Lord: Sequence Master

Karman Morton glanced around at his gathered followers, eyes fixed on the Hunters and Assassins of his crew.

"These are our findings..."

The three Hunters and two Assassins nervously handed over the intelligence they had gathered. Karman skimmed through the documents, his initial concern deepening.

According to the original plan, they were supposed to release a virus targeting the Gray Rats in Spiral Port, weakening them enough for the Pirate Alliance to easily overwhelm the rats. This would drive the Gray Rats to trigger a hidden plot within the spiritual realm, revealing valuable resources outside the known storyline.

But things had taken an unexpected turn. Before Karman's group could act, tens of thousands of Gray Rats had mysteriously died.

This unforeseen development threw their entire operation into chaos. They now had to improvise: first, they would help the Gray Rats capture as many pirates as possible, and then, at the right moment, they would switch sides to assist the Pirate Alliance in crushing the rats. The end goal remained the same—force the Gray Rats into activating the hidden plot.

However, a saboteur had been silently disrupting their plans. The saboteur's most recent act—stealing large quantities of the Gray Rats' supplies—had further complicated matters.

If the saboteur continued interfering, Karman's meticulously crafted operation would collapse, and his standing within his family would be ruined. No matter what, he needed to stop this unknown adversary.

But after days of searching, they had found no trace of the culprit.

"Baron Karman, I have a suggestion," spoke up Fard, a Sequence 7 Mage, breaking the tension.

"Let's hear it," Karman said, eager for any solution.

"We could leak the information about the hidden plot and let the saboteur trigger it for us," Fard suggested with a serious tone.

Karman's first reaction was disbelief. He had invested too much into the plan to simply give away such valuable information, potentially inviting hordes of competitors. But after considering the situation, he realized that if the hidden plot never triggered, he would leave empty-handed anyway.

Fard's gamble made sense. Even if others got involved, Karman could still secure the greatest reward if he played his cards right.

"Spread the word," Karman ordered, nodding at the Hunters and Assassins.

The Assassins, skilled in covert operations, quickly disseminated the information. Soon, the human superhumans lurking around Spiral Port learned of the hidden plot.

Ironically, Rosen—the very saboteur Karman sought—remained unaware of the viral leak.

While the Pirate Alliance had not yet launched their ground assault, the human superhumans around Spiral Port were already making their preparations in secret. The plan to gather resources was in full swing.

Many of the superhumans had been blending in with the Gray Rats, quietly skimming off supplies during transport—a common practice in the spiritual realms.

Now, these stolen resources were being pooled together by over ten Sequence 7 individuals to fund a large-scale operation. With their combined wealth, two Sequence 7 Mages began constructing an ancient spiritual awakening ritual.

Awakening spiritual power was inherently dangerous. Even simple human-led spiritual awakening rituals carried significant risks, with high failure rates. But at least failure in a simple ritual rarely resulted in death, as long as genuine materials were used.

However, this large-scale awakening ritual, designed to awaken the latent power of the remaining Gray Rats, was far riskier. If it failed, death was guaranteed.

Such large-scale rituals had long been banned in the human world. Once used during the harshest periods of humanity's war for survival against non-human races, they were outlawed after the formation of the World Government.

When the ritual was completed, an overwhelming surge of spiritual power swept across Spiral Port, forcefully awakening the latent abilities of all remaining ordinary Gray Rats.

Out of the 200,000 remaining rats, only 5,000 survived. The rest perished during the forced awakening.

But those 5,000 were transformed into elite Gray Rats, unlocking superhuman sequences tied to their bloodlines, drastically increasing the combat power of their dwindling forces.

Just as the Gray Rats began to regroup, a second large-scale curse ritual was unleashed.

A curse of madness swept through Spiral Port, driving many of the newly awakened elite rats insane. Overwhelmed by madness, they began attacking everything in sight, adding to the chaos. The human superhumans had successfully forced the Gray Rats into a dire situation.

Deep within Spiral Port, in the darkest chambers, the Sequence 7 Gray Rat leaders gathered in urgent discussion.

With only a few thousand Gray Rats left, most of whom had lost their minds to the madness curse, the leaders debated their next move. Some argued for one last attempt at rescue, while others pushed for an all-out, desperate fight.

After a string of failed attempts to save their forces, the leaders realized they had no choice but to fight to the death.

They gathered in the deepest part of Spiral Port, where a sacred temple dedicated to the Gray Rats' Ancestor lay. The Gray Rats' Ancestor had once been a powerful Sequence 3 entity. Though long dead, its spirit still lingered in the spiritual realm, watching over its descendants.

To summon the Ancestor's power, they needed to perform a sacrifice.

Tens of thousands of ordinary Gray Rats could serve as a suitable offering, but a thousand elite Gray Rats would be more effective.

The leaders, resigned to their fate, took up the ancient sacrificial artifacts and began slaughtering the crazed elite rats.

Each elite rat's soul and life energy was drained into the sacrificial items, which channeled the essence into the statue of their Ancestor.

The dormant statue began to stir, linking with the slumbering spirit of the Gray Rats' Ancestor in the spiritual realm. However, the power that descended was far weaker than expected—only reaching Sequence 7.

Despair washed over the leaders. The Ancestor had once held formidable strength, but the power they had summoned was weak. To them, it was clear: the Ancestor had abandoned them.

(End of Chapter)