I'm a villain, not a devil

"Have you received the mission?"

'Sean' looked up at his companions, and they all nodded.

"The immortal body at the bottom of the lake..." The studio boss Lao Niu touched his chin, "The mission description is just a few sentences - the immortal body that is addicted to the bottom of the lake, he is the source of countless sins and disasters... just this one sentence? And the word "沉溺" in "沉溺" is a typo, right? Shouldn't it be "沉眠"?"

Lizi came over and said, "Have we all received this quest? It looks like a world quest, maybe the beginning of the main storyline?"

"I guess... Hey, could it be that it was triggered because Qingming was killed by some unknown existence just now?"

"It's possible. It could be the activation condition. The monster that stole Qingming's blood might be related to the immortal body. By the way, where is Qingming?"

As a group of people were looking for it, Qiu Qingming ran out. He waved as he ran: "Fuck, I seem to have died many times in a row, but I don't know why. Am I cursed?"

The others were also confused: "You died at the respawn point too? Curse or something, is there a debuff on the panel?"

"No, and it's so strange. I feel a little dizzy."

Sean looked him over and immediately shook his head: "It doesn't matter. There's no death penalty anyway."

"Fuck, Master, you are too ruthless!"

"Nonsense, it's just a game. Let's go and do the mission."

Qiu Qingming looked confused: "Mission, what mission?"

The others looked at each other, then 'Sean' asked, "Didn't you get the mission? The one that just popped up."

"What the hell? No."

After showing each other, Qiu Qingming suddenly wailed: "Damn it, why? I didn't get this task!"

The members of the studio are all veterans of the game. Egg Tart held his chin up and thought: "It may be related to your constant deaths... Maybe the debuff that is not displayed is related to the task we received. When one of us completes it, maybe your debuff will be removed."

Qiu Qingming was dumbfounded: "No way? Then I won't get the mission reward?"

"Anyway, this game can be shared. Okay, stop procrastinating and start the mission! We are not afraid of death anyway, so we can just give him all our lives!"

When Lao Niu shouted like this, a large group of people immediately rushed towards the lake in a noisy manner.

The remaining sun-chasers were confused - why did these mentally ill clones act collectively again?

Brother Dao made a gesture to Skinny Monkey, who immediately followed him. However, he came back after a while.

"How about it?"

The skinny monkey looked confused: "I seem to be lost..."

"get lost?"

"Yeah, I followed them and got lost for some reason. I kept going around in circles...it seemed like I couldn't get out." Skinny Monkey said in disbelief.

His companions looked at each other in bewilderment. The skinny monkey was the best explorer in their team, while the group of abnormal clones were at most a group of strong ordinary people. There was no way they could shake off the skinny monkey...

Dao Ge's expression suddenly became serious: "Be careful, this place... has something strange..."

……

In the bizarre etheric layer, Sean finally approached his target.

It was a big tree, growing at an angle of forty-five degrees on a plane. The plane was very thin, about half the size of a football field, and seemed a bit cramped compared to the trunk and crown of the tree.

When he got closer, Sean could see that the plane tilted at 45 degrees was actually an eye. The pupil of the eye was lake blue, and the iris was a pure, empty pale white.

The roots of the tree are firmly planted in the center of the eyeball, growing out in a strange posture.

Although the etheric layer has all kinds of unimaginable strange scenes, and it is often difficult to correspond with reality, the moment Sean saw the tree, he had a feeling that this was the etheric body he was looking for.

As the distance got closer, this feeling became stronger.

"The World Tree?" Sean frowned slightly.

Although there are many differences in details between it and the projection of the World Tree that he had seen before, the etheric body that can give Sean such a strong intuition can probably only be brought by an existence of the level of the World Tree.

Whether it is the evil god, Jehovah, or the Id religion, the information Sean collected shows that the World Tree has entered the stage of recovery.

