Lord: Sequence Master

Cobb collapsed into bed after a long, grueling day in the municipal dormitory for government employees. Recently awakened to Nen, he had been subjected to harsh training under the Shadow Beasts, the elite bodyguards of Yorknew's criminal overlords. Reality, however, had shattered his dreams of grandeur. Instead of wealth, women, or status, Cobb found himself demoted to a lowly city government security guard.

Bitter and resentful, Cobb quickly fell into a restless sleep, his subconscious filled with the same nightmare he had been having for weeks—an endless barrage of punishment at the hands of the terrifying Shadow Beasts.

When Rosen entered Cobb's nightmare, he saw the grotesque creatures torturing him relentlessly. It wasn't hard to see why Cobb's dreams were so terrifying. The Shadow Beasts were infamous, genetically modified monsters created through fusing human DNA with Beast genes to amplify their life force, making them formidable Nen users.

Though this mutation process was rare and risky, those who survived gained tremendous strength, while the failures either died or were left severely deformed. Cobb, though spared from physical deformity, bore the weight of this brutal training, scarred by the realization of how insignificant his abilities were compared to the Beasts.

Rosen, however, wasn't interested in Cobb's personal miseries. Instead, he used Freddy's power to probe Cobb's memories, learning more about Yorknew City's criminal underworld. He discovered that Yorknew's strict code of conduct was what allowed it to flourish despite being controlled by gangsters. The city's first rule was clear: money comes first. So long as the shops paid their protection fees, they were safe. Tourists, too, were generally protected—unless they strayed into dangerous territories.

Rosen, appreciating the strict order, had no intention of breaking these rules. Instead, he saw an opportunity. Cobb had committed capital offenses, including skimming off protection money and murdering a tourist, which explained why he had been forced into Nen awakening—a punishment reserved for those sentenced to death.

Once Rosen had learned everything he could, he decided to take over Cobb's nightmare fully. Though controlling the dream of a Nen user proved slightly more challenging than manipulating an ordinary person's dream, Rosen quickly gained the upper hand. Using Freddy's power, he summoned the Shadow Beasts within the nightmare to end Cobb's life.

In the real world, Cobb's body went still, and his heart stopped.

Unlike the ordinary people Rosen had tested Freddy's powers on, Cobb's Nen energy lingered even after his death. His nightmare didn't collapse right away; instead, his remaining Nen energy slowed the nightmare's decay. Seizing the opportunity, Rosen once again used his Divine Territory to absorb the nightmare.

To his surprise, the protective nightmare layer surrounding his Divine Territory grew considerably stronger, solidifying further with Cobb's potent Nen energy. More intriguingly, Cobb's body, which had died in the nightmare, appeared in Rosen's Divine Domain.

When Cobb awoke in the domain, he was startled and disoriented. He clearly remembered dying in the nightmare. Now, standing before Alchemical Castle, he struggled to comprehend how he had survived.

Rosen, watching from the shadows, marveled at the implications. "Could it be that Nen users who die in nightmares can be resurrected within the Divine Territory?" he mused.

Eager to test the limits of this discovery, Rosen attempted to withdraw the Divine Territory from Yorknew City and return it to the spiritual realm. To his astonishment, Cobb didn't vanish upon leaving Hunter x Hunter's world. He had been successfully transferred, though his existence was now limited to a spirit form.

Rosen noted a major drawback despite this victory: while Cobb had been resurrected, he was now a mere spirit without a physical body. In the long term, this severely limited Cobb's potential for growth and development. Without a body, he couldn't continue honing his Nen abilities, and his usefulness to Rosen would diminish over time.

With a single thought, Rosen decided to dissolve Cobb's spirit body, shattering it with the power of the Divine Territory. Cobb's shattered soul yielded a small amount of Nen and spiritual energy to Rosen's domain.

The Nen energy was absorbed into the nightmare barrier, further reinforcing the protective layer, while the spiritual energy was stored within the domain, ready to fuel future enhancements to Rosen's Divine Territory. He realized that absorbing spirits—particularly those of spiritual realm creatures—was a key to evolving his domain further.

With a better understanding of Freddy's Nen ability and the potential it unlocked, Rosen shifted his focus to the broader picture. His identity as Mayor of Yorknew City gave him access to a wealth of information and powerful resources.

Though Rosen's position was largely as a puppet figurehead for the city's underworld, the power he wielded over city management was very real. His first move was to mobilize his network of professional managers, tasking them with acquiring magical materials and exotic items that could be traded for spiritual resources. The city's underworld, flush with wealth, offered vast opportunities, and Yorknew's annual auction attracted the rarest treasures from around the world.

Rosen's shadow managers, meanwhile, were assigned far more dangerous tasks. While acquiring ordinary resources was useful, Rosen had his sights set on something far more powerful: Poor Man's Roses, toxic bombs that smaller nations used as weapons of mass destruction. Though obtaining nuclear weapons might be impossible, getting his hands on these deadly explosives could be the first step toward consolidating real power.

As Rosen contemplated his next move, he realized that as the Mayor of Yorknew, he now stood at the crossroads of opportunity and danger. But with his newly discovered powers, his growing Divine Territory, and control over Freddy's nightmare realm, he was more than ready to seize it all.

(End of Chapter)