"What overwhelming military might!"
Rosen's Omniscient Magic Eye swept over the battlefield, and he instantly realized that what awaited was a brutal and arduous battle.
There were a full 30 million bloodline knights, and over a million clergy.
Having killed many kings and destroyed numerous kingdoms, his perception of monarchy had changed.
Not all the flames of civilization required a wise and diligent king to thrive in a peaceful and prosperous nation.
A tyrant could also ignite the blazing flame of civilization in a kingdom.
This was because the royal system was ultimately just a variant of belief. All systems related to the spirit were, in essence, rooted in faith. His Holy Grail Kingdom followed a path of positive belief, while the Black Iron Kingdom and the Judgement Empire pursued a path of negative faith.
The fear and resentment of the subjects could also be transformed into a source of immense power for the king or emperor.
The Judgement Emperor was akin to an evil god among emperors.
Thirty million bloodline knights with demigod-level powers—each possessed a domain of authority belonging to a demigod.
At that moment, each of them summoned a group of people from their respective domains. It was clear these were family members, yet strangely, in every group, one member had been tortured to the brink of death while the rest remained unscathed.
Then, with a flash of blades, everyone—regardless of age or gender—was decapitated.
The unscathed ones died cleanly, but the ones who had been tormented—even if only a head remained—still lived on. Millions of heads cursed, wailed in agony, or had become completely numb.
Rosen could clearly feel the immense resentment emanating from those heads.
It wasn't hard to guess—the Judgement Emperor had likely selected 30 million harmonious families, captured the most loving family member, and subjected them to unspeakable torture, leaving them in a living hell. Then he slaughtered their family in front of them to ignite the utmost despair, hatred, and pain in their hearts.
Through some arcane ritual, those heads filled with resentment were used to amplify his power.
Countless heads rose into the air, forming grotesque warhorses and knights made entirely of severed heads.
These Head Knights roared and charged at the Holy Grail Legion, with the thirty million bloodline knights launching a full assault behind them.
As for the one million clergy, they remained safely at the rear, casting long-range curses.
The Holy Grail Legion charged as well, but many of its bloodline knights were dragged off their mounts by nooses descending from the sky, or were suddenly pierced by iron nails through their bodies, or corroded by strong acid as if their flesh had melted.
A variety of strange and cruel punishments caused heavy casualties among the million demigod knights of the Holy Grail Legion mid-charge.
The curses kept coming, but their effectiveness clearly dropped after the initial wave. It seemed the clergy couldn't cast such powerful curses without conditions—if they could easily kill demigod knights with curses, even 20 million knights wouldn't be enough.
Though the Holy Grail Legion suffered heavy losses, the Judgement Empire's Judgement Legion was far from unscathed.
Twenty million dragons formed from slime, under the command of the Little Dragon Girl, chanted Draconic war magic in unison. Since the Holy Grail Legion consisted entirely of dragon knights, they used a terrain-destroying spell called Earth Collapse to simultaneously reshape the battlefield and kill enemies.
Tens of thousands of miles of land turned to stone, and dense stone spikes rose from the ground.
Then, gravity on the surface multiplied tens of thousands of times. Even the Judgement Legion's mounts—hell warhorses of demigod level—were thrown off balance. Few were killed by the stone spikes, but the ones who fell were trampled to death by the charging bloodline knights behind them—far too many to count.
Despite the massive casualties during the charge on both sides, the distance of several thousand kilometers was nothing to demigods.
So within just a few seconds, tens of millions of bloodline knights were in close combat.
The Head Giant Knight, formed from severed heads, was the commander of the Judgement Legion. As it approached the Holy Grail Legion, it activated a war skill: Guillotine.
All the knight auras of the Judgement Legion converged into one massive knightly halo, which then transformed into a towering guillotine, tens of thousands of meters tall, hanging in the void. When the Head Knight pointed its blade at the Holy Grail Legion, every soldier felt a chilling wind brush their necks.
At nearly the same time, the Little Dragon Girl, commanding the Holy Grail Legion, activated the war skill: Roar of Ten Thousand Dragons.
The united roar of all the dragon mounts shattered the guillotine's curse that loomed over the entire army.
