Lord: Sequence Master

Rosen, under Hannes' guidance, toured the currently uncrewed Abyss Shadow. This Void Destroyer was quite unique. Its actual dimensions spanned 30 kilometers in length and 10 kilometers in width. Thanks to spatial expansion technology, the internal space could accommodate up to 500,000 people and included auxiliary spiritual realms to fulfill all logistical needs.

Such a massive ship was, in theory, unsuitable as a Void Destroyer. Void Destroyers prioritized agility and compact designs for optimized firepower and defense. Large-scale ships like this were more in line with Void Carriers, where their size was an advantage.

However, the Abyss Shadow was an exception due to its rare characteristic: Dimensional Shadow Phasing. This feature allowed the Abyss Shadow to retreat into its shadow and manipulate its external shadow's size. The ship could shrink its projected shadow to a mere 10 meters in length.

At first glance, this didn't seem particularly groundbreaking. After all, many means existed to hide within shadows. But the Abyss Shadow's real strength lay in its ability to transfer all its attributes to its external shadow.

Rosen could also hide within his shadow and control it to fight, but he couldn't share his power with it. The Abyss Shadow, on the other hand, could. This meant that its massive size wasn't a liability. It could house more powerful weaponry and engines without worrying about agility or defense.

As for why it hadn't been upgraded to a Void Cruiser, the reason was simple: the core supporting Dimensional Shadow Phasing was only at Sequence 3. Void Cruisers operated at Sequence 2, and the Abyss Shadow's core couldn't sustain the higher-tier functionality.

The more Rosen inspected, the clearer it became—his ten thousand Abyss Shadow Demons were likely not leaving with him. If he chose to leave military service, his Abyss Shadow Demons wouldn't be retiring either.

The regional military division wouldn't resort to outright confiscation, but they would undoubtedly offer terms he couldn't refuse to purchase his demons. If he decided to stay, even better—it would save them the cost.

While Rosen familiarized himself with the Abyss Shadow, Hannes began leading 200,000 logistics personnel to board the ship. They had barely started adjusting when the regional military division assigned them a mission.

The Abyss Shadow was ordered to infiltrate the demi-human frontlines and find an opportunity to sabotage one of their Void Tunnels. The mission details ended there, but Rosen, through the Godmind Computer and Hunter's Eye, dug deeper into the situation.

The demi-humans had many Void Tunnels, but the one targeted for destruction was unique. This specific tunnel was set to transport a rare resource called Creation Tears. These tears, crystallized manifestations of Creation Laws, were found only on life-giving stars capable of naturally birthing intelligent life.

Creation Tears couldn't be stored in spatial dimensions, and even the tunnels they passed through required specialized modifications. The demi-human faction wouldn't be able to create a second modified tunnel in time.

"Creation Tears…" Rosen muttered, finally understanding why the regional military division was so eager to push him into action.

By all accounts, they hadn't yet fully acclimated to the Abyss Shadow, but the urgency made sense now.

It seems the previous Abyss Shadow Fleet Commander must've died trying to sabotage this same tunnel.

Creation Tears, as condensed creations of the Creation Law, were a rare and powerful True God-tier resource. If reversed, their Creation Law could transform them into terrifyingly destructive bombs.

While the main world had countless stars in its skies, those capable of naturally birthing intelligent life were few. Most were already incorporated into ancient True Gods' divine kingdoms. The demi-human True Gods didn't have the capability to control such stars; these tears were undoubtedly acquired through trade with another ancient alien True God.

Sending such a massive bomb to the frontlines was a clear attempt to wipe out the regional military division in one fell swoop. Its detonation would undoubtedly prompt intervention from human True Gods, violating existing treaties. Under those treaties, neither human True Gods nor alien True Gods were permitted to intervene directly in frontline conflicts.

If humans tore up the agreement, they would pay an enormous penalty for breaching the terms, forcing their side into a defensive stance for at least a century. This made stopping the transport of Creation Tears a critical turning point for the next hundred years of warfare.

The previous Abyss Shadow mission had failed, and this time, it wouldn't be the only unit assigned to this operation. No doubt, the Abyss Shadow was being positioned as the military's secret weapon. After all, the news of its previous defeat, along with the commander's death, couldn't have escaped the demi-humans.

