Anti-True God Alliance and the Cursed Death Painting

After Rosen pushed open the treasury door, he was greeted by mountains of various transcendent resources piled high inside. However, as he stepped into the treasury, he noticed a terrifying pressure of laws permeating the space. The deeper he went into the treasury, the stronger the pressure became.

Starting from the outer area, Rosen and his four teammates began clearing out the mountains of resources one by one. As they progressed, White King Laura was the first to stop.

Laura had feelings for Black King, but Black King's identity as a descendant of a true god had planted a seed of resentment in her heart. Now, all she felt toward the World Government and the true gods was deeply buried hatred.

Rosen estimated that the transcendent resources Laura had collected were already enough for her to elevate her divine territory to a divine kingdom.

It seemed that while they were allowed to freely collect treasures from the treasury, the Coin True God had set limits based on their needs.

Soon, the other three teammates also stopped one after another. As expected, Queen Consort Iris had traveled the farthest and collected the most resources.

They all left the treasury one by one, leaving only Rosen to continue forward.

Before long, Rosen also neared his limit. He had collected ten times the resources that Iris had gathered—enough to elevate his divine territory to the level of a true god. This was already an astonishing amount, and nearly half of the resource mountains in the Coin True God's treasury had disappeared.

But Rosen wasn't satisfied. He wanted to make the Coin True God pay a hefty price. If he missed this opportunity, where else would he find such a generous benefactor?

After all, his divine territory was unlike anyone else's. At each sequence level, the Tenfold Annihilation required his divine territory to self-destruct and rebuild itself once. The immense foundation of his divine territory naturally demanded significantly more resources for its growth.

The resources that would be enough for others to elevate their divine territories to the level of a true god would, at most, allow Rosen's divine territory to reach Sequence 0.

To ascend to true godhood, he would likely need at least ten times that amount.

Rosen had already made up his mind. Once he reached Sequence 0, he would use the Dragon-Binding Chains to sweep through the entire Dragon Realm. Otherwise, he would never be able to gather the vast resources needed to ascend to true godhood. Of course, he couldn't pass up the ready-made resources right in front of him.

In an instant, Rosen summoned the Sovereign Holy Sword and plunged it into the ground, activating the Sovereign Divine Kingdom to resist the law suppression.

With the full power of the Sovereign Treasury unleashed, all the transcendent resources in the treasury were swept clean in an instant.

However, these likely weren't all of the Coin True God's wealth. All the resources he had taken were conventional resources—there were no transcendent artifacts, miracle treasures, or true god-level transcendent resources in sight.

The Coin True God, who had been watching the scene, could no longer sit still and appeared before Rosen.

"You're too greedy!" the Coin True God said displeased.

"My divine territory is exceptionally strong. Those resources aren't enough to satisfy its needs," Rosen replied, revealing a corner of his divine territory.

After sensing it, the Coin True God was shocked to find that Rosen's divine territory was on par with a Sequence 0 divine territory.

Rosen wasn't exaggerating, but this was actually good news for the Coin True God.

Other true gods schemed to enslave through contracts, aiming to exploit the laws they would master after becoming true gods and use their bodies to create true god-level transcendent artifacts.

But the Coin True God's ambitions were different. What it sought was Rosen's obedience during the King's Game.

The stronger Rosen became, the greater the help he could provide during the King's Game.

After silently calculating for a moment, the Coin True God actually took out another treasury's worth of transcendent resources on the spot and sent them into Rosen's divine territory. Based on its estimation, these resources should be more than enough for Rosen's divine territory to grow into a true god's divine kingdom.

Rosen stored everything in the Sovereign Treasury and took stock. At least one-fifth of the resources he needed had been gathered.

If he didn't use the Tenfold Annihilation in the future, these resources would be more than sufficient.

The Coin True God was truly willing to invest, which meant the benefits of the King's Game must far outweigh these resources.

Unfortunately for the Coin True God, Rosen had the Miracle Flame, which allowed him to reshape his innate destiny. Even if he violated the contract, it wouldn't cause him fatal losses. On the contrary, he could use the contract to drain the Coin True God before becoming a true god.

Seeing that Rosen still seemed unsatisfied, the Coin True God didn't hesitate and directly twisted the void, teleporting him back to the Glorious Continent.

Rosen shook his head regretfully. After ensuring his safety, he used data transmission to return to the Mysterious Study Room.