But that was just the beginning—Roar of Ten Thousand Dragons was merely a war skill of the mounts.
Under Fara's command, all the bloodline knights of the Holy Grail Legion ignited the blood within their bodies to unleash Bloodlust Frenzy.
As long as their blood hadn't burned away completely, Bloodlust Frenzy would not stop.
It was a suicidal war skill. Its effects included the ability to ignore pain entirely, absorb enemy flesh and blood upon inflicting damage to heal, and transform all combat energy into Blood Frenzy energy. Any enemies struck would be infected with blood poison and lose their sanity.
This war skill had been created by Fara, the Holy Grail Queen, over thousands of years under accelerated time beneath the World Tree.
Rosen, now the Holy Grail Emperor, had ascended in status, and Fara, thanks to the synchronized growth of her Holy Grail Queen card, had gained true god-level combat power. In this battle, Fara was the primary commander of the Holy Grail Legion, while the Little Dragon Girl was second-in-command.
After the mutual cancellation of the Roar of Ten Thousand Dragons and the Guillotine, the two legions clashed in close quarters.
Wide-range war skills no longer held much value; both sides now focused on support skills that enhanced the combat power of the entire army.
Normally, the legions of the Judgement Empire were stronger than those of the Holy Grail Empire.After all, one had prepared for twenty-three thousand years, while the other had only been established for a mere decade or so.
However, when the two sides clashed like a giant meat grinder, it was the Judgement Legion that suffered a complete retreat. This was the terrifying power brought about by Bloodthirsty Frenzy—every Bloodline Knight in the Holy Grail Legion would inevitably die after the battle, but before their deaths, they would slay all enemies in their path.
Against an opponent like the Judgement Empire, reducing casualties was practically impossible.
If it turned into a prolonged war, the Judgement Empire—with its twenty-three thousand years of preparation—would certainly hold a greater advantage.
Therefore, a swift and decisive victory was necessary. The best method was a desperate, mutually destructive strategy.
Then, they would inflict the maximum damage on the Judgement Empire's living forces. For every soldier the Judgement Empire lost, it was one fewer, while every fallen Bloodline Knight of the Holy Grail Empire could be resurrected through the Holy Grail Altar. That was the greatest advantage of possessing the King Card.
The slaughter of tens of millions of demigods completely destroyed the land connecting the two empires.
In the void, not a single corpse remained. After all the blood was drained by the Holy Grail Legion, the leftover remains couldn't withstand the collision of countless demigod skills. Not even corpses remained—everything was crushed to dust.
The Judgement Emperor looked at the battlefield that resembled a meat grinder and realized that the holder of the King Card controlled a resurrection altar.
Therefore, to him, the key to victory lay in whether he could destroy the Holy Grail Altar.
But now it seemed that destroying the Holy Grail Altar was meaningless, because the Holy Grail Emperor had no intention of turning this into a long war.
In that case, the only way to end the war quickly and reduce the Judgement Legion's casualties was a direct assault.
The Judgement Emperor immediately took command of all high priests, unfolded his domain, and led them in an attack toward the Holy Grail Emperor seated high on his throne.
Soldiers against soldiers, generals against generals, kings against kings—in the world of Beyonders, this was the most straightforward combat strategy.
Rosen stood up from the Holy Grail Throne and, relying on the power of the King Sequence, gathered the strength of all citizens of the empire. The laws and energies within all the imperial territories were drawn into his body to face the Judgement Emperor.
This time, it wasn't a duel of avatars with different thoughts. It was a life-and-death battle between their true bodies.
The two tacitly moved into the void, away from the connected territories—neither wanted to find nothing but ruins after victory.
The moment they were sure their battle wouldn't affect the territories, both sides struck simultaneously.
Around the Judgement Emperor, various instruments of torture constantly manifested. Centered around these tools, curses were cast across the void to target Rosen.
However, the strangling noose capable of killing True Gods and binding Great True Gods couldn't tighten around Rosen's neck at all.
The slumbering power of his divine body was fully awakened, its mass comparable to the Immortal World.
All curses targeting the body meant nothing to him.So, whether it was the noose or the guillotine, the flaying knife or the executioner's blade—all those bizarre tools of torture aimed at the body posed no threat to Rosen. Realizing this, the Judgement Emperor immediately abandoned them.
