even Freya were horrified to find their bodies gradually disintegrating in the moonlight, melting into a pale expanse.

Although Ella realized that she was not affected by the strange moonlight, she had no idea what to do to stop it.

The deity had only a voice and no physical form, yet the moonlight that affected the entire earth originated solely from that enormous moon.

She couldn't very well fly up into the sky and cleave that enormous moon in two with a single stroke.

The silver-haired girl bit her lip, and in the end, she could only take a gamble, silently summoning the Gate of the Abyss in her heart.

If they cannot defeat the enemy, they can only try to protect their companions from this catastrophe brought about by the gods.

Black sludge surged out from under her skirt like a tsunami, spreading in all directions. Freya, along with a group of players and Templar Knights, whose bodies were gradually dissolving beside the big tree, were indeed no longer decomposed after being enveloped by the sludge.

However, Ella's expression grew increasingly serious.

If she didn't understand why Li Cheng and the others were suddenly teleported hundreds of meters underground before, now she completely understands.

This is a trap set for her. If she wants to save the people underground as well, she will have to activate the Abyss Gate with all her might, so that the tentacles can break through the earth and bring the "Land of Life" that can protect everyone from the influence of the Moon Goddess's Kingdom underground.

Although she didn't understand what would happen if she did this, it was clear that the fake saintess had sent Greta away, and the moon goddess had come in person with her followers as sacrifices—all of this was to make her do this.

She already understood the other party's scheme, but even so, she did not hesitate at all.

The silver-haired girl knelt on both knees, her palms pressed against the gray-yellow earth.

Accompanied by a lifelong cry, countless enormous tentacles sprouted from the churning mud, burrowing straight into the thick ground.

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Third Body

"I don't believe you would risk abandoning your incarnation to protect the mortal beings."

"But now it seems that the saintess was right."

An unstoppable torrent of black silt swept across the land, its churning tentacles digging deep into the ground, even penetrating hundreds of meters of rock.

Underground, Li Cheng was still supporting the injured Xiao Deng against the cave wall, the sudden moonlight melting their bodies.

A bone-chilling cold spread throughout his body. Li Cheng, who had fallen into despair, watched as his palm, like ink soaked in water, slowly melted into the glowing air. The dark tentacles then broke through the solid rock above their heads, pouring a torrent of mud over them.

The same situation occurred to every player of the Seven Stars Society who were scattered underground. Like tree roots that grow deep into the earth's crust, a huge number of intricate black tentacles occupied the underground for hundreds of meters.

Li Cheng felt his body enveloped in mud, yet a warm sensation flowed through his limbs and bones.

As darkness enveloped him, his heart, which had been pounding, eased slightly, for he knew that the Holy Maiden had made her move.

The mud carried the people buried deep underground back to the surface. Li Cheng struggled to stick his head out and saw a huge moon hanging in the sky. Below, a silver-haired girl in white stood with her hands behind her back on the dark earth. As always, her crimson eyes were slightly narrowed, and she gave him a playful smile.

"I told you, I would protect you."

Li Cheng smiled subconsciously, "Saint..."

Before she could speak, a sharp twig suddenly pierced through the girl's chest from behind.

As the blood gushed out, that beautiful smile seemed to be frozen on her face forever. The girl's figure, like a broken doll, was lifted off the ground by a tree trunk that suddenly grew out of the ground.

With his eyes wide with rage, Li Cheng roared and reached out his hand, but just before losing consciousness, Ella flicked her finger, and the black sludge wrapped Li Cheng back up as he tried to rush out.

In the last moment before his vision was obscured by the black mud, Li Cheng only saw the figure of the silver-haired girl hanging on the towering tree that had suddenly grown out of nowhere, with a huge bright moon and an endless night sky behind her.

……