Lord: Sequence Master

"Human, I will remember you forever."

The Bronze Dragon's clone glared venomously at Rosen, casting the Dragon King's Blessing upon him before vanishing.

As the clone disappeared, Rosen had his Angel Thought Beast reconnect his severed head to his body. Despite Rosen's formidable life force, being decapitated was still a fatal injury. He had only survived by quietly activating a localized Void Realm Field, using his Void Realm Vision to convert his vitality into a life bar. As long as that bar remained, no matter how severe his injuries, he wouldn't die.

Once his head was reattached, Rosen returned to the Mysterious Study Room to check for any hidden dangers within his body.

Using the Main God Computer, Rosen discovered that he had received the Dragon King's Blessing, a gift only a dragon monarch-level demigod could bestow. This blessing granted eternal youth and made him highly resistant to most negative curses. At first glance, it seemed like a benevolent and powerful boon.

However, Rosen realized the Bronze Dragon was determined to exact revenge. Although the dragon would lose its memories upon being killed and resurrected through the spirit realm—resetting to its state from two thousand years ago—the Dragon King's Blessing would persist after resurrection. The blessing served as a mark left before its death, allowing the dragon to recognize the target upon rebirth.

A negative curse could be removed with some effort, but a positive blessing like this was much harder to clear, and most would be reluctant to give up such a boon due to its obvious advantages. Even though the Bronze Dragon was trapped within the Time Dragon's Nest, incapable of escaping to seek revenge, this blessing represented its lingering hope. If the dragon ever managed to break free, it could follow the mark to track Rosen and seek vengeance.

Clearly, Vlada, the Bronze Dragon, was utterly consumed with hatred.

Rosen shook his head, thinking, If you manage to break out of the Time Dragon's Nest, feel free to seek your revenge.

With that matter settled, Rosen's attention shifted to the Time Tower.

The Time Tower, once controlled by the Bronze Dragon, had originally been a Sequence 3 extraordinary structure. Though the real Time Tower had long since been destroyed, its base remained intact, supporting the Time Dragon's Nest deep within the Time Rift. The spirit realm's replica of the Time Tower was a rare treasure, now managed by the Thunder Empire.

The Time Tower in the Time Dragon's Nest had been degraded to Sequence 5, but it was still a valuable structure. If Rosen advanced to Sequence 5 in his noble sequence, he could potentially integrate the tower into his Divine Domain.

Rosen quickly located the control center of the Time Tower on its upper level. However, despite refining it, he couldn't store it—several layers of enchantments, likely placed by the Thunder Empire, prevented him from doing so. Slightly disappointed, Rosen settled for extracting some divine energy using the Main God Computer, careful not to drain too much to avoid destabilizing the tower.

Half a month passed, during which time the Bronze Dragon was slowly digested by Rosen's Gluttony Stomach. When the dragon finally perished, several loot orbs materialized in Rosen's Scavenger Space.

Eager to claim his spoils, Rosen conducted a thorough sweep of the spirit realm, but apart from a few extraordinary plants, there was little else of value. Disappointed, he left the Time Dragon's Nest and returned to the Time Rift, where the base of the Time Tower was located.

Waiting outside was Duke Milburn, dressed in pajamas, clearly having rushed over upon sensing the dragon's death. He had time-accelerated his journey, not even stopping to change.

"You actually killed the Bronze Dragon?" Duke Milburn asked, his disbelief evident.

"I gathered a lot of anti-dragon treasures," Rosen replied with a wry smile.

"You were after the miracle, weren't you?" Duke Milburn asked after a moment of thought, satisfied with this explanation.

Rosen nodded, sensing that the duke's mood had improved. Although the Milburn family had been tasked with guarding the spirit realm for generations, an outsider of Sequence 7 conquering it was bound to sting. However, Milburn's demeanor lightened, knowing Rosen had paid a heavy price.

The miracle was the excuse Rosen had prepared in advance. Since connecting the Main God Computer to the Main God Network, Rosen had extensively researched miracles. All miracle artifacts originated from significant, often cataclysmic events, such as the birth of the first sequence potion or the fall of a god.

Whether one of the loot orbs contained a miracle artifact remained to be seen. Rosen hadn't checked yet, fearing that if he discovered such an artifact in the spirit realm, his reaction might tip off Duke Milburn, souring their already fragile camaraderie.

