Lord: Sequence Master

"These mummies are territory-based units," Baal confirmed after carefully dissecting one.

Rosen nodded thoughtfully. A Sequence 9 unit-building could produce one unit each week, averaging about fifty per year. Over thousands of years, this could result in hundreds of thousands of mummies.

Of course, this assumed the unit-building was continuously supplied with spiritual energy and resources. Otherwise, the building couldn't generate units from nothing.

Rosen didn't believe there were actually hundreds of thousands of mummies in this spiritual realm. But he had spoken too soon.

The desert around him began to shift, as if it had come alive, and an endless stream of mummies started emerging from the sands.

Their numbers weren't just in the hundreds of thousands—there were at least a million mummies surrounding them.

Terrified, Baal pulled out a floating backpack to escape, but as soon as he rose three feet off the ground, he crashed back down.

The desert had a flight restriction—anyone ascending more than three feet was immediately suppressed by the restrictive force.

However, the eagle Rosen had summoned from a spiritual painting soared freely, unaffected by this restriction.

To test the limits, Rosen released a sparrow he'd casually drawn from his Heart Canvas. The flight restriction extended from three feet to about one hundred meters above the ground. Beyond one hundred meters, the restriction had no effect.

While Rosen could easily escape, he knew it would be a waste not to capitalize on the opportunity to deal with so many mummies.

With a million Sequence 9 mummies, he could easily collect billions of spiritual crystals.

Looking up at the sky, Rosen conjured twenty thermobaric bombs using his Heart Canvas, projecting and materializing them into reality.

Each bomb had a blast radius of two hundred meters, enough to decimate hundreds of mummies.

However, Rosen frowned as his Scavenging Space registered no new loot—no orbs, extraordinary essence, or spiritual crystals.

He fired his God-Slaying Crossbow, sending arrows in all directions, killing countless mummies.

Still, there was no reward—it was as if all the mummies were illusions.

He set up a Void Trap, transporting a few mummies into the Void Gallery, and then transferred them to his Divine Domain.

There, the Radiant Beacon destroyed the mummies, successfully yielding extraordinary essence and spiritual crystals.

This confirmed the mummies were real, but the spiritual realm itself seemed to be absorbing the energy from their deaths.

Rosen hesitated, wondering if he should continue slaughtering them. Meanwhile, Baal and his sister Nia knelt down and began crawling toward the oasis, bowing their heads reverently every few steps.

Oddly, none of the mummies attacked them.

Rosen shook his head, realizing that Baal had been hiding something.

However, as long as there was no malice involved, Rosen didn't care. After all, no one tells a stranger everything.

This was, at its core, a simple transaction where both sides took what they needed.

With a flicker, Rosen used Shadow Blink to teleport himself above the hundred-meter mark, entering his Void Gallery.

The flaming skull that formed the gallery hovered ominously in the sky, following Baal and Nia. Noticing this, Nia softly scolded Baal, warning him not to be too clever.

Baal didn't argue; he knew he had underestimated Rosen, a Sequence 7.

From his vantage point, Rosen witnessed a shocking scene.

As Baal and Nia slowly crawled toward the oasis, more and more mummies appeared, lining up behind them in perfect formation, like an army.

But Rosen soon realized he couldn't remain a mere observer.

Beyond one hundred meters, a vast sandstorm began sweeping toward them, threatening to engulf everything.

Below one hundred meters, the air was perfectly calm—not even a grain of sand stirred.

Clearly, this sandstorm was designed to target airborne intruders like Rosen.

While formidable enough to threaten a Sequence 7, the sandstorm posed no real danger to the Void Gallery, which could withstand Sequence 6 attacks.

Rosen maneuvered the Void Gallery through the storm, forcing his way to the edge of the oasis, where a waterway led deeper into the palace complex.

A small boat floated at the water's edge, and Rosen sent a few mice to test it.

Any mouse that tried to enter the forest or the water instantly lost its life force, turning into a dried corpse.

