The Divine Cross in Rosen's hand gradually closed the distance to the azure orb.
Accelerated by time, that strike of his surpassed the speed of light.
But just when less than three meters remained, Rosen suddenly fell straight down out of nowhere.
The twelve divine wings behind him could no longer keep him aloft.
The sky was repelling him, not allowing him to remain in the air.
Those mere three meters now felt as difficult to cross as a bottomless chasm to an ordinary person.
Rosen's sure-fire surprise attack encountered a sudden twist at the last second.
With just three meters left, of course he could release the boundless divine power within the Divine Cross, and the resulting damage wouldn't be insignificant. But that alone couldn't deal a serious blow to the Sky King. The Divine Cross had to touch the Sky King's divine body.
A full-force strike from a Twelve-Winged Holy Angel King could, at best, injure the Sky King.
What Rosen truly relied on to cause critical damage was the Eternal Fall Curse embedded in the Divine Cross.
This curse needed direct contact to infect the Sky King. His forbidden curse miracle-painting technique couldn't transmit a curse of that level through air. But this ambush that he had been so confident in—somehow, the Sky King had already prepared for it.
Rosen expanded his spacetime domain, trying to resist the suppression from the Sky Laws.
But the domain failed to open, as if all his methods had already been countered in advance.
With no other choice, Rosen channeled endless holy brilliance and launched a Holy Assault to close the three-meter gap and strike the azure orb.
With a sharp crack, the orb shattered.
The slumbering Sky King within spread a pair of wings like a celestial canopy. In an instant, the sky was completely covered. Sunlight within tens of thousands of miles vanished. A pressure as if the heavens had collapsed fell upon Rosen.
He was smashed down from the floating castle to the ground. The entire Sky King City nearly collapsed under the sudden weight.
Through the hole above, the Sky King lowered his head and looked at him with disdain.
"So you were prepared after all…" Rosen mimicked the Sky Laws and instantly broke free of the suppression, soaring upward once more.
"Who are you?" Rosen stared at the Sky King and demanded.
He was certain the one he faced wasn't the real Sky King.
If the Sky King were truly this powerful, then the Sky Kingdom would have long since become the Sky Empire.
And how could mere Sky Laws suppress his spacetime domain to the point it couldn't even unfold?
No... this definitely isn't the Sky King.
Only the power of the King's Game itself could grant the Sky Laws such overwhelming strength.
Games are always ruled by patch notes and new metas… if the King's Game wanted to, it could grant the Sky Laws power far beyond their normal limits. He already had a few suspects in mind.
"I'm the GM of the King's Game…" The Sky King snapped his fingers as he spoke. In an instant, everything inside and outside the city froze—aside from the two of them.
It wasn't a pause in spacetime. It was like the game screen had glitched and frozen.
"The King's Game isn't ready for public testing. I order you to return to the Holy Grail Kingdom."
As the Sky King's words fell, everything began rewinding as if time itself had reversed.
The Holy Grail Legion returned to the Holy Grail Kingdom, and all memories of the expedition vanished.
Several Golden Dukes also returned to the Golden Lion Kingdom, forgetting they had ever betrayed the Lionheart King. Several princes who had already been surrounded and killed by the joint forces of the Holy Grail Knights and the Golden Dukes were also resurrected.
However, the Lionheart King did not come back to life. Though he reappeared in the Void Prison of the True Ancient God Realm, the number of Fallen Scholars imprisoned there had significantly decreased. In the end, although the flame of civilization in the Lionheart Kingdom was rekindled, it seemed outwardly strong but inwardly weak.
Seeing that the Lionheart King hadn't revived, the Sky King furrowed his brow.
He tore off his left arm, which instantly transformed into the Lionheart King and appeared at the place where the Lionheart King lay dormant.
At that moment, deeper-level game rules of the King's Continent were awakened, and only then did the Sky King lie back down and return to slumber.
In the Holy Grail Kingdom, Rosen suddenly felt a sense of confusion.
Inside his Eternal Source, an unfamiliar Eternal Origin had unexpectedly emerged.
And for some reason, whenever he even thought about attacking other kingdoms, a deep fear would arise in his heart.
The Bronze Dragon avatar in the Mysterious Study Room sensed something wrong and shared its memories with his true body through the Window of the World.
