Lord: Sequence Master

Phantom City, slave trading market.

As the 99th layer of the Abyss served as the gateway to the Abyssal realm, trade here was far more prosperous than one might imagine.

The 99th layer was not just at war with the human world; various other races also had conflicts with the Abyss. In fact, it could be said that the Abyssal demons were enemies to all. If not for the protection of the Abyssal Will, the Abyssal realm would have long been torn apart by the true gods of all the different races.

Thus, in the slave market here, you could purchase slaves from nearly any race.

Rosen wandered through the market, seeing many human slaves, slaves from various alien races, and even countless Abyssal demons who had been reduced to slavery. As long as you had enough spiritual crystals, you could buy as many slaves as you wanted.

Of all the slaves here, Rosen was most interested in purchasing human slaves.

The World Government forbade the trade of human slaves, but in the Abyss, their laws were nothing more than scrap paper. If someone managed to buy human slaves from the Abyss, they would have complete control over their lives, according to World Government law. However, any children born to these slaves would have to be granted freedom.

Though Rosen already had tens of thousands of citizens, it was clear that the more, the better.

He bought millions of human slaves in one go and, right on the spot, fed a portion of them to his pet.

Of course, it wasn't one of his real pets but rather a temporarily tamed Abyssal unicorn.

The unicorn devoured tens of thousands of human slaves before finally looking, still hungry, at the remaining humans.

"Easy, if you finish them all at once, there won't be any left," Rosen said as he activated a spatial mist, transferring the rest of the human slaves into sealed painting spaces.

The Abyssal demons who had been secretly observing Rosen no longer paid him any attention after this.

Rosen knew his earlier preparations had paid off.

Buying such a large number of human slaves required a plausible explanation. The Abyssal unicorn had to eat tens of thousands of them; otherwise, there would be no way to justify taking the rest with him.

Of course, those tens of thousands weren't truly dead. Their souls had been sent to the Primal Dream instead. Not only did his real-world territory need development, but so did the Little Dragon Girl's Primal Dream, which required enough population to begin construction.

After handling the millions of human slaves, Rosen set his sights on the non-human slaves.

In one of the heavily sealed cages, Rosen noticed a crystal about the size of a person, dark and opaque, with no light inside. He could only faintly sense the presence of life within.

When Rosen saw the crystal, his Tongue of Temptation started salivating instinctively.

Since acquiring the Tongue of Temptation, he had found his resistance to beauty rapidly declining.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have lost control and devoured the Little Dragon Girl.

Rosen didn't intend to suppress his desires—after all, they were part of his cultivation of the Seven Deadly Sins.

However, this crystal elicited an almost uncontrollable craving from his Tongue of Temptation. Neither Li Shiqing nor the Little Dragon Girl, nor even the succubi he had encountered in recent days, had stirred such a reaction. Not even the powerful angel he'd recently glimpsed in the marketplace had affected him this way.

But the price on the tag for this crystal? Five billion spiritual crystals.

To put that in perspective, buying millions of human slaves had cost him less than a few tens of millions of crystals.

"What makes this one so valuable?" Rosen asked the slave owner, trying to hide his interest.

"It was unearthed from a ruin abandoned for millennia. The being inside should be a Sequence 5, sealed away. We don't know what race it is, nor whether it conforms to Abyssal aesthetics, but the fact that even a Sequence 3 can't see through the seal proves its high value," the owner explained.

After some thought, Rosen decided to buy the slave within the crystal.

However, he didn't have that many Abyssal-aligned spiritual crystals on hand. After some hard bargaining with the slave owner, he finally completed the transaction by offering a large quantity of extraordinary materials harvested from Abyssal creatures and a number of Substitute Strawmen.

Since he couldn't use human-world spiritual crystals in bulk, he exchanged them for the Substitute Strawmen to avoid arousing suspicion about his identity.

With the dark crystal in his possession, Rosen immediately returned to his inn.

In his Void Gallery, he cautiously placed the sealed crystal into the Gluttony Furnace.

The combined power of the Spatial Sacred Flame and the Gluttony Furnace surpassed that of his Stomach of Gluttony, and though the crystal's seal was at a Sequence 3 level, it gradually started breaking down.

However, just as the final layers of the seal were about to fall away, Rosen transferred the now smaller crystal into his Stomach of Gluttony.

The Gluttony Furnace had stronger digestion, but it lacked the raw power of the Stomach of Gluttony, which could contain anything below Sequence 2. As the last of the seal unraveled, a perfectly formed elf maiden emerged from within, her beauty almost too flawless to be real.

Rosen released the elf from his Stomach of Gluttony, briefly scanning her with his spiritual sense before placing her in the Miracle Pocket.

