Lord: Sequence Overlord

Chapter 150 The Kingdom of the Fire God and the Painter of the Fire

Chapter 149

The flame will eventually go out, but only embers can reignite it...

Rosen silently recited the secret incantation, and vanished without a trace the moment he finished the last word.

When he came to his senses, he found himself in the main hall of a half-collapsed temple.

Rosen looked toward the statue, where there was a headless statue, and judging from the cracks all over its surface, it seemed as if it would shatter at the slightest touch.

Nearly half of the temple had collapsed, and Rosen could see the colorful glow of the sky through the hole in the ceiling.

Rosen instantly vanished into the Void Gallery, controlling his self-portrait clone to walk to the feet of the statue.

Here sits a box that is clearly an extraordinary artifact, even bearing the Howard family crest.

Carefully opening the box, Rosen found a notebook and a pen inside.

Pick up this book and carefully open it. The opening chapter contains a message left by the ancestors of the Little Rosen family regarding this spiritual realm.

The exact origin of this world is unclear, but it is certain that a true god and a civilization are buried within it. The Howard family are the last survivors of this civilization, as well as its last guardians and the last embers.

Once any family bloodline reaches the limit of Sequence 7, they cannot resist the attraction of this spiritual realm.

Either ignite a flame in this world, or die in this world.

The diary entry on how to ignite the flame doesn't mention that this unknown ancestor of the Howard family must have died here.

Rosen continued looking, and saw that every generation of the Howard family who reached Sequence 7 had died here.

Some of their words seemed excited, some were filled with fear, and some contained curses.

Then there are those who left the temple to explore and returned alive, thus leaving behind some discoveries about this world.

However, these findings seem to be contradictory, and the discoveries of predecessors and successors sometimes conflict.

There are two possibilities: the world is not static, or some discoveries are wrong.

This means that if you take these findings as gospel truth, you could very well end up ruining yourself.

So although there were still many discoveries in the diary, the people who wrote the diary reminded that these discoveries should only be used as a reference.

Rosen was increasingly shocked as he flipped through the pages, because this notebook, which was only a finger's thickness, actually contained at least tens of thousands of pages.

If each person wrote an average of ten pages, that means at least a thousand members of the Howard family wrote diaries.

The time between the first person to write a diary and the last person to write a diary is at least 50,000 years.

The Howard family, a mere family, has actually existed for at least 50,000 years?
This is incredibly incredible, because even the oldest family recognized within the human race has only existed for 30,000 years.

It took Rosen two days to get to the end, where he found the diary written by the fifth Lord Howard.

This person actually came in here, and even came out alive?
However, the diary doesn't mention how she got out, so the place she left must not be the temple. Since she didn't return to the temple before leaving this world, the diary ends there, and she was eventually murdered outside.

Rosen turned to the last few pages, where he found the last words left by Rosen's parents.

They knew that all the Sequence 7 ancestors had died here, and the two mere Sequence 9s had no hope of surviving. So they kept repenting and apologizing in their diaries, constantly expressing their guilt and love for little Rosen.

Rosen looked at the blank page and picked up a writing instrument that looked like a pencil from the box.

No matter how you examine it, it doesn't seem to be anything special.

But it's obvious that a pen that can write for tens of thousands of years must be something extraordinary.

Rosen opened the mysterious study and delivered the diary and pencil to the main computer.

Now with the God Network, the God Computer's authentication capabilities are many times stronger than before.

As long as these two items contain any hidden information, and as long as the God Network has relevant clues, the God Computer will definitely be able to identify the information that he cannot discover. Sure enough, the God Computer made some progress a short while later.

This notebook is like a script of destiny, and the pencil is like a fountain pen of destiny.

The combination of the two means that as long as one writes a single word in the diary, one's fate will be completely inseparable from that notebook. Even if no word is written, the fate of the diary will naturally be linked to the diary itself, since it was written by more than a thousand ancestors.

Moreover, the power of the diary increases after the death of all those who write in it.

Now only the last blank page remains of the diary, and anything written on that last page will come true.

So if the Howard family is indeed the embers of a civilization, then the last page of this diary might be the kindling, and the Howard family members who died in this spirit realm throughout the ages were actually the kindling that lit the last page of that kindling.

And it just so happens that on this last page, the Howard family has only one son left.

Just then, Rosen traveled to this era.

Moreover, normally only members of the Howard family are allowed to enter this spiritual realm.

It's one thing for Rosen's father, but why is his mother allowed to come in as well?
Rosen suddenly had a feeling that this last page of the diary had been waiting for him all along.