Only then did Rosen remember everything he had forgotten. He had actually had his memories altered by this so-called Game GM, the Sky King.
When the Omniscient Magic Eye looked toward the kingdoms of the three Star Coin True Gods, the view that was once visible had now become completely obscured.
This time, not only were his memories erased and the timeline reverted to before the expedition, but even the game rules attached to the Eternal Game Source had been enhanced to conceal everything about the King's Continent from sight. Clearly, destroying the Golden Lion Kingdom had caused the GM quite a bit of trouble.
But why go so far as to completely obscure the Omniscient Magic Eye with the game rules?He should know that if I could see it before, and suddenly I can't, it would definitely arouse my suspicion.
Even if the Bronze Dragon avatar hadn't warned him, he would've sensed the anomaly right away.
Considering that the avatar in the Mysterious Study Room was unaffected, Rosen immediately understood—this Sky King who called himself the Game GM might have gained partial access to the King's Game, but he was far from omnipotent.
There was a strong possibility that only the Holy Grail Kingdom, the Sky Kingdom, and the Golden Lion Kingdom had been rolled back.
As for the kingdoms of the three Star Coin True Gods, the Sky King no longer had the capacity to rewind them as well.
That was why he had to completely obscure the Omniscient Magic Eye—to prevent him from discovering the limitations of the GM's power.
So this Sky King, who seemed so formidable on the surface, was actually hollow within.
Everything he had done was merely to intimidate him.
If I hadn't had the Mysterious Study Room... if my avatar in the Study Room hadn't helped me recover the tampered memories, I might really have been fooled by the Sky King.But now that I know he's just putting up a front, I might as well play along and have some fun.
Rosen now possessed the Root Source Sequence, allowing him to freely switch between nearly all extraordinary sequences.
But this came with a flaw—being a jack of all trades often meant mastering none.
So the other extraordinary sequences he mimicked were just for support. His core remained those of Noble, Painter, and Hunter.
Especially the miracle skills granted by those extraordinary sequences—these were skills that even limited omniscience and omnipotence couldn't replicate.
However, not all miracle skills were equally powerful. The miracle skill of a Sequence 9 couldn't compare to that of a Sequence 1. Even though a rise in personal strength could enhance the power of miracle skills, there was still a fundamental gap between Sequence 9 and Sequence 1.
Rosen's Forbidden Curse was a miracle skill granted at Sequence 2, and now, he had already become a True God.
The Forbidden Curse was highly effective when used against True Gods, but against Great True Gods, it was difficult to take effect in a short time.
Therefore, he planned to further strengthen the Forbidden Curse skill.
This would require using the Law Skill "Source Imprint" that he had mastered at Sequence 1.
Through this skill, he could imprint his extraordinary skills and share them with all Painters.
The more Painters who used the skill, the more feedback he would receive, and over time, the skill could be enhanced.
But Source Imprint could only imprint ordinary extraordinary skills—it couldn't imprint miracle skills at all.
That was in the past. Now, Rosen had grasped the Eternal Miracle Source.
If he could transform Source Imprint into a miracle skill, perhaps he could imprint miracle skills and share them with all Painters.
Rosen directly took out a drop of Ancient God's True Blood from the Heart of the Ancient God—true blood that had condensed after his ascension to True God.
The Eternal Miracle Source fused with the Ancient God's True Blood, and the combined power was channeled into Source Imprint.
Moments later, Rosen had already mastered a new miracle skill.
[Miracle Copy: Miracle Skill]
[Miracle Attribute: Allows one miracle skill to be copied and shared with all Miracle Copy sub-bodies]
[Miracle Trait: Unity of All]
In the end, Rosen didn't upgrade Origin Copy because he was worried that upgrading it would prevent it from continuing to copy and spread ordinary skills.
Sure enough, his concern wasn't unfounded, so instead, he created a new miracle skill based on Origin Copy.
From now on, Origin Copy would continue to share ordinary skills with all painters, while Miracle Copy would share miracle skills.
Although only one miracle skill could be shared at a time, the trait Unity of All was enough to cause a qualitative change in the miracle skill.
Unity of All meant that the more people who shared and mastered the miracle skill, the stronger the development and refinement of the skill would be. The more benefits would return to the original host of the miracle skill, essentially allowing him to enhance and evolve the skill through the collective power of countless individuals.
