Outside the Fallen Forbidden Zone, the Sky Emperor reluctantly ended his edits to the game's data.
Before him, the Judgement Emperor and the Scorching Eyes Emperor were resurrected simultaneously.
Reviving Emperors came with a terrifying cost—especially reviving other Emperors, which was essentially asking for trouble.
But this time, the Sky Emperor still did it. These two Emperors had only recently died at the hands of the Holy Grail Emperor, and the rewards of killing them hadn't been fully digested yet. Reviving them now came at the lowest cost—and they could join forces with him to hunt Rosen.
However, it wasn't long before the Sky Emperor was once again disappointed.
Although the Judgement Emperor and the Scorching Eyes Emperor could be resurrected, the various treasures they had possessed did not come back with them.
One of the reasons the Sky Emperor brought them back was in hopes that, as the original owners of those treasures, they could use their connection to track down the Holy Grail Emperor's hiding place. But these two useless fools couldn't provide even a single useful clue.
In the end, with no better option, the Sky Emperor and the two Emperors had no choice but to conduct a full sweep of the Fallen Forbidden Zone.
Every part that was explored—even a single speck of dust—had to be examined to confirm it didn't conceal a hidden dimension.
Inside the Mysterious Study Room, Rosen casually glanced at them through the All-Knowing Demon Eye and couldn't even be bothered.
Instead of wasting time fighting, why not enjoy a romantic bath?
Soaking in an ordinary spring wasn't any fun—Rosen thought of the Sacred Relic of Wisdom.
This treasure, integrated into the Miracle Sequence, could convert spiritual essence into the Waters of Wisdom. It had greatly supported the development of his self-created skills over the years. Now that he no longer wanted to continue arduous cultivation, using the Waters of Wisdom as bathwater felt perfect.
Rosen brought out a massive quantity of Divine Source Crystals—precious materials only obtainable from slaying gods.
Though parallel cultivation methods had always required him to be frugal, now he spared no expense, converting all of them into high-quality Waters of Wisdom.
The Sacred Relic of Wisdom, in the form of a statue of the Goddess of Wisdom, raised the Wisdom Vessel in her hand and absorbed the mountain of Divine Source Crystals. Soon, golden springwater gleaming with divine light began to pour out, warming into a luxurious hot spring.
Rosen carried Alicia into the pool, splashing water everywhere as they indulged themselves.
Perhaps the scene became too stimulating—unbelievably, the statue of the Goddess of Wisdom closed her eyes.
Yet some things can be endured for a while, but not forever.
Finally reaching her limit, the statue of the Goddess of Wisdom opened her eyes, raised the Wisdom Vessel high, and smashed it down on Rosen's head. The Shooting Star Crossbow hadn't been able to deal a fatal blow to him, but under the heavy strike of the Wisdom Vessel, Rosen instantly blacked out in the water.
He passed out quickly—but woke up even faster.
Wiping the Waters of Wisdom from his face and hair, Rosen stood up from the spring with lingering fear, staring at the statue of the Goddess of Wisdom.
Of the Sacred Relic of Wisdom, he had only been able to refine the Wisdom Vessel—he had never been able to fuse the statue itself into his transcendent essence.
Now he understood why. This statue was actually alive.
Even the All-Knowing Demon Eye couldn't see through its true nature. The statue of the Goddess of Wisdom was at least on the level of an immortal god-demon.
If it hadn't been provoked into action—finally losing patience and smacking him with the Wisdom Vessel—he might never have come to his senses, nor noticed the effects the Eternal Fallen Source Seed was having on his consciousness.
No living being inherently enjoys hardship and toil. By nature, we all prefer freedom, ease, and indulgence.
But to indulge oneself, one must have power. Without power, the idea of "liberating the self" is meaningless.
Rosen had Alicia, Li Shiqing, and the others not because he had "liberated his true self" through Eternal Fall, but because of the grueling years of cultivation under time acceleration, and the mountains of corpses he had trampled beneath his feet. Without that, how could he possibly have all he had now?
Rosen looked deeply at the statue of the Goddess of Wisdom, then with a snap of his fingers, paused time and sealed Alicia and the others.
Although they weren't as deeply affected by Fall as he had been, they had still been influenced to some extent.
He had to take advantage of his current clear-headed state to fully take control of the Eternal Fallen Source Seed and eliminate its effects on himself.
As for the statue of the Goddess of Wisdom—there was no need to worry. If she were a threat, something would have happened long ago.
This time, the statue bore no killing intent toward him. She simply wanted to awaken his self-awareness, which had been drowned in the state of Fall.
Rosen quickly came to a realization—there was no way to completely eliminate the side effects of the Eternal Fallen Source Seed.
To abandon morality and responsibility in order to fully release the true self—others may view that as Falling, but to the self, it is a return to one's true nature. So while Eternal Fall may appear evil or negative from the outside, it only ever has positive effects on the individual.
So, this kind of side effect born from a positive influence—wanting to completely eliminate it was fundamentally impossible.The only option left was to minimize prolonged contact between his divine consciousness and the Eternal Fallen Source Seed.
After considering it, Rosen decided to extract the Eternal Fallen Source Seed and seal it within the Terror Wonderland.
He would use it to craft the most terrifying scene in the King's Playground, while also giving Terror Wonderland a chance to evolve into an immortal god-demon-level entity.
The Eternal Origin was incredible—but not every Eternal Origin was suitable for sentient life to control.
If the one mastering the Eternal Fallen Source Seed were a machine lifeform from a mechanical race that rejected all emotion, then the Fallen's negative effects would likely never have a chance to activate.This incident had taught Rosen a hard-earned lesson.
