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..." Studio BOSS Lao Niu touched his chin, "The mission description is just a few words - the immortal body drowning at the bottom of the lake, he is the source of countless sins and disasters... That's it One sentence? And the word "chen" is a typo, right? "Shouldn't it be "chenmian"?

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

"I guess...hey, is it possible that it was triggered because Qingming was killed by some unknown entity just now?"

"It's possible, maybe because of the opening conditions. The monster that stole Qingming's blood is probably related to the immortal body. Speaking of which, where is Qingming?"

A group of people were looking for it, and Qiu Qingming ran out from inside. He waved as he ran: "Damn it, 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 also died at the respawn point? Curse or something, is there a debuff on the panel?"

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

'Sean' looked him over, then shook his head: "It doesn't matter, there is no death penalty anyway."

"Damn it, Master, are you too ruthless?"

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

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

The rest of the people looked at each other, and then 'Sean' asked: "Didn't you receive the mission? The one that just popped up."

"What the hell, no."

After showing each other, Qiu Qingming suddenly started to cry: "Damn, why, I didn't receive this task!"

The members of the studio are all veterans of the game. Dantao held his chin and thought: "It probably has something to do with you being dead... Maybe the debuff that is not shown is related to the mission we received. When someone among us completes it, , maybe your debuff will be lifted.”

Qiu Qingming was dumbfounded: "Isn't it right? Then I won't be able to get the mission reward?"

"Anyway, this game can be shared. Okay, don't procrastinate, hurry up and complete the mission! Anyway, we are not afraid of death. We will give him all our lives!"

As soon as Lao Niu shouted, a large group of people headed towards the lake noisily.

The remaining Japanese pursuers were confused - why are these clones with abnormal brains acting collectively again?

Brother Dao gestured to the thin monkey, and the latter followed immediately. However, he came back after a while.

"How about it?"

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

"get lost?"

"Yes, I followed them and lost them for some reason. They were going in circles...as if they couldn't get out." Thin Monkey said in disbelief.

His companions looked at each other in confusion. Slender Monkey was a good explorer in their team, and those clones with abnormal brains were at best a group of strong ordinary people, and there was no way they could get rid of Slender Monkey...

Brother Dao's expression suddenly became serious: "Be careful, this place... is weird..."

…

In the bizarre etheric layer, Sean finally got close to his goal.

It was a big tree, growing diagonally at a forty-five-degree angle on a flat surface. The flat surface was very thin, about the size of half a football field, and seemed a bit cramped compared to the tree body and crown.

As he got closer, Sean could see that the 45-degree slanted plane was actually an eye. The pupil of the eye was lake blue, and the iris was a pure and empty pale white.

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

Although there are all kinds of unimaginable and weird scenes in the etheric layer, and it is often difficult to correspond to reality, the moment he saw this tree, Sean had a feeling that this was what he was looking for. That etheric body.

As the distance got closer, this feeling became stronger.

"The World Tree..." Sean frowned slightly.

Although there are many differences in details from the projections of the World Tree that he has seen before, the etheric body that can give Sean such a strong intuition may only be brought by existences at the level of the World Tree.

Whether it is the evil god, Jehovah, or the Self Cult, the information Sean has 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 trunks were probably divided and used in various places.

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

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

One of them appeared from nowhere after the Black Pigeon Prison spread its wings and soared. What is a little weird is that the heart of the tree automatically split into two halves. One half should be chasing the Black Pigeon, while the other half is flying in the direction Sean remembered clearly that that was the direction of the Imperial Capital.

However, the tree people seemed to have expected it, leaving the team to intercept half of the tree heart in order to be absorbed by their prince, but in the end it was intercepted by Sean.

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

After all, the Emperor's hand was exactly the same as the hand of the prisoner in Black Dove Prison.

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

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

But according to the current situation, the World Tree seems to have always played the role of a tragic victim. If those with good intentions, they will probably have a lot of sympathy for the experience of the World Tree.

But if the etheric body in front of him is related to the World Tree, then the identity of the World Tree will become strange again?

Wait...

Sean found that he seemed to have overlooked a point. Even if the consciousness of the World Tree revived to target him, it seemed normal.

After all, he seemed to have been doing things that only villains would do.

"Noah, are the scan results out?"

"Cannot scan, the etheric body is completely blocked from my scan."

Higher level...

