Lord: Sequence Master

It took Rosen three months in the real world and fifteen months within the Time Tower before he finally put down his Miracle Pen.

Before him lay a newly completed painting of the Void Prison.

However, Rosen didn't simply copy the Void Prison from the spiritual realm. He felt that the original prison was too small-scale.

Instead, the Void Prison he created in the painting retained only the prison itself, omitting the claustrophobic one-square-meter cells.

In their place were countless Nightmare Shackles dangling from above, while below the prison were various horrifying, automated torture devices. Anyone locked inside would experience endless suffering—unable to live, unable to die.

Void Prison (Spiritual Painting)

Grade: Sequence 6 (Evolves alongside the Painter Sequence with the Eternal Flame)Range: 10 square milesCapacity: 3000 prisonersSpecial Resources: Mad followers, extraordinary essence, skill crystals, and other extraordinary materials

While creating this painting, Rosen incorporated all the extraordinary resources dropped by the prisoners he hunted during the 36 resets of the Void Prison. Using the Eternal Flame, he resurrected the 3000 prisoners within the painting itself.

Though this cost a fortune, it granted him 3000 ready-made Sequence 6 prisoners.

Rosen was confident he could convert these prisoners into mad believers.

Faith in a deity was typically divided into four levels:

Superficial followers,True believers,Fanatics,Saints.

Each level provided vastly different amounts of faith power to the deity.

Mad believers were not as loyal as fanatics, but they were much more useful than true believers.

It was no wonder that, during the height of the Void Church, the Void Dominator once surpassed the God of Thunder.

However, because the followers of the Void Dominator were too fanatical, they made enemies everywhere.

Rosen had already made up his mind—any mad followers born from the Void Prison would be strictly monitored and not allowed to leave his sight.

When the painting of the Void Prison was completed, Rosen's spiritual strength increased from 37 to 38 points.

The Painter Sequence, which he had been suppressing to its limit, advanced in that instant from Sequence 7 to Sequence 6.

Spiritual Infusion LV4: Allows the free infusion of spiritual power into physical matter using extraordinary essence.

Enhanced Trait: Fusion Mastery—Temporarily harmonize spiritual power into any attribute and fuse different spiritual attributes.Enhanced Trait: Enhanced Infusion—Allows spiritual power to infuse into the realm of spiritual matter.

Upon seeing the Enhanced Infusion trait, Rosen was ecstatic.

Typically, this trait was only available to Sequence 4 painters. Without it, painters could only draw on real-world canvases, even if they had a Mind Canvas.

But with this enhanced infusion, combined with the Mind Canvas, Rosen could now pull the spirituality of other beings into the Mind Canvas and directly paint on their spirituality—permanently altering and modifying their spiritual essence at will.

This ability to paint on another's spiritual self was usually only possible for higher-sequence painters.

Rosen then looked at his Miracle Pen, which had also advanced to Level 4.

His body had grown stronger, his painting talents had improved, and his Life Pen had now advanced to Sequence 6.

However, the Miracle Pen didn't gain any new traits; its overall properties were just strengthened.

Due to his sequence advancement, all the innate abilities of the Miracle Pen had also been enhanced.

For example, Void Gallery and Void Sketchbook, which had sequence levels, were now eligible to advance from Sequence 7 to Sequence 6.

However, directly upgrading them without extra resources wouldn't bring much improvement.

After all, Void Gallery was essentially a building, and Void Sketchbook was an extraordinary artifact—without investing extraordinary resources, they'd just be hollow shells.

Thus, after some consideration, Rosen decided to merge the Void Prison spiritual painting into the Void Gallery.

But that wasn't enough—he also merged the corpse of the Sequence 3 Storm Thunderbird.

Finally, gritting his teeth, Rosen merged the Magic Altar into the Void Gallery as well.

With all these elements, the Void Gallery began a perfect evolution process, which would last several days.

Void Gallery (Divine Building)

Grade: Sequence 6Defense: Sequence 4Attack Power: Sequence 5New Features: Magic Altar, Void Studio, Void Prison, Wind and Thunder Furnace, Void Safehouse, Gallery MazeExtraordinary Traits: Bone Frame, Human-Skin Canvas, Devourer Furnace, Sea God's Protection, Void Gate.

All the base attributes of the Void Gallery had increased by one level, and three new functional buildings had been added.

The gallery now produced endless space mist, and any intruders caught in the Gallery Maze could be sent directly to the Void Prison.

Since Rosen had merged the Storm Thunderbird corpse, the previous Thunder Element Furnace evolved into the extraordinary Wind and Thunder Furnace.

With a mere thought, Rosen could summon storms and thunder to sweep through the Gallery Maze, dramatically increasing its lethality.