Although he had obtained the key item for this spiritual realm, Rosen didn't know how to ignite the fire or what changes would occur after it was lit. So, to be on the safe side, he decided to continue searching for clues.

Rosen searched the entire temple from top to bottom but found nothing of value.

After Rosen left the temple, all he saw was a gray, desolate land with nothing but footprints.

It was as if the whole world had been burned to ashes, and thick layers of ash covered the entire world. The feeling he got from this ash was exactly the same as the ash that had enveloped the human world.

The footprints left by the Howard family ancestors as they left the temple to explore the surrounding area remain unchanged to this day.

This also means that there is no air movement in this world.

Rosen suddenly realized that he had stopped breathing since he came into this world.

Although he has a strong physique, he can go ten days or half a month without breathing without any problems.

However, actively holding your breath and not breathing is different from instinctively forgetting that you don't need to breathe.

Rosen quickly identified the footprints of Rosen's parents from the complex footprints outside the temple using hunter tracking techniques.

Since we don't know which direction is correct anyway, we might as well see if we can collect the bodies of Rosen's parents.

If nothing unexpected happens, it might be his descendant.

Rosen continued forward following the footprints, occasionally seeing traces of two people stopping to rest.

The temple was located in a valley where the river had dried up.

Rosen's parents chose to go downstream along the river. After several hours, they passed through several winding canyons and saw a large area of ​​building ruins along the river ahead. These ruins looked like they had been burned by a fire.

Except for a very few building stones that survived, everything else that could be burned turned to ashes.

My footsteps lingered here for a day, and there were traces of ashes being dug up and searched everywhere.

In the end, they probably gained nothing, and the footprints continued downstream.

Rosen quickened his pace, following the footprints past the ruins of towns built along the coast.

They finally stopped two days later and saw two piles of human-shaped ashes lying on the riverbank.

Rosen's parents fell here, and it seems they were suddenly turned to ashes by something.

Rosen crouched down to examine it carefully. As far as he knew, no one in that diary had written about finding human-shaped ashes left behind after someone died. Everyone had disappeared without a trace after leaving the temple and encountering various strange phenomena.

Moreover, the location where Rosen's parents died was less than three thousand miles from the temple.

According to the diary, all the members of the Howard family who left the temple and returned alive to replenish their ranks never strayed more than three thousand miles from the temple, which was considered a relatively safe zone in this world.

Of course, this safe zone will gradually shrink, and the shrinking of the safe zone is random and not fixed.

The temple is only a few hundred miles away. Even if we walk slowly, the safe zone shouldn't shrink by now.

Rosen took out two urns, preparing to collect the remains of Rosen's parents.

However, as he swept layers of ashes into the urn, he unexpectedly discovered something else in the ashes left by Rosen's parents: two thumb-sized crystal beads with flames burning inside.

Rosen didn't dare use his spiritual senses to investigate, so he sent the information to the mysterious study for the computer of the main god to analyze.

"These are actually fragments of divinity and the torch of civilization?"

Rosen stared incredulously at the results of the analysis from the main computer.

A demigod transforms spirituality into divinity; the sign of Sequence 0 is igniting the divine fire, condensing divine personality, establishing a divine kingdom, and becoming a deity.

As for going further from being a deity to becoming an immortal true god, the prerequisite is to master the torch of civilization.

Gods can be sealed away, and they can be killed very easily.

However, the only way to kill a true god is to extinguish the flame of civilization controlled by the true god.

All civilizations are connected to the true God, who truly exists in legends and serves as the backdrop supporting the existence of each civilization in the world.

What merits did Rosen's parents possess to carry fragments of divinity and a spark of civilization with them?
Rosen seemed thoughtful; the fifth Lord Howard had likely done something foolish.

The family secrets will be encrypted and then written into the novel.

Indeed, ordinary sequences cannot see the hidden secrets, but higher-level demigod novelists, high-sequence beings who possess the ability to predict fate and read minds, and even near-omnipotent deities and near-omniscient and omnipotent true gods, cannot.

Those who understand this should find it easy to see through the hidden secrets in the novel.

So, starting with the fifth Lord Howard, the entire Howard family may have been controlled and used as pawns. Then, after years of planning, the operation began in the generation of Rosen Jr.'s parents.

On the surface, Rosen's parents were unintentionally drawn into this spiritual realm, but in reality, everything they encountered was like being pawns on a chessboard, completely at the mercy of others. They didn't even know that they possessed fragments of divinity and the flame of civilization within them until their deaths.

However, the mastermind's scheme ultimately failed.

