Lord: Sequence Overlord

Chapter 338 The Painter's Future and the Soul Parasite

Chapter 337

In the main world, the total number of painters has exceeded ten billion.

Half are human, and the other half are alien races.

The World Government previously restricted only nobles from changing to the Painter sequence because there was no true Ancient Tree of Painting Laws. Relying solely on the power of the Ancient Tree of Artists, it was impossible to change to too many Painter sequences.

However, ever since the rules of painting were born, ever since the painter's sequence separated from the artist's sequence.

The number of people changing professions to painters has exploded. Not only have a large number of ordinary people with painting talent changed professions to painters, but those alien races with painting talent have also changed professions to painters with the support of their races, which has directly led to an increasing number of paintings in the main world's spiritual realm.

The increasing number of painters is very beneficial to the growth of the ancient tree of painter's rule sequence in the short term.

Rosen's paintings are almost ripe.

However, from a long-term perspective, the painters' lineage is inevitably destined to rise to its peak and then decline.

Because the extraordinary resources suitable for painters will eventually become insufficient as the number of painters continues to increase, the materials related to creating paintings of spiritual realms have more than doubled in value compared to before the surge in the number of painters. As a result, many painters from ordinary backgrounds can no longer afford to paint.

Anything related to art will inevitably become more and more expensive, and further and further out of reach for ordinary people.

The only way to prevent the painters' career from declining after reaching its peak is to increase revenue and reduce expenditure.

The way to cut costs is to limit the number of job advancements in the painter sequence, but this will inevitably weaken the growth of the painting rules.

Therefore, for the time being, Rosen has not considered cutting costs at all.

His only remaining option was open source, and the Law Picture Book was his first step in open source.

As long as painters acquire as much authority and law as possible, they can reduce their need for painter resources and instead make more use of the extraordinary resources of other authorities and other sequences, thereby greatly alleviating the resource predicament of the painter sequence.

Rosen's Dimensional Canvas can turn everything into canvas, and God's Pigments can transform everything into pigments.

He used these miraculous abilities to completely break free from dependence on a single supernatural resource.

Any high-level extraordinary resource that falls into his hands can be transformed into an extraordinary resource for painters.

So, besides the rulebook, Lawson's second self-created painter skill is source material imprinting.

This skill is divided into two parts, primary and secondary. The secondary part is somewhat similar to the imitation skill of the actor sequence, which can imitate the skills embedded in the primary part. If he integrates God's Pigment into the Source Material Imprint, he can enable other painters who have mastered the Source Material Imprint to use a weakened version of God's Pigment.

If he so desired, he could share all the skills he possessed with all painters in a weakened form.

Although in the short term, Source Imprinting is self-defeating but beneficial to others, as the Painter Sequence becomes stronger, the Painting Laws will also become stronger. With the strengthening of the Painting Laws, all the skills of the Painter Sequence mastered by Rosen will be greatly enhanced.

Furthermore, the skills Law Illustration and Source Imprint can be combined for enhanced strength.

If the Law Picture Book incorporates the acting authority of the actor sequence, then the source imprint he possesses will not only be able to imprint the skills he has mastered, but also the various skills mastered by the actor sequence.

Although only one can be imprinted at a time, the source material imprint, which allows for skill changes, is far superior to human body painting.

Through the ancient tree of painting law sequences, Rosen quickly shared the sub-skills of the Law Illustration Book and Source Imprint with all painters.

All painters in the main world who receive this skill information will begin to master these two skills once they reach Sequence 7.

Even demigods have begun to clear their Sequence 7 skill slots and replace them with new skills.

Lawson's self-created Law Picture Book and Source Imprint are skills that can be built and mastered by directly communicating with the Ancient Tree of Painting Law Sequence. They can even replace skills that have been mastered in lower sequences and are no longer keeping up, giving all painters two chances to undo their mistakes.

Most extraordinary individuals do not have the ability to continuously enhance their skills like Rosen.

Ordinary skills are forcibly enhanced into special skills, law skills, and miracle skills.

Just two chances to undo the mistake have already made the other sequences drool.

