At the Royal Castle of the Holy Grail, Rosen stood at the highest point, overlooking the garden plaza directly in front of the palace.
At this moment, the Holy Grail Kingdom's expeditionary army had assembled in the magically expanded plaza, awaiting orders to march.
At the very front stood 173 Holy Grail Knights, each having leveled up to Sequence 0 through monster hunting by leveraging the player sequence and the King's Game.
Behind the Holy Grail Knights were a thousand Bloodline Knight Commanders.
Some had reached Sequence 0, and even the weakest were at the peak of Sequence 1.
All their mounts were massive dragons, transformed from Sequence 0 slimes.
Behind the commanders was a force of ten million semi-divine Bloodline Knights.
This was merely the result of a few years of development by the Holy Grail Kingdom. Across the entire Continent of Kings, whether demigods or true gods, whether True Gods or Great True Gods, the development over twenty-three thousand years far outstripped the New World by dozens of times.
It wasn't that the Continent of Kings was inherently stronger than the New World—because these ten million Bloodline Knights weren't players.
They had leveled up purely through basic monster hunting in the King's Game, and their strength was essentially superficial. This was something Rosen discovered after bringing some resurrected citizens into the True Realm of the Old Gods—the power gained through monster hunting was nothing but an illusion.
The only truly formidable forces in the Holy Grail Kingdom were the Holy Grail Knights, Holy Grail Attendants, and the Bloodline Knight Commanders.
"Your Majesty, our army is ready to march."
The commander of the Holy Grail Knights, Lien Collins, gazed up at his sovereign with fervent devotion, awaiting orders.
"Send them out."
As Rosen issued the command, he simultaneously activated a large-scale data transmission via the Main God Network covering the Holy Grail Kingdom.
All Holy Grail Knights and Bloodline Knights were instantly teleported to the kingdom's border.
The Holy Grail Knights now rode unified mounts: Infernal Blood Dragons. These were cloned from flesh and blood by the Mother Nest, based on the Dragon God's laws from Yinglong's clone. The dragon souls were essentially the knights' own souls and divine nature manifested.
Their mounts weren't just dragons, but divine avatars.
As they soared into the air on their Infernal Blood Dragons, the Bloodline Knight army followed. Though their mounts were merely transformed slimes, under the enhancement of various knight auras and skills, they weren't much slower.
At that moment, Rosen also appeared at the front of the formation, riding the dragon-shaped Little Dragon Girl.
With a single thought, he activated the King Sequence class skill—Royal March.
All the knight aura skills behind him were unified by Royal March into a massive aura. The entire army's march speed increased more than tenfold, turning them into a sweeping blood cloud moving across ten thousand miles in a single breath, advancing rapidly toward the Golden Lion Kingdom.
If stealth was the goal, the best tactic would be to conceal the army within a domain and carry it along.
However, that method only suited assassinations and surprise attacks, not full-scale annihilation warfare.
The reason was that a domain-concealed army couldn't effectively channel the laws and energy of the world.
In any local area, energy and laws were limited—once depleted, they didn't replenish easily.
If a region's energy was drained by transcendents, energy from other places would flow in like water filling a low spot, but at a slow pace. So, in battles between True Gods, they relied more on laws than energy, while energy consumption mostly came from personal reserves.
If one relied solely on manipulating the world's limited energy, they'd soon run out.
With an army of ten million demigod Bloodline Knights, the energy they could control was astronomical.
If they only used their portable spiritual crystals, no amount would be enough to sustain the war.
Therefore, they had to rely on the free energy of the world. As Rosen led his troops from the Holy Grail Kingdom toward the Golden Lion Kingdom, all the energy along the way was swept up by the army and converted into a variety of charged legion skills.
By the time they reached the Golden Lion Kingdom, all the energy gathered over millions of miles would be used to fuel the war.
Of course, this method had a drawback—sweeping up all the energy along the way created massive disturbances, so the marching speed had to be incredibly fast. To this end, Rosen took out a Sequence 7 miracle artifact: the Marching War Banner.
Its properties were unique—able to boost marching speed, but only effective on Sequence 7 units.