At this moment, the Mysterious Study Room was still in the Land of Redemption that Barry had mentioned. Through the window, he could even see the faint silhouette of the Great True God in the distance.

Rosen had initially thought the World Government was unaware of this place, but now it seemed that this might actually be the World Government's main base on the Old Continent.

In contrast, the outermost layer of the Old Continent was more influenced by the Will of the World than by the World Government.

This time, the World Government had taught him a lesson: order was nothing more than a plaything for the powerful.

True gods could grant you order, and you could enjoy it. But if true gods wanted to disrupt order, then order became worthless.

Rosen stood by the window, lost in thought for a long time. He didn't care about the World Government's true gods scheming against others, but since they had targeted him, he wasn't going to let it slide. If it weren't for the Miracle Flame, he would have had no choice but to completely turn against the World Government.

Now, even though he had signed the contract and stayed, he and the World Government's true gods were already at odds.

To seek revenge against those true gods, he first needed to know himself and his enemy.

Then, he needed allies. He had no intention of facing at least seventeen true gods alone.

Using the God-Hunting Eye, Rosen quickly located Laura, who was drinking bitter wine.

After leaving the Coin True God's divine kingdom and returning to the duchy she ruled, Laura had gone straight to a bar to drown her sorrows. This was the only thing she could do now, but her strength made it impossible for her to get drunk no matter how much she drank.

"Let me join you for a drink," Rosen said as he sat down beside Laura and poured himself a glass.

"Why are you here?" Laura asked, puzzled.

"I want to form a faction, one that will one day chop down those true gods' heads and kick them around like balls," Rosen stated frankly.

"Do you have a way to break the contract?" Laura asked after a moment of stunned silence, her voice filled with hope.

"Why should I help you break the contract?" Rosen countered.

Laura's mind raced, and she quickly understood Rosen's meaning.

It was clear now that Rosen intended to form a faction targeting the World Government's true gods.

The foundation of this faction was his ability to resolve that pact.

If the faction recruited too few people, it would be useless. If it recruited too many, there was no guarantee that the World Government wouldn't find out.

After all, there was always the possibility that some would betray the others to curry favor with the World Government.

Even though the World Government's true gods had deceived them, as long as there was a chance for greater benefits, hatred could be set aside.

Therefore, to ensure the successful formation of this faction and to prevent the World Government's true gods from discovering it, Rosen needed to have a means of controlling the others. Otherwise, he wouldn't foolishly help others break the contract without safeguards.

Given the choice between being controlled by Rosen or by those true gods, and with no other options available, of course, they would choose Rosen.

"How do you plan to control me? Being controlled by you is better than being controlled by the Coin True God," Laura said seriously, putting down her glass.

"I like smart people. I need to paint a portrait of you," Rosen replied, looking at Laura with a smile.

"Then you'll have to show me that you can really solve the contract problem," Laura also set her own condition.

Rosen glanced at the bartender across the bar. The power of the Miracle Flame enveloped the bartender and began to modify his innate luck.

Although innate luck was difficult to measure, with Laura's strength, she could sense it.

She quickly noticed that the bartender's innate luck had been permanently enhanced, and then she sensed that it had been completely cleared.

After being forced to sign the contract, she had spent a lot of time studying it.

So, she knew very well that it was a terrifying contract rooted in innate luck.

Now, seeing that Rosen could indeed cancel the contract, Laura instantly unfolded the virtual realm. Everyone in the bar was data-erased in an instant, disappearing forever. The fate of the weak was laid bare in this moment.

"How do you want to paint me?" Laura leaned close to Rosen's ear and asked.

"Of course, it's going to be a body art painting…" Rosen replied, wrapping his arm around Laura's soft waist and space-shifting.

In the Void Studio, Rosen and Laura spent three full days barely finishing the portrait.

This painting was no ordinary one. The canvas was made from part of the innate luck extracted from Laura's body, creating a dimensional drawing paper. The pigment used was God pigment made by stripping Laura's divine essence. Finally, the painting technique was primarily based on the forbidden curse.

Through the miracle skill forbidden curse, Rosen planted a death curse in Laura's divine essence.

Through this painting, he could directly curse Laura's divine essence and take her life.

The strength of the forbidden curse depended largely on the materials used for the painting.