Only those that landed on the boat remained unharmed. It was clear that unless one followed the rules set by the tomb's master, survival was impossible.

But Rosen knew that following the tomb's rules would lead into a trap.

He released his Self-Portrait Clone to force its way in.

The Self-Portrait Clone could replicate Rosen's combat power and even act as a sacrificial body. Many powers that targeted the living had no effect on it.

Sure enough, the life-draining force had no effect on the Self-Portrait Clone, and Rosen began navigating the waterway toward the oasis.

After winding through the channels, he finally neared the palace complex.

The massive structures were built of stone blocks, and despite their ancient appearance, it seemed someone had been regularly maintaining them.

Activating his Void Eye Technique, Rosen scanned the area, noting that the palaces emitted a spiritual aura that prevented him from peering into the virtual world within.

However, below the palace, he discovered a hidden underground city.

The city was inhabited, with a population numbering in the tens of thousands.

Using Freddy's dream-control powers, Rosen locked onto several of their dreams and used Sloth to send his consciousness into them.

Through these dreams, Rosen learned vital details.

These people called themselves the Pharaoh's Subjects and were bound to the oasis for life.

Only in death would they be sent out of the oasis, transformed into immortal mummies.

Their recorded history spanned only a few hundred years.

This implied that, without external interference, time within the spiritual realm flowed ten times slower than the outside world.

However, once outsiders entered, time resumed its normal flow.

Had there still been any temporal distortion, Rosen's Divine Domain would have detected it.

Rosen was now certain that the ancestors of these people had been real, living humans, trapped and bred within this spiritual realm.

This was a grave crime.

When a Divine Domain Lord dies, even if they take their entire population with them, enslaving their subjects is strictly forbidden by the World Government.

Rosen had learned this after consulting with many nobles.

Divine Domain Lords never truly reappear in the spiritual realms after death. Instead, unless completely annihilated, they return to the deepest parts of the Spirit World.

The main force resisting alien civilizations deep within the Spirit World consists of these deceased Divine Domain Lords.

While subjects may accompany their lords in death to live a new life in the Spirit World, enslaving them taints human civilization and weakens its power.

Anyone guilty of such actions, whether human or alien, faces certain death.

Rosen suspected this spiritual painting had merged with a Divine Domain, meaning he was now standing on the territory of another Divine Domain Lord.

This situation differed from Rosen's infiltration of Count Fritz's Divine Territory. Back then, Fritz's elite troops had perished, and the count himself was trapped in a cycle of death and revival, unable to control his domain to mount any effective defense. Had Fritz been in full control of his territory, Rosen would never have been able to sneak into the count's castle.

Now, the scenario seemed similar—Baal's great-uncle might not be entirely dead.

Defying the World Government's decrees implied a fundamental rebellion against human governance. Moreover, with the abnormally high number of mummies present, Rosen suspected that Baal's great-uncle hadn't fully died back then but had instead sustained a mortal wound. Now, it seemed likely that Baal's great-uncle had abandoned his humanity to become a Mummy Pharaoh, lurking within the pyramid ahead.

Rosen waited for two hours, sending out rats to search the oasis.

It wasn't until then that Baal and his sister finally arrived by rowboat. Their delay was understandable—they had crawled on their knees through the desert for kilometers.

As soon as Baal came ashore, Rosen confronted him directly. "If you're hiding anything, I'll walk away right now."

Baal hesitated, intending to lie, but seeing Rosen's cold, discerning gaze, he realized that deceiving a Sequence 7 painter with a Heart Canvas was futile. Reluctantly, Baal revealed his secret.

Baal's great-uncle had indeed left behind some information about the spiritual realm in the family heirloom. One piece of advice was to crawl on their knees if they encountered mummies they couldn't defeat. Another warned against entering the underground part of the oasis, where certain death awaited. Lastly, Baal's great-uncle's legacy was hidden inside the pyramid, and without Sequence 7-level strength, they would need the help of a Sequence 7 noble to safely enter.