This towering tree, called mother by the tree people, was originally cut down by the people it protected, and its trunk was probably divided up and used in various places.

But ever since the tree people began to set foot on this land, the World Tree seemed to have entered a stage of recovery.

Later, Sean even harvested two tree hearts from the World Tree's instinctive reaction.

One of them appeared from nowhere after the black pigeon prison spread its wings and flew away. What was strange was that the tree heart automatically split into two halves. One half should have gone to chase the black pigeon, and Sean remembered clearly the direction in which the other half flew. It was the direction of the imperial capital.

However, the tree people seemed to have anticipated this and left a team behind to intercept half of the tree heart and wanted their prince to absorb it, but it was intercepted by Sean in the end.

Sean had always wondered why that half tree heart flew towards the imperial capital. Now it seems that the tree heart was looking for the emperor.

After all, the emperor's hand is exactly the same as the hand of the prisoner in Black Pigeon Prison.

Similarly, the second tree heart that Sean obtained came from the emperor. To be precise, it was given to Bai Zhan by the emperor. Since Sean killed Bai Zhan, the tree heart naturally belonged to him.

However, where the emperor's tree heart came from is worth discussing.

But based on the current situation, the World Tree seems to have always been playing the role of a tragic victim. If those who are kind-hearted are people, they will probably feel a lot of sympathy for the World Tree's experience.

But if the etheric body in front of us is related to the World Tree, then wouldn’t the identity of the World Tree become strange again?

and many more……

Sean found that he seemed to have overlooked one point. Even if the revived consciousness of the World Tree targeted himself, it seemed normal.

After all, he seems to always be doing things that only villains would do.

"Noah, are the scan results in?"

"Cannot scan. This etheric body is completely blocked from my scan."

A higher level...

At the same time, Noah also reminded: "Master Saint III, please be aware that most of that etheric body is not within my scanning range. If there is a problem, the data node I implanted in your consciousness may be disconnected from my main control system, which will cause you to be lost."

"learn."

Sean didn't stop, but slowly floated towards the big tree.

Although there are dangers, Sean's Heart of Deception is a conceptual ability. Once the deception is successful, it will not be seen through. He does not have to worry about entering the etheric layer as a living etheric body and being besieged by unknown creatures.

In addition, the direct entry of the etheric body of a living being and the presentation of the etheric body of the corresponding living being in the real world in the etheric layer are two different concepts.

Normally, the etheric body should be chaotic and without independent consciousness.

This gave Sean a lot of confidence. Of course, since he had the courage to come in, he naturally had enough backup plans.

As Sean's thoughts continued to flash, the edges of his etheric body also began to flicker, which was the fluctuation caused by thinking.

However, the fluctuations that should have attracted countless attention now only appeared as energy flows in the etheric layer.

Just like that, the strange etheric creatures wandering around the big tree basically ignored Sean and allowed him to come to the bottom of the tree roots.

The roots of the tree penetrated deeply into the center of the huge eyeball, but when standing on the iris, one could not see what was so peculiar about the eye.

As he was almost in closest contact with the huge tree, a strange feeling arose spontaneously. For some reason, this seemingly motionless tree seemed to be looking at Sean with countless pairs of eyes.

Sean placed his hand gently against the tree trunk.

This is the etheric layer, it should be untouchable...

However, as soon as this thought came to his mind, Sean felt as if his hand was placed on a rough and old cowhide, which felt very solid.

“Is this tree actually real?”

Sean frowned, hesitated slightly, and began to think again.

If it is a physical entity, it will be even more troublesome. If you continue, you may encounter many unexpected troubles.

only……

His eyes turned and the corners of his mouth rose slightly.

As long as your body stays quietly in the real world, you don't need to worry about your retreat being deprived by some unknown existence.

"call……"

The etheric body cannot breathe, but Sean still took a long, deep breath, then grabbed the bumps on the bark and put one foot on the trunk.

