In the Dwarven Kingdom, Rosen silently opened Boya's Temporal Gate.
Having visited the Dwarven Kingdom before, he had naturally left behind a spatial coordinate.
As long as he knew the precise location, with his mastery over the Laws of Time and Space, combined with Boya's Temporal Gate, he could easily lock onto the Dwarven Kingdom and infiltrate it unnoticed.
This time, his goal was to use Soul Doppelganger to parasitize and replace the Earth Dwarf King.
Since he could only have one active Soul Doppelganger, the Earth Dwarf King was the best possible target.
Although millions of dwarves had already been relocated to the True Realm of the Ancient Gods, there were still many issues with them.
Some refused to believe, no matter what, that their Earth Dwarf King had betrayed and sacrificed them.
Others believed it, but still refused to obey Rosen.
If the Soul Doppelganger could replace the Earth Dwarf King, those loyal dwarves would immediately fall in line.
Furthermore, all remaining dwarves in the Dwarven Kingdom could then be completely transferred to the True Realm of the Ancient Gods.
Not to mention, the Earth Dwarf King could forge True God-tier extraordinary artifacts.
And by controlling the Earth Dwarf King, he would finally gain access to that forging hammer imbued with Royal Authority, which had yet to be refined.
So far, Rosen had never encountered much difficulty refining True God-tier artifacts.
But this forging hammer had remained utterly beyond his reach.
It wasn't that the forging hammer was above True God quality—
Rather, Rosen suspected that it could only be used by dwarves.
He even had a bolder theory—the forging hammer was a Miracle Artifact.
If not for the eternal indestructibility of Miracle Artifacts, it would be impossible to explain how the Earth Dwarf King had managed to keep possession of it.
Unless, of course, the forging hammer was completely unusable by any race other than dwarves—
That would explain why Rosen couldn't refine it.
Yet, even this theory had its flaws.
Because Rosen had once transformed into a dwarf and attempted to refine it—
And still failed.
This was one of the reasons he was so eager to take control of the Earth Dwarf King.
Without that forging hammer, the Earth Dwarf King would lose his authority over Royal Power.
His perception of external events would also suffer greatly.
From afar, Rosen watched the reconstruction efforts of the Dwarven Royal City.
Through the God-Hunting Magic Eye, he locked onto the Earth Dwarf King.
From a God's Eye View, he saw the Earth Dwarf King forging deep within a volcanic forge.
Judging by the progress, the forging process was nearly complete.
What surprised Rosen was that the Earth Dwarf King was crafting something almost identical to the forging hammer.
It seemed he had been attempting to replicate it for a long time.
The question now was—how close was the imitation to the original's power?
Rosen had initially planned to act immediately, but seeing this, he decided to wait.
Forging a True God-tier artifact was no simple task—
It drained the Earth Dwarf King significantly.
If Rosen waited until he completed the forging, he would not only gain another True God-tier artifact, but also strike at the perfect moment when the Earth Dwarf King was at his weakest—making the parasitic takeover even easier.
Rosen did not leave.
Instead, he entered the Mysterious Study Room, consuming a Flesh Secret Fruit to restore his divine essence limit.
With a thousandfold time acceleration, his divine essence returned to Sequence 1 limit within just half a month.
During this time, the exclusive ability of the Miracle Sequence at Sequence 0 was finally born.
This ability was quite unique—Rosen could now freely transfer any Miracle Trait from his Miracle Sequence abilities to another.
For example, the Miracle Trait of the Ancient God's Holy Bell was Ancient God's Divine Sound. Originally, he couldn't use the Sin Judgment trait of the Judgment Ring through the bell.
But now, things were different.
He could transfer Sin Judgment to the Ancient God's Holy Bell, allowing its chime to carry the Sin Judgment effect.
Instead of Judgment Thunder Punishment, the bell's sound would now unleash Divine Judgment Resonance.
Although he could only transfer one Miracle Trait at a time, for the Miracle Sequence, this was still a tremendous enhancement.
With Miracle Sequence, Noble Sequence, and Painter Sequence all fully mastered, only the Hunter Sequence remained—yet to gain a self-created skill.
The three self-created skills of the Hunter Sequence required specific conditions to be met before they could be obtained.
So for now, he was still preparing, waiting until the requirements were fulfilled before mastering them.
Years passed in the real world, and Rosen spent most of that time spying on the secrets of the gods using his God-Hunting Magic Eye.
On this day, the Earth Dwarf King's long-awaited extraordinary artifact was finally nearing completion.
Rosen also began preparing his trap to capture the Earth Dwarf King.
Sitting on a sofa behind a window, he unfolded a section of his Divine Domain.
The Little World Tree descended as a projection, shrinking to a height of ten meters before taking root in the void behind him.