After a long contemplation, Rosen ultimately chose to share the miracle skill Timeline Script.
[Timeline Script: Miracle Skill]
[Miracle Attribute: Can automatically complete missing parts of the script from the past and future]
[Miracle Trait: Illustrated Script]
This miracle skill was bound to the Void Sketchbook. Through Timeline Script, he could quietly manipulate parts of fate.
Timeline Script was highly effective in scheming against others, but Rosen rarely used this miracle skill.
That was because it was unnecessary against weaker enemies, and ineffective against stronger ones.
Fate manipulation, in essence, thrived on bullying the weak. Trying to manipulate the fate of the powerful was never easy.
At the end of the day, it was because Timeline Script wasn't strong enough. But now, things were different with Miracle Copy.
Rosen quickly used Miracle Copy to share Timeline Script with all painters.
Hundreds of millions of painters suddenly found themselves possessing a miracle skill out of nowhere.
Over the years, Rosen had frequently used Origin Copy to share skills with all painters. Inside the Terror Park game mall, one could even directly exchange for all skills shared through Origin Copy. As a result, the Painter sequence had become the most sought-after profession in the New World.
Now, being able to master a miracle skill for free, nearly all the painters eagerly began studying Timeline Script.
The more people who mastered it, the more research was poured into Timeline Script, and the stronger the feedback it received through Unity of All.
Rosen opened the Void Sketchbook, which had already evolved far beyond its original form.
The current Void Sketchbook had become a True God-level extraordinary artifact.
When he was Sequence 1, besides mastering Origin Copy, he had also mastered the law-based skill Law Sketchbook.
Through this skill, he could paint laws he had mastered into artworks.
These artworks could then be shared with all painters. As long as they copied and recreated these paintings, they could accelerate their mastery of the law-based authorities depicted within. If their understanding surpassed his, he would also gain access to their more advanced interpretations.
Since mastering the Source Law, which allowed him to mimic all laws using the Root Law, Rosen had painted spiritual artworks based on all known laws and shared them with all painters for practice.
These spiritually infused artworks, constructed purely from law fragments, were all transformed into canvases using the Dimensional Paper skill, and then merged into the Void Sketchbook. Finally, the paper was reinforced with Eternal Source material and fused into the sketchbook's cover, effortlessly upgrading it into a True God-level extraordinary item.
Rosen flipped to the Dimensional Paper linked to the Law of Fate, then used his Root Sequence to mimic the Playwright sequence.
With the help of various skills from the Playwright sequence, he began writing a script for the Sky Kingdom.
But writing the script was just the beginning. He then switched to the Painter sequence and began drawing illustrations.
The power of these two extraordinary sequences merged perfectly into the miracle skill Timeline Script through the Void Sketchbook.
Because he used the miracle-level painting technique God's Hand during the drawing process, his divine consciousness could descend upon the Sky Kingdom through the illustrated script and text of Timeline Script, viewing everything from a god-like perspective. During this process, he even enhanced the divine view effect by borrowing the power of the Apocalypse Eye.
Why was it that sometimes the Apocalypse Eye could see, while other times it was completely blocked?
It was simply a matter of offense and defense: for every method of spying, there would be a technique to conceal.
However, whether it's the spear or the shield, it's only when one stops progressing that they become vulnerable to being countered.
The Sky King could strengthen his shield to obscure the Apocalypse Eye's gaze, but Rosen could likewise use other methods to enhance the Apocalypse Eye's perception. At this moment, with the combined amplification of God's Hand, Miracle Copy, and Timeline Script, the concealment shrouding the Sky Kingdom was finally broken through.
Rosen continued to cast Descent of the Painted World, allowing everything within Timeline Script to manifest into reality.
The entire Sky Kingdom had, without a sound, fallen under the influence of Timeline Script.
In just a few days, chaos erupted within the Sky Kingdom.
No matter where it is, there are always classes and oppression—there are always poor and rich people.
In the face of oppression, countless individuals are forced to compromise and endure humiliation just to survive.
When oppression reaches an extreme and touches the very bottom line of survival—where compromise is no longer an option—the voices from the bottom grow louder and louder, ultimately resulting in backlash and the overthrow of the existing hierarchy. This is one of the fundamental reasons for the cycle of civilization.
