Lord: Sequence Master

In the Dark Continent of the Hunter Sequence, Rosen stood before a hundred Sequence 6 Metal Slimes.

After mastering the Ancient God Ritual, he dedicated himself to educating his citizens on the importance of law and order. Those who neglected it learned hard lessons, while those who took it to heart reaped the rewards.

In just ten days, all the Sequence 7 slimes had successfully transformed into Sequence 6 Metal Slimes, each merged with Regenerating Metal. Now was the time to test their progress.

The Metal Slimes could grow and shrink—small enough to fit in a fist, or expand up to ten meters tall. Changing size had no impact on their defense or damage output; only agility varied. Drawing the Wrath of the Dragon King, Rosen tested a rapid volley of shots on the nearest Metal Slime. Each bullet carried a Sequence 6 Elemental Magic Space Slash, an attack potent enough to wound most Sequence 6 life forms, yet it only grazed the Metal Slime's surface.

Pleased, Rosen commanded the hundred Metal Slimes to merge into a single towering, hundred-meter-tall Mega Metal Slime. Testing another volley, he found that without using Ashen Armor-Piercing, his shots couldn't penetrate its defenses. Estimating the combined strength of the slimes, he concluded this super-sized Metal Slime would be formidable even against Sequence 4s. Even a demi-god would need several minutes to eliminate it.

He then used the Beastmaster's Wrath to tame all the Metal Slimes as auxiliary pets and deployed his Beastmaster Field. Within this domain, the abilities of all pets could be shared with the auxiliary pets, transferring any injuries they suffered to these helpers and enhancing the powers of both pets and troops.

In this state, Rosen felt confident he could withstand damage from the Volcanic Blaze Dragon, a Sequence 4 beast. However, actually hunting the Blaze Dragon would require more. He needed all one thousand Sequence 6 Shadow Demons to be in place. Only by harnessing the Shadow Realm could he entrap the Blaze Dragon with minimal disruption, creating an opportunity to slay it within the Shadow Realm before it could escape.

Attempting a kill within the volcano would immediately alert every demi-god in the City of Divine Arms, likely sparking a contest that would leave him empty-handed. With the Shadow Realm covering the battlefield and the Metal Slimes securing defense, he still needed a solution for attack power.

Rosen entered the Time Tower and began fivefold time acceleration, using the sped-up days to merge the Ashen Hive hives polluted with ashen residue. After three months, the Ashen Hive finally reached Sequence 6.

Upon reaching Sequence 6, Rosen examined the Ashen Hive's full attributes:

Ashen Hive: Miracle Troop Building

Level: Sequence 6

Property: Produces one Sequence 6 Ashen Queen annually with resource input.

Miracle Traits: Armor-Piercing, True Damage, Honey Harvest, Unique Existence, Eternal Resilience

Seeing these Miracle Traits, his first reaction was disbelief; previously, neither the Ashen Queens nor Ashen Bees possessed Unique Existence or Eternal Resilience. Now they did, and after reflection, he surmised a few possibilities.

Unlike Xiaolongnu (Little Dragon Girl), a unique miracle life form born only once, the Ashen Bees could be born in multiple numbers. He had initially thought that only the first-born Ashen Bee would hold these exclusive traits, but it seemed instead that the strongest Ashen Bee alone would embody these powers. With the Ashen Hive elevated to Sequence 6, surpassing the previous Sequence 7, the dominance had shifted in his favor.

Should another person develop an Ashen Hive to Sequence 5 before him, he would lose these two traits and even the Honey Harvest ability.

Assessing Armor-Piercing and True Damage, he found they were innate traits of the Ashen Bee line, while Honey Harvest required both Unique Existence and Eternal Resilience to activate. Using this ability, Ashen Bees could gather the life energy within all things, fermenting it into a special Ashen Honey.

Freshly harvested Ashen Honey within a day would fortify life force and boost spiritual growth, but beyond a day, it would produce a deadly poison that sapped life. The longer the honey was stored, the more potent the poison, with the honey itself slowly diminishing over time.

Pouring spiritual energy into the Ashen Hive, Rosen quickly produced this year's Ashen Queen. Now, the hive housed two queens—one large and one small. The larger queen could produce one Sequence 6 Ashen King and ten regular Sequence 6 Ashen Bees annually, while the younger queen, though unable to reproduce, specialized in creating Ashen Royal Jelly.