Immediately, it expanded its Time-Space Domain.
Rosen reached out, and with the fusion of Time and Space Laws, he formed a Time-Space Fishing Rod.
The Time-Space Domain shifted into a pool, and when Rosen cast the fishing line, the hook sank into the pool and vanished.
The Miracle Skill—Time-Space Fishing could hook prey that had fallen into time-space traps across different timelines.
If the hook landed in the past, it could be used to retrieve the dead, effectively resurrecting them.
It could also be used to fish for treasures, but only if those treasures were unclaimed in the present.
If the hook targeted the present, it became the ultimate thieving technique.
Even artifacts hidden within a god's Divine Kingdom could be silently stolen through Time-Space Fishing.
But if the hook was cast into the future, its greatest value was in setting traps.
Since the trap existed in the future, the prey in the present wouldn't sense it.
The moment the trap emerged from the future into reality, the target would have no time to react, falling directly into the inescapable ambush.
Right now, Rosen was sending runic traps into the future using Time-Space Fishing.
Since time was involved, naturally, space was as well.
Thus, these traps were now appearing in future time points around the Earth Dwarf King's surroundings.
Half an hour passed.
The Earth Dwarf King finally extinguished the Core Furnace Flames.
At that very instant—
The runic traps from the future materialized out of thin air, generating two layered traps:
Time Freeze and Spatial Confinement.
Moreover, these were stacked runic traps, enhanced by Laws, pushing what was originally a Sequence 1-level trap to the level of a True God-tier seal.
Even a True God caught in these traps would be frozen in time for at least three seconds.
Three seconds might not sound like much, but for those three seconds, even a True God would be completely vulnerable, unable to fight back.
The Earth Dwarf King was now fully immobilized—
Except for his divine consciousness, his entire body was locked in place.
Rosen Void Blinked into the runic trap, pressing the barrel of Dragon God's Wrath against the Earth Dwarf King's forehead—
And unleashed an endless barrage of mental bullets.
After a dozen shots, the subsequent rounds pierced through the Earth Dwarf King's defenses, infiltrating his sea of consciousness.
Then, at a rate of a thousand shots per breath, the bombardment nearly annihilated the Earth Dwarf King's consciousness.
However—
His divine core remained untouched.
Because two True God-tier extraordinary artifacts were actively guarding his divine core.
The moment the three-second freeze ended, the partially recovered Earth Dwarf King activated Divine Descent.
His body swelled into a colossal dwarf, yet his speed remained completely unaffected by his massive size.
Grabbing the freshly forged hammer, he swung it down toward Rosen, carrying the weight of endless gravity.
Even the spatial confinement surrounding him was shredded apart by the sheer force of gravity.
Rosen expanded his Time-Space Domain, blocking the crushing pressure while continuously Void Blinking around the Earth Dwarf King, evading his attacks.
The Miracle Trait—Miracle Aura, from his Miracle Skill—Aura Domain, allowed him to imbue any skill into an aura and attach it to bullets.
Bullets infused with Human Mannequin frequently forced the Earth Dwarf King into a frozen state.
Bullets infused with Unpardonable Sin continuously deepened his burden of sin.
Bullets infused with God-Hunting Rounds burned divine essence extracted from multiple Sequence 0 Dark Sun Offspring, enabling them to inflict true damage against divine essence.
Bullets infused with Fate Mark ensured that all true damage persisted over time.
Bullets infused with Time Manipulation interfered whenever the Earth Dwarf King attempted to activate a skill.
If his skill was instant-cast, the Time Bullets reversed time, preventing its activation.
If his skill was long-lasting, the Time Bullets accelerated time, causing the effect to expire prematurely.
Lastly, countless bullets moved like living creatures, swirling through the air like brushstrokes on a canvas.
The multi-dimensional, three-dimensional painting that enveloped the Earth Dwarf King repeatedly collapsed in on itself, attempting to seal him within the painting.
The battle raged on for half an hour, yet the Earth Dwarf King had failed to even graze Rosen's shadow.
His entire body had been ravaged by the mental bullets, leaving him in a state of utter ruin.
Even with his terrifying blood-drenched resurrection, where his feet touching the earth allowed him to regenerate, he could no longer fully restore his wounds—
Because the Law of Flesh prevented him from completely expelling the residual damage.
His accumulated injuries had reached the point where his internal organs were faintly visible beneath the last few layers of torn flesh.
The Law of Flesh is an absolute counter to high-regeneration flesh-based lifeforms…
However, at this moment, Rosen gradually slowed his assault.
Each bullet contained a skill—if not for his mastery over the Law of Origin, no one could have sustained such relentless skill usage.
Even though his reserves were far from running out, he couldn't let the Earth Dwarf King realize that.
Because the Earth Dwarf King wasn't just a flesh-based lifeform—he was also a rock-based lifeform.
