The Starrealm Judgment and the Source of the Evil God
Rosen activated the Hunter's God-Eye, focusing on the Archbishop of Flesh.
He quickly located the archbishop, who was in the process of resurrecting in a small town.
Taking out the pre-drawn portrait of the archbishop, Rosen unleashed Death Verdict to hunt him down.
Under normal circumstances, Rosen wouldn't dare use Death Verdict against a Sequence 1 archbishop since his Divine Essence was far weaker.
However, the archbishop's essence had been severely damaged by multiple Memory Resets and further weakened by sacrificing himself to Rotting Flesh.
With his diminished essence now weaker than Rosen's, the archbishop became a viable target.
Rosen invaded the archbishop's Sea of Consciousness through the portrait, delivering a devastating shot.
Just as the Scythe of Death was about to reap his Divine Essence, the archbishop made a desperate final move, completely sacrificing himself to summon the Mother of Flesh and Blood.
Although Rosen forcefully killed him with Time Freeze, preventing the descent, the Mother of Flesh and Blood, who had already been locked onto the Radiant Kingdom from within the meteor, now approached even faster.
Eradicating evil god cults was never the hard part—the true threat had always been the Mother of Flesh and Blood.
Rosen had no intention of confronting the true god-level Mother of Flesh and Blood directly.
The Intelligence Bureau had failed in their duties, so they could bear the blame.
Given his repeated clashes with the bureau, their relationship had long soured.
This incident was the perfect opportunity to make an example of them and show the consequences of targeting him.
Since Qinon had exploited the bureau, he wouldn't walk away unscathed either.
If the bureau wanted to atone for their negligence, they had to find a way to prevent the Mother of Flesh and Blood's descent.
But even with the bureau's vast resources, resolving the situation would come at a significant cost.
The bureau wouldn't willingly suffer such losses and would undoubtedly try to pin the problem on Rosen.
However, they'd have to consider the Star Coin True God's stance.
In the end, they would likely force Qinon, the true troublemaker, to clean up the mess.
Even without direct evidence linking Qinon to the incident, some things didn't require proof.
If he didn't want to completely fall out with the bureau, Qinon would have to step up.
When that time came, Rosen would seize the opportunity to deliver a fatal blow.
Although the king city remained mostly intact under the protection of the wizard tower, the underground battles had caused some disturbances.
The kingdom's knights, who had prepared in advance, immediately fanned out to stabilize the situation.
Meanwhile, Rosen struck first by filing a formal complaint with the Noble Council.
The involvement of the Mother of Flesh and Blood prompted a swift response.
Within half an hour, arbitrators from a nearby empire arrived in Radiant King City through a teleportation array.
By then, the surviving members of the Intelligence Bureau, whom Rosen had spared, were already under arrest.
The arbitrators invoked the Noble Code and began interrogating the bureau's survivors.
Six evil god cults had infiltrated right under their noses, with the Cult of the Mother of Flesh and Blood literally stationed beneath their headquarters—only a fool would believe there was nothing suspicious.
Yet after extensive questioning, the surviving agents were found innocent.
The ones truly at fault had all been consumed by Rotting Flesh.
The arbitrator cast a wary glance at Rosen, realizing he had orchestrated the complete destruction of every compromised individual.
On the surface, leaving the corrupt Intelligence Bureau agents alive would have made it easier to pin the blame on the bureau.
However, if they had survived, the bureau would have undoubtedly tried to protect them.
The reason was simple: the Intelligence Bureau inherently stood at odds with dukes, kings, and emperors of various nations.
A scandal like this, if exposed, would severely damage the bureau's authority.
Therefore, they would go to great lengths to cover it up.
As long as there was no irrefutable evidence, they could come up with countless excuses to shift the blame.
Any disciplinary action would be handled internally without public embarrassment.
Politics often wasn't about right or wrong—it was about mutual interests.
Now that Rosen had lured and killed all the guilty parties, the bureau had no means of protecting them.
Rosen firmly pinned the entire scandal on the dead agents, leaving the bureau with no choice but to admit fault.
Of course, the bureau could insist that their agents were innocent.
But if that were true, then Rosen would have committed a severe crime by killing them.