Back at Duke Milburn's castle, Rosen was warmly welcomed and granted access to rare extraordinary books on time manipulation, typically unavailable to outsiders. In return, Rosen shared insights into his methods for killing the Bronze Dragon.

Upon learning of the Sequence 4 one-time-use treasures Rosen had used, Milburn couldn't help but pity him. The cost of these items—valuable enough to be considered Sequence 3 artifacts—had been immense. After calculating the total, it was clear Rosen had spent billions of spiritual crystals to defeat the dragon. The effort and cost didn't seem worth the reward, prompting Milburn to abandon any thoughts of hunting the dragon himself.

After reading everything available, Rosen left the Time Rift and returned to Frost City. Finally alone, his heart raced as he opened his Scavenger Space to examine the loot orbs.

There were three in total. Rosen crushed the dimmest one first, revealing a hunter sequence skill crystal.

The skill was Time Archer, a Sequence 5 skill crystal—an incredibly rare, almost legendary hunter ability.

For a hunter specializing in traps, Time Archer would imbue all their skills with time-related effects, elevating their entire sequence. In hunter sequence history, there was once a Sequence 9 hunter who killed a Sequence 0 being using a similar Sequence 1 skill crystal. That hunter had become one of the few Sequence 0 gods in the hunter sequence, though his fate had been tragic—he challenged the one true god of the hunter sequence and ultimately fell.

Rosen stored the skill crystal, planning to learn it when he reached Sequence 6.

Next, he eagerly crushed the second orb.

[Essence: Dragon King's Wrath – Extraordinary Artifact]

[Rank: Sequence 5]

[Attributes: Increases base damage by 120%, with multiple adaptable forms]

[Essence Ability 1: Time Scope – Brief glimpses of the past and future]

[Essence Ability 2: Future Silencer – Fires bullets that appear silently in the future]

[Essence Ability 3: Bullet Time – Instantly enter a heightened time perception state]

[Essence Ability 4: Dragon King's Roar Round – Fires a time breath-imbued round]

[Essence Ability 5: Fusion Evolution – Potential for growth under special conditions]

The Dragon King's Wrath initially appeared as a one-foot-long flintlock pistol, gleaming with a golden hue, shaped like a dragon, with clockwork gears embossed along its barrel.

Rosen refined it into his own, finding that it could transform into various ranged weapons—a pistol, sniper rifle, bow, crossbow, even a blowpipe or ballista—each form adapting to the needs of a hunter. In pure damage, Dragon King's Wrath far surpassed Rosen's Godslayer Crossbow.

He then dismantled the Godslayer Crossbow, separating its Godslayer Eye—which provided abilities like enhanced vision, tracking, and destruction—and integrated it into his right eye as his third psychic ability.

Next, he fused the Godslayer Crossbow with Dragon King's Wrath, unlocking its full potential and ensuring it would grow alongside his evolving powers.

[Essence: Dragon King's Wrath – Extraordinary Artifact]

[Rank: Sequence 5]

[Attributes: Increases base damage by 160%, has multiple adaptable forms, significantly enhances psychic energy damage, and can store all of the user's psychic energy]

[Attachments: Time Scope, Future Silencer, Artist's Magazine]

[Divine Skills: Bullet Time, Dragon King's Roar Round]

[Pseudo-Divine Authority: Hunting – Kills spiritual beings, mildly restores the user's spiritual energy, slightly increases the user's spiritual energy, and has a chance to capture additional spiritual essence as loot]

With a single thought, Rosen vanished from his location and reappeared inside the Void Realm of his left eye.

The Void Realm was a virtual world that, under normal circumstances, couldn't contain real-world objects or life. However, Rosen was an exception, able to transform his body and mind into a spiritual state, allowing him to enter the Void Realm in a manner similar to entering the spirit realm.

Previously, the Void Realm could only scan and replicate inanimate objects, but after integrating the Photographer's extraordinary essence and combining it with the Godslayer Eye's photography abilities, it could now replicate anything captured in images into the Void Realm.

Using this power, Rosen replicated a Bronze Dragon, which he had captured from over ten kilometers away.

