Lord: Sequence Master

In the ultra-high-temperature dragon breath, with heat reaching tens of billions of degrees, a looming figure emerged, stepping steadily on the flames.

Shire wore a crown and held the Holy Sword of Kingship. Although his clothes were entirely burned away, the radiant water-like energy emanating from his body blocked the oppressive heat. Even the Dragon King's Roaring Bullet, which had annihilated Mogaro moments ago, failed to harm him.

"No, it's not that he's uninjured. He possesses an unimaginably terrifying healing ability..." Rosen muttered in disbelief after carefully sensing Shire's condition.

Rosen's Ashes Armor Breaker could inflict real, physical damage on extraordinary beings. His innate skill, God Hunter, delivered pure true damage to divine energy, while his weapon's property of Vitality Deprivation continuously drained the vitality of its target.

Yet, despite all this, the more vitality Shire lost, the more it regenerated immediately. His life force was resilient, like that of an indestructible cockroach.

"It's not that he wasn't affected by the Dragon King's Roaring Bomb. It's just that his regenerative capabilities let him recover instantly—even under sustained real damage caused by such unimaginable temperatures. In a way... it's as if he's immortal."

Rosen didn't let despair overwhelm him. He summoned the demon from the Void Gallery. Grasping the upper edge of the frame, the seven deadly sins within the painting awakened and materialized.

This demon had absorbed the Seven Deadly Sins of tens of thousands of painters and the sins of billions of people through the Demon God's Feast. Over time, its power had accumulated, elevating it from Sequence 3 to Sequence 2. The demon was capable of unleashing devastating force for two continuous hours.

However, there was a price to pay. Once the demon stepped out of the miraculous painting, it wouldn't stop until its battle concluded—whether in victory or death.

Moreover, even with the Void Shadow Realm reinforced by 50 Sequence 3 Angels of Light, integrated with the Mobius Ring and its nine layers, the realm might not endure a clash between the Seven Deadly Sins and Shire. If they fought recklessly, the first casualty would be Rainbow City.

The moment the Seven Deadly Sins stepped out of the canvas, Shire reacted. In one swift strike with the Holy Sword of Kingship, he cut Rosen's figure from head to toe. The figure dissolved into paint and disappeared.

It was merely a self-portrait clone. If it had been Rosen's true body, the result might have been fatal.

In truth, Rosen hadn't even attempted to dodge. He allowed the strike to connect, intending to create an opening for the Seven Deadly Sins.

Shire lowered his head briefly, and his heart suddenly stopped. Behind him, the demon from the Seven Deadly Sins had pierced his heart, holding it in one hand while forcibly merging an unknown power into it.

Shire spun around in an instant, plunging the Holy Sword of Kingship through his own heart and the demon's hand, which held it. A terrifying suction force reduced the demon's right hand to little more than skin and bones.

But in the next moment, Shire hesitated. He realized the Holy Sword of Kingship was being corrupted, its power wrested from his control.

Acting decisively, Shire activated a charging skill, discarding both his heart and the Holy Sword of Kingship to break free from the demon's grasp. The sword transformed into a card, reappearing in his hand moments later. Once it reverted to its original form, Shire lunged and struck back at the demon.

He relied on three simple knight-sequence skills—Charge, Jump, and Block—repeatedly cycling through them.

Yet, even with such rudimentary techniques, Shire held his ground against the Seven Deadly Sins. In fact, he consistently suppressed the demon in close combat. It was only when the demon unleashed the Curse of the Seven Sins that Shire suffered significant injuries.

Still, no matter how severe the damage, his incredible healing ability restored him in an instant.

From his vantage point behind the Mysterious Window, Rosen grew increasingly worried. Despite Shire's simple fighting style, his strength and speed were undeniable. Furthermore, his use of various enhancement skills bolstered his physique and amplified his damage output.

"This isn't his full power," Rosen murmured. "Even a knight with a straightforward fighting style must have hidden trump cards... moves akin to my Dragon King's Roaring Bullet or Time Bullet, capable of instant death."

What troubled Rosen was that Shire hadn't used any such moves. Instead, he relied on low-cost, prolonged tactics.

Then it dawned on him—Shire wasn't holding back out of arrogance. His previous encounter with the Dragon King's Roaring Bullet had inflicted true damage. Although Shire had recovered quickly, the healing process consumed an immense amount of divine energy.

Now, Shire was clearly conserving his remaining divinity. Against an opponent as formidable as the Seven Deadly Sins, he opted for a strategy of attrition, carefully managing his energy expenditure.

On the surface, it appeared Shire was engaging in direct combat. In reality, he was biding his time, ensuring that the divinity he regained surpassed the divinity consumed during the battle. The longer the fight stretched on, the higher his chances of victory.