At the same time, Noah also reminded: "Saint Three, please note that most of the 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 loss."

"Understood."

Sean did not stop, but slowly floated towards the big tree.

Although there is danger, Sean's deception heart is a concept system ability. After 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 encountering unknown creatures.

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

Normal, the etheric body should be chaotic and without autonomous consciousness.

This gave Sean a lot of confidence. Of course, he had the courage to come in, so he naturally left enough backhands.

As Sean's thoughts kept flashing, his etheric body also showed a flickering appearance at the edge, which was the fluctuation caused by thinking.

However, the fluctuation that should have attracted countless attention now only showed the appearance of energy flow in the etheric layer.

In this way, the strange etheric creatures wandering near the big tree basically ignored Sean and let him come to the bottom of the tree roots.

The roots of the big tree were deeply embedded in the center of the huge eyeball, but stepping on the iris, the strangeness of the eye could not be seen.

Almost touching this huge tree at the closest distance, a strange feeling came to mind. For some reason, this seemingly motionless tree seemed to be looking at Sean with countless eyes.

Sean gently put his hand on the trunk.

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

However, as soon as this idea came up, Sean felt that his hand seemed to be placed on a rough and old cowhide, which felt very rich.

"Is this tree actually real?"

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

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

But...

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

As long as his body stays quietly in the real world, there is no need to worry about being deprived of the retreat by some unknown existence.

"Huh..."

The etheric body cannot breathe, but Sean still took a long deep breath, then directly grasped the bulge on the bark, and stepped on the trunk with one foot.

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

...

"Is this the only lake nearby? Puff - Damn, the lake water is quite sweet." The tall man nicknamed Mr. Water was emerging from the blue lake.

"Don't say it's sweet, even if this lake is full of Taishan juice, I can't drink it." The heroic and cute Pear was half lying on the grass by the lake, looking exhausted.

It's not their fault. After all, they are still in the category of ordinary people. It's really a bit difficult to keep diving down to search.

Even the ‘players’ who didn’t know what fatigue was, couldn’t catch their breath now.

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

“This is not a solution. The danger in this lake is much greater than we thought…”

“We have to find some new ways, otherwise, we will go to the village chief and ask them if they have any other ways?”

“I just said… Hey, they are here.”

The people by the lake looked back and saw that the group of people who had been fished were running from the direction of the birth point.

The leader, Lao Niu, touched his head and said, "Strange, we searched around but couldn't find the village chief and his friends. Aren't they usually watching us work?"

'Sean' followed him and said, "It seems that there are still many bugs in the NPCs of this game. We still have to rely on ourselves."

"What are you afraid of? At most, we can feed all the fish monsters. Anyway, we are not short of lives."

"That's right."

It took a lot of time, and the few people who came back again 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 to be a kind of intuition, but it seemed like the guidance of fate. He couldn't help but look at a corner at the bottom of the lake.

He gestured to Qiu Qingming, who was currently the strongest among them and the only unlucky guy who had not received the mission, and headed upstream first.

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

Found it? !

He quickly called the others and swam in the direction of Qiu Qingming.

A group of people spent a lot of effort, and then everyone collapsed on the shore.

At the end, Qiu Qingming dragged "a person" to follow him panting.

He straightened up and asked curiously: "Is this the body?"

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

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

Indeed, that task is not yet complete.

At this time, Dantao and Lizi were turning over the face-down immortal body at the bottom of the lake. They had never been very afraid of such things.

However, with a "plop", the two girls fell to the ground together.

"What's wrong?" A group of people looked over and saw Li Zi and Dan Tat pointing at the immortal body in horror, and even turned their fearful eyes to 'Shaun'.

I? ‘Sean’ looked puzzled.

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

Hearing this, the remaining people quickly came over.

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

"Damn it, I look exactly like you."

'Sean' frowned and walked over dissatisfied: "I scanned the face and pinched the face... Damn, this game doesn't just randomly select a person's pinch setting and put it into the plot, right? This is too unlucky... …”

Walking to the side of the body, 'Sean' suddenly froze.

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

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

Just now, the system panel rang.

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

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

Suddenly, Lizi screamed: "Where is Sean?"

In the blink of an eye, Sean, who was still here alive just now, disappeared. There was a wriggling mass of flesh and blood on the ground, and the flesh and blood dissolved quickly as if it had encountered butter in a hot pot.

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