The problem was that Rosen had the Star Coin King backing him.
The bureau dared not push the blame onto him and convict him.
This situation highlighted the importance of having a strong backer.
If Rosen had no backing, sparing the bureau agents would have prompted the bureau to protect them for its own benefit.
If he killed them, the bureau would have shifted the blame onto him.
But with a powerful patron, the bureau could only grudgingly accept defeat.
The arbitrator left with the investigation results, and Rosen soon received notification from the Noble Council.
The Intelligence Bureau would handle the Mother of Flesh and Blood's impending descent and provide compensation to the Radiant Kingdom.
The Noble Council, after all, was part of the World Government, and the Intelligence Bureau was its enforcer.
A reprimand for the watchdog was sufficient—there was no need to push further.
Rosen was reasonably satisfied with the outcome.
Days passed, and Rosen kept a vigilant eye on the Starrealm.
At high noon, under the blazing sun, a sudden spatial tremor announced the arrival of a Void Warship via a space warp.
Such a disturbance was almost impossible to conceal from the Starrealm's alien gods.
Normally, a human warship appearing like this would invite divine punishment from alien true gods within moments.
But this time was different—the warship's target was the Mother of Flesh and Blood.
Evil gods had no allies—not even loose alliances.
In the human world, shrouded by the Ashen Veil, evil gods found it difficult to descend directly.
However, the alien territories lacked this protection, making them fertile grounds for chaos sowed by evil god cults.
As a result, the alien gods despised the evil gods even more than humans did.
On the bridge of the Judgment, members of the Intelligence Bureau peered through the windows.
Several tens of thousands of miles away, a meteor housing the Mother of Flesh and Blood hurtled toward them.
Sequence 0 Astronomer Prince Gibson held the Sequence 0 transcendent artifact, the Celestial Sphere.
Harnessing various sequence skills, he used the sphere to commune with the Solar Star.
The sphere became a conduit, absorbing the Solar Divine Radiance.
When the sphere reached its storage limit, Prince Gibson handed it to Judgment's captain, Sequence 0 War Knight Sere Yanes.
Sere inserted the sphere into Judgment's main cannon.
Locking onto the Mother of Flesh and Blood, the warship's cannon began to charge.
Moments later, a golden inferno spanning tens of thousands of miles struck the Mother of Flesh and Blood, igniting the chaotic void with celestial flames.
The destructive force was on par with that of a true god-level attack.
After all, it was the combined power of a Sequence 0 Astronomer, a Sequence 0 War Knight, and a Sequence 0 Void Warship.
Even weaker true gods might not be a match for Judgment, the Intelligence Bureau's ace warship specifically designed for driving away evil gods.
The meteor housing the Mother of Flesh and Blood was instantly reduced to ash.
The flesh-like core of the evil god was seared through, leaving a massive, gaping hole.
However, Sere on the Judgment's bridge did not let his guard down.
Evil gods might be foolish, but they were far from weak.
If they were easy to deal with, the gods would have already banded together to eradicate them.
Destroying a crazed, death-defying evil god required at least two true gods willing to perish in the attempt.
Moreover, the Mother World itself favored evil gods, and slaying one risked incurring its rejection.
The plan now was to continue drawing the Mother of Flesh and Blood's attention, luring it to a hazardous region of the Starrealm capable of temporarily containing such beings.
Although it wouldn't be a permanent solution, it would at least buy some peace for a few years.
Most of the easier-to-seal evil gods had already been dealt with by the gods of various races.
The remaining free evil gods were either terrifyingly powerful or possessed special methods that made them nearly impossible to imprison.
As Sere prepared for the perilous chase ahead, he cast a disdainful glance at the maimed and battered Qinon.
If it weren't for that bastard, the Intelligence Bureau wouldn't have been forced into this premature confrontation with the Mother of Flesh and Blood.
Still, Qinon had proven somewhat useful—despite his injuries, he had managed to locate a suitable containment site within the Starrealm in just a few days.
That was enough for Sere to begrudgingly let the matter slide.
With no concrete evidence of direct collusion, Qinon would escape serious punishment.
Qinon, keeping his head lowered, quietly worked to heal the residual Law Damage on his body.
