Lord: Sequence Master

The Favalli Family Organ Castle, the entire castle resembling an ancient foot-operated organ.

The butler drove the alchemical carriage into the courtyard and snapped his fingers. The sleepy Rosen floated in the air, following the butler to the castle hall. The hall was designed like a concert hall, complete with a stage for performances opposite the entrance.

At this moment, Duke Favalli, wearing a white suit, was playing the piano with his eyes closed.

The sound of the piano echoed through the concert hall, like a warm breeze and drizzle surrounding Rosen, who was suspended in the air.

At the same time, on the third floor of the Organ Castle, Duchess Tessa was enjoying the rare silence of the hot spring bath.

The sound of music pervaded the city of Rest, endless and relentless.

No matter how beautiful the music, one could grow weary of it with time. Occasionally, Tessa became so irritated that she wished for deafness.

"I can get you out of Rest City."

The sudden voice behind her startled Tessa.

She stood up, turning to see the strange man with black hair and black eyes, her gaze filled with suspicion.

"Who are you?" she asked warily.

"Duke Howard," Rosen replied. "My self-portrait doppelganger is enjoying the music in the lobby."

Tessa understood instantly that the Favalli family was once again using music to rob the unfortunate outsiders. But from the situation, she deduced that the prey this time was not simple.

This Duke Howard had first contacted the butler, and he must have learned about her situation, which had brought him here.

"What do you want me to do?" Tessa asked, walking up the steps from the hot spring bath to Rosen with a confident stride.

"You are tempting me," Rosen remarked, his smile deep and meaningful.

"Do you think I'm satisfied?" Tessa reached out, grabbing Rosen's right hand and pressing it against her soft, steaming cheek.

"You are beautiful, but it's a pity that it's not the right time," Rosen replied, raising his right hand and with a swift motion, crushed her head, the pressure causing her eyes to almost burst out. Tessa opened her mouth to speak, but her blood and brain matter clogged her throat, leaving her unable to utter a word. Her body fell back, floating in the hot spring.

From the butler's memory, Rosen knew that Duchess Tessa didn't hold a high status within the Favalli family. She had originally been a viscountess, but after Duke Favalli killed her family, he took her as his own.

Despite her hatred for Favalli, Tessa cared deeply for the three sons she had raised, a fact that had even caused her to attempt delaying Rosen's actions earlier.

Opening his void album, Rosen took out a paintbrush and used Tessa's blood as paint. Soon, a vivid image of Tessa appeared on the paper. With the help of the gluttonous demon seed, Rosen fused Tessa's body with the painted image.

Rosen summoned Tessa from the painting, put on her clothes, and left the hot spring bath, returning to the bedroom.

Meanwhile, in the castle hall, Duke Favalli had stopped playing the piano.

Rosen, still floating in the air, now had blank eyes, repeatedly taking out spiritual crystals from his divine territory.

More than five billion low-grade spiritual crystals. Duke Favalli nearly couldn't resist robbing Rosen completely. But after considering the situation, he decided to let it go. Rosen wasn't an ordinary man, and the Wood Elf Kingdom was behind him. Robbing him completely could lead to complications. It was better to stop while ahead.

After receiving over five billion spiritual crystals, Duke Favalli ordered the butler to send Rosen away. He had altered Rosen's memory with music, making him forget the wealth he had just received and even erasing any memory of ever visiting Rest City. This was a familiar routine for Favalli, and he was not worried about any accidents.

With his newfound wealth and in a good mood, Duke Favalli thought of his wife in the hot spring bath.

However, when he approached the bath, he found the door was blocked.

Immediately, he returned to the bedroom, where he saw Tessa, combing her hair. Favalli walked over and picked her up, lifting her in his arms.

There was a decorative painting on the bedroom wall. In the painting, Rosen listened intently to the sounds coming from the bedroom, nodding with satisfaction.

The butler's memory had been correct. Duke Favalli always tormented Tessa when he was in a good mood.

Now, Rosen could only hope that Favalli would later realize that his Duchess had been replaced.

In less than two hours, Duke Favalli—who had once been in perfect health—was showing dark circles under his eyes and withered muscles, looking thinner than he had been three days ago. It was as if all his energy and vitality had been drained by Tessa in these few short days.

Rosen watched the live broadcast for two hours in the painting, gaining a deeper understanding of the horror of the seven deadly sins.

He carefully injected the gluttony demon seed, the charm demon seed, and the laziness demon seed into the Tessa he had drawn.

Suddenly, Tessa's charm skyrocketed. So much so, that Duke Favalli, a Sequence 3 musician, was irresistibly drawn to her. He lost all vigilance, and over time, became more and more reluctant to part with her.

Though Duke Favalli had lost much of his vitality due to the gluttonous demon, he still hadn't regained consciousness. However, this was likely to change soon. After all, he was a Sequence 3. If he weakened to a certain point, his divinity would send out an early warning.

A few hours later, Duke Favalli suddenly awoke, his head splitting in pain.