A steel cage appeared in the void, trapping Rosen within.
Next, shackles and fetters bound him, and even a head cage appeared above him.
These instruments had only one purpose: to seal and suppress transcendent powers.
Finally, the Judgement Emperor drew from his Sea of Consciousness the great True God-level artifact—Judgement Demon Sword.This sword not only carried the laws of the Emperor, but also the laws of torture and judgement, and was imbued with the endless grievances of the dead, making it extremely lethal to divinity.
In a flash, the Judgement Demon Sword appeared inside the cage and decapitated Rosen.
His divine body remained untouched—what was truly decapitated was his soul.
Just as everything seemed to be going smoothly, the Judgement Emperor suddenly grew suspicious.
The Holy Grail Emperor… how could he be dealt with so easily, without the slightest sign of resistance?
Though the Judgement Emperor was filled with doubt and caution, he did not hesitate in his strikes.
The Judgement Demon Sword struck several more times, obliterating Rosen's soul, then entered the Sea of Consciousness to directly attack the Eternal Divinity.
Cracks visibly began to appear on the Eternal Divinity.
Yet Rosen acted as if he felt nothing, abandoning his defense and allowing himself to be wounded more and more severely.
Only when the Eternal Divinity finally shattered did Rosen's tightly shut eyes beneath the head cage finally open.
The Judgement Emperor was extremely difficult to deal with. In fact, all kings and emperors were hard to deal with.
Because the King Sequence could not only gather the power of subjects but also transfer the damage they received to their citizens. In theory, as long as a king's subjects were not all dead, it was nearly impossible to truly kill the king.
Rosen had been able to kill one king after another so easily mainly because of the Mysterious Study Room and the Miracle Ember.
The Miracle Ember suppressed the Civilization Ember, and the Mysterious Study Room severed the king's connection to his kingdom and subjects.
But the methods Rosen used against kings were largely ineffective against the Judgement Emperor.
So Rosen changed tactics—this time, he would kill him head-on.
This required overwhelming damage and a one-shot annihilation of the Judgement Emperor and all his subjects.
After Rosen mastered the Eternal Source Seed, although he couldn't mimic other Beyonder sequences, by parasitizing the source quality of those sequences through the eternal origin, and then allowing them to take root, sprout, blossom, and bear fruit, he could eventually gain control over the sequence through the Source Fruit.
In recent years, Rosen had planted thousands of Source Fruits, and he had essentially mastered every Beyonder sequence.
This time, the extraordinary power he utilized came from the Masochistic Witch sequence—a profession that thrived on self-inflicted torment. The more pain and suffering one endured, the more terrifying the explosive power upon endurance.
At the same time, Rosen also used the Web of Faith to invade and corrupt the belief network of the Judgement Empire.
With a single thought, the belief network linking the Judgement Emperor and all his subjects suffered severe interference.
He then activated the power of the Savage Berserker sequence, another profession where the more damage one took, the greater the burst of brute strength. His muscles swelled, his body expanded, and he transformed into a giant tens of thousands of meters tall, forcefully shattering all torture devices around him.
The Wrath of the Dragon God transformed accordingly into a colossal sniper cannon, which locked onto the Judgement Emperor—and the trigger was pulled in that instant.
Rosen had mastered thousands of Beyonder sequences, and the total number of abilities from those sequences reached into the tens of thousands.
Among them, there were thousands of passive skills. Of course, it was impossible to activate all of them simultaneously. The number of skills that could be activated at once depended on how many his Divine Source could sustain. Rosen's maximum Divine Source score was 182, meaning he could simultaneously use 182 skills.
Thus, at most, this single shot could stack the effects of 182 passive skills.
However, perfect stacking wasn't possible—many skills interfered with one another, and most had enhancement limits. In the end, only a few dozen passive skills could truly stack together, while the remaining slots were filled with auxiliary or offensive skills.
Despite these limitations, Wrath of the Dragon God still fired with the full stack—182 different skills from various sequences all layered together.
This single shot was more than enough to heavily injure a Great True God with ease.
