The Guardian and Gluttony

"The name is dim..."

Rosen let out a slight sigh of relief. The dim name indicated that the person was already dead.

Had they still been alive, he wouldn't have known how to face them.

Flipping to the corresponding page, he saw that Little Rosen's mother had been deeply loving and caring towards her son. Such a mother would never have abandoned her child and vanished without reason. Sure enough, among the anecdotes captured by the Life Encyclopedia, something seemed strange.

One particular entry showed Erica holding Little Rosen while attending a concert with her husband, Ian. During the performance, when Ian heard a familiar piano piece, he suddenly left, abandoning Erica and their son.

Rosen continued reading Ian's anecdotes. It also mentioned the concert and the piano piece, revealing it was a final composition by the favorite musician of the Fifth Lord Howard.

"The Fifth Lord Howard... Could this be connected to the hidden secrets of the Machado Pirate Chronicles?"

Returning to the Mysterious Study Room, Rosen quickly pulled out an old sheet of music. He wasn't well-versed in music theory, but he remembered skimming through it out of curiosity. If he wasn't mistaken, the melody corresponded to the one mentioned in Ian's Life Encyclopedia.

With the Machado Pirate Chronicles on his left and the sheet music on his right, Rosen attempted to unravel the mystery, but quickly gave up.

He wasn't knowledgeable about music. However, he knew someone who was.

In the Rose Castle, Stephanie sat across from Rosen, carefully examining the connection between the book and the sheet music.

Surprisingly, the solution came faster than Rosen had expected. It wasn't particularly complicated.

By matching the numbers of the piano notes with corresponding key numbers and cross-referencing them with the letters in the Machado Pirate Chronicles, the hidden message left by Lord Howard was gradually revealed.

Rosen copied it down by hand. As he neared the final word, his hand trembled slightly.

Rosen Howard. The Howard family may have only been a minor hereditary baron family, but the meaning of the name "Howard" carried weight. In ancient times, "Howard" could be translated as "Ancient Guardian."

It turned out that Rosen's ancestral family was no ordinary one. Generations of Howard family members had been tasked with guarding a special spiritual realm.

The Fifth Lord Howard, however, had grown resentful of this legacy. He wrote that while his family sacrificed countless lives to protect the spiritual realm, they received nothing in return.

And so, the Fifth Lord Howard decided to hide the spiritual realm and embed its secret within his storybook. If no future descendant could decipher it, the realm would no longer be associated with the Howard family. But if someone cracked the code, they could attempt to locate and enter the spiritual realm.

Although the realm was dangerous, Lord Howard hinted that the greater the danger, the greater the potential reward.

"If they disappeared, did they die in the spiritual realm?"

Rosen sighed.

It seemed that Erica and Ian, Little Rosen's parents, were unprepared when they ventured into the spiritual realm. They had likely activated it by accident and perished inside. The entrance to this particular spiritual realm didn't remain fixed.

As long as the Howard bloodline existed, the entrance would follow the family's descendants.

Rosen turned his attention to the final line of the message, realizing that speaking the words aloud might open the spiritual realm.

He knew he would have to explore the realm someday.

But that would be for the future. The Fifth Lord Howard had been a Sequence 7 Novelist who was assassinated. Entering the realm now, with Rosen's current strength, would be far too dangerous. He would need to wait until he reached Sequence 6 before considering it.

With one weight off his shoulders, Rosen decided to celebrate by heading to Yorknew City for a hearty meal.

In the days that followed, the city once again saw a total absence of nightmares.

The Nightmare Slime had devoured the nightmares of millions, effortlessly advancing from Sequence 9 to Sequence 8. Its already formidable life force was further enhanced, and its Divine Split ability now allowed it to create more clones capable of marking additional targets with Nightmare Seals.

What excited Rosen most, however, was the slime's newly awakened ability—Gluttony.

All slimes possessed the ability to devour, allowing them to consume and digest almost anything.

Researchers had even joked that if there were trillions of slimes, they might be able to eat the body of a god.

For slimes, evolution was straightforward through this devouring ability.

The Nightmare Slime, having nearly reached Sequence 3 in its past, had relied heavily on this superior consumption ability. Now, with its Sequence 8 breakthrough, this power had evolved into Gluttony—an ability so formidable that not even the Sequence 4 Nightmare Slime had acquired it.

Rosen held the Nightmare Slime in his hands, gazing into its wide, watery eyes before giving up on asking for an explanation.

Though the creature shared a portion of Rosen's own spiritual essence, it still lacked intelligence, despite being Sequence 8. Expecting the Nightmare Slime to explain how it acquired Gluttony was pointless—Rosen would have to study it on his own.

Although the Nightmare Slime had restarted its evolution from Sequence 9, it had gained access to nightmare-devouring opportunities and shared Rosen's Nen abilities. But these perks alone couldn't explain the emergence of a power like Gluttony.

[Gluttony LV2] – Can devour and digest any supernatural elements below Sequence 3.

Such a simple ability description, yet the Sequence 3 limit left Rosen intrigued.

To test its potential, Rosen gave the Nightmare Slime a random supernatural item dropped by the Beast Knight. The slime's mouth enlarged, swallowing the item whole and quickly digesting it, resulting in a noticeable increase in its defensive capabilities.

Next, Rosen retrieved a damaged revolver from a cardboard box in the corner of his Mysterious Study Room.

This was the Penalty Revolver, a Sequence 8 supernatural item left behind by the first extraordinary person Rosen had killed—Bennett. Though damaged and difficult to sell, Rosen had once considered repairing it as a backup weapon.

But now, that plan seemed outdated. He dismantled the revolver into its components and force-fed them to himself.

Rosen's noble bloodline had fused with the Nightmare Slime's supernatural bloodline, allowing him to gradually gain access to the slime's powers as his own Sequence advanced.

At Sequence 9, he had acquired the Divine Split ability, allowing him to create the Nightmare Slime as a unique pet.

Now, at Sequence 8, his bloodline powers were not yet fully awakened.

He could potentially gain the nightmare-devouring ability or acquire Gluttony.

Rosen wasn't too concerned about gaining the nightmare-devouring ability, as the Hunter-pet sharing system already allowed him to use it.

However, Gluttony was different. The Hunter-pet sharing system couldn't extend to physical organs. While the Nightmare Slime had an incredibly powerful digestive system that allowed it to utilize Gluttony, Rosen lacked such a system.

Even if he shared the Gluttony ability, he would only be able to utilize a fraction of its potential.

Borrowed power would never be as potent as something fully owned.

If Rosen could activate Gluttony through his bloodline, he could unleash its full potential.

Determined, Rosen began forcing himself to consume the Penalty Revolver piece by piece, hoping to stimulate his survival instincts and push his body—and more importantly, his supernatural bloodline—toward evolving Gluttony.