The second appearance of the Abyss Shadow near the specialized wormhole was poised to catch the demi-humans off guard. While Rosen analyzed the situation, Hannes delivered a borrowed miracle artifact from the regional military division.

[Knight's Reins: Miracle Artifact]

[Rank: Sequence 9]

[Miracle Attribute: Grants passive mastery of the miracle skill, Perfect Riding]

[Miracle Traits: Void Stable, Unique in Heaven and Earth, Eternal and Indestructible]

Though it was only Sequence 9, Rosen immediately recognized its value as comparable to a Sequence 2 artifact. The value of miracle artifacts wasn't solely determined by rank but by their attributes and traits. Furthermore, the worth of a miracle artifact could evolve with time.

Originally, knights were units mounted on horses, later extending to include dragon riders and magical beast riders. However, the World Government had significantly expanded the concept of "knight" over time. Now, riding encompassed not just animals but also vehicles like cars, ships, and trains. Even riding angels or succubi counted under the broader definition.

This redefinition caused the value of the Knight's Reins to skyrocket. What was once a trait allowing the artifact to store a single horse in its Void Stable now enabled it to house an entire void warship.

For the first time, Rosen realized that miracle artifacts, despite their ranks, could be enhanced through evolving conceptual frameworks. Upon reflection, he realized he had done something similar in the past. By infusing the Sin of the Seven Deadly Sins into the Demon Apparition, he had temporarily elevated its power from Sequence 3 to Sequence 2.

However, the Demon Apparition relied on the temporary miracle trait Demon Feast for its boost. The Knight's Reins, on the other hand, had permanently grown in utility due to the redefinition of the knightly archetype.

Rosen quickly refined the Knight's Reins, binding the Abyss Shadow and its crew into the Void Stable. Testing the Perfect Riding skill, he discovered it was an advanced evolution of standard riding skills.

In the knight sequence, riding enabled power sharing, fusion, and stacking between the knight and their mount. However, standard riding skills had limitations on the size of the mount. Typically, mounts larger than a few hundred meters couldn't fully share or fuse their power with the knight. Bigger wasn't always better.

Perfect Riding removed these limitations, allowing for any mount size and granting temporary control over mounts that didn't belong to the rider. This distinction was crucial—ordinary riding couldn't possibly handle a vessel like the Abyss Shadow, but Perfect Riding could.

Once everything was in place, Rosen left the planetary fortress alone. The fact that the military division gave him the Knight's Reins capable of housing the Abyss Shadow wasn't just for concealment.

Though they didn't say it outright, Rosen was certain the division knew about his formidable stealth abilities. After all, they had immediately handed him the rank of major general, as well as both the Knight's Reins and the Abyss Shadow. Without investigating his history, how could they feel at ease entrusting such resources to him?

Rosen was almost certain that among the 200,000 logistical personnel aboard the Abyss Shadow, there was at least one hidden Sequence 2 titled demigod. This was both a precaution to protect the ship in critical moments and a safeguard against him.

As for why the hidden Sequence 2 didn't simply take the mission to destroy the specialized wormhole, it boiled down to the agreements between the two sides.

Gods were forbidden from stepping onto the battlefield, and Sequence 2 individuals were barred from entering the enemy's rear lines. These treaties were crucial for maintaining the scale of war. Without such restrictions, powerful individuals from both sides would infiltrate each other's territories, leaving few below the rank of demigod alive by the end. The result would be mutually assured destruction.

Unless it was a war of total annihilation, high-sequence powerhouses rarely targeted low-sequence combatants in conventional conflicts. If the difference in power was too great, victories and losses were chalked up to individual skill, with no room for complaints. However, if stronger individuals relentlessly hunted the weak, it was a declaration of extermination and total war.

Under the concealment strengthened by the Wolf Totem, Rosen moved through the shadows, steadily making his way closer to the demi-human frontline via the spirit realm.

Because the spirit realm had only recently spread into demi-human territory in recent years, their foundation there was far weaker compared to humans, who had much more experience. Thus, the defenses demi-humans had set up in the spirit realm were far inferior to their physical-world fortifications.

Rosen quietly approached the demi-human defensive line, comparing his map as he moved through the shadows. He already knew that the primary world was shaped like a flat disk with a domed sky above. The world's edges were constantly expanding, with oceans dominating its surface and landmasses appearing as scattered islands and continents.

