Lord: Sequence Master

"War magic... Parasitic Arrow Seed..."

Alicia quickly devoured a golden apple, then commanded the forest sentinels to unleash a second round of war magic.

The Parasitic Arrow Seed was a special kind of arrow, an artificially cultivated vine seed shaped like an arrow.

This war magic had two parts: while the forest sentinels shot the Parasitic Arrow Seeds into the air, aiming at the flamingo riders, Alicia cast the ritual magic Tide of Life, causing the seeds to grow wildly once they hit their targets.

The flamingo knights, their senses muddled by spatial fog, had no way to avoid the supersonic Parasitic Arrow Seeds.

Over 600 flamingo knight retainers were struck with precision by 1,000 Parasitic Arrow Seeds.

The vines grew madly, oozing sticky oil, and were ignited by the flames on the flamingos. Instead of being consumed, the flames made the vines grow even faster, entangling with each other to form a giant web.

The burning, fiery vine web descended, trapping all the flamingo knight retainers within.

A sea of fire fell from the sky as the knights struggled desperately, trying to break free from the massive vine web.

However, war magic was a contest of the collective power of each side's troops.

Three to four hundred Sequence 7 knight retainers could easily defeat two thousand Sequence 9 wood elves.

But when two thousand wood elves merged into one cohesive force, the isolated knight retainers were nothing more than lambs to the slaughter.

Karpac watched helplessly as the troops he had painstakingly cultivated over the years were about to be wiped out, with no way to counter the terrifying space-distorting fog. As his knight retainers dwindled, he finally made a grim decision.

Since his three thousand knight retainers couldn't escape, they might as well take the enemy down with them.

Karpac's entire body ignited with Phoenix Flames as he began to cast the war magic Soul Sacrifice. Although the enemy had been using the fog to kill his troops, the souls of the knight retainers still returned to his Divine Domain upon death.

As the Soul Sacrifice ritual unfolded, one by one, the Sequence 7 souls became offerings.

When the Soul Sacrifice ended, a soul phantom generated by the sacrifice appeared before Karpac.

It could only exist for half an hour, but its strength was at Sequence 3.

Karpac flapped his wings and landed atop the giant beast statue at the center of the castle. The statue, resembling a mammoth and towering thousands of meters high, began to breathe, though it was the shallow breathing of something in a vegetative state.

Karpac enveloped the beast in Phoenix Flames, activating its life force while infusing it with the soul phantom.

The War Elephant King, a Sequence 4 Beast King that had died long ago, was brought back to life and marched toward the battlefield.

As soon as the War Elephant King approached the spatial fog, its massive trunk stretched forward, locking onto the fog. A terrifying energy pulse began to gather inside its trunk, and within a few seconds of charging, a gray beam shot out, piercing through the fog.

At this critical moment, the Radiant Lighthouse deployed its Radiant Barrier, and the Time Tower activated its Elemental Barrier.

After piercing through two layers of defense, the gray beam gradually dissipated upon hitting the Elemental Barrier of the Ash Castle.

The three heroes still alive inside the spatial fog seized the opportunity to escape.

Even Alicia, who had retreated in advance, was startled by the enemy's counterattack.

Rosen looked at the War Elephant King with a grave expression. Through his Death's Judgment, he had harvested the spirituality of the direct descendants of the Moore family, learning the truth about Karpac. In life, this War Elephant King had been a Sequence 4 Beast King.

Moreover, it had been modified after death, with a lord's castle and various territorial buildings fixed to its back.

If he wanted to destroy the lord's castle and Karpac's Sequence Ancient Tree, there was no way to avoid dealing with the War Elephant King.

Fortunately, the lord's castle couldn't leave the Divine Domain, so the War Elephant King couldn't exit either, meaning its most powerful close-range attacks couldn't be used. Only its long-range attacks could be barely blocked.

However, Rosen soon realized that not all the information obtained from spirituality was necessarily accurate.

Because the castle on the War Elephant King's back unexpectedly lifted off into the air, layers of defensive barriers rising around it.

As for the War Elephant King itself, it began to accelerate, charging directly toward Rosen's Divine Domain.