His entire life felt like a tragedy.
He had once been a top-tier genius, a distinguished historian of the highest caliber.
But a single wrong decision, lured by the promises of a few true gods from the World Government, had led him to switch professions to become an Archaeologist.
From then on, he was not only controlled by the World Government but also relentlessly targeted by the Historians' Guild.
He had finally managed to pursue and win the affection of his goddess—only to discover she was a mentally unstable psychologist.
He had finally fathered a son, though their bond had never been deep, only for his son to die.
He sought revenge, but he couldn't even kill a lowly "insect" who wasn't even a demigod.
Now that same "insect" had become a Sequence 3 transcendent, the king of a vast continental kingdom, and was even backed by true gods.
Meanwhile, Qinon had failed even in his attempt to sabotage Rosen.
Were it not for his value in counterbalancing the Historians' Guild, he would have already been imprisoned for colluding with the evil god cult.
If only he were a true god, he could have stormed the Radiant Kingdom and killed Rosen outright.
Who would dare question or punish him then?
But he was merely a god.
The deeper he ventured into the power structure of the World Government, the clearer the gap between gods and true gods became.
And with his current capabilities, Qinon saw no hope of ever becoming a true god.
Looking at the fate of the Historians' Guild, it was evident—when they were on the verge of producing a true god, several true gods from the World Government had joined forces to sabotage them.
Unless Qinon could seize the Historical Sequence Tree and distance himself from humanity, he had no chance of ascending to true godhood.
Despair gripped him.
Qinon watched the Judgment frantically weaving through the void under the relentless pursuit of the Mother of Flesh and Blood.
Seeing Sere tense at the helm, Qinon's resolve completely snapped.
He was going to become a true god—no matter the cost.
Even if it meant becoming an evil god, he was willing to take that gamble.
As long as he didn't turn into a mindless monstrosity like the Mother of Flesh and Blood, becoming an intelligent evil god could even force many true gods to steer clear of him.
He had already made an irreparable enemy of Rosen, a terrifying prodigy whose growth rate defied belief.
Once Rosen fully matured, he would never let Qinon off the hook.
It was the suffocating threat Rosen posed that had driven Qinon to secretly collude with the Mother of Flesh and Blood in the first place.
Ironically, had he not been punished and tasked with finding a containment site for the Mother of Flesh and Blood, he would never have discovered that Source of the Evil Gods.
Many believed that an evil god was simply a deity who forcibly broke through, only to be corrupted by the backlash of the Laws, polluting their divine essence.
That wasn't wrong—but merely having a polluted divine essence was not enough to become a true evil god.
It was merely the basic condition.
To truly become an evil god, one had to merge with a Source of the Evil Gods.
Without it, those with polluted divine essences would only degenerate into Wretched Gods.
Wretched Gods were far weaker than evil gods and were quickly captured by the gods and refined into transcendent artifacts upon appearance.
Had Qinon not unearthed critical information through countless archaeological digs, he wouldn't have known that becoming a true evil god required fusing with the Source of the Evil Gods.
The essence of the Source of the Evil Gods was a Law cursed by all living beings.
To prevent the Mother World from being drained dry by a growing number of transcendents, it periodically phased out exhausted systems of transcendent resources by nearly abolishing the existing extraordinary frameworks and evolving new ones.
In the process, countless deities perished, and even some true gods fell.
If that was the fate of gods, the fate of the transcendents beneath them was obvious.
These transcendents had to watch helplessly as their cultivation paths were severed.
They saw ordinary people who had once been beneath them rise to prominence by cultivating the new systems, surpassing them.
They grew weaker and weaker until they faded into nothingness.
The collective resentment of these countless transcendents became unbearable, even for the Mother World.
At such times, the Mother World would channel all that resentment into a Law, creating a vessel to bear the burden—that was the original Source of the Evil Gods.
Becoming an evil god meant inheriting that seething hatred.
The stronger the resentment, the more powerful the Law it carried—and the stronger the resulting evil god.
However, the more powerful the resentment and Law, the less likely it was to retain intelligence.
On the other hand, weaker resentment, weaker Laws, and weaker Sources of the Evil Gods offered a much higher chance of preserving wisdom after transformation, though such evil gods were correspondingly weaker.