He wanted to go up and see if there was anything else in the lush tree canopy.

……

"Is this the only lake nearby? Haha—damn, the water is quite sweet." A tall man nicknamed Water Master was emerging from the blue lake.

"Don't even mention sweetness. Even if this lake is filled with Taishan juice, I can't drink it." The heroic and cute looking Pear was half lying on the grass by the lake, looking exhausted.

It's not their fault. After all, they are still ordinary people. It's really too much to keep diving and searching.

Even the 'players' who didn't know what fatigue was, were now out of breath.

Not only that, each of them died more than three times - there were many strange fish in the lake with mouths bigger than human bodies. Many times, they felt a black screen in front of their eyes when they were halfway through swimming, and when they woke up, they were in the hibernation room.

"This is not a solution. The danger in this lake is much greater than we imagined..."

"We have to find some new way. Otherwise, we should go to the village chief and ask them if they have any other ideas."

"I just said... Hey, they're here."

Several people by the lake looked back and saw that the group of people who had been caught in the fish's belly were running towards them from the direction of their birthplace.

The leader, the old cow, rubbed his head and said, "That's strange. We looked around but couldn't find the village chief and his friends. Aren't they usually standing by and watching us work?"

'Sean' followed behind him: "It seems that the NPCs in this game still have a lot of bugs. We still have to rely on ourselves."

"What are you afraid of? At worst we can feed all those fish monsters. We don't need any lives anyway."

"That's right."

After spending quite a bit of time, the few people started over again and dived into the water again.

'Sean' pushed aside the water plants at the bottom of the lake, and suddenly, he had a feeling.

It seemed like a kind of intuition, but also like the guidance of fate. He couldn't help but look at a corner at the bottom of the lake.

He made a gesture to Qiu Qingming, the strongest among them but the only unlucky guy who had not received any mission, and swam upstream first.

After waiting for a while, he sneaked in again and saw Qiu Qingming waving excitedly.

found it? !

He quickly called on others to swim towards Qiu Qingming.

The group of people expended a lot of effort and then collapsed on the shore.

At the end, Qiu Qingming followed breathlessly, dragging 'a person' along.

He stood up and asked curiously, "Is this the body?"

Sean shook his head. "How can an immortal body be a corpse? I have a feeling this is the quest item we are looking for."

"But, there is no task completion instruction popping up?" Lao Niu and Shui Lao Ye were both checking their system panels.

Indeed, that mission is not yet complete.

Meanwhile, Egg Tart and Pear were turning over the face-down immortal body at the bottom of the lake. They had never been afraid of such things.

However, with a "thump", the two girls fell to the ground at the same time.

"What's wrong?" A group of people looked over and saw Pear and Egg Tart pointing at the immortal body in horror, and even shifting their fearful gazes to Sean.

Me? Sean looked puzzled.

Li Zi finally spoke in panic: "Sean, how come this immortal body at the bottom of the lake looks exactly like you."

Hearing this, the remaining few people hurried over.

As expected, when several people saw the face of the immortal, they were so scared that they quickly took a few steps back and looked at Sean in shock.

"Fuck, it's exactly like you."

Sean frowned and walked over dissatisfiedly: "I scanned the face to create the face... Shit, this game won't randomly choose one person's character settings and put it into the plot? This is too unlucky..."

Walking to the side of the body, 'Sean' paused.

"This is..." His eyes were full of shock.

At the same time, suddenly, everyone looked up into the air.

Just now, the system panel rang.

"Mission accomplished! Rewards are being distributed..."

A group of people looked at each other in confusion: "Is this done?"

Suddenly, Li Zi screamed, "Where's Sean?"

In the blink of an eye, Sean, who was alive and well just now, disappeared, and a mass of flesh and blood appeared on the ground, which was constantly wriggling, and the flesh and blood was dissolving rapidly like butter in a hot pan.

The only thing left on the ground was the immortal body that looked exactly like Sean.