Most islands were only large enough to support a single kingdom, while continents could sustain empires. Supercontinents like the Holy Continent were rare in the human world. Similarly, the demi-humans occupied their own supercontinent—the Demi-Human Continent—but only controlled two-thirds of it. The remaining third had already fallen into human hands.

The entire Demi-Human Continent was shaped like an irregular ellipse, split roughly a third of the way across by a narrow zone about ten thousand kilometers wide. This was the active warfront between humans and demi-humans. Five thousand kilometers behind this zone lay the rear defensive lines for each side.

In the physical world, if either side broke through the rear defensive lines, it would signal the onset of total genocidal war. Currently, the physical battles between the two factions remained restrained, as any conquest of land needed to yield tangible benefits to be worthwhile.

However, such restraint didn't exist in the spirit realm.

Even if battles there caused catastrophic destruction, the spirit realm would eventually repair itself.

Thus, ever since the spirit realm spread across the primary world, the scale of battles there had grown increasingly massive. Yet the demi-humans, with their limited spirit realm resources, were no match for humanity. If this imbalance continued, full-scale war between the two races was inevitable. The demi-humans likely recognized this, which explained their desperate gambit to secure the Star of Creation Tear and attempt to shift the tide of the conflict.

The shortest path between two points was a straight line, so Rosen needed to cut directly across the battlefield. The war zone was littered with metal wreckage and blood-soaked remnants of flesh. Humanity's primary forces in this battle were mass-produced mechanical constructs, while the demi-humans relied on ratfolk and rabbitfolk—two subraces of demi-humans with terrifying reproductive capabilities.

For the demi-humans, offspring with high potential were nurtured and trained, while those with poor potential were artificially matured and forced to breed. When these lesser individuals could no longer reproduce, they were modified and sent to the front lines.

It could be said that the lives of ratfolk and rabbitfolk on the Demi-Human Continent were nothing short of a living hell.

Along the way, Rosen noticed that many ratfolk and rabbitfolk were losing their human-like traits, with their animalistic features becoming increasingly dominant. If this trend continued, the demi-humans' ratfolk and rabbitfolk subraces might eventually evolve into beastfolk—creatures with animal heads and humanoid bodies. Perhaps beastfolk themselves were a product of such a transformation in the past.

After five days, Rosen crossed the battlefield and approached the demi-human defensive line. It was a massive wall of pulsating flesh—known as the Flesh Wall.

The Flesh Wall was grotesque, composed of writhing meat and adorned with countless heads of ratfolk and rabbitfolk. These unfortunate creatures were trapped in a limbo between life and death, unable to escape their misery. Lacking proper education or even the formation of individual personalities, they were brainwashed from birth to harbor an intense hatred for humans.

Thus, the entire Flesh Wall radiated an overwhelming aura of hostility toward humanity. Any human who approached would be immediately detected by the wall.

"The human defensive line is a Mechanical Wall, and the demi-humans just copied the idea to create a Flesh Wall," Rosen muttered, shaking his head as he glanced at the numerous rabbitfolk.

He couldn't help but feel a pang of pity for the rabbitfolk, whose appearance remained cute and endearing despite their plight. The ratfolk, with their grotesque features, didn't elicit the same sympathy, but the rabbitfolk's tragic fate seemed particularly undeserved. If the demi-humans keep this up, rabbitfolk slaves might completely disappear in the future.

Consulting his map, Rosen found a marked location on the Flesh Wall. According to the map, there was a demi-human spy loyal to humanity stationed there, ready to help him cross the wall.

However, Rosen had a better plan.

Using the World Gene Pool, he adjusted his life gene blueprint. In the blink of an eye, he transformed into a dragonkin—a high-ranking subrace within the demi-human hierarchy. With a few human skulls from slain supernaturals in hand, he confidently strode toward the Flesh Wall.

Thanks to the Ancient God True Realm's vast population of 30 billion, its Void Prison never ran out of human death row inmates.

Rosen arrived at one of the gates of the Flesh Wall and tossed a sack of skulls to the foxkin responsible for inspection.

The demi-humans' identity verification process was far less rigorous than humanity's. The reason for this was simple: the high turnover rate on the battlefield. Leaving the frontlines was easy, but returning required passing through the Flesh Wall and presenting human skulls as proof.