He looked down at Tessa, instantly sensing something was wrong.

Her voice, body, and habits were all the same; it was the Tessa he knew.

But the emotions were wrong. He had always relished the complexity of Tessa's feelings for him: three parts hatred, three parts helplessness, three parts endurance, and one part affection. But this Tessa had none of those emotions.

Moreover, the time they had spent together felt excessive. Duke Favalli felt as if his lifespan had been drastically shortened.

As he realized he had been plotted against, and began contemplating how to escape, Tessa suddenly wrapped herself around him like an octopus. Feeling his vitality draining away madly, Duke Favalli prepared to save himself.

However, before he could react, Rosen shot a time bullet into the painting.

The bullet vanished under the power of the future silencer, only to reappear a thousandth of a second later, behind Duke Favalli's head. Despite some transparent notes attempting to block it, the ashes attached to the bullet broke through the defense.

At the same time, the gluttonous demon stopped draining vitality and began releasing it outward. But this vitality was tainted with the deadly poison of ash honey. The weak Duke Favalli instinctively absorbed this vitality, which originally belonged to him. But before it could recover his strength, the vitality began to drain away even faster.

To ensure Duke Favalli's downfall, Rosen used the ash honey he had aged for a century with the help of the Time Tower.

The life-depriving poison in it was enough to strip away a hundred years of life in just one second.

In addition, the time bullet instantly drained two thousand years of life from Duke Favalli. Despite his immense strength, he was powerless to fight back, growing weaker by the second until he became a mummy, his life signs completely gone.

Normally, Duke Favalli should have been able to resist longer before his death.

But at this moment, the lazy demon seed took effect.

Under its influence, Duke Favalli's reaction slowed, his self-awareness dulled, and he became complacent. Coupled with the charm demon's influence, he was reluctant to kill Tessa, even at the cost of his own life, which prevented him from mounting an effective defense.

Rosen took back the seven deadly sins demon seeds, feeling the power within them increase to terrifying levels. After all, the three demons had killed Duke Favalli, turning a Sequence 3 musician into nourishment for their growth.

Though Duke Favalli was dead, as a Sequence 3 God's Domain Lord, he could still be resurrected within his divine territory.

This wasn't over yet. Rosen quickly used the Lazy Foot to escape into the spirit world. Using the life breath of Duke Favalli within the lazy demon seed, he locked onto the Duke's divine territory.

Under the cover of the void shadow world, Rosen quietly infiltrated Duke Favalli's divine territory with the help of Lazy Foot.

The Divine Realm was on full martial law. The Sequence 4 knight heroes had commanded the knight followers to be on high alert. All the guardian knights around the lord's castle were gathered near the Sequence Ancient Tree, protecting it closely. The tension was palpable, as Duke Favalli's sudden and silent death had raised suspicions that a Sequence 2 might have assassinated him.

Without a word, Rosen released fifty thousand shadow demons. Through the interplay of light and darkness, the void shadow world enveloped the real space, pulling everyone outside the lord's castle into the shadow realm. There, they were quickly overwhelmed by the 50,000 Sequence 6 shadow demons.

Meanwhile, Rosen unleashed the Brilliant Lighthouse, attacking the elemental barrier of the lord's castle.

Although Duke Favalli was Sequence 3, his lord castle was only Sequence 5.

Sequence 4 Soul Gems were not easy to obtain, and even if one were found during the spirit world's advent, Duke Favalli could not afford to spend 300 billion spiritual crystals on it.

Both were Sequence 5, but offense had the advantage.

Moreover, Rosen had the Ash Armor Breaking skill, which combined with the Brilliant Lighthouse, allowed him to breach the elemental barrier in less than half an hour. The Ash Bees, his secondary pets, now infiltrated the shadows and entered the lord's castle.

The Ash Bees had high offensive power but low defense. However, when paired with the Shadow Fiend's abilities, they had no weaknesses. They simply needed to get close to their target and launch an armor-piercing bee sting, coated with years-aged ash honey. This sting would drain the victim's vitality until death.

Rosen had a smooth journey, passing through room after room filled with mummies, and finally arriving at the hiding place of the Sequence Ancient Trees deep in the castle.

The remaining guardian knights looked on in despair as the invaders drew near.

Combining the Ash Curtain with Mind Domination, Rosen controlled the minds of the two Sequence 6 Guardian Knights. Their spiritual gap was too wide, and they were quickly subdued. The knights' swords struck the two Sequence 5 Guardians from behind, causing a gap in their life protection barrier.

In an instant, Rosen materialized inside the barrier. His twin daggers, moving faster than the knights could react, pierced their hearts.

Though the daggers had weaknesses, their poison, mixed with advanced paralysis potion, rendered the two guardians weak. Before they could mount a final counterattack, the forbidden magic ball shared with Xiaolongnu, combined with the nightmare shackles, sealed their spirituality.