As for why Rosen was able to grow up safely, Rosen did not realize that someone was secretly influencing and controlling him.

It's very likely that the mastermind behind this has given up on spying on this spiritual realm, or something unexpected happened that prevented them from taking care of this place. That's why Little Rosen was able to grow up healthy, and why his time travel and replacement of Little Rosen didn't cause any trouble.

Regardless of the truth, this world contains secrets that could move even the true God.

Several months passed in the blink of an eye, and Rosen rode his mechanical mount, preparing to return to the temple ruins via the same route.

Over the past few months, he initially tried his best to avoid violating the various taboos mentioned in his diary.

However, after several months, even though he rode his mechanical mount millions of miles away from the temple, he could see nothing but a world shrouded in ashes. Even more incredibly, he did not encounter any strange events.

This emboldened Rosen, who even sent gray rats to burrow underground and mechanical mounts to fly into the sky and experience the seven-colored glow.

As a result, even the soil underground turned to ash, and the colorful glow in the sky could only be seen but not touched.

Rosen wandered around like a headless fly for months, and finally had no choice but to return to the temple.

Hours later, Rosen stared silently at the temple that had turned to ashes.

Despite the fact that the temple is only half-collapsed, many members of the Howard family throughout history have been driven mad and attacked it, yet none of them have been able to cause it the slightest damage. Even the cracked statue is indestructible.

Yet, this very temple somehow turned to ashes at some unknown time?

Rosen took out his diary and pencil. Did he really want him to write something in it?
Rosen seemed to be deep in thought, and tried to write down the secret code to enter this spiritual realm.

The flame will eventually go out, but only embers can reignite it...

The moment the last stroke was made, the diary and pencil in Rosen's hand vanished and merged into his spirituality.

Finally, the diary merged into the canvas of the mind, and the pencil merged into the divine pen, merging into the extraordinary essence of the painter's sequence.

Finally, on the ancient tree in the divine realm, which was protected by the castle, a tiny flame suddenly ignited out of thin air. At the same time, a seven-colored light appeared in the ashes of the temple, creating a bonfire out of thin air.

Within a 34-meter radius of the fire, all the ashes turned into gray firewood next to the fire.

Rosen felt no harm to himself and, after entering the mysterious study, checked the changes in himself through the main god's computer.

Sure enough, the canvas of the mind and the magic brush both changed, and even the sequence of painters changed.

First, there's the Mind Canvas, now with an added Miracle property.

[Miracle Trait: Ash Curtain - The Mind Canvas can be transformed into an Ash Curtain, reflecting the lingering light of civilization's ashes]

Then there's the Magic Pen, which also has an additional Miracle trait.

[Miracle Trait: Eternal Flame - Can rekindle the flame of civilization using the last embers of ashes]

Rosen looked at the extraordinary source of the painter within the divine brush one last time; he had actually transformed from a painter into an unheard-of torchbearer painter.

After becoming the Torchbearer, his original extraordinary essence is splitting. One part remains inside the Divine Brush, while the other part will soon split off and merge into the Mind Canvas to truly activate the miraculous property of the Ash Curtain.

Rosen waited a week before the extraordinary source material completely split in two.

The moment the Ash Curtain activated, Rosen understood exactly what this ability was all about.

As we all know, the destruction of life and civilization is not the end.

Because whether it is life or civilization, after death, it will leave traces of its existence in the spirit world.

Especially in the depths of the spirit world, many historical traces left by the past exist there, constantly growing stronger and trying to transcend the spirit world and reappear in reality.

But what if those civilizations that left historical traces deep in the spirit world have even had their historical traces destroyed?

The answer is the complete extinguishing of the flame of civilization; the answer is that everything that has ever existed will be burned to ashes before the flame of civilization is extinguished.

The spiritual realm where Rosen is now is formed from historical traces that turned to ashes deep within the spiritual world.

This is a place deeper than the depths of the spirit world; this is the final ruin of a civilization that even the true gods find difficult to tread upon.

A curtain of ashes can reflect the lingering light of the ashes of civilization.

What is "last glimmer"? Here, "last glimmer" refers to the final brilliance of civilization before its flame is extinguished.

For example, if a city is burned to ashes by the backlash of civilization, then the Ash Curtain can use the miracle treasure, the Firewood Pile, to reflect the scene of the city before it was burned down. The higher the level of the Mind Canvas, the earlier the time of the city that the Ash Curtain can reflect.

As for the eternal transmission of the magic brush, it can bring this city, which was burned to ashes, back to life on the canvas of the soul.