Of course, this replica was not real and would vanish if it left the Void Realm. But within it, the photographic copy of the Bronze Dragon could exhibit some of the abilities of a Sequence 5 being.

Naturally, it could only display abilities the dragon had previously shown—unseen powers couldn't be replicated by the Void Realm's photographic projection.

Holding Dragon King's Wrath in its flintlock form, Rosen shifted it into a sniper rifle.

Looking through the Time Scope, he simultaneously saw three versions of the Bronze Dragon: one from a few seconds ago, one from the present, and one a few seconds into the future. Each movement of the dragon across these timelines appeared vividly before him.

With the Time Scope, anticipating the target's movements became a basic maneuver.

Rosen activated the Future Silencer, which now displayed only the dragon's future appearance a few seconds ahead.

Locking onto this future version, Rosen fired a Time Element Quad-Bullet.

Seconds passed: one, two, three, four, five…

It seemed as if the bullet had vanished, and the Bronze Dragon remained unharmed.

But in the sixth second, as the dragon moved to the position Rosen had seen through the Time Scope, the previously vanished bullet reappeared, striking the dragon precisely.

Rosen immediately grasped the terrifying power of the Future Silencer.

Powerful beings usually had a keen sense of danger, making sneak attacks difficult. This is why demigod hunters often imbued their long-range attacks with traits that ensured a hit or suppressed the target's awareness of danger. The Future Silencer bypassed this by sending the bullet a few seconds into the future, weakening the enemy's ability to sense it. This created a near-certain hit and gave the hunter a few precious seconds to escape after the attack.

Without the Future Silencer, the Bronze Dragon's foresight would have made landing such a shot nearly impossible.

Rosen continued testing the Bullet Time and Dragon King's Roar Round abilities. Bullet Time enhanced his perception of time, making everything around him appear slower, providing a massive advantage in reaction time, particularly useful in close combat or to evade ambushes.

Often, even though his Time Eye could reveal an incoming attack a second in advance, his body couldn't react quickly enough. Bullet Time solved this problem by giving him the reaction speed needed to evade such dangers.

As for the Dragon King's Roar Round, its power left Rosen stunned.

It didn't deal direct damage at all. Instead, it drastically accelerated the passage of time in a localized area. For instance, the Void Guard, which normally lasted half an hour, could be reduced to just a few minutes after being struck by the Dragon King's Roar Round.

It was clear this skill had been born from the Bronze Dragon's deep resentment, as Falada had been trapped and killed by the Void Guard.

In fact, the Time Breath used in the Dragon King's Roar Round was even stronger than the original Bronze Dragon's Time Breath.

Rosen couldn't help but admire the weapon as he carefully placed it into the Essence: Hunter's Belt, a specialized pouch for hunters' weapons. This was the first time he felt he had a weapon truly worthy of that slot. With Dragon King's Wrath, Rosen's combat power had increased at least threefold.

Trembling with anticipation, Rosen crushed the final loot orb.

He could hardly imagine anything more valuable than the Dragon King's Wrath.

When a Time Tower, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, appeared before him, Rosen realized he had truly hit the jackpot.

[Time Tower: Miracle Structure]

[Rank: Sequence 5]

[Miracle Attribute: Bestows time-related divine energy]

[Miracle Traits: Time Conversion, Time Barrier, Time Adjustment, Temporal Seal, World Unique, Eternal Indestructibility]

The Time Tower had four unique miracle traits, in addition to the two universal traits shared by all miracle artifacts.

Interestingly, Rosen noted that the Sea God's Broken Ring lacked the World Unique and Eternal Indestructibility traits, making him suspect that it might require the other fragments of the Sea God's Ring to become a complete miracle artifact.

The Time Conversion ability allowed the Time Tower to convert regular spiritual crystals into time-attributed spiritual crystals.

The Time Barrier provided nearly impenetrable defense, even against a Sequence 3 being.

Time Adjustment allowed Rosen to slow or accelerate time within the tower by a factor of five.

Finally, Temporal Seal was the most powerful ability: it could preserve the state of anything within the tower, living or otherwise, indefinitely. Even if a person's head were severed and they were seconds from death, the tower could maintain them in that state indefinitely.

While the first three traits were impressive, Temporal Seal was what truly made the Time Tower a miracle structure.