While Ashen Honey became toxic over time, Royal Jelly only grew richer in life energy with age. If stored for a thousand years, it could even push a Sequence 4 with maxed-out spiritual strength beyond their limits.

Rosen procured the corpse of a giant beast, quickly harvesting enough life essence to produce a batch of Ashen Honey and Royal Jelly. Taking a single drop of the blood-red honey, he felt its invigorating power as his vitality and spirit surged.

Eager to push his stock further, he combined his hundreds of Sequence 7 Ashen Bees, ending up with over a hundred Sequence 6 Ashen Bees. It took another ten days, but at last, the Ashen Honey production was established.

The benefits for him, though substantial, weren't the most. After consuming a Golden Apple, his life force was already immense. Li Shiqing and Alicia, however, received the greatest boost. With the aid of Ashen Honey and an unlimited supply of transcendent ingredients, Li Shiqing's progress to Sequence 8 was swift. Meanwhile, Alicia's ancient Spirit of Life bloodline began awakening at an accelerated rate.

As the final days approached for the birth of all the Shadow Demons, Rosen remained busy, leveling up his Hunter Sequence skills. With the support of Sequence 6 Ashen Bees, he elevated Ashen Armor-Piercing to LV5.

[Ashen Armor-Piercing LV5]: Passive boost of 240% to base damage; negates all physical defenses weaker than the user's damage output.

Miracle Traits: True Damage, Life Drain

The Life Drain trait caused a steady loss of life force in any target that suffered true damage, requiring specific healing to halt the progressive decay leading to death.

Alongside Ashen Armor-Piercing, Rosen used his Death Perception skill on the Death Belt to upgrade Sixth Sense to LV5, though without adding any new traits. He planned to accumulate power in Sixth Sense and evolve it directly into a Seventh Sense at LV6; sometimes, quality trumped quantity in traits.

With these two skills enhanced, he chose not to upgrade Void Shadow Step yet, as he intended to merge it with the Shadow Demons' Shadow Realm, evolving it into a unique skill.

By now, he understood what unique skills entailed. Skills with levels gradually transformed toward the Authority of rules, whereas level-less unique skills were imbued with the power of rule-based Authority from the start. While the latter was rarer, it wasn't necessarily superior. Skills like Mindscape Canvas even had greater potential than most unique skills.

After these upgrades, Rosen spent the remaining time reading. Studying elemental books improved his use of Xiaolongnu's powers and converted knowledge into proficiency, raising Elemental Trap-Making to LV5, as well as his skills in time and spatial manipulation. It was only then that the last Shadow Demon was born.

Without delay, Rosen plunged into the Void Shadow, summoning the Shadow Demons to fuse with it. Each one merged their Shadow Realm into the Void Shadow, forming a vast Shadow World spanning ten thousand miles. Under their collective control, this world gradually compressed until it reached a mere forty-eight kilometers, perfectly sized to contain the Blaze Dragon.

Unsatisfied, Rosen integrated this newly-formed Shadow World with his Divine Domain. From then on, the Shadow World became a reflection of his domain. Taking advantage of the moment, he fully assimilated the Demon Nest into the Shadow World.

In this process, his Void Shadow Step transformed naturally into a new unique skill:

[Void Shadow Realm]: Grants the power to create and control the Void Shadow Realm.

Divine Authority Traits:Shadow Lord: Complete mastery over all Shadow Demons born within the Shadow Realm.Shadow Doppelganger: Can transform the shadows of any lifeform into shadow clones.Light-Dark Alternation: Enables instantaneous spatial coverage via shadows.

With Void Shadow Step evolving into the Divine Authority skill Void Shadow Realm, Rosen was genuinely surprised.

As Shadow Lord, he could freely traverse into any Void Shadow Realm connected to his domain. The Void Shadow Realm could also bind itself to the shadows of everything around him. This ability preserved and even amplified his original stealth abilities.

Moreover, Shadow Doppelganger transformed the previous Shadow Clone trait. Previously, the power of a shadow clone depended on the strength of the lifeform casting the shadow. For instance, a Sequence 6 individual's shadow might only hold Sequence 7 power at best. But now, with the power of the Shadow Realm and the strength of the Shadow Demons channeled into them, his Shadow Clones could nearly match the originals.