On the other hand, the Seven Deadly Sins Demon could only fight for two hours. However, the demon had already expended much of its strength, and the strongest curse it could muster now had only a fraction of its intended effect on Shire.

Rosen is almost certain now. The Holy Grail King isn't Sequence 3. He's most likely Sequence 1.

A projection of the Void Prison appeared behind Rosen. The Dragon King's Wrath began locking onto prisoners one by one, executing them in rapid succession.

In mere moments, the Time Dragon Crystal harnessed the accumulated power of 30,000 years. This immense temporal energy was transformed into a time bullet capable of stripping an enemy of 6,000 years of life. Rather than firing immediately, Rosen continued locking onto prisoners, repeating the process to build up his arsenal.

In the past, Rosen hadn't mastered the Seventh Sense, limiting him to forming one time bullet at a time. Now, with his heightened perception of time and World Authority—including the authority of time—his control had expanded significantly. Amplified by the Ancient God's Sacrificial Vessel, which boosted his spiritual strength to 71 points, Rosen could now condense up to seven time bullets simultaneously.

When the final bullet was ready, Rosen seamlessly transformed the Dragon King's Wrath into a sniper rifle. Locking onto Shire, he fired.

The time bullet passed silently through a future silencer, disappearing without a trace. Seconds later, it reappeared, striking Shire directly.

Seven consecutive time bullets hit their mark, instantly depriving Shire of 42,000 years of life.

Moreover, Rosen had imbued the bullets with his innate skill, God Hunter, inflicting real damage against divine beings.

No method of extending life can counter this. Each level from Sequence 4 to Sequence 7 typically increases lifespan by only 1,000 years, while Sequence 3 to Sequence 1 grants at least an additional 10,000 years. However, Rosen's Seventh Sense allowed him to accurately perceive Shire's lifespan:

20,000 years lived... 35,000 years remaining.

The seven consecutive shots should have eradicated Shire's remaining years in an instant.

However, when the dust settled, Shire had merely aged from middle-aged to elderly. Though his lifespan had reached zero, he continued to battle the Seven Deadly Sins, seemingly unaffected by the staggering loss of 42,000 years.

This doesn't make sense... unless... Rosen's thoughts raced. Could Shire and Mogaro be sharing lifespans?

Shire's own lifespan was depleted, yet Mogaro's still sustained him.

Determined, Rosen fired more time bullets. But after over a dozen additional hits, Shire showed no further signs of decay. His lifespan was entirely drained, yet Mogaro remained hidden, untouchable by the bullets.

While Shire hadn't been killed outright, his aged and weakened body began to falter. Strength, speed, and even resistance to the Seven Deadly Sins Curse diminished significantly. At this rate, Shire's defeat seemed inevitable.

Realizing the precariousness of his situation, Shire was finally forced to unleash his full power.

A second head emerged from the back of Shire's neck—it was Mogaro's.

Mogaro's crown rested on his head, distinctly different from Shire's. While Shire wore the King's Crown, Mogaro bore the Queen's Crown. Although both were crowns, the contrast was stark—one symbolized kingship, the other queenship.

At that moment, Rosen sensed a faint yet unmistakable resonance of the Holy Grail Queen's power emanating from Mogaro.

It's a counterfeit, Rosen noted. A mimicry of the Holy Grail Queen's essence, crafted by Mogaro.

Despite its artificial nature, this resonance strengthened the bond between Shire and Mogaro, elevating Shire's perception to extraordinary levels. He began to anticipate and counter every attack from the Seven Deadly Sins with ease. Even worse, the curses of the Seven Deadly Sins not only failed to harm Shire but instead empowered him further.

In the blink of an eye, Shire turned the tide, overwhelming the Seven Deadly Sins Demon.

Faced with imminent defeat, the demon resorted to the Demon Feast, burning its own power for a final surge. This desperate act increased its strength significantly but reduced its remaining combat time to less than ten minutes.

Both combatants entered a state of absolute power. The violent clash of their energies began to destabilize the Void Shadow Realm, pushing it to the brink of collapse.

The borders of darkness were torn apart, spilling energy beyond the shadow world and into the physical realm. The shockwaves shredded the structures of Rainbow City into rubble.

Within seconds, the once-thriving city was reduced to ruins. Those citizens who hadn't yet evacuated perished in the chaos.

Thousands of miles away, Duke Hal and several other Sequence 3 powerhouses fled as quickly as they could.

The current Aurora Emperor, a Sequence 2 himself, was the only one with the power to intervene. However, the city was beyond saving, and the responsibility for the aftermath would fall to the World Government's Council of Nobles.