It was now clear that the Moore family's direct descendants had also been deceived by Karpac. Even they didn't know the true strength of the War Elephant King. Had Rosen known it could break out, he might not have initiated the war with Karpac.

But there was no turning back now. Rosen, using the spatial fog, transported the wood elf troops to the rear of his domain.

The Little Dragon Girl deactivated her Phantom Armament, only to re-integrate with the Radiant Lighthouse.

The Radiant Lighthouse, now enhanced to Sequence 6, also inherited the power of the Miracle Dragon of Light.

Transformed into its Solar Jellyfish form, the Radiant Lighthouse charged at the War Elephant King in a burst of light element.

There was no avoiding the speed of light, but it had to slow down to strike.

Arriving first, the Radiant Lighthouse launched a suicidal Solar Blast on the outskirts of Karpac's domain, destroying the overlapping space at the domain's edge with a devastating mushroom cloud.

However, the War Elephant King didn't die. Its entire body was charred, its two eyes burnt to cinders, and even part of its trunk was missing.

Yet, it didn't slow down. In fact, it picked up speed, rushing out of Karpac's domain, tearing through the distorted space left by the Solar Blast, and hurtling toward Rosen's Divine Domain.

Rosen had anticipated this, using his authority as Domain Lord to teleport the Nightmare Slime and hundreds of Sequence 7 regular slimes to the base of the Time Tower.

With time accelerated fivefold, the Nightmare Slime opened its maw and devoured all the slime troops using its Gluttony ability.

However, instead of digesting them, it activated the slimes' innate ability to split and merge.

The Nightmare Slime, which had only been a few meters tall, swelled to hundreds of meters in size.

But compared to the War Elephant King, it was still small, so Rosen shared his Noble Bloodline Awakening with the Nightmare Slime, along with the Beast King's Descent ability from his Hunter skills.

Under the dual bloodline awakening, the demonic bloodline within the Nightmare Slime was fully activated.

The Nightmare Slime, now over a thousand meters tall, unleashed its life force, transforming it into a Level 7 Nen ability.

Rosen's Level 7 Nen ability had developed powers like divine authority and the God-Slaying Crossbow.

But the Nightmare Slime, with its limited intellect, couldn't develop such complex abilities. Even at Sequence 6, it only had one: Nightmare Mark, which allowed it to split and mark enemies, making them ignore its presence.

However, ever since returning to the Sacred Continent, the Nightmare Slime had thrived.

After hunting over a hundred giant beasts, and excluding those turned into loot orbs, at least seventy of their corpses were left.

Not all the giant beast corpses were fit for human consumption, so the inedible ones were all fed to the Nightmare Slime.

As it ate and ate, the Nightmare Slime unknowingly gained a second Nen ability—Beast Form.

Now, with its Nen energy fully unleashed, the Nightmare Slime's height grew from one thousand meters to ten thousand, almost twice the size of the War Elephant King. It then blinked through space to appear directly in front of the War Elephant King.

The two titanic beasts collided, and the larger Nightmare Slime found itself at a disadvantage.

After all, this was a battle between Sequence 6 and Sequence 4, a gap of an entirely different magnitude.

As a result, the Nightmare Slime's body was pierced by the War Elephant King's tusks, leaving two massive holes.

However, such injuries were minor to the Nightmare Slime.

Its body wriggled, like fluid, wrapping around the War Elephant King.

The War Elephant King's tusks instantly discharged violent bolts of lightning.

But against the double bloodline-awakened Nightmare Slime, the lightning was consumed by its Gluttony power.

Despite this, the Nightmare Slime couldn't inflict any effective damage on the War Elephant King.

The two remained in a stalemate, until Karpac, unable to stand it any longer, intervened.

He directed the War Elephant King to ignore the Nightmare Slime and continue its charge toward the enemy's Divine Domain.

But at that moment, the War Elephant King abruptly stopped.

The Nightmare Slime's tongue had stealthily wriggled toward the War Elephant King's mouth. When the two creatures' tongues touched, the Nightmare Slime's Enchantment Tongue took effect, instantly turning the War Elephant King into its captive.

Karpac could only watch in disbelief as the War Elephant King turned and charged toward his own Divine Domain.

