Lord: Sequence Master

Rosen confirmed that the previous hunt had not attracted any other extraordinary creatures. He quickly jumped out of the window to collect his spoils.

The Needle-Eye Squirrel's fur could be used to craft shoes that enhanced movement, and its extraordinary essence could be utilized to create skill crystals or other supernatural items. This one squirrel alone could be worth at least 100 units of spiritual crystals.

Most extraordinary creatures, when killed, only dropped extraordinary essence, not the more valuable supernatural source essence. The source essence was directly linked to a creature's sequence, and only those that had evolved through sequences could form source essence. For lower-level creatures, their spiritual energy solidified into extraordinary essence, which was only marginally better than spiritual crystals. Only creatures capable of sequence evolution would drop the coveted source essence.

Rosen was slightly disappointed that his Godslayer Crossbow's Hunting ability hadn't been triggered this time.

However, compared to the resources expended, the gains were already substantial.

Rosen continued deeper into the Forest of Death, consistently hunting weaker extraordinary creatures like the Needle-Eye Squirrel along the way.

He accumulated a considerable amount of extraordinary essence but still hadn't found a single skill crystal.

Only creatures that had mastered extraordinary sequences had a skill crystal drop rate of over 10%. Creatures like the Needle-Eye Squirrel, at the bottom of the food chain, might have their spiritual energy converted into skill crystals by a hunter's Hunting ability, but the chance of that happening was less than 1%. Even after 100 kills, there was no guarantee of a single drop, and with bad luck, it might take thousands of kills.

Rosen now realized how lucky he had been to obtain the skill crystal from Bennett.

Two days passed, and Rosen had ventured about 6,000 meters into the Forest of Death.

He had killed over 100 extraordinary creatures, amassing loot worth more than 12,000 units of spiritual crystals.

Given the 1:10 exchange rate of spiritual crystals to gold coins, his haul was worth a staggering 120,000 gold coins—enough to awaken and empower over a hundred Sequence 9 individuals. Such immense gains made Rosen feel uneasy.

Even within a spirit realm, the density of extraordinary creatures shouldn't have been this high.

If it were this easy to accumulate spiritual crystals, ordinary people wouldn't struggle so much to become extraordinary, and Sequence 9 individuals wouldn't live such harsh lives. In most other spirit realms, encountering even three to five extraordinary creatures in two days would be considered lucky.

Now, Rosen began to understand why the previous group of passengers from the Black Shark had been wiped out.

It wasn't that the Black Shark pirates wanted to kill them for their wealth; it was the nature of the Forest of Death itself. The pirates hadn't ventured into this realm, despite the massive potential rewards, indicating that the danger here was even greater than the shockingly abundant gains.

Rosen had just slain a Snake Monkey and was about to exit the Mysterious Study Room to retrieve his spoils when, out of nowhere, his Godslayer Crossbow was suddenly destroyed by a mysterious arrow.

Through the Hunter's Divine Eye, Rosen glimpsed a fleeting vision: an invisible arrow pierced his Godslayer Crossbow, shattering it instantly.

He immediately shut the window, his eyes scanning the surrounding jungle with tension. Moments later, a figure emerged from the shadows of the forest.

It wasn't a human hunter, but a being with the head of a cat and the body of a man.

Instinctively, Rosen flipped through his field guide on extraordinary creatures and quickly found the relevant entry.

This was a Shadow Cat, a unique and dangerous extraordinary being.

According to the book, Shadow Cats have two forms.

The first was their common shadow form, where they lacked a physical body. In this state, they could parasitize a human's shadow and gradually transform that human into the second form, a cat-headed humanoid.

In the second form, the Shadow Cat inherited the extraordinary sequence of the human it parasitized and retained the ability to reproduce. Offspring born from this union were born in the humanoid form and possessed extraordinary abilities from birth.

If not for the fact that Shadow Cats were limited to Sequence 7, they would have been classified as a nation-ending threat.

Even though their power was capped at Sequence 7, Shadow Cats were still among the most dangerous of extraordinary creatures.

Some humans had even captured Shadow Cats and fed them extraordinary humans to produce more offspring. These offspring were then slaughtered for their source essence. In the past, many human nations engaged in the mass breeding of Shadow Cats for their essence.

However, after humans figured out how to artificially produce Sequence 7 extraordinary resources, the World Government stepped in and eradicated all Shadow Cats from human territories.

From that point on, the practice of breeding Shadow Cats was banned, and any Shadow Cat encountered had to be killed on sight.

Rosen now understood why the previous group of passengers had been entirely wiped out. It wasn't due to the amount of treasure they had collected. Unlike him, none of them had the protection of the Mysterious Study Room, meaning they would have had to rest frequently between hunts. Their gains wouldn't have been enough to provoke the Black Shark pirates into murdering them.

The true reason for the massacre was likely that one of the passengers had spotted a living Shadow Cat.

This meant that Rosen and the current passengers were also doomed. The Black Shark pirates had never intended to let them leave alive. From the beginning, they had been viewed as mere food to be fed to the Shadow Cats. The lavish meal they had received before entering the spirit realm had, in fact, been their last supper.

"Black Shark Captain, let's see who eats who," Rosen muttered coldly, before turning to rematerialize the Godslayer Crossbow with spiritual energy.

He also took out his paints and began drawing some special spiritual paintings targeting the Shadow Cat's weaknesses.

Five hours later, Rosen, armed with his Godslayer Crossbow, approached the window. He opened it and tossed out the corpse of an extraordinary creature. He was certain that the Shadow Cat was still lurking nearby—it was an extraordinarily patient predator.

Sure enough, no sooner had the corpse hit the ground than a Shadow Cat emerged from the shadows.

The Shadow Cat eyed the corpse warily. It had searched the area thoroughly but hadn't found any trace of humans. Now that a corpse had suddenly appeared, it confirmed the Shadow Cat's suspicion: the humans had been hiding all along.

The fact that the humans hadn't shown themselves despite being close by suggested that their strength was inferior. The Shadow Cat hesitated, contemplating whether it should call for reinforcements from its kin. But before it could decide, the corpse exploded.

The blast itself wasn't very strong, only tearing the body into pieces.

The Shadow Cat merely retreated a few steps. However, the next moment, a blinding flash of light illuminated the entire dark forest.

All the surrounding shadows were dispelled by the flashbang, and the Shadow Cat's eyes were blinded by the light, leaving it temporarily unable to see. Desperate, the Shadow Cat activated an extraordinary skill it had inherited from its human host, Forest Blink, intending to teleport to a shadowed area.

Just as it was about to blink away, it sensed a trace of human life nearby.

Distracted by its long hunt for humans, the Shadow Cat hesitated for a split second, and in that moment of hesitation, six bullets and three arrows simultaneously reached their target. Even more terrifying was that the blinding light interfered with its perception, leaving the Shadow Cat unable to detect the ethereal bullets and arrows.

The simultaneous explosion of the bullets and arrows instantly killed the Sequence 8 Shadow Cat.

(End of Chapter)