After using the Miracle Pocket's identification, he learned the truth about the elf maiden's origins.

The fact that he used the Miracle Pocket to identify her meant that she was no ordinary being—she was a Miracle Treasure.

More accurately, she was a Living Miracle Treasure.

Elves were a large and diverse race, and among their many branches was the Fantasy Elf, born with the natural ability to manifest fantasies into reality. However, this ability had its limits, and Fantasy Elves almost never advanced to Sequence 3.

As a result, even within the elven race, Fantasy Elves were low in status and often overlooked.

Their fate changed when they were attacked by a mechanical deity, but for reasons unknown, the deity didn't wipe them out. Instead, it polluted the Fantasy Elves' Tree of Life with mechanical energy, turning every elf born from the tree into a mechanical lifeform.

Unwilling to become machines, the Fantasy Elves committed mass suicide around the Tree of Life.

In its dying moments, the Tree of Life gathered its remaining strength to give birth to one last Fantasy Elf, sealing her away in hopes of preserving a pure, living member of the race.

However, the power of a deity was vast, and the mechanical deity's energy was designed to affect all Fantasy Elves.

Thus, after the Tree of Life and the elves self-destructed, all of the mechanical energy gathered in the sealed space, attempting to convert the last Fantasy Elf as well. In the process, a miracle occurred.

The final Fantasy Elf not only became a Miracle Lifeform but also a Miracle Treasure.

This was why the Tongue of Temptation had been so overwhelmingly drawn to her—Rosen now understood that.

Perhaps due to the legacy of the Tree of Life and the collective wish of the Fantasy Elves to continue their bloodline, the elf maiden's unique trait was the enhancement of reproductive capabilities. She was similar to the Ashen Queen Bee in that she could produce offspring akin to ash bees, but in her case, it would be Fantasy Elves.

After a thorough inspection, Rosen confirmed that the elf maiden was a half-mechanical, half-flesh lifeform.

Upon breaking the seal, she had begun absorbing the bloodline legacy of the Fantasy Elves. Once she awakened, her mind would mature instantly, much like the Little Dragon Girl.

However, Rosen couldn't predict exactly when she would wake up.

Over the next two months, Rosen disguised himself with various identities as he purchased more Abyssal specialties.

No matter what, he needed to recover the cost of buying all those slaves.

In addition, he was working on creating a new spiritual realm painting.

His divine territory alone wouldn't be enough to house millions of residents and their future descendants.

Feeding and housing so many people would not be easy.

Eventually, Rosen logged into the Spirit Realm Dark Web through the Main God Computer and posted bounties for architects and designers to collaborate on a city plan. Through a human fortune-bearer he contacted via the Main God Network, he acquired the necessary extraordinary materials from the Main God Temple.

In his Void Studio, Rosen carefully followed the city blueprint, recreating every detail without missing a single element.

The result was a Forest City, with the entire urban landscape woven from interlacing trees and vines.

The humans would live in houses built among the giant trees, connected by vine pathways and the trunks of the trees, which formed streets. The trees not only served as buildings but could also grow flour, rice, and over a thousand kinds of fruits.

On the ground between the trees were vast farmland plots and large animal farms.

Despite spanning only a hundred miles, the forest city could easily support millions of people.

Of course, Rosen wasn't treating his citizens like livestock, so in the future, he planned to add some industrial spiritual realm paintings as well. The people would live in the forest city and work in the factory realms.

Rosen didn't expect these citizens to earn spiritual crystals for him. As long as they could sustain themselves without requiring constant input, that would be enough.

What he valued was the contribution these citizens would make to his divine territory, especially in terms of providing faith.

Though the Hunter Spiritual Realm could offer billions of believers, their faith was directed toward the Main God. This faith had no direct benefit for his divine territory, whereas the belief of his own citizens could directly strengthen his domain.

Unlike the gods of other races, human noble Lords of Divine Territories rarely required fervent devotion.

As long as the people recognized their lord and as long as public approval and happiness were high, all positive spiritual activities could be converted into the faith needed to strengthen a divine territory. This type of faith directly supported the continuation of human civilization.

This was why, in the human world, it was rare to see nobles acting overtly villainous.

The dark side of the nobility was always kept out of sight.

Another month passed, and Rosen finally completed the spiritual realm painting after nearly three months of effort.

[Forest City: Spiritual Realm Painting]

[Level: Sequence 6]

[Size: 500 miles in radius]

[Population Capacity: 6.91 million people]

[Resources: Population, timber, grains, vegetables, fruits, meat]

With a place ready for them, Rosen transferred the millions of people sealed in the painting spaces into the forest city.