Although flesh form was more suitable for the growth of the Dwarven bloodline, he would only revert to his rock form if he was truly forced into a corner.
The rock form had a fatal weakness—it reduced intelligence.
The key evolution of an Earth Dwarf into an Earth Dwarf King was the ability to gain intelligence through a flesh body.
If the Earth Dwarf King were forced to regress into his rock form, his defensive and regenerative capabilities would skyrocket—increasing by several times.
At that point, trying to hunt him down would be at least ten times harder.
The most terrifying aspect of the Earth Dwarf King was his defense and vitality—
His offensive power, at best, was only at the level of a Forbidden Deity.
Since instant-killing him wasn't an option, Rosen's strategy was boiling the frog slowly.
The forging of a True God-tier extraordinary artifact had already consumed a significant portion of his divine power.
Prolonging the battle would further drain his divine essence.
Once his expenditure exceeded his regeneration rate, he would gradually weaken.
Now that Rosen had control over the Law of Origin, the one thing he feared least was a war of attrition.
Moments later, as Rosen failed to inflict severe injuries on the Earth Dwarf King, he pretended to be exhausted and began to retreat.
The Earth Dwarf King refused to let up, relentlessly pursuing him.
By now, he had already figured out the enemy's previous trick—
Some kind of forced contract that caused contract backlash to harm him.
It had taken him great effort to completely purge the remnants of that contract, and he had even retrieved numerous extraordinary artifacts from his treasury that could weaken contractual forces.
This time, there was no way this Sequence 1 human could use the same trick to trap him again.
This was the best chance to get rid of this human—if he missed this opportunity, he might lose the King-Slayer Forging Hammer forever.
Rosen Void Blinked ahead, escaping, while the Earth Dwarf King swung his forging hammer, chasing after him like a game of whack-a-mole.
Wherever they passed, mountains crumbled, and all life was annihilated.
If not for Time Bullets constantly disrupting the Earth Dwarf King's skills, his fury-fueled berserk state would have been even more terrifying.
With every stomp, he unleashed Seismic Tremors, shaking the land violently.
Beneath Rosen, gravity collapses and erupting magma created obstacles in his path.
And from time to time, a lightning-forged hammer, as dense as a black hole, would whirl through the air, trying to tear him apart.
If not for his mastery of Time-Space Laws and the high priority of his Void Blink, he would have long been crushed to death.
One pursued, one fled—occasionally exchanging attacks—until they broke through the Spirit Domain of the Dwarven Kingdom and descended into the Underground World.
Here, the Earth Dwarf King was even more at home—
Each step caused underground caverns to collapse, nearly burying Rosen alive multiple times.
Had the Dwarven Kingdom been closer to the main world's center, their battle would have already alerted the True Gods of the underground civilizations.
After several more days of relentless pursuit, Rosen finally stopped.
Though he appeared unharmed, he deliberately gave off the impression of being physically drained.
Meanwhile, the Earth Dwarf King's body had fully healed, but his divine essence had dropped to less than 30%.
At this moment, the Earth Dwarf King began considering retreat.
The human he had been chasing was certainly drained, but he himself had also suffered severe depletion.
If this continued, even if he managed to kill this terrifying human Sequence 1, he feared he might end up ambushed by one of the True Gods from the underground civilizations.
Just as the Earth Dwarf King abandoned the chase and prepared to withdraw, Rosen knew the decisive battle was at hand.
Immediately, he dropped the act.
The Law of Flesh and Law of Time instantly erased all his injuries.
The Law of Origin restored his divine essence to over 90% of peak condition.
Meanwhile, his Bronze Dragon avatar, which had remained in the Mysterious Study Room, had spent the past few days using Time-Space Fishing to set up a massive array of runic traps.
Through his Fate Prophecy Painting, Rosen had long known that the final battle would take place here.
Thus, all of his Time-Space Fishing traps had been arranged around this area from the very beginning.
As the Earth Dwarf King turned to leave, he suddenly noticed that beneath his feet—
Thousands of layered time traps had appeared out of thin air.
Every single trap was Time Freeze, and given his severe depletion, they were enough to completely immobilize him for at least a full minute.
Rosen activated Ancient God's True Form, transforming into a giant.
His weapon, Dragon God's Wrath, also grew in size, thanks to the Weapon Grandmaster skill.
The first extraordinary bullet fired struck the Earth Dwarf King, leaving behind a massive wound.
And from the center of that wound, his flesh began to rot away at an alarming rate.
Rosen had used the Star Core to seal the Radiant Angel True God's divine core—
A True God-level Doctor Sequence expert had then fused it with the Law of Flesh, crafting a terrifying virus specifically designed to target flesh-based lifeforms.