The original Blood Furnace trait had also evolved into the Devourer Furnace by merging it with the Devourer God's Authority.

The Devourer Furnace's digestive power now even surpassed that of Rosen's Devourer Stomach.

The new Void Gate trait was the most significant addition—it allowed the creation of permanent space portals. While the main gate remained in the Void Gallery, secondary gates could be placed in his divine territory or even in the deepest parts of the spirit realm.

Next, Rosen planned to upgrade the Void Sketchbook, using leaves from the Golden Apple Tree as the primary material.

The secondary materials would be the skins of thousands of extraordinary creatures he had collected.

He crafted these leaves and skins into art paper, integrating them into the Void Sketchbook to replace the previous human-skin canvas.

After several days of work, the Void Sketchbook was successfully upgraded.

Void Sketchbook (Extraordinary Artifact)

Grade: Sequence 6Properties: The sketchbook can contain all of the painter's spiritual paintings and allow them to be reused.Extraordinary Traits:

 - Affinity Boost: Greatly enhances the attributes of self-portraits.

 - Space Painting: Allows space attributes to be infused into spiritual paintings.

 - Sealed Paintings: Can seal parts of real objects to form special sealed paintings.

Photographers could capture real-world objects and seal them into spiritual tapes.

Painters, during the painting process, also needed to integrate real elements into their works.

This new Sealed Painting trait, based on Rosen's understanding, was a diluted version of a powerful ability held by high-sequence painters.

A certain school of painters believed that ordinary paintings were merely crude imitations of reality.

These painters, when painting a portrait, would seal a real person into the painting, using that person as the base for their creation. They would then paint over the real person, enhancing their power.

For example, they might seal a four-armed Naga and then add two more arms in the painting, transforming it into a six-armed Naga.

Since the creation was based on a real-life entity, the painting could even spawn a new species.

Rosen tested his Void Sketchbook and found that he couldn't seal just any object.

He could only seal the real beings whose skin had been used to make the sketchbook's pages.

If he wanted to seal new extraordinary creatures, he'd need to flay their skins and turn them into new pages for the sketchbook.

Thus, unlocking the full potential of the Sealed Painting trait required a constant supply of special materials.

With all his innate abilities enhanced, Rosen turned his attention to the new innate ability he had acquired upon advancing to Sequence 6 as a painter.

Human Model: Can forcibly lock onto a being and make them your model using a medium.

As soon as Rosen learned of this new skill, he immediately understood the path his Sequence 6 painter would take.

The medium for the Human Model could be any part of the target's body—hair, nails, or flesh. The more substantial the medium, the better, with blood or flesh being far more effective than a single hair.

With a mere strand of hair, he could control almost any Sequence 6 being and force them to become his model.

Using blood or spiritual essence, he could even force a Sequence 5 being to be his model.

Once someone became a human model, they would be like a puppet, completely under his control.

However, Rosen couldn't directly harm his models. He could only paint them, and then, when the control broke, he could use curses or other skills to deliver a lethal blow.

While the painter sequence was powerful, it was more focused on defense and counterattacks through the Void Gallery.

If an enemy avoided the gallery and simply ran, it was hard for a painter to capture them.

That's why most Sequence 5 painters mastered terrifying curse skills or special techniques to force enemies into the Void Gallery. Rosen, however, already had space trap crafting, so all he needed was a curse skill.

Unfortunately, even his great-uncle Baal, before his death, was only a Sequence 6 painter.

Thus, the knowledge passed down to Rosen didn't include powerful curse skills for Sequence 6 painters.

Rosen had already posted a bounty on both the Main God's Hall and the Spirit Realm Deep Web. Out of caution, he posted a bounty for curse-type skills on the deep web and one for rare painter skills on the Main God's Hall.

Several days passed, but no one had accepted his bounty yet.

As Rosen familiarized himself with his new powers in Frostsnow City, two months quickly went by without any results.

He contemplated advancing his Noble Sequence, but advancing to Sequence 6 would bring a significant problem:

At Sequence 6, everyone was theoretically expected to head to the frontlines.

Those who remain at Sequence 7 and above in their respective countries either:

Earn enough military merits at the frontlines to return, orHunt Ashen creatures in the human world, as killing these beings also earns merit.

If neither of these paths appeals, one can avoid going to the frontlines by joining the World Government as an official.

However, becoming an official means sacrificing freedom and being forced to follow orders.

Rosen wasn't keen on heading to the frontlines, as Sequence 6 was simply too dangerous. He also didn't want to be at anyone's beck and call, so his only option was to hunt Ashen creatures.