If combined with the terrifying damage amplification of the Masochistic Witch, any Great True God lacking sufficient survivability could even be instantly killed.
But that wasn't all. Over the years, Rosen had destroyed countless nations. The number of humans he directly or indirectly hunted was beyond counting. His Hunter Points were so plentiful that he couldn't use them up. The real damage amplification from his Hunter Contract when targeting humans had reached an absurd level.
Now, Rosen could stab a divine being with a toothpick, and as long as real damage was triggered, even a god might be instantly killed.
At this level of real damage, instant-killing a True God was no longer a dream.
Instantly killing a Great True God wasn't quite possible, but with the Masochistic Witch's amplification and the combined force of 182 enhanced skills, if Rosen's shot hit the Judgement Emperor, even if He survived by some miracle, He would be half-dead.
The moment Rosen counterattacked, the Judgement Emperor sensed a fatal threat.
He rapidly blinked through the void and even summoned his personal royal guards to act as meat shields.
However, Rosen had long activated a Fate Mark, one merged with the Law of Fate. It ignored distance and evasion, delivering guaranteed damage. In the blink of an eye, it crossed tens of thousands of miles and struck the Judgement Throne the emperor used to block the shot.
The Judgement Throne was bound to the empire's territory—it could transfer all damage to the land of the empire itself.
This was a terrifying defensive mechanism Rosen hadn't known about. When the Dragon God's Roar bullet collided with the Judgement Throne, the throne didn't break first—instead, millions of square kilometers of imperial land disintegrated into dust in an instant.
The final bullethead, formed of Eternal Primordial Stone, came just short of piercing through the back of the Judgement Throne's seat and got lodged there.
The Judgement Emperor sacrificed the entirety of His empire's territory to block this fatal shot from Rosen.
Rosen was quite surprised—it had never crossed his mind that even such a strike could be blocked.
He suddenly realized what he had overlooked: the Judgement Empire's territory spanned only a few million kilometers. On the Continent of Kings, that was a large domain, but in the New World, it was but a speck. Small didn't mean weak—it often meant dense and refined.
Since the assassination failed, Rosen accelerated time, traversed tens of thousands of miles, and charged at the Judgement Emperor with the Imperial Sacred Sword in hand.
At the same time, the Judgement Demonic Sword flew through the void and returned to the emperor's hand. Still shaken, the Judgement Emperor had no choice but to clash directly with Rosen. As their sacred swords collided, cries of triumph and wails of terror echoed in the void.
The Imperial Sacred Sword's strength was drawn from the empire's power and gathered the might of all its subjects.
Originally, the Judgement Demonic Sword's power far surpassed Rosen's sacred sword. But with the destruction of the empire's territory, while high-ranking Beyonders might survive, the low-ranking populace had perished with the land.
Under such conditions, the Demonic Sword's power, derived from the citizens' strength, was drastically weakened.
Moreover, the Judgement Emperor wasn't skilled in close combat, while Rosen had mastered numerous melee-focused Beyonder sequences. Relying on the Sword Saint sequence of the Beastman race, he unleashed the full potential of the sacred sword, overwhelming the emperor and leaving sword wounds all over Him.
He didn't need to deal massive wounds—just a skin-deep cut was enough for his real damage to take effect.
After half an hour, the Judgement Emperor had received hundreds of such cuts.
And with the accumulated real damage reaching its limit, His divine persona finally shattered, destroying the Divine Source within.
As for the Judgement Empire's subjects—those who weren't already slaughtered on the battlefield by the Holy Grail Legion—had long been sacrificed by the emperor to absorb damage in his stead.
So, the moment the Judgement Emperor fell, not a single living being remained in the Judgement Empire—it had been utterly annihilated.
At the same time the empire perished, two items manifested within the Holy Grail Castle.
The first was a boundless amount of Immortal Source Essence, which could be used at the Holy Grail Altar to resurrect fallen soldiers.
The second was a cluster of Eternal Game Source Essence, representing the core power of the King's Game fused into the Judgement Empire. Because the King's Game had reached its final stage, this power had been collected and delivered to the Holy Grail Castle.
With this Eternal Game Source Essence, the Holy Grail Empire would at least double in strength.
(End of Chapter)