But in Rosen's hands, it was different. He used Imaginary Armament to enhance the banner to Sequence 0. Not only did it increase troop speed to Sequence 0 levels, it even gained a miracle trait that amplified legion aura skills.
Even if discovered early, their high speed would shorten the enemy's prep time.
That still wasn't enough. Rosen opened the way ahead using the Omniscient Magic Eye from a god's-eye perspective, and then used it to project a psychic canvas—replicating the normal environment onto the void to conceal the energy being siphoned by his forces.
After marching at high speed for just half an hour, they had crossed millions of miles. The Holy Grail Legion was now just ten thousand miles from the Golden Lion Kingdom.
Rosen no longer cared about whatever energy could be harvested from that distance. He directly deployed his Time-Space Domain to envelop the entire legion, twisted the spatial fabric, and activated teleportation. Immediately after, they stepped into the World-Crossing Gate and arrived directly at the eastern fortress city of the Golden Lion Kingdom—Lionheart City.
The moment the time-space domain was lifted, the Holy Grail Legion's group attack had already begun.
The radiance and energy enveloping the entire legion materialized into a colossal knight formed from divinity and battle aura. Mounted on a giant dragon that stretched thousands of miles, the knight hurled a dragon spear over a thousand miles long, locking onto Lionheart City and launching the spear.
The dragon spear, formed from divine battle aura, clashed directly with the elemental barrier raised by Lionheart City's Mage Tower.
However, the elemental barrier that could withstand the onslaught of a True God was instantly shattered by the divine dragon spear. This was the destructive power of divine battle aura layered from ten million Demigod bloodline knights—quantity transformed into quality under Rosen's command.
Just as the dragon spear breached the city, the Dragon Girl finished chanting her Draconic incantation.
A meteor storm descended from the heavens, drenching all of Lionheart City like a torrential downpour.
And that wasn't all—the Holy Grail Knights charged directly into the city, targeting and eliminating the extraordinary individuals with god-tier strength. They gave the divine organizations no chance to rally or retaliate. Without a properly formed battle formation, they couldn't unleash war skills. No matter how numerous the army, it was nothing more than scattered sand.
Of course, this only applied to regular troops. Regular soldiers stood no chance of organizing a defense under such a sudden assault.
But elites were different. As one of the four great strongholds of the Golden Lion Kingdom, Lionheart City didn't just house the ten million Demigod bloodline knights of the Lionheart Legion—it also had the Golden Lion Knight Order, led by the Duke of Golden Lions himself.
A full thousand Sequence 0 bloodline knights, clad in golden armor and riding blazing golden lions, had already assembled.
The Duke of Golden Lions led his thousand knights out of the firestorm, cloaked in divine golden flames. However, just as they were about to charge, he caught sight of Rosen, crowned and standing at the forefront of the legion.
Without hesitation, the Duke of Golden Lions turned around and led his knights in retreat.
If there was even a 30% chance of victory on the battlefield, the Duke would fight to his last drop of blood—for family and for honor.
But the enemy they faced was not of the same tier—it was the King of the Holy Grail Kingdom himself, personally leading the invasion.
Lionheart City could no longer be defended. To fight head-on would be suicide.
Thus, retreating was the wisest choice. If the enemy didn't give chase, the elite force could withdraw and regroup. If they did pursue, the ordinary Demigod bloodline knights wouldn't be able to catch the Golden Lion Knights. Only the enemy's elite could.
In that case, even if they were intercepted, they wouldn't have to face the main enemy force directly.
The Golden Lion Knights were willing to die fighting elites, but they wouldn't die alongside the enemy's regular bloodline knights.
Rosen had no intention of letting the Duke escape. He dispelled the Royal Authority Holy Sword in his hand and instead manifested the Wrath of the Dragon God.
The Wrath of the Dragon God could embed any godhood, granting it various powers.
Rosen embedded his Eternal Godhood into it, then used it to simulate the Photographer sequence.
The Omniscient Magic Eye locked onto the Golden Lion Knight Order from the air, and the moment the trigger was pulled, the Wrath of the Dragon God roared.
The origin thought bullet fired from the barrel flashed through the void, and as it neared the Golden Lion Knights, it collapsed and sealed the ten-mile radius into a single photograph floating down from the sky. Inside the photo, the Duke of Golden Lions was struggling desperately to break free.