Rosen integrated the Time Tower into his Divine Domain. Miracle structures didn't take up skill slots from the noble sequence but could be perfectly incorporated into a divine domain. As such, the strength of a divine domain was heavily influenced by the number of miracle structures within it.

This was why Titled Lords were far stronger than ordinary demigod nobles—their domains were likely filled with numerous miracle structures.

Sitting atop the Time Tower, Rosen gazed down at the bronze clock adorning its peak, holding the Dragon Blood Bottle in his hand. Inside, the bottle now contained the blood of two king beasts: the Sequence 6 Sea Dragon King Beast and the Sequence 5 Bronze Dragon.

The Sea Dragon King Beast's blood was complete, but the Bronze Dragon's bloodline was incomplete, with only 40% of its bloodline intact. The Dragon Blood Bottle had absorbed only part of the dragon's blood before the Bronze Dragon had been trapped in the Gluttony Stomach, preventing further collection.

However, Rosen discovered a hidden feature of the Dragon Blood Bottle: it could consume a complete dragon bloodline to fill the gaps of an incomplete one.

By channeling his spiritual energy, Rosen transformed the Sea Dragon King Beast's blood into Bronze Dragon Blood. This raised the Bronze Dragon's bloodline completeness from 40% to 60%.

If Rosen could fully complete the bloodline, he could potentially create an entire Milburn family from it.

While Rosen couldn't integrate the Bronze Dragon bloodline into his extraordinary essence—since he already had the Nightmare Slime bloodline—he could still strengthen it using the Dragon Blood Bottle. When he ascended to demigod, he could use this bloodline to paint his second self-portrait clone.

That, of course, meant he would need to hunt more dragons in the future.

Exhausted from the expedition to the Time Dragon's Nest, Rosen reviewed his gains, felt a wave of satisfaction, and fell into a deep sleep at Rose Castle in Martha Dora.

After a day of rest, he recharged and decided to relax by browsing the Thunder Empire's virtual network, where he discovered an intriguing event.

Many nobles of the Thunder Empire were Photographers, and as such, the empire had a highly developed film industry. Even basic films offered viewers a fully immersive experience, while higher-tier films allowed participants to enter virtual worlds.

At the pinnacle of the industry were films that could even be converted into spirit realms.

Naturally, such top-tier films were rare, requiring the collaboration of Photographers, Directors, Playwrights, and Actors. Even in the Thunder Empire, films of this caliber were uncommon.

However, Rosen wasn't interested in these top-tier films.

Instead, he was drawn to the mid-tier films made solely by Photographers.

These films were purely visual, with no actors or plots—just breathtaking landscapes and natural wonders. Such films allowed viewers to experience the beauty and mystery of the world from the comfort of their homes.

This was exactly what Rosen was looking for—films that captured natural wonders.

Natural wonders referred to phenomena in nature that defied explanation—like the mirages in the upper layers of the spirit realm, or black holes spontaneously appearing over the ocean, or moonlight shining brighter than sunlight during the day.

These wonders not only provided visual awe but often contained mysterious powers that inspired artists—especially painters—to capture their essence.

Because natural wonders were unpredictable, films captured by Photographers became the main source of study for most painters.

Coincidentally, an upcoming Natural Wonder Film Festival was being held in the Thunder Empire.

After booking his tickets online, Rosen teleported to Mysterious Island, a massive landmass on a lake in the empire's heart.

The island spanned tens of thousands of kilometers and housed numerous film cities.

Rosen arrived in Bluewing City, the largest of these, through a wizard tower, paying an additional fee for teleportation.

Half an hour later, he stood atop the city's tallest observation tower, holding a tourist map of Bluewing City.

Looking out, Rosen felt as though he had stepped into a mythical realm.

The city's architecture was stunning, with every building radiating an air of mystery, the work of masterful architects. No wonder this island attracted artists from all over the Thunder Empire and neighboring nations—living here was like residing in paradise.

Rosen couldn't resist activating his Godslayer Eye's photography abilities, capturing everything he saw and storing it within his Void Realm.

Though he could only capture the form of these artistic marvels, not their essence, he knew that with time, as a painter, he would be able to fill in those missing parts with his art.

(End of Chapter)