Wherever it passed, the earth trembled, and the land was torn apart like a tsunami.

The War Elephant King even unleashed its terrifying gravity field, pulling the floating lord's castle down from the sky.

Seeing that he couldn't regain control of the War Elephant King, and knowing that his domain would be destroyed if this continued, Karpac was forced to end the Soul Sacrifice. But before he could, the War Elephant King leaped into the air, flipped, and crashed back-first toward the lord's castle.

At the last second, Karpac, in his Phoenix form, dove to intercept, knocking the War Elephant King away.

The lord's castle was saved, but the supernatural structures on the War Elephant King's back were severely damaged. Between the Solar Blast and the impact from the War Elephant King, everything on its back was buried.

Enraged, Karpac immediately used the innate ability of the Gourmand Sequence—Feast.

Giant knives and forks appeared in the air, dissecting the War Elephant King's corpse in seconds, like a butcher carving up an ox. The cut-up meat passed through a void kitchen, emerging as concentrated delicacies.

After consuming the food, Karpac temporarily absorbed at least 50% of the War Elephant King's power.

At that moment, the Nightmare Slime began hopping toward the lord's castle.

Its Level 7 Nen ability was comparable to Sequence 3.

So when the Nightmare Slime's Nightmare Mark touched Karpac, it caused him to briefly forget about it.

Just after Karpac finished his feast, he suddenly realized something and turned toward the lord's castle.

To his shock, the giant slime had swallowed his lord's castle whole.

Karpac's eyes nearly popped out of his head, and with a roar, he unleashed a swirling vortex of molten lava, a combination of earth and fire elements.

However, the Nightmare Slime shrank down to the size of a fist, blinking through space as it began playing hide and seek within the Divine Domain. The Sequence 4 spatial seals in the domain couldn't contain the Nightmare Slime's void blinking. Karpac realized he wouldn't be able to catch it in time.

Meanwhile, through the Sequence Ancient Tree, Karpac could feel that the Elemental Barrier around the lord's castle was gradually dissolving under the Nightmare Slime's terrifying stomach acid.

If this dragged on any longer, both the lord's castle and the Sequence Ancient Tree would be destroyed.

Karpac gave up chasing the Nightmare Slime and instead charged toward the enemy's Divine Domain with his newfound strength from the feast.

Despite the setbacks, he had already judged that his opponent was only at Sequence 6.

They may have miraculous buildings, perhaps even power on par with a god's offspring, but they were still Sequence 6. Having used so many methods, there was no way they hadn't paid a price.

Directly attacking the enemy's lord's castle was the best solution under the current circumstances.

Karpac dived, tearing through the space barrier that Rosen's Divine Domain had barely managed to repair.

Without the spatial fog, which had reverted to its normal state after the Phantom Armament was undone, it had little effect on Karpac.

He flew through the fog and hovered above the Divine Domain, staring down at the Ash Castle.

In the sky, massive, flaming lava spheres formed, accelerating toward the lord's castle like a meteor shower.

Rosen had already transferred the domain's buildings into the Time Tower, and the population had been relocated to various spiritual realms.

Only he and Alicia remained, standing on the castle terrace, watching the sky in tense preparation.

The Sequence 7 Ash Castle could withstand Sequence 5 damage for an extended time.

Against a Sequence 4, however, the Elemental Barrier could only hold for a few minutes.

So the Little Dragon Girl immediately transferred the Phantom Armament to the Ash Castle. This upgraded the Sequence 6 Ash Castle, enabling it to withstand at least an hour of full-force attacks from a Sequence 4. Rosen had to defeat Karpac within that time.

Rosen moved the Radiant Lighthouse into the Time Tower, then bestowed the Gluttony ability upon it.

In its Solar Jellyfish form, the Radiant Lighthouse quickly absorbed over a million spiritual crystals, replenishing the energy consumed during the previous Solar Blast.

The Little Dragon Girl then switched the Phantom Armament to the Radiant Lighthouse, which instantly appeared above Karpac, its countless jellyfish tendrils wrapping around him as it unleashed another Solar Blast, capable of severely injuring a Sequence 4 in seconds.

However, this time, it didn't inflict the expected damage on Karpac.