This plague, engineered for dwarves, would completely disintegrate the Earth Dwarf King's body within one minute.
At the same time, the Ancient God's Holy Bell, infused with the Miracle Trait—Sin Judgment, began to ring.
The Divine Judgment Resonance directly attacked the Earth Dwarf King's sea of consciousness.
Amplified by Azure Dragon's Silent Thunder, the sonic waves combined with Sin Judgment's power, completely destroying the Earth Dwarf King's consciousness—
Leaving behind only his divine core, protected by True God-tier extraordinary artifacts.
As the one-minute mark approached, the flesh virus had already dissolved the Earth Dwarf King's body, leaving behind only his Stone Heart.
Both his Divine Core and Stone Heart—
These were the true weaknesses of the Earth Dwarf King.
Rosen expanded the Royal Treasury, using it to suppress the Stone Heart.
Then, activating Royal Authority Will, he continued to assault the Divine Core with sustained Divine Judgment Resonance.
As the Time Freeze ended, the Earth Dwarf King's Divine Core desperately manipulated his two extraordinary artifacts, attempting to escape at all costs.
One of these artifacts even warped gravity, creating a gravitational wormhole to teleport the Divine Core away.
The Earth Dwarf King succeeded—
At the cost of sacrificing two True God-tier extraordinary artifacts, he managed to withstand all of Rosen's attacks and send his Divine Core through the wormhole.
However—
The moment the Divine Core passed through the gravitational wormhole, it fell straight into a new set of runic traps—
And was immediately snagged by a descending fishing hook from the Void.
Rosen had already foreseen every detail of the battle through his Fate Prophecy Painting.
He knew exactly where the Earth Dwarf King would chase him,
When he would counterattack,
And when he would exhaust his final effort to send away his Divine Core.
Everything had been predicted in advance—
Which was why Time-Space Fishing had been waiting for him all along, capturing the escaped Divine Core effortlessly.
Inside the Mysterious Study Room, Rosen used the Star Core to seal the Earth Dwarf King's Divine Core.
Only then did he release his Soul Doppelganger, forcefully parasitizing and replacing the Earth Dwarf King's soul and divine essence.
Unknowingly, the Earth Dwarf King had completely perished.
However, his death did not give birth to a Miracle Artifact.
Rosen retrieved the Stone Heart, still suppressed within the Royal Treasury.
By reconnecting the Divine Essence, the Stone Heart quickly regenerated a brand-new dwarf flesh body.
Now fully revived, the Earth Dwarf King glared at Rosen, his eyes filled with hatred, hesitating on whether to attack.
Clearly, after being parasitized and replaced, the Earth Dwarf King had no idea he was already dead.
With a single thought—
The Soul Doppelganger instantly took over.
All of the Earth Dwarf King's hatred vanished.
His divine consciousness was now fully suppressed, turning him into Rosen's absolute puppet avatar.
The most terrifying aspect of this puppet form was that—
Until the Soul Doppelganger was actively awakened, the Earth Dwarf King himself wouldn't even realize he had been replaced.
He wouldn't even know that someone else was controlling him.
Moreover, he lacked the weakness of a Soul Parasite—
Since his civilization's fate energy remained intact, he wouldn't be exposed as an unnatural being.
Even if a Great True God were to examine him right now, they wouldn't be able to tell that the Earth Dwarf King was actually a Soul Doppelganger puppet.
With the Earth Dwarf King's help, Rosen finally unraveled the mystery behind the unrefinable forging hammer.
It was a Miracle Artifact exclusively for Earth Dwarves—
Only an Earth Dwarf could wield it.
Although Rosen's Ancient God True Form could transform into a dwarf, he could not become an Earth Dwarf.
Because while Earth Dwarves originated from dwarves, they were not normal flesh-based lifeforms.
They had no direct genetic lineage to primitive humans—
They were one of the few true native species of the main world.
True God-tier Miracle Artifact—King-Slayer Forging Hammer.
Its basic attribute could enhance all dwarf forging and enchantment skills tenfold.
It also had three Miracle Traits:
Ruler of Dwarves—Absolute control over all dwarves.
Master of Royal Authority—Grants the wielder dominion over dwarven royalty. Manipulator of Dwarven Civilization's Fate Energy.
This was undoubtedly one of the most powerful True God-tier Miracle Artifacts.
However, it had a drawback—
To use the King-Slayer Forging Hammer, one had to sacrifice dwarves as offerings.
The stronger the power unleashed, the greater the number of dwarves required as sacrifices afterward.
Back then, the Earth Dwarf King's destruction of the Dwarven Royal City was actually a mass sacrifice.
Otherwise, the damage transfer from the Equivalent Contract would never have been enough to severely injure a True God-tier artifact-wielding Earth Dwarf King in a single blow.
(End of Chapter)