However, the Thunder Empire was covered by thin amounts of ash, resulting in very few Ashen creatures being born. With too many hunters and too few creatures, Ashen creatures were becoming rare within the Thunder Empire.

After much thought, Rosen decided to return to the Crimson Shadow Duchy. There were people to deal with, matters to resolve, and old grudges to settle. Not to mention, Graymouse's treasure was still waiting to be claimed.

Rosen vanished from the physical world and entered his Divine Domain, beginning the process of relocating it through the Divine Anchor function of the Brilliant Lighthouse.

Currently, his Divine Domain was based in the Thunder Empire, with additional Divine Anchors set in the Underground Kingdom and the Blue Whale Kingdom.

Rosen canceled the Divine Anchor in the Underground Kingdom and placed it in the Thunder Empire instead.

This meant that even if he returned to the Crimson Shadow Duchy, he could always use the Divine Anchor to travel back to the Spirit Realm within the Thunder Empire. From there, he could easily re-enter the physical world in the Thunder Empire, making the Divine Anchors highly useful.

Once the relocation was complete, Rosen found himself in the section of the Spirit Realm that corresponded to the Blue Whale Kingdom's ocean.

This part of the Spirit Realm closely mirrored reality, with vast, endless seas. However, the Blue Whale Kingdom wasn't the sole power in control here. The surface of the Spirit Realm sea was filled with Naga-related spiritual realms, continuously spawning Spirit Realm creatures.

Rosen released his Mechanical Mount, which immediately transformed into a Quetzalcoatl Warship—a form he had never used before.

The entire ship was about 20 meters long, with a serpent head bearing a single horn at the prow, designed to resemble the Quetzalcoatl deity. The hull resembled a split-open serpent, and if necessary, the ship's scales could close together to transform into a submarine.

The tail of the Quetzalcoatl rose up to form a unique sail, while its wings at the front served as oars. If needed, the wings could also transform into sails.

In general, the Mechanical Mount's warship form was quite formidable.

With the mount's riding skill, Rosen easily navigated the Quetzalcoatl warship.

However, he quickly realized he had misunderstood one thing: The sails on the ship were not powered by wind but by light elements. Light element particles shot from the ship's raised tail while its wings balanced the movement, allowing it to glide across the sea like a beam of light.

Rosen had once wondered why Faris designed the Mechanical Mount to have a warship form when the fighter jet form seemed more than enough for high-speed travel.

Why would anyone need the warship form when the Quetzalcoatl form could even be used for underwater travel?

But as Rosen's knowledge grew, he realized that only knights could truly traverse the sea safely. The sky above the ocean was vastly different from the skies above islands and continents.

Islands and continents were filled with humans, and Human Civilization's Eternal Flames burned brightly over these lands. However, the vast seas were sparsely populated by humans, and the flames of human civilization couldn't fully illuminate the oceans.

In this context, extraordinary ships like those of the Blue Whale Kingdom became beacons of civilization. When illuminated by these beacons, any alien race appearing on the seas would be instantly detected by the World Government.

In contrast, the sky over the sea lacked these beacons and was considered a dark zone on human territory maps. This is why alien gods would sneak into human territory from above the sea, descending from the sky.

While they would be detected by the beacons linked by civilization's Eternal Flames, it would be hard to catch them if they fled quickly.

Though Rosen's Mechanical Mount could fly freely within the Thunder Empire, it was much safer to sail when traveling across the sea. Alien gods might place hidden spies in the sky blind zones, and high-altitude flying over the sea could easily alert them, risking being struck down from across the void. This was why the warship form of the Mechanical Mount was crucial.

In fact, the warship form was arguably much stronger than both the warplane and war chariot forms.

The Quetzalcoatl Warship could move at light speed, but Rosen activated Void Shadow Slip to further reduce the disturbance caused by the ship's movements.

This worked well to evade the senses of shallow-sea Ashen creatures, but it wasn't as effective against pirates preying on ocean vessels.

Not even halfway through the route from the Blue Whale Kingdom to the Crimson Shadow Duchy, the warship's radar detected a pirate ship blocking its path.

In the vast sea, this was clearly no coincidence. This pirate ship was lying in wait for prey.

"A Sequence 8 pirate ship dares to intercept ships in the deep sea?" Rosen frowned.

To put it bluntly, a Sequence 8 pirate ship wasn't qualified to survive for long in the deep sea.

This meant one of three things:

There was a hidden island nearby,The pirate ship was disguising its true sequence level,Or the pirate ship was bait, while other pirate ships were lurking nearby.

Rosen immediately activated Holy Charge, quadrupling his speed.

After advancing to Sequence 6, the level of his Mechanical Mount had also been unlocked and upgraded to Sequence 6.