Finally, Light-Dark Alternation granted the core power of the Void Shadow Realm, a seamless ability to project through any shadowed space.

Rosen stepped outside the Mysterious Study into the restored Mechanical City. Cloaked by the Ashen Canvas Projection, the outer facade was disguised as a mountain, with even the sun and stars he had once idly painted, providing a realistic but ultimately artificial sky. Though it produced light, it could never compare to the real sun.

Rosen dismissed the Ashen Canvas disguise and, using Void Shadow Realm, swallowed up the shadow of Mechanical City.

With the entire city's shadow absorbed, the Mechanical City suddenly vanished. In its place on the ground remained only its shadow, where mechanical automatons continued moving about. The city itself, though visible, was untouchable from outside unless one could enter its shadow.

This was merely the beginning phase of Light-Dark Alternation, in which only the shadow of the physical entity was pulled into the Void. When Rosen's mastery of Light-Dark Alternation grew, and Void Shadow Realm expanded further, the result would no longer be just the shadow of Mechanical City, but rather a complete city that, under sunlight, cast no shadow at all. At this level, the transformation between the city and its shadow would be seamless.

If he'd had such power earlier, Rosen could have hunted the Death Scorpion solely as a Hunter Sequence.

Yet to hunt the Volcanic Blaze Dragon, Rosen knew he needed even more strength.

He had held a spiritual strength of 48 points for some time now, with the Ashen Honey stabilizing him at the peak of Sequence 6. This meant he was fully prepared to ascend to Sequence 5. Were it not for his goal of slaying the Blaze Dragon, his first upgrade would have been the Noble Sequence. However, under the circumstances, advancing in the Hunter Sequence was the more strategic choice.

The ingredients for the Sequence 5 potion were ready, with the exception of the core material. His mastery of each Hunter Sequence branch had made him indecisive, but after careful consideration, he chose to advance to Ranger.

The Ranger Branch in the Hunter Sequence featured a crucial innate skill: Weapon Master. Though all Hunter Sequences allowed binding one weapon with hunting rules, this paled in comparison to Weapon Mastery, which could bind two weapons—one primary and one secondary—and combine their attributes.

Ranger's core ingredient was easily obtained: any weapon fragment would suffice. Rosen placed a Twin Dagger fragment on one side and began mixing the potion in a magical vial.

Formula Components:

100 grams of powdered Heart of the War Mantis

A 1000-year-old Mechanian Life Core

50 grams of Sequence 5 Void Meteorite

10 drops of Blood of the Earth Bear

100 eyes of the Hundred-Eyed Demon...

The vial worked its magic, turning the ingredients into a semi-finished potion. After breaking the Twin Dagger into fragments, Rosen dropped them into the potion. The mixture began reacting, and the end product was neither liquid nor crystal but a dagger brimming with flames, decorated with a hundred watchful eyes.

Rosen took the dagger, driving it into his heart until it struck the core essence of the Hunter Sequence. Power from the potion surged into the core, and as the dagger slowly dissolved, his heart healed.

A murmur resounded in his mind and illusions danced before his eyes, but the strength of his Miracle Flame suppressed them entirely. Feeling no discomfort, Rosen sensed his spiritual strength had increased to 49.

Rosen then examined his core essence and confirmed he had gained the Weapon Master skill.

[Weapon Master]: Binds two weapons (one primary, one secondary) to the core, granting attribute stacking and trait sharing.

Rosen designated Wrath of the Dragon King as his primary and Twin Dagger as his secondary weapon. Twin Dagger's attribute focused on enhancing skill damage rather than base damage, making it slightly suboptimal for binding. However, with Weapon Master, he no longer needed to wield the dagger in his left hand while firing with his right. Additionally, after linking the weapons, Wrath of the Dragon King now gained the dagger's traits of Venom, Weakening, Sharpness, and Instant Death, making it even deadlier.

Next, Rosen retrieved a skill crystal, Fate Mark, which had been dropped by the Intelligence Bureau agent Ford. The God of the Hunt transformed the crystal into a Hunter Sequence skill, but because of its Sequence 5 level, Rosen had stored it until now.