The light and heat from the Solar Jellyfish, while potent, weren't enough to deal fatal damage to the fire-elemental Karpac.

Moreover, Karpac clearly possessed abilities like super regeneration and damage immunity. Under the attack of the Solar Blast, he only sustained superficial injuries, retaliating with even more meteor showers.

The Radiant Lighthouse retreated in its light element form, while the Phantom Armament strengthened the Ash Castle once again.

As Rosen pondered the nature of the Gourmand Sequence, searching for a way to break through, he reflected on what he knew.

The Gourmand's core abilities lay in tasting food, then creating it, and finally transforming into an extraordinary lifeform corresponding to the food consumed.

Like the other nine main sequences, the Gourmand Sequence focused on spirituality with physical enhancements as a secondary benefit.

Creating food was literal—it meant producing food with various special effects.

But tasting was the most remarkable part. High-sequence Gourmands might not have the digestion power of the Glutton, but their ability to absorb and retain the special effects of food far exceeded it. Thus, their favorite combat strategy was to eat food to stack buffs, then transform and crush their enemies in a berserk frenzy.

Few other Sequence 4s could unleash meteor showers with such relentless ferocity.

Rosen summoned the Void Sketchbook and Divine Pen, beginning to draw a spiritual portrait of Karpac's Phoenix form.

With 56x speed acceleration, it took him half an hour to produce a lifelike depiction of the fire phoenix.

Rosen then put on the Seagod's Remnant Ring, preparing to use his trump card.

The Divine Beast Stables housed many extraordinary marine lifeforms. Now, with the addition of the Mobius Lake from the Hunter Realm and the Fishing Village Spiritual Realm, these waters were teeming with Blade-Finned Sharks and Sea Rats, continuously supplying the Seagod's Remnant Ring with faith.

Originally, Rosen had intended to save this trump card for Duke Moore, but now it seemed he would need it to deal with Karpac.

He had underestimated the depth of a hereditary duke's resources—two thousand years of family accumulation was no joke.

Finally, the Elemental Barrier of the Ash Castle began to falter. Karpac, having attacked at full strength for an hour, wasn't unscathed either.

Rosen rubbed the Seagod's Remnant Ring. In his hands, it was somewhat underutilized.

Even if he used it to invoke Storm Divinity and Ocean Divinity, he didn't possess the high-sequence skills related to these powers. While the pinnacle of skill was divinity, it required deep understanding and mastery.

Using external forces to wield divine power wasn't ideal for combat—using divine power to enhance existing skills was more effective.

Rosen activated Storm Guardian, unleashing a vortex that swept up the meteor showers falling from the sky.

He then fired a volley of Storm Arrows, threading them through the gaps in the meteor showers as they locked onto Karpac, forcing him back step by step.

At the same time, Rosen's Divine Domain was flooded with seawater.

The meteor showers evaporated the seawater, turning the entire domain into a giant steam chamber. This further enhanced the power of Storm Divinity, and the condensation of the steam began to fall as heavy rain, creating a battlefield that countered Karpac.

Karpac recognized the power of divinity at play, though he knew it was only borrowed.

The stronger the external force, the higher the cost of using it, and he doubted his opponent could maintain it for long.

But his own time was also running out. Through the Sequence Ancient Tree, Karpac could feel the Elemental Barrier around his lord's castle on the verge of collapse, corroded by the Nightmare Slime's stomach acid. If he delayed any longer, his castle would fall first.

Karpac estimated that the enemy's Elemental Barrier would also fail soon; otherwise, they wouldn't be using high-sequence external forces at this stage.

He immediately took out three treasured items: a wheel-sized alchemical bomb, a high-sequence recovery potion that could restore all his strength in a short time, and the Sequence 3 transcendent artifact—the Fire Dragon Holy Sword.

Karpac deactivated his Phoenix form and instead used the Gourmand's ultimate transformation—Perfect Life.

Perfect Life gathered the strengths of various extraordinary lifeforms, combining them into a terrifying combat form with no weaknesses and only advantages. In this form, Gourmands became beast kings.

However, this power came with a high cost, as it required suppressing the rejection between the different extraordinary bloodlines.