With ordinary materials, using the death curse to curse an ordinary sequence 1 wasn't difficult, but cursing someone like Laura, a titled demigod, would take a long time. Cursing a god would be a stretch, and cursing a true god would at most annoy them, posing no deadly threat.

This wasn't because the forbidden curse wasn't powerful enough, but because Rosen, as a Sequence 2, had limits to the power he could wield.

However, when the paint for this curse painting was made from Laura's divine origin, the resulting death curse became extremely horrific. Even if she became a deity, she would have no escape from the death curse. If she became a true god, she would have less than a 10% chance of survival.

And this was with Rosen only at Sequence 2. If he were Sequence 1, even a true god would have no chance of survival.

As long as this cursed painting remained in Rosen's hands, Laura's life and death would be entirely at his mercy.

This was even more terrifying than the Coin True God's contract. If it weren't for the Miracle Flame's ability to control luck, the moment the Death Curse was planted, Rosen would have suffered backlash from the God's Innate Luck within Laura. Ordinary methods wouldn't even qualify to plot against someone with Such great luck.

Laura had endured her own storm, and now she was highly enthusiastic about making others endure the same.

Through data transmission, Rosen directly took Laura to find Iris, who had already arrived at the Glorious Royal City.

Rosen hadn't expected that Iris would come to her door.

In the Glorious Palace, Iris looked at Laura's body art and glared at Rosen with some dissatisfaction.

"Why did you go to her first and not me?" Iris asked unhappily.

"I didn't think that much about it," Rosen answered honestly.

"If I don't let you paint me, are you going to kill me?" Iris asked seriously.

"What do you think?" Rosen countered.

Iris didn't need to ask to know the answer. She was just a bit unwilling.

She didn't want to serve the Coin True God after becoming a deity, nor did she want her life and death to be at Rosen's mercy.

Iris sighed. For now, she could only hope that Rosen was a reasonable person.

This time, Rosen only spent two days painting, not only because he had gained experience but also because Laura and Iris teamed up to almost make him unable to resist. Especially Iris, who, as a Sequence 1 actor, was equivalent to countless people.

Rosen's third target was God King Zoe Parker. This time, the painting wasn't a human art painting.

One-on-one, Zoe wasn't even a match for Rosen, let alone with Laura and Iris standing by his side.

However, Zoe also set his own condition: if one day the World Government's true gods were dealt with, Rosen would need to destroy the curse painting made from his divine origin. In return, Zoe would master a curse ability at the cost of his life at all costs.

If Rosen broke the agreement, Zoe would rather die and use his life curse to curse Rosen before dying.

Next was Feast King Nathan Sinatra, who, after being persuaded by Zoe, also submitted to the Forbidden Curse.

Like Zoe, Nathan would also master a curse power at the cost of his life in the future.

This was their only check against Rosen. Without this check, they would rather die than have their lives and deaths controlled by Rosen. They didn't want to go through the trouble of dealing with those true gods only to continue being controlled and driven at will by Rosen.

After finishing Nathan's cursed painting, Rosen didn't rush to find others.

Using the Forbidden Curse to create cursed paintings permanently consumes his divine essence limit. Even with the Secret Fruit of Flesh and Blood to recover, he couldn't handle four paintings in a row. He could only wait for the Hell Tree of Flesh and Blood to grow new Secret Fruit of Flesh and Blood before continuing.

This required the Hell Tree of Flesh and Blood to devour enough flesh and blood and for its growth to be accelerated.

The latter was manageable with the help of the Mother Tree of Life and the Flesh World Fruit.

But obtaining enough Flesh was a bit of a challenge for Rosen.

So, he directly contacted the Coin King, demanding food for the Flesh Hell Tree. The Coin True God quickly sent over countless corpses of Abyss Demons from the Abyss Battlefield. The sheer number was enough for him to consume Flesh Secret Fruit until he reached Sequence 0.

However, if used to draw Forbidden Curse Paintings, it would only be enough for a few more paintings.

The Coin True God couldn't be relied on further, as continuing to demand would raise suspicions. Rosen had to find another way.

Once the Abyss Demon's corpse were transformed into Flesh Secret Fruit, his first targets were the Forbidden Sequence.

With the limited number of Flesh Secret Fruit available, the number of Forbidden Curse Paintings he could create was also limited.