The crystal was quickly absorbed, and Rosen mastered his first Sequence 5 special skill.

[Fate Mark: Special Skill]

Passive: Casts a fate mark on any target within spiritual range.

Active: Causes continuous true damage or delivers an unavoidable strike from any distance.

Rosen summoned a Metal Slime and placed a Fate Mark on it. Instantly, a cross-like dragon horn symbol appeared above the slime, visible only to Rosen. Upon activating the mark, the Metal Slime sustained continual damage. His calculations showed that the damage inflicted was roughly 49% of a basic Wrath of the Dragon King attack, essentially matching his spiritual strength.

Though modest, the true damage was difficult to avoid. If he'd had this skill earlier, the Death Scorpion would have been unable to hide from him. Testing the unavoidable strike, Rosen thrust the Twin Dagger forward. Though he was hundreds of meters from the Metal Slime, a wound suddenly appeared on the marked area.

The random nature of Fate Mark could target anywhere from a creature's head to its foot, making it a potent sneak attack tool. If it struck a critical spot, the blow could be devastating.

With the initial skill refined, Rosen refrained from immediately learning a second skill, as superior skills were rare. Meanwhile, the core essence processed the evolution of his innate skills.

His Nen LV7 skill remained unchanged, already at a level typical of Sequence 3. His Nightmare Shackles advanced to Sequence 5 but didn't gain a new trait. Trap Space, lacking a level system, simply grew in size. He then merged Trap Space with Void Shadow Realm, enhancing his capacity to deploy traps within the shadow realm.

Time Hunter, also without a level, now doubled its lifespan-draining ability, leeching twenty years from the target's life for every hundred.

Assessing his powers, Rosen calculated a 40% success rate for hunting the Blaze Dragon.

With no need to delay, Rosen left the Divine Archive and the hotel. City of Divine Arms had a teleportation circle leading downward, where many capable transcendents ventured to gather volcanic resources. Most stayed at the volcano's edge, seeking materials among fresh lava flows, while only demi-gods dared venture deep within the magma itself.

Arriving at the volcano's edge, Rosen observed his surroundings. The mouth was vast, like an endless mountain range, with rivers of lava flowing and plumes of smoke releasing immense heat.

He had no intention of descending into the lava where his odds of victory would be slim. Instead, he would lure the Blaze Dragon out with a drop of Bronze Dragon's True Blood.

With his Dragonblood Flask, he could absorb dragon blood and refine it into Bronze Dragon blood. Since it had regenerative qualities, Rosen could use some as bait. Though the Blaze Dragon, being an elemental dragon, lacked actual dragon blood, it would be drawn by the Bronze Dragon's blood—a powerful aid in its path to demi-godhood.

Rosen took a custom-made relic and had Xiaolongnu cast a dragon spell to summon a Sequence 5 fire elemental, sending it into the fiery chasm with the Bronze Dragon blood. After releasing the bait, the fire elemental returned along the lava river.

The Bronze Dragon blood began to spread, its time-stasis properties preventing it from burning away, instead releasing a potent dragon scent that wafted through the high temperatures.

In the depths of the volcano, the Volcanic Blaze Dragon awoke, lured by the Bronze Dragon blood. The dragon's enormous eyes glinted with joy and wariness as it moved through the lava toward the bait.

While the Blaze Dragon lacked a dragon's inherited memory and wasn't part of any bloodline, it was an elemental dragon born from a demi-god dragon's death in a volcanic region. Its long life had given it considerable intelligence. It knew well that Divine Arms Volcano was human territory; if a Sequence 7 challenged it, it would only inflict serious injury, not kill. With no taste for human flesh, it always kept its distance.

Still, it understood its allure as a "moving treasure trove." In its early years, numerous human Sequence 4s had attempted to hunt it but eventually abandoned the effort. Now, suspecting a new challenger, the Blaze Dragon was intrigued yet confident in its strength.

With full self-assurance, the Blaze Dragon decided to investigate. As long as it remained close to the volcanic mouth, it could evade even demi-gods if necessary.

Following the scent of the bait, the Blaze Dragon soon spotted a lone human seated by the edge of the lava river. Upon realizing that this person was only a Sequence 5, the Blaze Dragon grew even more wary. If a Sequence 5 was targeting it, it was either foolhardy or fully prepared.