He then activated Headlong Escape, and with the continuous boost from Void Shadow Slip, the warship's speed surged to 80 times its base speed. Like a ghostly beam of light, the ship tore through the sea, ramming straight into the pirate vessel.

The pirate ship was shattered upon impact, its crew instantly killed. Only the pirate captain barely survived, though gravely wounded.

As the blast flung the pirate captain into the air, Rosen—already in bullet time—glanced at him.

In that moment, Rosen unleashed a Nightmare Shackle, binding the pirate captain with chains.

The chains wrapped around the captain, and an iron yoke clasped around his neck.

Due to the warship's incredible speed, the pirate captain was dragged along the surface of the sea, experiencing a terrifying high-speed drift.

By the time the warship slowed down, the pirate captain was barely alive, his flesh rubbed raw by the friction against the water.

Rosen hauled the pirate captain onto the ship, and his Angel Beast quickly healed the captain's wounds.

The Nightmare Shackles lifted the pirate captain into the air, with two iron hooks pulling up his eyelids, forcing him to meet Rosen's gaze.

Using his sixth sense and mind-reading ability, Rosen quickly pieced together what had happened.

His earlier speculations were mostly correct. There was indeed a hidden island nearby, and the Sequence 8 pirate captain had been bait.

However, it seemed the pirate crew had tried to catch a fish that was too big to handle—they had hooked someone far beyond their capability.

Rosen's Void Gallery appeared beside him, the size of a fist and surrounded by space mist.

The gallery, shaped like a skull, opened its mouth and swallowed the pirate captain, sending him into the Void Prison, where he would be trapped in eternal torment.

Rosen initiated a wide-range Spirit Realm scan, targeting only non-spiritual objects.

Immediately, several hidden pirate ships in the sea were detected.

The Quetzalcoatl Warship spread its wings and took to the air. Through the serpent head's eyes, Rosen scanned the surface of the sea.

The Ashen Curtain projected a natural phenomenon, causing the surrounding sea to turn red and begin boiling.

The boiling effect wasn't particularly dangerous for extraordinary beings, but it wasn't just about temperature—this natural phenomenon also created highly adhesive steam.

The steam quickly enveloped the hidden pirate ships, trapping them in the sea.

Rosen removed the Dragonblood Flask from the Nightmare Shackles and replaced it with the Remnant Ring of the Sea God.

The Nightmare Shackles, now empowered by the Sea God's authority, extended into the ocean, manipulating the sea and dragging the pirate ships into massive water prisons, pulling them out of the water.

The pirate captains on the ships struggled desperately to escape.

Some fired cannons at the water prisons, while others used defensive barriers to ram through them, but all were futile attempts.

Only one pirate ship, a Sequence 6 vessel, suddenly vanished from the water prison, teleporting dozens of miles away.

Rosen's eyes once again projected a natural phenomenon—this time, a thunderous waterspout.

Lightning struck down from above, while fierce winds churned the sea into a water tornado below.

As if that weren't enough, Rosen used the Ashen Curtain to project a space trap he had drawn onto the hull of the escaping pirate ship. The trap's skill was Spatial Lock.

While traps could enhance the Void Gallery's Labyrinth, conversely, the Mind Canvas could also enhance the traps used by his Hunter Sequence.

The pirate ship Nightmare, commanded by pirate captain Assad, was caught in the Spatial Lock.

Assad tore a space transfer scroll, but it failed to break through the Spatial Lock.

Realizing the ship couldn't escape, Assad dove into the sea.

As for the Nightmare, it was soon sucked into the waterspout, battered by the storm and lightning. Had Rosen not spared the ship, it would have been completely destroyed by the natural phenomenon.

Among the many natural phenomena Rosen could summon, the Thunderous Waterspout was the most powerful.

This was because the Remnant Ring of the Sea God granted him access to the Sea God's Storm and Sea divine authorities. With enough faith, Rosen could invoke a portion of the Sea God's true power.

Unlike the Quetzalcoatl, whose divine authority he could barely tap into, the Sea God's authority allowed him to unleash truly formidable abilities.

Rosen watched as Assad fled.

However, Rosen's self-portrait avatar had already hidden itself in Assad's shadow.

From the memories he had read from the Sequence 8 pirate captain, Rosen knew that Assad wasn't the most powerful figure in this pirate crew.

Assad was only one of two vice-captains. The pirate crew's captain, a Sequence 5, and the other Sequence 6 vice-captain had yet to reveal themselves.

They had assumed that sending Assad would be enough to ambush and capture a Sequence 6 ship.

Unfortunately for them, they had seriously underestimated their target.