However, the top powerhouses in other sequences are not capable of achieving such a miracle that benefits the entire extraordinary sequence.

Rosen was able to give all the painters two free chances to undo their mistakes by relying on his mastery of the fundamental laws and historical laws.

[Law Picture Book: Law Skills]

[Skill Attribute: Able to generate a master copy of the Law Illustration, sharing authority and spiritual composition based on the Laws with all Law Illustration copies]

……

[Source Imprint: Law Skill]

[Skill Attribute: Can imprint extraordinary skills and share them with all source-material imprint sub-bodies]

Neither of the two law skills required Rosen to actively master them. As he spread the copies and sub-series of the skills, and as more and more painters mastered these two skills, the corresponding skill rune matrix was naturally generated within his mimicry godhood.

However, mastering the last skill in the Painter Sequence 1 is not as easy as the first two for Rosen.

Painters' painting actually has very large limitations.

An ordinary person looking at a phoenix, without any drawing skills, could easily draw it as a picture of chicks eating rice.

When a painter paints a phoenix, the phoenix in the painting can fly out of the painting.

However, even among painters, each has their own strengths.

A Sequence 7 painter might not be able to depict a rabbit with the same level of realism as a Sequence 9 painter.

The reason is simple: the Sequence 7 painter did not bother to understand rabbits at all, while the Sequence 9 painter only painted rabbits from beginning to end, knew all the rabbits' habits, knew all the internal physical structures of rabbits, and even knew the rabbit's genetic map.

Because the Sequence 9 painter knows rabbits well enough, the rabbits he paints are more realistic than those painted by the Sequence 7 painter.

If two painters are at the same rank in the sequence, the difference will be even greater.

Therefore, the more outstanding a painter is, the narrower the scope of their painting.

Because everything in low-order sequences is easy to understand, while everything in high-order sequences is difficult to understand.

Rosen was no exception. He knew enough about angels and shadow demons that his drawings made them more powerful than the real ones. However, he didn't know about the Abyssal Serpents. His drawings of the Abyssal Serpents had at most 50-60% of the power of the real ones.

This is a limitation of the painter's lineage; it's not enough to understand how to perfectly copy and draw something.
However, with so many things in the world, unless a painter lives for billions or trillions of years and no new things are born, it would be impossible for a painter to fully understand everything and thus truly become an all-around painter.

But it's obvious that this is only theoretically possible; in reality, no painter can achieve this level of skill.

So Rosen decided to take a different approach. Since he couldn't become an all-around painter by understanding everything, he would find a way to get people who understood everything to paint for him. He would lend his painter sequence to these people and let them use his power to paint.

For example, if he wanted to draw a Void Destroyer, he could never draw a completely realistic Void Destroyer even if he worked himself to death.

However, he lent his painter sequence to a mechanic, who then designed a Void Destroyer. This would create a completely realistic Void Destroyer, and all he had to do was stand behind the mechanic and reap the benefits.

Rosen is developing the Painter Sequence as a kingdom, making himself the sole ruler of the Painter Sequence.

He doesn't need to be omniscient or omnipotent, nor does he need to be an expert in everything to rule a glorious kingdom. He only needs to know how to use people well to indirectly become an all-powerful painter, making the spiritual paintings from his hands unprecedented and unparalleled.

Therefore, strictly speaking, the Law Illustration and Source Imprint are only prerequisite skills for this skill.

This skill isn't just a skill from the painter sequence.

Rather, it is the fusion of several sequences of power that forms this special law skill.

……

In the depths of the spirit world, there are many places where even the concepts of time and space do not exist.

Anything can appear in the depths of the spirit world. Civilizations that have already perished in the history of the main world may appear, as may powerful beings who have fallen. The world government's greatest responsibility is to suppress all unusual activity in the depths of the spirit world.

For a full 20,000 years, this defensive line remained completely intact.

However, since the spirit world spread to the entire main world, the defense line has expanded from the human world to the entire main world.

The World Government was unable to defend all the newly added defenses. Although the gods of all races were prepared, they were not able to defend against them completely. Top alien races like angels and titans were relatively easy to deal with, as they were able to stop the beings that had revived from the depths of the spirit world.