Therefore, the "Torchbearer" sequence can rely on ashes to ignite a torch, allowing traces of history that have been completely destroyed to reappear in the depths of the spirit world. This is a terrifying power beyond Rosen's comprehension, possessing an incredible power that even a true god would find difficult to achieve.

However, every advantage has its disadvantages. The "Torchbearer Painters" category has already transcended the category of painters in human civilization.

Therefore, it is no longer possible to rely on the ancient tree of artists belonging to human civilization to further improve the sequence level of the painter sequence.

To upgrade the Fire Painter sequence to LV6, the Fire within his spirit needs to devour the Fire of other civilizations.

Rosen sighed helplessly and stepped forward to pick up the embers of the temple that had formed the fire and firewood.

This pile of firewood is a special and miraculous treasure.

It can consume divinity, turning the embers of civilization into fuel to keep the fire burning.

Rosen used his spirituality to ignite the fire, and the pile of firewood was instantly lit.

He threw the embers within a 34-meter radius into the fire, and the originally weak flames of the fire instantly flared up.

Rosen activated the Mind Canvas, transforming it into an ash curtain that was projected into the firelight.

He immediately saw the temple, which covered an area of ​​about 34 meters in diameter, and the last scene before the flame of civilization was extinguished.

Even through the firelight, he could sense their terrifying presence.

Even the weakest of these were demigods, and hundreds of them knelt in prayer before the statue.

Rosen also saw the statue whose head had not been cut off, and he was stunned the moment he saw the statue's face.

Because this statue looks exactly like him.

Rosen fell into deep thought. Had he really time-traveled while drawing comics for his boss in the study?
Or perhaps many things happened to him after that.

He even became a true god and personally built a civilization of his own.

However, this civilization was eventually destroyed, and he lost this part of his memory. He simply fell into a deep sleep with the mysterious study and the main god computer, only to awaken in this era.

From beginning to end, perhaps it was he who bound this spiritual realm to the Howard family.

He was originally the master of this spiritual realm, so he encountered no danger after arriving there. As a result, the temple turned into a miraculous treasure and a pile of firewood, which is why he inexplicably became a firewood painter.

If he did all of this, why does he have no related memories or feelings at all?

Rosen continued to look through the ash curtain and saw that the people inside the temple who were praying to the statue were becoming terrified.

Next, he only saw a flash of golden light, and everyone in the temple, including the statues, had their heads cut off. Then, one terrified head after another flew out of the temple, and the headless bodies disappeared without a trace.

Then the temple suddenly collapsed, and the last glimmer of civilization's ashes was extinguished.

Rosen retracted the embers that had been incorporated into the firewood pile, and felt that the embers had noticeably grown a little stronger.

After the firewood pile was lit, it seemed to undergo a change. The afterglow of the ashes of civilization could be repeatedly reproduced through the firewood pile, and as its spiritual strength increased, the time it could see would be further back.

Rosen shrunk the pile of firewood to the size of his palm and began pacing back and forth around the temple.

Soon the ashes of the temple and the surrounding area within several miles turned into firewood, and he immediately lit the firewood to examine the remaining light of the ashes over a wider area.

This time he finally saw the enemy, and he was stunned for a moment when he saw the enemy.

The person who stood at the temple entrance and easily beheaded everyone inside was exactly the same as him. He couldn't possibly have killed all his idols and followers.

Rosen was skeptical, but began to expand the scope of his firewood collection.

However, as the embers continued to turn into firewood, he felt that his stay in this spiritual realm would become shorter and shorter.

Because these embers are the very foundation that sustains the existence of this world, when they are transformed into firewood, the world will lose its last support. Therefore, if you want to take the embers away as firewood, it is best to select them carefully for the transformation.

Rosen began to refer to the contents of the diary and traveled to the ruins of the cities surrounding the temple.

These city ruins were burned to ashes by the backlash of civilization, but some traces were left behind. Soon, the embers of dozens of cities were turned into firewood and thrown into the fire, and he was also rejected by this world.

Back at the hotel in Frost City, Rosen was surprised to find that he had only been gone for a second.

Or rather, not even a second has passed. So many days have passed in that world, but in reality, only a moment has passed.

Rosen opened the mysterious study with a pile of firewood, determined to rekindle the flame of civilization in the embers of the ashes.

Of course, he did not intend to continue burning the ashes of that temple. Instead, he planned to select the ashes of a city, find a place in the city that resembled a library, and finally draw that place.

If the miraculous properties of the Magic Pen are passed down through generations, it could truly revive everything in the ashes and embers.

So perhaps by reading books from that era, one can gain some understanding of that civilization.

(End of this chapter)