Lord: Sequence Master

Earl Fritz's castle wasn't as difficult to infiltrate as Rosen had anticipated.

It was an Alchemical Castle, but not nearly as advanced as the one Rosen had enhanced with Mechanical Spirits.

Clearly, Earl Fritz was the kind of Domain Lord who preferred offense, having poured most of his resources into training his Domain Soldiers. The Wolf Pack Adventure Team had been the main combat force of his domain.

Now, with most of the Wolf Pack wiped out, Fritz's Domain was at its most vulnerable.

Rosen quickly approached the castle's core from the shadows, heading for the room where Earl Fritz's Spiritualized Sequence Tree was located.

Just as he neared the room, Rosen instinctively dodged to the side.

A knight in heavy armor crashed through the wall, narrowly missing Rosen and slamming into the corridor.

"A Sequence 7 Guardian Knight?"

Rosen's heart sank.

This Guardian Knight was Earl Fritz's final defense.

With the Guardian Knight standing between Rosen and the half-reformed Earl Fritz, taking down Fritz would be much harder than expected.

The Guardian Knight didn't pursue an attack; instead, he retreated back into the room.

Through the hole in the wall, Rosen could see the Sequence Tree and Fritz's body slowly reforming beside it. The entire room was surrounded by a golden barrier, like a miniature fortress, fully protecting everything inside.

The Guardian Knight was the core of this barrier, a special Sequence developed specifically for Domain Lords. While the Guardian Knight had minimal offensive abilities, his defensive powers were exceptional.

The Guardian Knight crashing through the wall earlier was merely a tactic to alert the remaining Supernatural Soldiers in the domain.

Rosen activated his Trap Space, deploying a Spatial Trap imbued with Shadow Stealth, intending to teleport the Guardian Knight out of the room. However, the Spatial Transfer failed.

The Guardian Knight had fused his power with the entire room, making it impossible to teleport him alone. The only way to move him would be to sever the entire room from the castle.

Though the Spatial Transfer failed, the trap's Spatial Disintegration ability kicked in. The fortress-like barrier surrounding the knight began to disintegrate, but far too slowly. The knight could repair the barrier faster than the trap could break it down.

Rosen summoned Nightmare Slime and Gray Mouse to hold off the approaching enemy soldiers, while he unleashed his Gluttonous Beast and activated Nightmare Shackles at Level 3.

Nightmare Shackles LV3: Manipulates spiritual energy to form shackles.Enhanced Trait: Reinforced sealing effect.

At Level 3, the Nightmare Shackles had a more potent sealing ability, and the shared control feature was enhanced, allowing Rosen to tame a third pet.

With Nightmare Slime and Gray Mouse already as his pets, Rosen's standards had risen—he sought only pets with at least Demi-God potential.

The Nightmare Shackles coiled around the Guardian Knight's barrier, sealing it layer by layer.

Meanwhile, the Gluttonous Beast merged with the Nightmare Shackles. Though both were made of spiritual energy, they usually couldn't combine. However, Rosen used his Painter Sequence's Spiritual Attachment ability, along with the Enhanced Trait of Harmonization, to fuse different types of spiritual energy.

The Gluttonous Beast's attributes of Gluttony and Greed were now harmonized into the shackles, creating rows of mouths with sharp teeth along the chains.

These mouths latched onto the Guardian Knight's barrier, devouring its energy.

The Gluttonous Beast alone wasn't powerful enough to break down the barrier, so Rosen added Spatial Sacred Fire to the shackles, giving the mouths the ability to disintegrate space. Once chunks of the barrier were bitten off by Spatial Disintegration, Greed seized the energy, and Gluttony consumed it.

Bit by bit, the Guardian Knight's barrier was devoured.

For the first time, the Guardian Knight, hidden beneath his armor, realized he might not be able to hold the line.

Rosen continued firing God-Slaying Crossbow Bolts at the barrier, each shot dealing triple damage due to the combination of Deathstrike and the Ashen Armor-Piercing trait. Even the Guardian Knight's formidable defenses wouldn't hold out much longer.

Finally, a crossbow bolt pierced the barrier, and the Nightmare Shackles shredded it completely.

Faced with imminent defeat, the Guardian Knight unleashed his ultimate defense.

His armor detached from his body, fusing with Earl Fritz's half-reformed body. Then, the Guardian Knight began to burn, sacrificing his life force to empower his spiritual energy.

The knight transformed into a spiritual entity, merging with his armor to protect Fritz with his very life.

Rosen fired another bolt, but this time, the Ashen Armor-Piercing effect failed. The Guardian Knight, now in sacrificial form, had raised his defenses to a Sequence 6 level—impenetrable even for a Sequence 5 attacker.

This was why most Domain Lords chose to cultivate a Guardian Knight.

Earl Fritz had relied on this final defense for his resurrection.

However, Rosen wasn't deterred. He retrieved a beehive from his domain space.

This wasn't an ordinary hive. After nine rounds of merging, it had become a Sequence 9 Soldier Building, housing the Ashen Queen Bee.