For the fleeing Sequence 3 elites, there was no reason to risk their lives here. Stopping the devastation would require someone of the emperor's caliber—only the Aurora Emperor, wielding the authority of the Sky Realm, could hope to contain this catastrophe.

Seeing that the Seven Deadly Sins Demon was still unable to defeat Shire, Rosen could no longer sit still in the mysterious study. After working so hard for a year and spending so much money, we can't fail at the last minute. He clenched his fists, feeling the weight of the situation. If we miss this opportunity, it will be difficult to take down Shire and Mogaro.

Rosen gritted his teeth and began to adjust his ancient god bloodline through the world gene bank. Soon, the blood of the ancient god was adjusted to match that of the Seven Deadly Sins Demon. Then, through the miracle treasure, the demon's true form appeared. Rosen summoned back the Seven Deadly Sins, who were fighting with him in an instant. The moment they approached Rosen, they merged into his body.

Shire was only a half-crippled Sequence 2, and the Seven Deadly Sins Demon should not have been unable to win. The key was that the Seven Deadly Sins could not use their full strength, and Rosen had not released the consciousness of the Seven Deadly Sins in the painting. Because he is only a Sequence 5, even if his spirituality is not inferior to that of a Sequence 3, he cannot use the manifestation of the demon to completely suppress the Seven Deadly Sins' consciousness, which is equivalent to a Sequence 2. Therefore, from the beginning to the end, the Seven Deadly Sins had been fighting almost on instinct under Rosen's remote control.

Rosen had now absorbed the power of the Seven Deadly Sins into his body and was directly controlling this power. This would certainly unleash a stronger combat power, but the power of a Sequence 2 was undoubtedly a huge burden for him. So, he only had less than a minute at most. However, during this period, he could superimpose and fuse his own power with the power of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Rosen instantly marked Shire with the Fate Mark, causing him to suffer continuous true damage. The Mark of Destiny also came with a guaranteed hit damage that ignored distance. Shire, who was charging towards Rosen, was hit by the twin daggers in Rosen's hands from mid-air on the spot. The four characteristics of poison, weakness, sharpness, and instant death were activated simultaneously.

The instant death spell was clearly effective, but Shire was still hanging on to his last breath. Fortunately, the poison contained in the poisonous ash bee honey and its weakening properties took effect, making Shire even weaker. Rosen seized the opportunity and activated the miraculous property of the miracle treasure, the Fiery Shadow Stone, at this time.

By burning the soul, one's spirituality could increase by one level in a short period of time. Rosen's spiritual strength, which was originally comparable to that of a Sequence 3, instantly exploded to Sequence 2 under the amplification of Soul Blazing Shadow. At this moment, in a pure competition of spiritual strength, Rosen was not inferior to Shire at all.

Many abilities that were originally limited by differences in soul strength and could not take effect instantly could now be used. Rosen activated the Balance of Fate feature of the Miracle Flame, locking onto Shire and beginning to modify his fortune. The modification and transformation of fortune by the Balance of Fate were not completed instantly. The greater the spiritual gap between it and the target of modification, the slower the conversion efficiency. But now that their spiritual strengths were at the same level, the speed at which Qi circulated was extremely fast.

Rosen transformed all of Shire's acquired luck into innate luck. Then, he gathered his own innate luck to form a destiny eraser, quickly clearing Shire's Sequence 3 innate luck to zero. He also used the human model at the same time to restrain Shire's body, making it difficult for him to move.

Although additional damage during this period would release the mannequin's confinement, this referred to damage to the body and spirit. Reducing luck is too high-end and too hidden, which can just avoid the defect of the mannequin confining the enemy.

Rosen finally released the Divine Realm, and with great heartache, he used the Ten Directions Annihilation Technique on the Divine Realm that had been promoted to Sequence 4 in the past year. The entire divine territory collapsed in an instant, from five-dimensional space to zero-dimensional space. Shire, who was unable to dodge under the restraint of the human model, was instantly killed on the spot by the Ten Directions Annihilation of the Ancient God Sequence.

The Ten Directions Annihilation could only be used once at each sequence level, and Rosen felt a pang of regret using it on Shire. But the next moment, he had no time to feel sad, because no loot light ball appeared in the scavenging space. This meant that Ten Directions Annihilation had not completely killed Shire. At this time, Rosen's seventh sense captured that a card had escaped from the zero-dimensional space formed by the collapse of Ten Directions Annihilation and was fleeing into the distance.

Seeing that the card was about to disappear, Rosen changed his mind and shared all of Farah's power. The fleeing card was instantly attracted by the power of the Holy Grail Queen in Rosen's body like a magnet. In the blink of an eye, it drilled into his sea of consciousness. Then, two conjoined souls emerged from the card and began to attack Rosen's soul.