Guardian knights were difficult to train, taking multiple generations or at least a hundred years to produce one.

Rosen had no time for training, but he could capture an existing guardian knight, seal them in a painting, and strengthen the knight he drew. Though this would limit the knight's potential, it was better than nothing and could provide protection for the Sequence Ancient Tree.

With all resistance quelled, Rosen ordered the shadow demons to plunder the entire castle.

First, they moved the spiritual realm that contained the people of the territory. Then, while the Sequence Ancient Trees were untouched and the territory buildings hadn't self-destructed, Rosen dismantled as much of the castle as possible, hoping to recover blueprints for extraordinary buildings.

After searching the entire divine territory, they found only 400 billion low-grade spiritual crystals.

For a ducal family, this was already an astonishing amount of wealth.

However, no particularly precious treasures were found.

The reason was simple: in a true extraordinary world, unless its scale reaches a certain level, there is no habit of accumulating treasures without using them. Any unused treasures are typically exchanged for ones that are useful, because only by growing stronger can one obtain more treasures.

While there were some valuable items, none were particularly rare or extraordinary.

However, Rosen still felt something was off, as he hadn't found the ritual formation. This was likely the most precious inherited treasure of the Favalli family, hidden so deeply for a reason.

While the death of Duke Favalli remains unknown, Rosen quietly returns to reality to capture all members of the Favalli family.

Apart from the eldest son, Stig Favalli, who was a Sequence 4 musician, the strongest of the others was only Sequence 5. Rosen hid in the butler's shadow, approaching them one by one, from the weakest to the strongest, launching sneak attacks.

As long as the victims were pulled into the void shadow world instantly, the remaining family members wouldn't be alarmed.

In just half an hour, only Sequence 4 Stig Favalli remained unscathed in the entire Organ Castle.

At the door of Stig's study, the butler walked up to knock.

"Stop!" Rosen's voice echoed from the shadows.

His sense of impending death told him that the butler exuded a strong aura of death as he stepped forward to open the door.

Without hesitation, Rosen took out the ecological planetarium in the divine territory and made a celestial prediction.

He instantly saw through his foresight that there was no one in the study except for an ordinary music box. But as the butler opened the door and stepped in, the music box began to play. The moment the butler heard the music, he died instantly.

Although Rosen survived, his spirit was severely wounded.

It was clear that Stig had anticipated something was wrong long ago.

But rather than saving his family, Stig set a trap in the study and escaped.

Rosen took out the Void Album and began to draw a portrait of Stig.

As soon as the portrait was finished, he prepared to use the Death Sentence curse to eliminate Stig completely.

However, an accident occurred. The self-portrait clone, wearing the cloak of the god of death, was unable to enter Stig's sea of consciousness through the portrait. Naturally, the Death Judgment failed. This was the first time such a failure occurred.

Where there is a spear, there is a shield. Where there are killing curses, there are also means to prevent them.

Rosen immediately began his second celestial prediction, this time to track Stig's whereabouts.

Sure enough, Stig had escaped to Shenmu City.

It was likely that the moment Duke Favalli got into trouble, Stig had already fled without hesitation.

From this, it was evident that Stig was a highly intelligent, decisive, and cold-blooded person.

In Stig's view, an enemy who could silently eliminate Duke Favalli was clearly not someone a Sequence 4 could contend with. Therefore, staying would only lead to death, and escaping immediately was the right choice.

But he had left alone, not even taking his children with him.

This, clearly, was to use his relatives as a diversion.

Had he not had the ability to predict celestial phenomena, Stig might have truly escaped this time.

The two celestial predictions cost Rosen 200 billion low-grade spiritual crystals, which directly caused him to lose more than half of his gains from the Favalli family.

Rosen teleported back to the Sky Garden through the void phase and then proceeded to Shenmu City through the wizard tower, disguised as an ordinary hunter.

Originally, he had planned to pose as a survivor from the Favalli family and enter Shenmu City via the teleportation array in Rest City.

However, after Stig's escape, the wizard tower had been moved by the Favalli family's trained wizards.

Shenmu City was strange. All the buildings were made from hollowed-out tree trunks.

These hollowed trunks were still alive, but devoid of branches or leaves.

Only the giant sacred tree at the center of Shenmu City had leaves, its shade spreading to cover the entire city.

The giant trees seemed to absorb sunlight, channeling it down through their leaves, creating a sea of glowing leaves overhead.

Rosen arrived at a giant tree, 100,000 meters high. The interior of the tree was hollow, like a skyscraper. It could even be said that there was a small city inside. There were only a few trees like this in Shenmu City.

The 699-story Sky Hotel on the Giant Tree stood nearly 70,000 meters above the ground.

Above the Sky Hotel, there were two hundred floors of large flats where the nobles of Shenmu City lived.

A single-story space, 100 meters high and over 2,000 meters in diameter, was large enough for the upper-class nobles to build castles inside.

Stig was on the top floors, where the Favalli family likely had their retreat.

(End of chapter)