But it was already too late. Rosen simulated the Thief sequence and snatched the photo with a Void Theft.
The time-space domain compressed toward the photograph, applying various sealing skills from the Photographer and other extraordinary sequences. In mere moments, the once-struggling Duke of Golden Lions froze within the image.
Eager for a swift victory, Rosen mimicked the Hero sequence and shared it with the Dragon Girl.
The Dragon Girl immediately took command of the Holy Grail Legion, and using Hero Commander and Hero Aura skills, she unified all the legion's dragon mounts to chant in unison. Soon, the meteor storm raining from the sky transformed.
If the original meteor storm resembled falling meteors, this new one resembled countless miniature stars.
Endless heat, endless divine solar fire, endless nuclear blasts.
In less than a quarter-hour, Lionheart City had turned to ruins. Tens of millions inside were reduced to ashes.
Rosen split his forces, assigning each god-tier bloodline knight a detachment to destroy nearby border cities.
He himself led the Holy Grail Knights to directly confront the Golden Lion Kingdom's counterattack.
But for three days straight, no counterattack came.
Dozens of border cities were turned to ruins, with barely any survivors fleeing.
Rosen understood—the Golden Lion Kingdom was gathering all of its forces.
They were waiting for the Lionheart King to awaken, because without him, they stood no chance.
Originally, according to the rules of the King's Game, it was far too early for the Lionheart King to awaken.
But now that the kingdom was under attack, his premature awakening had been forced. Even for the Lionheart King, waking from a deep slumber and seizing control of a kingdom that had evolved over 23,000 years would take time to adjust.
Being able to organize a counterattack in just three days already proved how terrifying the Lionheart King's abilities were.
Yet the counter Rosen awaited turned out to be a scorched-earth tactic.
The Golden Lion Kingdom abandoned its cities and relocated the population, retreating into the heart of the kingdom and fortifying Lionheart King's City.
In truth, this was the most rational move. Collisions at the level of True Gods could easily wipe out the entire kingdom's map.
Once war reached inside the kingdom, no matter how it was fought, the result would be defeat.
Thus, Rosen concluded that the Lionheart King had already sent out pleas for aid to neighboring kingdoms.
Even the Lionheart King had admitted that the Golden Lion Kingdom was no match for the Holy Grail Kingdom.
Because the two had developed over vastly different timeframes, and the Holy Grail Kingdom had already amassed such powerful military strength in just a few short years, it was obvious that the Holy Grail King was no easy opponent. For someone like that to lead an invasion against the Golden Lion Kingdom without overwhelming superiority—how could he dare do so otherwise?
Thus, the Lionheart King chose to endure, opting to fortify his defenses and defend the royal capital to the death rather than face the enemy head-on.
But Rosen had no interest in wasting time with the Lionheart King. What he needed was a blitzkrieg—striking fast, giving the neighboring kingdoms no time to unite. He intended to invade all the kingdoms while their kings were still unconscious, defeating them one by one.
If he really waited until the kings formed an alliance, he wouldn't be able to stand against a group of Great True Gods waging war with the full might of their nations.
Before Rosen even reached the Lionheart King's capital, protests had already begun to erupt inside the city.
Never before, in all its history, had the Golden Lion Kingdom been forced into such humiliation while the Lionheart King lay dormant.
And now that the Lionheart King had awakened, the Golden Lion Kingdom was reduced to desperately defending its capital.
Many citizens couldn't accept this. If someone were to fan the flames behind the scenes, it wouldn't be hard to incite widespread protests—condemning the Lionheart King for abandoning so many cities, even questioning his rule, and rallying public opinion to push one of the princes to seize the throne.
Of course, none of this was a coincidence—it was the work of the Eternal Clone and the Undead Empress.
The Eternal Clone quietly replaced key individuals, while the Undead Empress parasitized them with soul-devouring insect eggs.
Not just the royal capital—every city in the Golden Lion Kingdom had begun to protest.
Public sentiment could sometimes remain unchanged for millennia, but other times it was so fragile that it could shift under the slightest external pressure.
Those who could truly uphold their beliefs were always the minority. Soon, rumors about the Lionheart King flooded every corner.