Although the Sky Kingdom was highly stratified, it hadn't completely cut off the lower class's path to ascend.
This was because the Sky King who ruled the Sky Kingdom was not a foolish monarch, and the princes who had acted as regents for the past 23,000 years were far from mediocre. As a result, the Sky Kingdom hadn't yet reached a level where the lower classes could no longer bear it.
However, when Rosen illustrated the Timeline Script, the divine paint he used contained both the Eternal Game and Eternal Fall sources.
The Eternal Game Source successfully embedded the power of Timeline Script into the rules of the King's Game, making it part of the game's foundational mechanics.
The Eternal Fall Source maximally incited the rebellious thoughts of all lower classes.
And this rebellion didn't come solely from the very bottom—the lower class rose against the middle class, the middle class rose against the nobility, the nobility rebelled against the high nobles, and the high nobles opposed the royal family. All those long-buried rebellious thoughts, all those things they had only dared to think but never act on, were now coming to life.
The collective will of the Sky Kingdom collapsed in an instant, and chaos erupted from the bottom up.
Even though many people sensed something was off and suspected the involvement of a Scholar of Corruption…
Only a few managed to stay clear-headed. The vast majority had already fallen under the manipulation of Timeline Script.
There was one count who sensed that something was wrong and immediately restrained his dissatisfaction toward a marquis.
But the very next day, his second son offended the marquis's second son and was killed.
He endured it. But on the third day, his heir went to confront the marquis's second son, only to be beaten half to death by the marquis's heir.
If he kept enduring, he'd be no better than a turtle. Of course, it was only natural to settle grudges and repay resentment.
Everyone in the Sky Kingdom seemed to have gone mad. Nothing escaped the script laid out by Timeline Script.
In less than half a month, multiple cities within the Sky Kingdom had fallen to ruins due to internal strife, plummeting from the sky. Although a few powerful individuals managed to survive, their hands were already stained with blood, and there was no turning back.
Eventually, after a month, even the Sky Royal City fell, destroyed in the civil war between the Golden Duke and a prince.
The Sky Castle was buried in rubble, and the Sky King still hadn't awakened from his slumber.
The King's Game was still a game, and any game has a main plotline.
Without the arrival of the main storyline, the King could not awaken.
Only when invaders from the other four great kingdoms—such as the Holy Grail Kingdom—entered the main plotline would the King awaken to restore order.
Rosen hadn't left the Holy Grail Kingdom, so he hadn't directly entered the main storyline.
Although the power of Timeline Script had invaded the main plotline, because it had been painted using the Eternal Game Source as pigment, Timeline Script became part of the King's Game itself—recognized as a valid side story by the main plot.
Because of this, even though the Sky Kingdom was destroyed in civil war, the Sky King could not awaken even if he wanted to.
Rosen let the Sky Kingdom go and began using Timeline Script once again to bring down the Gold Lion Kingdom.
More and more kingdoms near the Holy Grail Kingdom were being destroyed—Rosen brought down a total of nine kingdoms before he temporarily stopped.
That was because he had run out of the Eternal Game Source. Without this as pigment, Timeline Script would be deemed an external force intruding into the main plotline by the King's Game, which would immediately awaken the slumbering King—or worse, awaken the so-called GM who had parasitized and replaced part of the King's consciousness.
After burying nine kingdoms, Rosen discovered that the kings of three of them were problematic.
As expected, they were no longer the original kings—they had been silently replaced by GMs.
Rosen didn't act against those three kingdoms. Instead, he went to the remaining six.
While Miracle Flamekindling devoured the Flame of Civilization, he effortlessly killed six kings who had awoken from their slumber due to the fall of their kingdoms but were in an extremely weakened state.
The miracle trait Eternal Flamekindling was now on the verge of evolving into the Eternal Flamekindling Source.
The Holy Grail King's miracle Tarot card had also reached True God +6. It was obvious now that slaying kings was the only way to level it up.
Rosen had a hunch that if he completely wiped out three more kingdoms, both Eternal Flamekindling and the Holy Grail Kingdom's Miracle Tarot Card would undergo a qualitative transformation through accumulation.
(End of chapter)