Those weaker alien races have gradually shifted the balance of power in recent years.

The Shattered Star Islands are numerous islands of varying sizes formed from a broken continent.

Although it was broken into an archipelago, its value was actually quite high. The two alien true gods who once fought for this continent ultimately abandoned these archipelagos at the same time.

The stated reason is that continuing the fight would only do more harm than good.

It would be better to give the Shattered Star Islands to their respective vassal races, leaving a buffer zone for a ceasefire between the two sides.

The dozen or so subordinate races that occupy the Shattered Star Islands, though they sometimes fight, are all very restrained.

If we lose, our race will be wiped out; if we win, how can we possibly unify the Shattered Star Islands?

Powerful alien races never protect weaker alien races for nothing.

Weak alien races have to offer treasures, rely on their superior reproductive capabilities to provide cannon fodder soldiers, and even develop along different paths of civilization. However, any unexpected gains made on any path of civilization will ultimately be taken away by the powerful alien races.

The only way for a weak alien race in the main world to rise up is if a true god is born within their race by chance.

The Shattered Star Islands have little potential for development, but they are relatively safe for weaker groups.

However, that was a long time ago; now, the Shattered Star Isles are filled with death and fear.

The powerful backers of those weak alien races no longer care about protecting the Shattered Star Islands.

In the Star Shattered Islands, a sea area plagued by torrential rain, a door several thousand meters high silently opened.

This is Boya's portal to space and time. Rosen originally couldn't control this extraordinary artifact of a true god, but since mastering the laws of space and time, this portal has completely fallen under his control. There are very few places in the entire main world that this portal cannot reach.

In the Shattered Star Islands, which are beyond the reach of the five major networks, Boya's spacetime portal is even more convenient than data transmission.

Rosen retracted the shrunken portal, and his divine perception spread across the Shattered Star Islands.

Because the Shattered Star Islands were once a continent, many civilizations that unified the entire continent arose on this continent.

Over the long course of time, these civilizations have all perished for various reasons.

Now, some have been resurrected deep within the spirit realm, directly breaking through the spirit realm's defenses on the Shattered Star Islands and occupying the shallower layers of the spirit realm.

It can even briefly cause the spirit world and reality to overlap through its influence on the spirit world.

The resurrected spirit world civilization stormed into reality, sweeping through all the civilizations, large and small, on the Shattered Star Islands.

They did not exterminate them all; they only killed some elderly people from various tribes on each island.

The meaning is quite clear: to keep the alien races of the entire Shattered Star Islands under captivity and harvest them periodically.

The only way for spirit beings to truly resurrect and return to reality is to annihilate the real beings of the main world. The more they kill, the more they can truly resurrect. All races on the Shattered Star Islands have become domesticated sacrifices.

Even the two powerful alien races behind them have openly abandoned these subordinate alien races.

Rosen opened the Void Album, and the painting of destiny pointed to this place.

To master the final skill in Painter Sequence 1, he needs to use some special materials. There are many alternatives, but the most effective one is the one he creates, a prophetic painting pointing towards the Shattered Star Islands.

Rosen quickly arrived at the nearest island, which was located ten meters below sea level.

The island is inhabited by the Anemone People, a sea tribe that prefers to live in shallow waters.

Rosen did not act rashly, but observed carefully.

On the surface, it appears to be civilized, but in reality, the aura of civilization has long since dissipated.

A civilization without the vitality of civilization means that the civilization has perished.

Therefore, all the Anemone People still alive on the island are actually dead.

However, these anemone people did not realize that they were dead. They continued to live normal lives, had offspring with their tribesmen, and took magic potions to change their class to the extraordinary sequence and continue their cultivation. Except for the lack of civilized fortune, everything seemed normal.

"The Shattered Star Islands do indeed have soul-parasitic beasts..."

Rosen, hidden in the torrential rain, gazed with delight at the anemone people beneath the sea.

Soul parasites are a legendary special life form. These life forms have no intelligence, only survival instincts, and are at the level of true gods. They have destroyed many powerful civilizations, many of which were protected by true gods.