If it were just ordinary folk spreading these rumors, the nobles in each city could have suppressed them.
But the ones spreading the rumors and causing the chaos were the nobles themselves—the upper class ruling every city.
The Golden Lion Kingdom quickly descended into total disorder. Though its elite forces were concentrated in the royal capital, the people's hearts were growing increasingly unstable. And when public sentiment falters, so does the national fate. When the national fate weakens, the Royal Authority Law also declines in turn.
After twenty-three thousand years of peace without a single invasion, the Golden Lion Kingdom had inevitably grown complacent in many areas.
Realizing he could no longer weaken the kingdom further, Rosen gathered his divided Holy Grail Legions in preparation for the final battle.
He had considered bypassing the Lionheart King's capital and exterminating all the cities of the Golden Lion Kingdom.
But after thoroughly studying the royal sequence, he gave up on that idea. While weakening public sentiment could suppress the Royal Authority Law, the total annihilation of the nation and its people would actually empower it tremendously. That's because the hatred of the dead toward their invaders would imbue the Royal Authority Law with a terrifying vengeance.
The Royal Authority Law didn't just draw power from the living—it drew from the dead as well.
If the Lionheart King's capital were truly pushed to the brink, Rosen had no doubt the king might send out his army disguised as Holy Grail invaders to massacre city after city, framing the Holy Grail Legion, all to unleash the full might of the dead.
From a distance, Rosen gazed at the majestic Lionheart King's capital, which under the sunset's glow looked like a mighty lion crouched upon the earth.
Even before he got close, countless magic towers within the city had already begun bombarding the surroundings with apocalyptic spells.
A True God could casually destroy hundreds of millions of kilometers of land. What meaning did cities still hold in such a war?
In fact, they were extremely meaningful—because these were no ordinary cities.
The laws and energy within the Golden Lion Kingdom could all be channeled to the Lionheart King's capital through the Royal Authority Law, empowering war fortresses like Lionheart City. While the Holy Grail Legion needed to gather energy along the way to maximize their combat strength, the troops stationed within these cities did not.
After twenty-three thousand years, no one knew how much energy had been stored within Lionheart City.
Unless one could instantly shatter the countless layers of defensive barriers surrounding the city, a war of attrition would be meaningless. Even if they devastated everything within billions of kilometers around the city, leaving the land in ruins, Lionheart City could still float in the void and hold out for hundreds more years.
So a prolonged siege was pointless—Rosen's only option was to break through all of Lionheart City's defenses in one strike.
Only then could he force the Lionheart King into a head-on duel.
Of course, he could also use an inter-realm gate to teleport into the city. But that would risk falling into a deadly trap.
Even if he managed to win, the losses would be catastrophic, and the spoils of war would be meager.
If a war can't be sustained and strengthened through victory, then a war of aggression will only grow weaker the longer it drags on.
Rosen summoned his Miracle Golem and took out a slab of Eternal-Grade Raw Stone infused with the Law of Curses. This was a special material he had created by consuming a considerable amount of Eternal Raw Stone essence. Under the carving of the Miracle Golem, two enormous statues quickly took shape.
On the left stood Rosen, and on the right, the Lionheart King.
Rosen held the Royal Authority Sacred Sword, which pierced through the Lionheart King's heart, while the king lay beneath his feet, his head crushed under Rosen's heel. Many of the extraordinary individuals loyal to the royal family, upon seeing these statues, broke down emotionally. Countless magical attacks rained down upon the sculptures.
But statues carved from Eternal Raw Stone couldn't be destroyed easily—even a Great True God going all out would need time to break them.
And the statues weren't just meant to humiliate the Lionheart King—they were imbued with terrifying death curses. Rosen had painted them using forbidden curses, then infused them with Dark Sun corruption to continuously curse the Lionheart King.
Finally, Rosen commanded all his slime mounts to transform into bronze dragons, surrounding Lionheart City and unleashing a massive area-wide time acceleration.
Since the Lionheart King wanted to buy time for reinforcements from other kingdoms, Rosen would accelerate the flow of time around the city.
By the time reinforcements arrived, Lionheart City would already be in ruins.
(End of Chapter)