The former ensured the individual wasn't a disguised human infiltrator, while the latter demonstrated that they hadn't simply shirked their duties and hidden during the fighting.

It wasn't that the demi-humans didn't want stricter regulations—it was simply beyond their capabilities.

The mindset of demi-humans sent to the battlefield was vastly different from that of humans.

Human supernaturals fought for merit and rewards. Demi-human supernaturals, on the other hand, were forced to the frontlines as cannon fodder.

Any demi-human with a shred of sanity would feel pity for the countless rabbitfolk and ratfolk whose severed heads adorned the Flesh Wall.

If humanity hadn't left demi-humans with no other choice, the two races wouldn't have been locked in such a bitter struggle.

But racial wars left no room for mercy. In history, whenever humanity fell into decline, their fate was no better than what the demi-humans were experiencing now.

Survival of the fittest, Rosen thought. In a supernatural world, there's no right or wrong—only strength and weakness.

With the merit currency distributed by the foxkin, Rosen, now in his dragonkin guise, passed through the Flesh Wall and entered the demi-human rear lines.

As long as they had merit currency, demi-human supernaturals could live lavishly in the rear.

But when their money ran out, they wouldn't even have food to eat.

Leaving the battlefield entirely was also simple: all they had to do was pay a sufficient amount of merit currency.

Nearly every race in the primary world followed a policy of total mobilization, where every capable individual was trained in supernatural combat.

Humanity, currently in its prime, didn't require as many troops on the frontlines. As a result, supernaturals were allowed to hunt ashborn or spirit-realm creatures to earn merit instead. But in a full-scale war, no supernatural being could escape the fate of being conscripted to the frontlines.

The ultimate purpose of war wasn't just to seize resources—it was also to weed out weaker supernaturals.

Living while wasting supernatural resources, Rosen thought, is a fate reserved for those who die on the battlefield.

Rosen had chosen to infiltrate the demi-human lines alone, not just because he was confident in avoiding detection, but also because he didn't trust the spies assigned by the district military command.

If these demi-humans could betray their own race, betraying humanity would be just as easy.

Although the odds of betrayal were low, Rosen wasn't willing to gamble his life on the reliability of a spy.

Without a guide, he had to figure out how to approach the special wormhole himself.

On humanity's side, wormholes were protected within planetary fortresses. While the demi-humans had developed their mechanical technology to a decent level, their primary focus remained on biological advancements. This was why their special wormhole was located inside the body of a Sequence 2 giant turtle.

As Rosen pondered how to infiltrate the turtle, the Knight's Bridle in his sea of consciousness suddenly reacted.

He sent his self-portrait avatar into the Void Stable where the Abyssal Shadow was stored. Inside, Hannes was urgently releasing waves of spiritual energy, attempting to draw his attention.

"Is there an emergency?" Rosen asked.

"Why haven't you made contact with the guide?" Hannes demanded, his voice tense.

"I don't trust the guide," Rosen replied firmly. "I've already crossed the Flesh Wall and have a plan to infiltrate the turtle and approach the special wormhole. The district military command chose me for this mission—I hope we can trust each other. I'll only give you one chance to fire the Abyssal Shadow's main cannon."

"You're right. I've been too anxious," Hannes admitted, his tone calming. "I won't waste the opportunity you secure for us."

As a consensus was reached aboard the Abyssal Shadow, Rosen's true body used data transmission to descend into the inner world of the giant turtle.

The enormous flesh gate towered ten thousand meters tall, enclosing a thousand-meter-wide spatial wormhole within.

On his way here, Rosen had already confirmed through the Hunter's God Eye that a Sequence 1 and five Sequence 2 supernaturals were stationed inside.

A direct assault by the Abyssal Shadow's main cannon would only end in failure and death.

The mission would only succeed during a specific window of opportunity, coordinated with other operatives from the district military command.

For now, Rosen's task was to remain hidden and wait for the right moment.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye, and the appointed time was drawing near.

Hiding within the Void Shadow Realm, Rosen took out his divine pen and began sketching a time-prediction painting. He suspected that the Star of Creation Tear's connection to divine laws was the reason his earlier attempts at prediction had failed.

Now, with just one day remaining, his predictive abilities would be at their strongest.

Let's see if I can finally get the result I need, he thought as he concentrated on his work.

(End of chapter)