Rosen stared at Baal in disbelief. It was hard to imagine this fool had survived this long. Did he never question the information in the family heirloom? Either Baal was an exceptional actor, somehow fooling the Heart Canvas's ability to sense deceit, or he genuinely wasn't very bright.

Still, Baal was a sculptor, and having a talent for sculpture was enough for that role—he didn't need to be a genius. Nia, on the other hand, seemed far sharper. Unlike Baal, she had likely mastered the art of hiding her true nature.

As for Baal's warning not to enter the underground part of the oasis, it was too late. Gray Mouse had already ventured underground two hours earlier, conducting a thorough search of the oasis with its army of rats.

Before Baal could finish resting his knees, Gray Mouse returned.

Seeing the excited mouse leaping around, Rosen knew it had made an important discovery. Through their Nightmare Chain mental link, Rosen quickly learned why.

When the World Government was founded, they didn't just eliminate non-human races from human territories; they also eradicated certain human supernaturals who refused to join them. One of these was King Stulane, a ruler who had mastered the Necromancer Sequence. Stulane openly opposed the World Government, refusing to abolish slavery, relying on his Sequence 1-level power to back him.

However, the strength of the World Government exceeded Stulane's expectations. They used him as an example by publicly executing him. Yet Stulane, as a necromancer with mastery over life and death, didn't fully die. He revived from his self-constructed pyramid tomb, this time as a mummy pharaoh.

Upon his revival, Stulane attempted to unleash a Necromantic Plague and ascend to become a Sequence 0 deity of the Necromancer Sequence. But the World Government crushed him again, turning him into a cautionary tale in their historical records.

It was rumored that even after Stulane's second death, he retained the potential to revive multiple times. To ensure he stayed dead, the World Government dispersed parts of his body across various pyramid tombs and wiped out the spiritual elements necessary for his resurrection. This supposedly ended Stulane's cycle of revival.

However, treasure hunters later discovered these pyramids, which were filled with valuable treasures. Since Stulane had been a Sequence 1 powerhouse, the remnants he left behind were priceless. Each pyramid held precious items meant to aid his revival.

What remained unclear was whether the pyramid ahead was one of Stulane's true resurrection tombs or simply a replica. If it were genuine, Baal's great-uncle wouldn't have been stuck at Sequence 6.

Filled with anticipation, Rosen and Baal's siblings boarded the only boat on the waterway.

Baal rowed until the boat stopped in front of a towering palace that resembled an upright rocket. To reach the pyramid, they had to either pass through the palace or take a long, dangerous detour through the jungle. The oasis jungle was filled with necrotic energy, and the rats that ventured into it died the closer they got to the pyramid. Thus, the only safe path led through the palace.

Inside the grand palace, there were no furnishings, making it look as if no one had ever lived there. They passed through a long corridor and reached the back hall of the palace.

In front of them lay a stone pathway leading directly to the pyramid. The smooth, mirror-like surface of the stone slabs showed no visible seams, reflecting the blue sky and white clouds overhead, giving the feeling of walking among the clouds.

After crossing several hundred meters of the pathway, they stood before the pyramid's entrance.

The towering stone door, dozens of meters high, was engraved with the history of Pharaoh Stulane. However, it seemed like Stulane's face had been slightly altered.

Impatient, Baal rushed forward to open the door, but no matter how much force he applied, it wouldn't budge.

Frustrated, Baal stepped aside, and Rosen took over, pressing his hand against the stone door and exerting his full strength.

At his current spiritual power of 25 points, Rosen's physical strength had increased nearly tenfold compared to when it had been at 1 point. Enhanced by several abilities, his raw strength now measured 65 tons, and with Nen augmentation, his full-force punch could deliver several hundred tons of destructive power.

Yet despite this immense force, the pyramid's stone door remained unmoved.