Settling close to seven million people would take a regular workforce at least a month to accomplish.

Rosen left all the mundane tasks to Kurapika, who had experience managing the Main God's Sacred City and would have no trouble handling the job.

As for Rosen, he finally had some time to rest. After two days off, he prepared to complete his mission.

Disguised as a Serpent Demon, using the shapeshifting powers of the Abyssal Shapeshifter, Rosen's self-portrait doppelganger arrived at an unoccupied residence in Phantom City. Inside, he found a sheet of paper, torn from a certain extraordinary book.

[I've arrived in Phantom City. Where should I place the Star Insignia?] he wrote on the page.

The response came almost instantly:

[Wrap it in this page and leave it in place. Then immediately use an Abyssal portal to get ten thousand miles away from Phantom City.]

Rosen followed the instructions, carefully wrapping the Star Insignia, from which he had removed his own spiritual imprint and infused someone else's, in the paper. He then returned to the inn and, together with his true body, left Phantom City.

He wasn't planning on hiding in his Secret Tome Room. After all, he wasn't certain that the room could withstand an attack from a Sequence 0 being.

Even if the Secret Tome Room could withstand a Sequence 0, he wouldn't have any chance of benefiting from the ensuing chaos.

It was much safer to leave early, though he was still curious. So, after teleporting ten thousand miles away, Rosen left his self-portrait doppelganger behind while his true body used Void Phase to teleport to the first city he had entered.

Through the eyes of his doppelganger, Rosen silently awaited the impending clash between Sequence 0 entities.

It didn't take long—within two hours, he witnessed a terrifying sight.

In the skies above Phantom City, a colossal hand, spanning thousands of miles, tore open the sky.

Through the rift, an invisible wave of spiritual energy spread instantly, covering a radius of tens of thousands of miles.

Even with the protection of his Secret Tome Room, Rosen felt like his head was about to explode. His ears filled with the sound of maddening whispers, his eyes began to bleed, and the world around him distorted into nightmarish visions. A suffocating pressure took control of his body.

And that was in good condition. Outside the room, every Abyssal demon in the affected area twisted and contorted in agony. Their bodies swelled into grotesque, flesh-covered spheres before reshaping into giant serpents covered in stripes, which immediately began devouring one another. Only a few in the vast region retained any sense of self.

The last thing Rosen saw before his mind collapsed was a massive serpent head, thousands of miles in diameter, emerging from the sky. The serpent opened its mouth, and everything within the ten-thousand-mile radius of Phantom City was sucked into it.

Rosen's head felt like it was about to burst. With all his strength, he slammed the window of his Secret Tome Room shut and collapsed in exhaustion.

Ten thousand miles away, though the Abyssal demons hadn't transformed into giant serpents, many of them were sprawled on the ground, deeply scarred by the spiritual onslaught.

Rosen staggered into an alley, retrieving his self-portrait doppelganger and re-entering the Secret Tome Room. He consumed a dozen Golden Apples, which he had prepared in advance, and finally cleansed himself of the lingering spiritual effects.

The giant serpent he had witnessed must have been the pet of a true god of the Hunter Sequence.

It was just a pet of a Sequence 0 deity, yet its power was utterly terrifying.

The gap between lesser beings and demigods, and then from demigods to Sequence 1, from Sequence 1 to Sequence 0, and finally from Sequence 0 to true gods—each step was an incomprehensible divide.

Rosen left the Secret Tome Room, joining the other Abyssal demons in their staggering flight toward the Abyssal portals.

At this point, the portals were packed with demons, all trying to flee as far as possible. Though the giant serpent had retreated after swallowing everything within ten thousand miles of Phantom City, who could guarantee it wouldn't return?

Even if it didn't, there was still the wrath of the Abyssal Lord whose home had just been destroyed.

Rosen had no idea how many times he teleported, but eventually, he arrived near the front lines between the 99th layer of the Abyss and the human world.

Ahead of him was a colossal spatial fissure, millions of miles long, stretching across the horizon. The air was thick with the stench of blood and malice, a clear sign that this was the boundary between the Abyss and the human world.

Crossing this boundary meant he would finally be able to return home.

Although this battlefield had claimed countless lives, no beings stronger than Sequence 4 ever appeared here.

Any Sequence 3 or higher would have no business staying in this warzone.

Wars were fought for profit; wars without profit had no meaning.

The Abyss, arrogant enough to make enemies of all, was constantly producing new demons from the Blood River of the Abyss. Despite constant internal conflict, there weren't enough resources to nurture them all, so rather than waste their strength in infighting, the demons waged war externally to seize resources through slaughter.