Yet intelligence could compensate for everything.
With it, one could bide time and grow stronger.
History had seen cases where evil gods completely resolved the resentment embedded in their Source, reverting to true gods.
Without exception, those who accomplished this feat rose to become the pinnacle rulers among true gods.
Qinon had already thoroughly evaluated the Source of the Evil Gods he had discovered.
It wasn't particularly strong, which meant he had a high chance of retaining his intellect after transformation.
Once he became an evil god, his first move would be to seize control of the Judgment from the inside and convert the two Sequence 0 experts on board into his evil god minions.
Afterward, he could leave the human world and continue living freely.
The only regret was that he wouldn't be able to take his divine kingdom on the Eternal Continent within the Spirit Realm with him.
...
Near the Judgment's bridge, inside a resting cabin, Rosen silently arrived via data transmission.
Thanks to the Wolf Totem's concealment, the warship's captain didn't detect the intruder.
However, that was only because Rosen remained in the cabin.
If he left and approached the bridge, there was a high likelihood that the captain would sense his presence—after all, a knight had absolute control over their mount.
It was safer to remain hidden in the Mysterious Study Room.
Rosen pressed a hand against the cabin door and opened a portal to the Mysterious Study Room, stepping inside.
He could now jump out through a window and appear just outside the resting cabin.
However, moving the Mysterious Study Room to a new location took nine seconds.
He needed to ensure he wasn't detected for at least ten seconds to slowly approach the bridge.
Rosen quietly leaped out through the window, but within five seconds, he slipped back inside.
His Seventh Sense had warned him—if he stayed any longer, the Judgment's captain would discover the intrusion.
While pondering his next move, Rosen saw a Sequence 3 Hunter of Fugitives walking past the resting cabin toward the bridge.
Gazing into the hunter's eyes, Rosen's thoughts stirred.
Who said eyes couldn't be paintings?
After all, the Window of the Mind reflected reality, which was essentially a living canvas.
Rosen immediately activated Time Sketching, flipping open the Void Sketchbook to draw a pair of eyes—the eyes of the hunter walking toward the bridge.
He slipped into the eyes depicted in his drawing, quietly appearing within the hunter's visual canvas.
Most other painters wouldn't even dare attempt such a feat, and even fewer could succeed without alerting a Sequence 3 transcendent.
But Rosen could—thanks to his mastery of the Law of Painting, the divine authority trait Spiritual Parasite, and the potent combination of Death Judgment, Canvas of the Mind, and Finishing Touch.
As time passed, he subtly gained control over the hunter through Spiritual Parasite.
Leo Khadafi strode calmly onto the bridge, saluting Sere before standing silently beside Qinon.
Qinon's heart sank—he was acting too composed, which aroused Sere's suspicion.
Sere had likely summoned the fugitive hunter to keep a close eye on him.
Yet, despite this precaution, Sere still underestimated Qinon.
Did he really think a mere Sequence 3 could stop him?
Half a month passed, during which the Judgment was relentlessly hunted by the Mother of Flesh and Blood.
The warship's speed was sufficient to easily shake off pursuit, but its mission was to draw the entity into a trap.
As a result, it couldn't flee at full speed and occasionally had to turn around to launch attacks, reinforcing its adversary's hatred.
Though the task was grueling, the crew successfully lured the Mother of Flesh and Blood to the designated zone after two weeks.
The target was a Law Turbulence Zone, formed from a shattered star.
Most naturally occurring stars in the Starrealm contained innate Laws.
In ancient times, deities merely had to claim one of these stars to ascend to true godhood.
It was one of the easiest paths to becoming a true god, leading to countless battles over such stars.
Driven by a "If I can't have it, no one will" mentality, many natural stars were destroyed during these conflicts.
The shattered remains, infused with fragmented Laws, created turbulence zones.
These areas were typically avoided by gods, as the fragments could eventually stabilize and regenerate new Law Stars.
Destroying or disrupting these regenerative processes incurred severe backlash from Primordial Destiny.
Even the Mother of Flesh and Blood would face misfortune for years after disturbing this turbulence zone.