Lord: Sequence Master

Rosen didn't rush into the Forest of Death. Instead, he summoned his Godslayer Crossbow, letting it hover by his side.

He pulled out a spiritual painting of an eagle. Normally, with his current abilities, he wouldn't have been able to create a spiritual painting of a living creature. However, by combining his Nen abilities, Rosen successfully created a manifested Nen Beast Eagle.

Nen abilities naturally allowed one to create Nen Beasts with basic intelligence. As long as he didn't try to give the beast any complex Nen abilities, simply manifesting it wasn't difficult for someone like Rosen, who had 100% affinity with all types of Nen. Additionally, by utilizing the spiritual energy embedded in the painting, he could infuse spiritual Nen into his drawings while creating them.

In this way, even with his Sequence 9 level, Rosen managed to draw a living creature with spiritual energy.

He had tried creating Nen Beasts without using spiritual paintings, relying solely on his Nen abilities to assist with scouting. However, Nen Beasts were limited by distance. With his current spiritual energy level of six points, even though he had absorbed the benefits of his recent transition into the Hunter Sequence, his Godslayer Crossbow couldn't be more than 60 meters away from him, and a Nen Beast would lose its connection at 120 meters.

But by incorporating the Nen Beast into a spiritual painting, its control range increased to 6,000 meters.

This was because spiritual paintings naturally connected with the Spiritual Realm. Otherwise, a painter wouldn't be able to create spiritual realms at Sequence 6. The Nen Beast Eagle, being part of a spiritual painting, had a slight connection to the Spiritual Realm, allowing its control range to extend many times over.

As the eagle flew out of the painting, Rosen activated the Hunter's Magic Eye, marking the eagle with spiritual energy.

By doing so, he could share its vision through the Hunter's Magic Eye, allowing Rosen to see everything the eagle saw.

The eagle spread its wings and soared into the sky, beginning its reconnaissance of the area within a 6,000-meter radius.

Within that range, no other extraordinary individuals were spotted along the coast, meaning everyone had been scattered around the island's perimeter. Only those who entered the vortex together as a team might still be near each other.

Under these conditions, there was no immediate need to worry about conflicts with others—dealing with the inherent dangers of the secret realm would be enough.

While the eagle scouted, Rosen discovered a new function of his Main God Computer.

Since he was sharing the eagle's vision and the Main God Computer could project its interface directly into his eyes, he could record everything the eagle saw. Using the computer's playback function, he could review everything the eagle had scouted.

It's often said that a good memory is no match for a written record. Human memory is prone to errors.

Now, with everything the eagle observed recorded, Rosen could replay and analyze the footage in detail.

After all, the eagle could only exist for 12 minutes, and covering an area of 6,000 meters meant it could only scan the terrain briefly.

As the eagle dissipated, Rosen projected the recorded footage onto his vision, like an AR display, allowing him to immerse himself in the scouting data. He quickly identified several extraordinary creatures nearby.

Even though Rosen now had a general idea of where to go, he didn't immediately charge into the forest.

The vegetation here was too dense, and the eagle had only covered about one-fifth of the map. No one could be sure how much danger lay hidden in the remaining four-fifths of the forest. Even in the portion he had scouted, it was difficult to accurately gauge the strength of the extraordinary creatures.

After careful consideration, Rosen decided to advance cautiously using his Mysterious Study Room.

He approached a large tree and placed his hand on it. After nine seconds, a door appeared in the tree trunk.

Entering the Mysterious Study Room, Rosen approached the window, opening it to release his Godslayer Crossbow, which began hovering through the air within a 60-meter radius, scouting for both extraordinary creatures and valuable plants.

Even if an extraordinary creature detected the hidden Godslayer Crossbow, Rosen could instantly recall it.

Though the Godslayer Crossbow couldn't venture beyond 60 meters and the dense forest vegetation often obstructed his view beyond 10 meters, Rosen could mark insects with spiritual energy using his Hunter's Magic Eye, sending them out to explore further.

With this method, even while inside the Mysterious Study Room, Rosen could explore a radius of at least 100 meters at a time.

Once he confirmed there were no immediate dangers, Rosen jumped out of the window, quickly retrieving the Mysterious Study Room.

Advancing 90 meters, he repeated the process: opening the Mysterious Study Room, scouting the area, and eliminating all risks.

In this way, Rosen spent half an hour advancing just over 500 meters into the Forest of Death.

By now, he could see an extraordinary creature resting in a tree. It looked like a squirrel, but though it seemed familiar, he couldn't immediately gauge its strength.

The familiarity suggested he had seen it before, so Rosen pulled out a few field guides on common extraordinary creatures in the Shining Empire from his storage pack.

[Needle-Eye Squirrel: Extraordinary Creature]

[Level: Sequence 9]

[Skills: Needle-Eye, Lightning Step]

[Hunting Strategy: Needle-Eye Squirrels can use Lightning Step to move rapidly through the forest and throw hardened fur from their tails like needles, which can pierce the eyes of their enemies. When dealing with Needle-Eye Squirrels, be cautious...]

"This book definitely came in handy!"

Rosen smiled in satisfaction after reading the detailed hunting strategy.

However, he didn't take everything at face value, knowing that strategies were rigid while Needle-Eye Squirrels were living creatures. During real combat, unexpected events could always occur. The strategy was merely a reference, and Rosen needed to build his own experience through cautious, real-world encounters.

Aiming the Needle-Eye Squirrel with his Godslayer Crossbow, he fired a combination of bullets and arrows.

Using the Hidden technique, the bullets were in a semi-ethereal, invisible state.

The bullet traveled with minimal sound and maximum speed, since the ethereal state reduced air resistance. The bullet was almost upon the squirrel before it could react.

However, just as the bullet approached within a foot of the squirrel, it sparked with electricity, using Lightning Step to evade the shot.

Though the bullet missed its target and only struck the squirrel's tail, the subsequent explosion caused minor injuries. Angered, the squirrel retaliated by flicking several needles from its tail toward the incoming arrow.

However, the interception failed. The arrow, enhanced by much more Nen than the bullet, pursued the squirrel relentlessly.

Bullets were faster and easier to hit with, but arrows dealt much more damage.

Realizing it couldn't shake off the pursuing arrow, the squirrel continued to release more tail needles in desperation. The repeated use of its abilities placed a heavy toll on the squirrel's spiritual energy. Though the arrow was eventually destroyed, the squirrel was left panting from the effort.

Before it could recover, more bullets and arrows were fired from the Mysterious Study Room through the window.

The Needle-Eye Squirrel was forced to flee through the dense forest, but it couldn't outrun the bullets. With each explosion, more of its tail was torn away. Eventually, an arrow pinned the squirrel to a nearby tree.

As the arrow's spiritual Nen erupted, the squirrel's body was reduced to a mangled mess.

Even in its final moments, the Needle-Eye Squirrel never managed to locate its hidden attacker.

(End of Chapter)