The spirit parasite was unharmed and looked like a giant spirit snail.

Although divine attacks are powerful, they lack intelligence and can be hunted down by any true god.

However, after death, the body of a soul-parasitic beast decomposes into countless soul cells. Once these soul cells parasitize a living being, they devour the spiritual essence. After parasitizing and devouring, the soul cells can also disguise themselves as the spiritual essence and inherit the memories of the deceased.

Rosen's flesh and blood clones were body replacements, while the soul parasite directly replaced his spiritual essence.

The anemone people on the island had no idea that they were actually corpses.

Even if they knew they were corpses, they might not believe it; and even if they did believe it, they might not surrender easily.

Put yourself in his shoes. If someone suddenly ran up to Rosen and said he was dead, that he wasn't himself, that only death could bring him relief, regardless of whether it was true or not, the first thing he would do would definitely be to kill that person.

Because it is impossible to completely kill the soul parasite, killing it would instead cause the soul cells to spread uncontrollably.

Therefore, the best way to deal with the soul parasites is to seal them, but the seals have been broken more than once over the years.

Because special soul source cores can be born within the bodies of soul parasites, which are among the most elite of extraordinary resources such as soul and spirituality, there are always people who deliberately release sealed soul parasites in order to obtain soul source cores.

If Rosen's judgment is correct, the Soul Parasite Beast was originally sealed on this continent.

The mastermind behind breaking the seal is the two true gods behind the subordinate races of the Shattered Star Islands.

Normally, true gods do not wage war on the surface of the earth. There is almost no hatred between true gods. Over the long years, those who had hatred have almost all been resolved. Therefore, conflicts between true gods are almost always for the sake of interests. If they want to benefit, they will not wage war on the surface of the earth and destroy the entire continent.

Therefore, the real purpose of shattering this continent to form the Shattered Star Islands was to release the sealed soul parasite beasts.

The soul parasite that had already been killed once had produced a soul source core.

However, it's not easy to divide between two true gods, so they migrated to the subordinate races to accelerate the resurrection of the soul parasite beasts. Then, each person will have a soul source core, and there will be no difficulty in distributing them.

"The Sky Eagle Civilization and the Sea Serpent Civilization..."

Information about the two civilizations was projected onto Rosen's retina.

Each civilization has only one true god, with the Eagle Civilization being slightly stronger, possessing eleven deities.

The true gods of both races reside deep within the Spirit Realm, and the guardians of the Shattered Star Islands can only be the deities of the two races.

Rosen activated the God-Hunter's Eye and began to spy on the gods of both races one by one based on the information he had collected.

Some reside deep within the spirit world, while others guard the main world's lair.

Only two deities reside on the Shattered Star Isles, yet different races simultaneously guard a single spiritual realm.

Rosen immediately plunged into the sea. Yinglong was a natural water god, and he was like a fish in water when he entered the ocean.

They soon arrived at the deep sea near the center of the Shattered Star Islands, where a hidden spiritual world resided.

The void flickers under the enhanced spacetime laws, directly passing through the world barrier and entering the interior of the spiritual realm.

Rosen immediately spotted a massive arcane magic circle at the center of the spirit realm, an arcane magic circle of true god level.

The Soul Core should be located at the core of the arcane magic circle, serving as bait to lure the soul parasite beast.

Although the soul parasites lack intelligence, they have an extremely strong instinctive perception of danger.

If it were to be resurrected, it would instinctively flee.

If the other true gods discover this, the Eagle God and the Sea Serpent God will not be able to monopolize all the benefits.

Therefore, using the unallocable Soul Source Core as bait, they set up this arcane magic circle that could trap the Soul Parasite and kill it again. At that time, each of them would have one Soul Source Core, and it was even possible that they could continue to raise the Soul Parasite in the Shattered Star Islands.

Rosen didn't intend to storm in and steal the Soul Core; he was more interested in the arcane magic circle.

If soul-parasitic beasts were so easy to trap and keep, the true gods of history would have done it long ago. The reason they didn't is that they all failed. What makes the Eagle God and the Sea Serpent God so confident in setting up this arcane magic circle?

(End of this chapter)