Therefore, Rosen planned to first control a few Forbidden Sequences and then help them advance to Sequence 0. With the help of a If he could kill the Mother of Flesh and Blood, he would have a certain level of confidence in luring and killing the Mother of Flesh and Blood.

At that point, not only could he easily create hundreds of forbidden curse paintings, but he could also allow the Flesh World Fruit to fully mature.

The return to the World Tree would undoubtedly be significant as well. Therefore, this time, Rosen set his sights on the Taboo Sequence.

In the Heavenly Sound Canyon of the Divine Sound Empire, this was the territory of Bruno Louis.

The entire Heavenly Sound Canyon was a massive concert hall. Bruno's concerts could attract audiences from across the human world to come and appreciate his music. However, in recent months, Bruno had stopped holding concerts altogether.

Over these months, Bruno had exhausted all means to deal with the contract on his divine origin.

With the thought of a dark future weighing on him, how could Bruno have the heart to hold concerts?

In the Void Concert Hall, Bruno furiously hammered the piano keys.

He poured all his anger and frustration into the music, using it as an outlet.

As the piece ended, applause echoed from below the stage.

Bruno had long noticed the five uninvited guests in the audience. Among all the forbidden sequence, except for Rosen, everyone else was Sequence 1. At Barry's banquet, all the forbidden sequence were ranked above Rosen, except for Bruno, who was ranked below him. This had long made Bruno resentful of Rosen.

Today, Rosen had somehow infiltrated his Void Music Hall. Since he had come in, he wouldn't be leaving easily.

Half an hour later, Bruno lay half dead in front of Rosen.

Injured but not dead—it had taken Rosen considerable effort to achieve this.

He had used the Sovereign Divine Kingdom to neutralize Bruno's geographical advantage, employed the Sovereign Divine Kingdom to severely damage Bruno's Divine Kingdom, and even summoned the Utopian Dragon to barely defeat Bruno while holding back.

"Did you come here just to beat me half to death?" Bruno asked weakly.

"I want to paint a forbidden curse painting of you…" Rosen stated his purpose, while Nathan and Zoe also chimed in to persuade Bruno.

At first, upon hearing Rosen's intentions, Bruno was so enraged that he considered dragging Rosen down with him in death.

However, after being persuaded by Nathan and Zoe, Bruno eventually agreed to let Rosen paint him.

Because there were only two paths before him: the first was death, and the second was being controlled by Rosen.

If death were that easy, he wouldn't have signed the contract back in the Land of Redemption.

If the World Government's true gods had used force from the start, less than half of the hundreds of demigods would have willingly signed the contract.

Because they all had their own pride, many demigods would have preferred death over being enslaved.

That's why the World Government had fabricated lies and forged contracts, creating the illusion that they had been abandoned by the World Government, and that the World Will would grant them power to help it break free.

Once the contracts were signed, few were willing to commit suicide.

Because according to the actual contract terms, they only needed to complete one task specified by the true gods.

And this task had to have a way out—a glimmer of hope left for all the demigods.

All the demigods would think that as long as they completed the contract, even if it was a narrow escape, they might still carve out a path to survival.

Now, it was the same. If it was meant to be controlled by Rosen forever, Bruno would rather die than agree.

But as long as these demigods worked together, as long as they all mastered curses that cost their lives, unless Rosen wanted to die with them, they could collectively force Rosen to destroy all the forbidden curse paintings.

Of course, the prerequisite was to kill those true gods, but that was exactly what Bruno dreamed of doing.

So, after being persuaded, Bruno eventually also cooperated and allowed the forbidden curse painting to be painted.

Rosen went on to create five more taboo curse paintings. With Bruno's testimony and persuasion, the five taboo sequences all chose to compromise. However, they also demanded one-on-one challenges with Rosen, and without exception, they all lost to him.

With the flesh and blood secret fruit exhausted, Rosen used some of his resources to help them advance to sequence 0.

It was only then that Rosen realized just how generous the Coin True God had been.

Other true gods who had contracts with Taboo didn't directly provide cultivation resources. At most, they offered some conveniences. If they wanted cultivation resources, they had to obtain them themselves. In this regard, the Coin King was exceptionally generous.

But on the other hand, it also showed just how much the Coin King valued the King's Game.

Pouring all his resources into nurturing them was simply to ensure they would fight for him in the King's Game.

(End of Chapter)