Those who survived and reached Sequence 3 were the elite; those who died were the weak.

On the human side, things were less brutal, and they didn't treat their lower Sequence members as cannon fodder. However, they, too, understood the principle of survival of the fittest, and even if humans had no desire for war, the Abyssal forces would bring the fight to their doorstep, leaving them no choice.

Rosen had learned the truth of this war through the Spirit Realm Dark Web by hacking into the Intelligence Bureau's systems via the Main God Computer.

Did the Abyssal Lord really care about a few Sequence 6 members of the Scarlet Shadow Principality?

Of course not. The truth was that those captured Sequence 6 members had been drafted by the World Government. Their capture was a slap in the face to the government, and if they failed to rescue them, it would set a dangerous precedent, eroding trust and morale.

However, rescuing them from the Abyssal Lord's stronghold meant walking right into the Lord's trap, as he would be lying in wait for any rescue attempt.

In essence, the Abyssal Lord was fishing, trying to lure the World Government into a deadly confrontation with the goal of killing their deities.

The World Government understood this, but when they discovered that a Star Insignia-bearing noble had escaped capture, they saw an opportunity to turn the tables.

Clearly, in this covert battle, the Abyssal Lord had lost, and the World Government had won.

The deity who had intervened on behalf of the World Government wasn't just the Sequence 0 serpent. The act of forcibly tearing open space didn't even require the Star Insignia. The Abyssal Lord's lack of retaliation against the serpent suggested that he had been trapped by the human true gods using the Star Insignia.

Rosen, having witnessed the supreme power of the gods with his own eyes, felt a fire igniting within him.

He longed for that kind of power, but with his current Sequence 6 status, he was still far too weak.

Rosen lingered for a day near the Abyssal front lines, then stepped onto the battlefield.

On the human side, soldiers had to register and join their assigned units.

But on the Abyss side, there were no such formalities. As a chaotic and disorganized race, Abyssal demons allowed any willing participant to step through the portal to the battlefield at any time.

After stepping through the Abyssal portal, Rosen found himself standing on a vast, desolate plain.

Underfoot was thick, dark red sludge, and all around him stretched twisted, dark red trees.

The Abyssal battlefield had once been a barren wasteland.

In its early days, there had been no vegetation, only an empty, rocky desert. But after several wars had wiped out all plant life, one of the Abyssal Lords had created a new kind of plant-based lifeform that could thrive on the blood and flesh of demons. As long as their roots, buried miles beneath the ground, remained intact, their trunks would quickly regrow, even if destroyed.

Since then, the Abyssal battlefield had become covered in these Abyssal Blood Trees.

The trees not only altered the environment, making it harder for human armies to operate, but they also continuously modified the surroundings to weaken humans while empowering the Abyssal demons.

Rosen hadn't expected that, after all his twists and turns, he would still end up on the front lines.

But now that he was here, he couldn't leave empty-handed.

In the 99th layer of the Abyss, he had been concerned about being targeted by powerful demons. But here, in the Abyssal battlefield, the strongest being was Sequence 4. With no need to hold back, his only objective was to kill every demon he saw.

Mounting his mechanical steed, Rosen activated Void Shadowstep and galloped deep into the Abyssal battlefield.

The Abyssal battlefield spanned millions of miles, with over a hundred million soldiers fighting on both sides.

Only after experiencing the slaughter firsthand did Rosen realize how little he had understood about the battlefield.

Though both sides primarily consisted of Sequence 6 combatants, there were many lower-level troops as well, such as the demon thralls accompanying Abyssal demons or the lower-sequence support units on the human side.

Additionally, the battlefield was divided into multiple zones, each designated for different sequence levels.

Sequence 6 combatants could enter the Sequence 4 zones, but Sequence 4 fighters typically avoided the Sequence 6 zones.

There was no explicit rule, but it was an unspoken understanding between both sides.

Not everyone could fight across sequences; it was normal for a Sequence 4 to crush a Sequence 6. If either side consistently targeted the other's lower-level combatants, it would only result in a stalemate where no one gained any advantage.

Unless one side believed they could completely annihilate the other, the mutual understanding would remain.

This was a consensus between the Abyss and humanity, a balance even the Abyssal Lords of the 99th layer didn't have the authority to break unilaterally.

That said, the Abyssal Lord wasn't entirely without recourse and had issued high bounties for human transcendents.

As a result, more Abyssal demons poured onto the battlefield, forcing humanity to increase its own forces.

After half a year of relentless bloodshed, Rosen finally fought his way across the Abyssal battlefield and returned to the human world.

(End of Chapter)