The Ashen Queen Bee could produce Ashen Bees at will. By now, over a hundred Ashen Bees had amassed within the hive.

Rosen unleashed the Ashen Bees, directing them to channel their Armor-Piercing power into their stingers.

Over fifty Ashen Bees perished, but their relentless assault finally breached the Life Armor, which could withstand even Sequence 5 attacks.

With the armor pierced, Rosen fired a bolt, blowing off Earl Fritz's head.

While a Divine Domain could resurrect its Lord, it couldn't do so twice in the same state.

Moreover, Rosen's bolt didn't just shatter Fritz's head—it also pierced his Sequence Tree, dealing a devastating blow to the spiritual essence that powered it.

With the Sequence Tree severely damaged, Earl Fritz's control over his domain collapsed.

All the Domain Buildings within his territory were half-paralyzed, unable to resist further attacks from Rosen's Radiant Lighthouse.

Sensing victory, Rosen ordered Chrollo and the others to storm the domain and finish off the remaining forces.

Half an hour later, no one in Earl Fritz's domain was left alive.

All the Domain Soldiers were slaughtered, and every Supernatural Plant and Beast raised within the domain was taken.

Rosen shrank the Lord's Castle, intending to use it as Growth Material for his own Alchemical Castle, allowing it to evolve to Sequence 8.

The Wizard Tower and even the spiritual earth were likewise taken.

Finally, Rosen destroyed the Sequence Tree, erasing Fritz's last hope.

As Earl Fritz's domain collapsed, Rosen's Scavenging Space gained another Light Sphere.

This surprised Rosen. Typically, there were no additional rewards for a territorial battle, as the resources plundered were already the main spoils.

Curious, Rosen returned to his Divine Domain and used his Main God Computer to analyze the Light Sphere.

The analysis revealed that this reward had dropped because Rosen had met three specific conditions: defeating a Sequence 6 as a Sequence 7, being both a noble and a hunter, and, crucially, possessing the Greed talent.

The Greed talent enhanced his hunting abilities, giving a small chance for loot to drop, even from inanimate objects.

Rosen fused the rainbow-colored light from the orb with his Sequence Tree, gaining a territory trait known as Fate Perception.

This trait, usually reserved for Directors and Playwrights, enhanced the Spiritual Realm Watchtower's warning capabilities, allowing it to predict attacks by spiritual beings.

With this new trait, Rosen no longer needed to worry about sudden invasions by spiritual entities.

Rosen then examined the regular drops from his Scavenging Space—loot from the battles with the Sequence 7 Guardian Knight and Earl Fritz.

From the Guardian Knight, Rosen obtained the rare skill crystal Life Guardian. From Earl Fritz, he acquired a special noble sequence skill crystal and a transcendent artifact infused with Playwright's essence.

Rosen stored the Life Guardian crystal to eventually cultivate his own Guardian Knight.

Inspecting the noble sequence skill crystal, Rosen realized he couldn't learn it until he advanced to Sequence 7.

He had already planned to advance his noble sequence. With Fritz gone, and Rosen's spiritual strength fluctuating between 24 and 25 points due to Fritz's self-destructive technique, it was time to take the next step.

Connecting his spiritual energy to his noble essence, Rosen entered the Spiritual Realm, where he encountered the Noble Sequence Tree for the third time.

Golden leaves fell from the tree, merging with Rosen's essence to form his Sequence 7 class power: Bloodline Awakening.

[Bloodline Awakening: Noble Sequence 7 Class Power]

[Attribute: Allows further excavation of transcendent bloodlines, enabling temporary regression to ancestral states.]

Rosen recognized this power—years ago, Baron Kaman, the one who had killed Gray Mouse, had wielded it to transform from a mere kitten into an apex predator.

With Bloodline Awakening now active, Rosen hadn't yet noticed any changes in himself, but Nightmare Slime had already begun to transform.

Its original Devouring Nightmares talent had evolved into a new talent through Bloodline Awakening:

[Sloth LV3: Can escape reality, gradually gaining control over spiritual realms below Sequence 3.]

Rosen realized that Nightmare Slime had a connection to the demonic powers of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Its Devouring Nightmares ability had been replaced by Sloth, and while the small spiritual boost from consuming nightmares was gone, Sloth was far more powerful.

The Sloth talent's Escape Reality ability allowed Rosen to instantly enter the Spiritual Realm through Sloth, enabling him to move freely between the material and spiritual worlds.

Moreover, within spiritual realms below Sequence 3, Rosen could gradually gain partial control.

Rosen wasted no time in absorbing the noble sequence skill crystal dropped by Earl Fritz:

[Glory Sage: A noble sequence ability that converts acquired knowledge into proficiency with corresponding skills.]

The Glory Sage skill, combined with Rosen's existing Knowledgeable power, would enable him to quickly enhance his skills, accelerating his growth beyond the typical limits of the human transcendence system.

As a Sequence 7, Rosen could now start unlocking the full potential of his abilities.

(End of Chapter)