Lord: Sequence Master

After several days of preparations, the human extraordinary beings waited in anxious anticipation for the arrival of the Blazing Shadow Pirate Alliance's fleet. Rosen was among them, though his goal was vastly different. Rather than helping the Grey Rat People resist the pirates, Rosen aimed to annihilate the Grey Rats and use their souls to fuel the Nightmare on Elm Street virtual realm, solidifying it into reality. He had learned this method of absorbing spiritual energy during the materialization of the Saw virtual realm.

Rosen had discovered that pulling people into the virtual realm through static paintings resulted in different levels of energy absorption depending on how they entered. For ordinary people who merely dreamt in Saw and survived the day, the spiritual energy harvested was minimal. However, for those who were killed in the realm, such as John the Drunk, whose soul was absorbed by Jigsaw, the gains were far more substantial. Their full spiritual energy became nourishment for the realm.

Thus, the most efficient way to solidify a virtual realm was, quite simply, through death.

Though Rosen didn't see himself as a villain, he wasn't willing to condemn tens of thousands of innocent people to Saw's horrors just to strengthen the realm. Killing someone like John, a known drunkard, and a criminal, felt justified, but indiscriminately slaughtering tens of thousands for power was a line he wouldn't cross—at least, not in the real world.

But in the Spiral Sea Battle spiritual realm, where the world reset after each cycle, Rosen had no such qualms.

His plan was to drain the souls of the Grey Rat People en masse, rapidly solidifying Nightmare on Elm Street in a single stroke. The consequences of such a move would severely degrade the Spiral Sea Battle realm, reducing it to a Sequence 8 realm. Though this would cause significant damage to the spiritual realm, Rosen's concern had diminished after his research revealed that destroying realms like this was not just permitted but encouraged by the World Government.

Spiritual realms were classified into two types: those that could be fully controlled by humans and those that could not. Realms like Spiral Sea Battle, tied to non-human civilizations like the Grey Rats, were seen as threats to humanity's dominance. If left unchecked, these spiritual realms could one day allow extinct species like the Grey Rats to reemerge and challenge human civilization. Destroying such realms was considered both necessary and commendable.

While Rosen didn't possess psychic abilities strong enough to project his Mind Canvas directly into the minds of the Grey Rats, he knew that they had their own capabilities. Elite Grey Rats could establish a psychic link, allowing them to share thoughts and act in concert during battles. This psychic link, once established, would give Rosen the perfect opportunity to implant the Nightmare on Elm Street realm into their minds.

Spiral Port lay beneath the Spiral Sea, where enormous whirlpools churned the surface of the water. The Grey Rats' underwater vessels were impervious to the whirlpools, but their enemies—the Blazing Shadow Pirate Alliance—had devised ways to navigate these treacherous waters. The Grey Rats had underestimated the pirates' cunning and were unprepared when the attack came.

As noon approached, a thin mist began to creep across the sea, unnoticed by the Grey Rats hidden deep in their tunnels.

Silently, pirate ships emerged from the mist, edging ever closer to Spiral Port. Navigating the dangerous whirlpools with expert precision, the pirate ships advanced until they were within a mile of the port. At that moment, the Sea Rat, an extraordinary sea beast under the command of the Grey Rats, triggered the alarm.

Realizing their cover had been blown, the pirates opened fire, launching a barrage of cannonballs imbued with a sinister aura. The cannonballs slammed into the port, releasing a fog of spiritual energy that began boiling the waters surrounding Spiral Port.

Though the realm had weakened over time, preventing the massive boiling sea tactics of old, the pirates were still able to replicate the effect on a smaller scale, scalding the waters within a mile of the port and releasing malevolent spirits to wreak havoc.

The psychic assault from the pirate spirits severely disrupted the Grey Rats' psychic link, leaving them vulnerable to the human extraordinary beings who were fighting on their side. These extraordinary individuals began unleashing musical sequences, filling the air with inspiring melodies that countered the pirates' psychic attacks and allowed the Grey Rats to regroup.

Rosen felt a pulse ripple through the air as he connected to the psychic link. Seizing the moment, he projected his Mind Canvas images into the network, bypassing the elite Grey Rats and targeting the ordinary ones. Before long, tens of thousands of Grey Rats had received the "key" to Nightmare on Elm Street.

The results were immediate.

Despite it being the middle of the day, the targeted Grey Rats began collapsing, falling into a deep sleep as they were pulled into Freddy Krueger's nightmare world.

The sudden collapse of so many Grey Rats threw their ranks into chaos. The elite Grey Rats, busy commanding extraordinary sea creatures and vessels, struggled to maintain order. Despite their best efforts, they couldn't identify the source of the disturbance, as Rosen remained hidden within his Mysterious Study Room, beyond their reach.

Although the elite forces remained unaffected, the chaos among the ordinary Grey Rats delayed their response. Still, they eventually launched a counterattack, sending their sea creatures into battle against the pirates.

The Spiral Sea became a brutal battlefield. The Pirate Alliance, despite their initial advantage, began to suffer heavy losses.

In the historical Spiral Sea Battle, the pirates had transported a large quantity of Blazing Shadow Ore, which they used to boil entire sections of the ocean, devastating the Grey Rats in one catastrophic blow. But in the degraded spiritual realm, their forces were much smaller, and the human extraordinary sequences disguised as Grey Rats were well aware of their tactics.

The battle raged on for two days, with heavy casualties on both sides. The pirates began to falter under the Grey Rats' relentless counterattack.

And at the precise moment that Rosen had anticipated, the Main God Computer signaled the completion of the second virtual realm: Nightmare on Elm Street had solidified.

(End of Chapter)