Shire and Mogaro, who had been killed instantly by Ten Directions Annihilation, managed to preserve their souls and divine origins with the help of the Holy Grail King. But their bodies were completely gone, and along with it, the divine territory was completely shattered.

They chose to come back under such circumstances because they wanted to use the Holy Grail King's suppression of the Holy Grail Queen to forcibly seize Rosen's body, attempting to change from a conjoined twin with two souls to a conjoined twin with three souls.

However, Shire and Mogaro soon discovered something devastating.

They wanted to take over Rosen's body by force, merging with him, but with just two Sequence 2s, they couldn't overpower a Sequence 4.

Rosen's soul was protected by the Pride of Arrogance, and now, with the power of the Sequence 2 Seven Deadly Sins, his soul was further safeguarded by the Flame of Miracles. Even a Sequence 1 adept at manipulating souls might struggle to invade his soul.

Not to mention, Rosen possessed the innate skill Hunting God, which allowed all his techniques to convert into damage against divinity.

He embedded the Fiery Shadow Stone into the Nightmare Shackles, granting the shackles the Fiery Shadow Soul attribute. Then, he used the shackles to ensnare the souls of Shire and Mogaro, forcibly igniting them with Soul Blazing Shadow.

In an instant, the Holy Grail King could no longer protect their souls. The Nightmare Shackles imprisoned their souls and sealed their divine origins.

A few hours later, Rosen lay half-dead at the heart of the Ancient Tree of Life.

A vast amount of life essence nourished his body and his soul, which had been nearly consumed by Soul Blazing Shadow. The Golden Apple and Star Fruit steadily restored his spiritual origin, albeit slowly. Complete recovery would take several years.

Despite his injuries, Rosen's gaze fixated on the card floating before him.

[Miracle, Essence, Divinity, Holy Grail King: Fallen Tarot]

[Level: Sequence 1]

[Attributes: The King of Cups grants divine water and wind attributes, and can control all Minor Arcana cards.]

[True God's Power 1: Holy Grail Crown – Locks health points and consumes faith to infinitely heal all injuries.]

[True Divine Authority 2: Royal Sword of the Holy King – Grants royal authority to impose rules in a limited manner.]

[True Divine Authority 3: Holy Grail of Essence – Absorbs faith to strengthen its essence.]

[Miracle Features: King's Game, Unique in Heaven and Earth, Eternal Immortality.]

Before the power of Soul Blazing Shadow diminished, Rosen relied on his temporary Sequence 2-level spiritual strength and the greedy authority of the Seven Deadly Sins to forcibly refine the miracle card: the Holy Grail King.

The properties were astonishing. Shire had used this card to suppress the Queen of Grails. While the card lacked universal theocracy, its three True Divine Authorities were immensely powerful.

The Holy Grail Crown, a True Divine Power, made Shire nearly unkillable—a cockroach in divine terms.

The Royal Sword of the Holy King was equally formidable. Shire and Mogaro's current condition stemmed from this authority. The Royal Sword functioned like a weaker version of ecological laws, offering limited rule-making power. Unlike ecological laws, which provided permanent authority, the Royal Sword required continuous faith to sustain its rules.

In actual combat, the Royal Sword's consumption was far lower than that of ecological laws. With its aid, Shire created a curse rooted in Mogaro's divine origin.

Mogaro used the Royal Sword to entrap Shire. This mutual hostility propelled both, despite their lack of exceptional qualifications, to ascend to Sequence 2 over the years. Their progress was largely fueled by the Holy Grail of Essence, which absorbed faith to bolster their extraordinary origins.

As for Mogaro's enhanced perception, Rosen still couldn't discern its true nature.

Now, the divine origins of Shire and Mogaro resided in the Concert Hall of the Dead within the spiritual painting.

There, under the influence of the Resting Lullaby, the souls were lulled into a deep slumber as Stig and his ensemble played haunting melodies. Once fully recovered, Rosen planned to delve into their secrets using telekinesis.

His attention shifted to the Miracle Property: King's Game, the sole miracle trait of the Holy Grail King.

Logically, a Sequence 1 miracle should possess at least three miracle traits, even excluding its Uniqueness and Eternal Immortality attributes. That the Holy Grail King only had one highlighted the extraordinary nature of the King's Game.

Activating the King's Game required mastery over both the Holy Grail King and the Holy Grail Queen.

With this power, all holders of Minor Arcana cards could be forcibly recruited into the King's Game. However, until activated, the true nature of this miraculous power remained unknown to Rosen.

End of Chapter