Karpac could only maintain it for a few dozen seconds. After that, he would enter a period of severe weakness.

A terrifying wave of energy burst forth from Karpac's body, and he transformed into a massive egg in midair. This was the Eternal Egg, a defensive skill essential to the Gourmand Sequence, capable of withstanding attacks even from Sequence 3 for a short time.

The Eternal Egg primarily existed to give the user enough time to complete their transformation.

After a few seconds, the egg shattered, revealing Karpac in his new form—a grotesque combination of different organs from various creatures. Despite being a patchwork of parts, it appeared harmonious and even perfect.

With the wings of a Wind Bird, Karpac flew through the storm vortex and closed in on the Ash Castle.

With the heart of an Earth Bear, he landed on the mountain outside the castle, his feet draining the earth of its elemental power. The blood flowing from his heart gave him a berserk momentum, growing stronger as he fought, coupled with super regeneration.

With the legs of a Thunder Rabbit, Karpac's speed allowed him to circle the Ash Castle thousands of times in an instant.

With the claws of a Phantom Cat, Karpac possessed lightning-fast hand speed.

Combining the Thunder Rabbit's speed with the Phantom Cat's reaction time, and utilizing the Elemental Demon Eye's vision for elemental detection, along with various other extraordinary enhancements, Karpac swung the Fire Dragon Holy Sword at the Elemental Barrier.

The Fire Dragon Holy Sword's attributes all enhanced its destructive power, and it carried the Sequence 3 Fire Dragon's indestructible dragon flame.

Each strike of the sword caused elemental explosions to ring out from the barrier, leaving behind persistent dragon flames. He was able to deliver hundreds of strikes every second, and within moments, the Elemental Barrier was shattered.

But when the Elemental Barrier fell, what lay before Karpac was the Time Tower.

Rosen had directly transferred the Ash Castle into the Time Tower, and the Sequence 5 Time Tower's Time Barrier had a defense comparable to Sequence 3.

Of course, without the Steam Power Tower and Elemental Barrier Tower from the Ash Castle, the Time Tower's endurance was far inferior. However, it could easily hold out for a few dozen seconds, long enough for Karpac's period of weakness to begin.

Seeing that the barrier ahead was difficult to break, Karpac took a deep breath and concentrated all his power for one massive burst.

It seemed as if thousands of Karpacs were attacking the Time Barrier simultaneously. These were the afterimages of a single Karpac's assault, and when they dissipated, the Time Barrier shattered—but Karpac immediately entered his period of weakness.

However, Karpac's body was enveloped in Phoenix Flames, and his weakened state was restored to its peak.

This was the powerful rebirth ability granted by the Phoenix bloodline passed down through his family for generations.

Karpac launched a fierce attack on the tower door, and within a dozen seconds, it was blown open, releasing a flood of seawater.

Karpac ignored the seawater as it evaporated wherever he passed.

But the moment Karpac entered the Time Tower, Rosen activated the Time Seal.

Everything inside the tower was frozen in time, including the Ash Castle.

At this moment, Rosen appeared at the tower's entrance, wearing the Seagod's Remnant Ring, and fully invoked the Sea Burial miracle. The tower's interior was filled with seawater, providing perfect conditions for the spell.

Sea Burial caused lifeforms to rot and dissolve into the seawater, but only if the caster's spirituality surpassed that of the target.

The stronger the target's resistance, the longer it took to dissolve.

The power of Sea Burial enveloped the seawater inside the tower, and as time resumed, Rosen immediately locked onto Karpac, casting Mannequin.

With the Starry Emblem activated and the Ancient God's Sacrificial Tool in hand, Rosen's spirituality strength surpassed Karpac's for the next nine seconds.

As a result, Sea Burial was successful, and Karpac's body began to rot and dissolve.

Mannequin lasted for two seconds before automatically canceling due to the damage Karpac sustained.

But in those two seconds, Rosen had already moved the Ash Castle out of the Time Tower, and the Radiant Lighthouse had transformed back into its Solar Jellyfish form. It unleashed the Radiant Barrier, sealing the tower's entrance and cutting off Karpac's last escape route.

(End of Chapter)