With his Fallen state dispelled, Rosen began to study the Fallen Imperial Capital closely.
Before long, he discovered some historical documents in the palace that he had previously overlooked—records of the royal history of the Fallen Empire.
As it turned out, the founding of the Fallen Empire originated from the Fallen Emperor's discovery of the corpse of an immortal god-demon.
That immortal god-demon had committed suicide, and upon death, left behind the Eternal Fallen Source Seed.
After fusing with the seed, the Fallen Emperor had not lost control like Rosen had.
But it wasn't that the Fallen Emperor was stronger than him—it was because, at that time, the Fallen Source Seed was newly born, and its power was nowhere near as immense as it was now.It was only after the rise of the Fallen Empire and the emergence of the Fallen Scholars that the source seed's power steadily grew.
Through this royal history, Rosen acquired valuable knowledge on how the Fallen Empire had nurtured and strengthened the Fallen Source Seed.
He could now use that experience to avoid many detours in cultivating future source seeds.
Despite being powered by Fall, the Fallen Empire itself actually deeply despised and rejected the very force of Fall.
Quite the opposite—in fact, the entire Fallen Empire revered all positive and uplifting forces.
They believed that Fall was the inherent weakness in life. Only by confronting and overcoming Fall could true growth be achieved.
Upon reading this, Rosen understood: the Fallen Emperor had already realized how dangerous the Fallen Source Seed was.
Thus, he tried to use its opposite force to balance it out.
Of course, the reason to balance the Fallen Source Seed was to truly unleash its full power.
The Fallen Emperor did not care for individuals who fell into depravity in pursuit of their true selves—he believed that the Fall of civilization was the true, terrifying Fall.
After all, if a single person succumbed to hedonism, the damage they could cause was extremely limited.
Even if they took pleasure in murder—how many could they kill in one lifetime?
But the Fall of a civilization was different.When a nation or an entire race fell, it would result in mass death, the collapse of countless cultures, and the overturning of entire worlds.Even the most infamous killers in history couldn't compare to the casualties brought about by the Fall of a single civilization—not even by a fraction.
It was from this philosophy that the Fallen Emperor created the first generation of Fallen Scholars.
This was a type of extraordinary profession, partially resembling historians—but they didn't study normal history.
Fallen Scholars studied fallen history—the histories of collapsing civilizations, dying races, and toppling kingdoms.They believed that Fall was the root cause behind every extinction, collapse, and downfall.
A true Fallen Scholar was not merely someone who tempted others into sin.
They specialized in using the spark of civilization itself to lead entire nations, races, or realms into Fall.
Though the Fallen Empire was powerful—perhaps the most powerful of all empires—it still couldn't resist the Cataclysm of Civilizations.
It was simply too small.
So, the Fallen Empire formed an alliance with all other empires and kingdoms, and together, they decided to create a special battlefield.This battlefield was built upon the corpse of the immortal god-demon who had once shared symbiosis with the Eternal Fallen Source Seed.It was an immortal world, developed as a simulated Dusk Battlefield.The original intent was to use war as a method to fuse all the kingdoms and empires.
When two kingdoms fought, the victor would take a portion of the loser's resources, but the loser wouldn't be annihilated.
Eventually, the final winner would become the sole Human Emperor.
As for the defeated kings and emperors, they would serve around him, forming a powerful hegemonic civilization.
Everything was progressing normally—until four mysterious kingdoms suddenly appeared.
These four brought with them the source seed of the Eternal Game, and directly merged it into the core of the immortal world that had become the battlefield.
This transformed the battlefield into the King's Game, and those four kingdoms seized control over its permissions.
The hard-earned fruits of their labor were stolen.Naturally, the many emperors and kings would not sit back and let that happen.
War erupted.
At first, the empires and kingdoms had the upper hand, while the four card-holding kings were at a severe disadvantage.But as the conflict dragged on, the people of the four kingdoms could level up by killing, and even resurrect after death.
The tide began to turn.
The alliance of kingdoms and empires was pushed to the brink of extinction.
In the end, the Fallen Emperor detonated the power of the Fallen Source Seed, killed the four holders of the King Cards, and seized part of the game's permissions. Everything should have returned to the right track from there—however, at that exact moment, for unknown reasons, the King's Game transformed into the Miracle World.
Originally, the Fallen Emperor had hoped to use the game permissions he'd stolen to heal himself.
Although he had detonated the Fallen Source Seed to achieve victory, he also paid a huge price—on the verge of death.
But once the King's Game became the Miracle World, the game permissions in his hands were drastically reduced.
The remaining permissions were no longer enough to keep the Fallen Emperor alive—his last sliver of hope disappeared.
Left with no choice, he despairingly turned his entire empire into a Forbidden Zone.
Before he completely perished, the Fallen Emperor used the power of the Fallen Scholars to pollute the historical timeline surrounding the birth of the King's Game.
That was why even someone like Lionheart King, one of the kings, had his memories of this taboo era affected.
The Fallen Emperor Rosen encountered in the Fallen Imperial Palace was, in truth, nothing more than a corpse—its divine essence already extinguished.
"Miracle's power is a little terrifying,"Rosen muttered with deep emotion.
The Game Source Seed and the Fallen Source Seed had both perished in mutual destruction—yet Miracle's power was the one to ultimately scoop up the rewards.
Rosen began to take stock of the harvest. The Fallen Emperor hadn't left anything of real value behind.The war had nearly drained the Fallen Empire's entire resource pool.All the extraordinary artifacts the emperor once held had been destroyed.The only thing left was the corpse.
Even that still-combat-capable corpse had only been barely repaired using the last of the remaining game permissions.
Ironically, compared to the Fallen Emperor, the Judgement Emperor and the Blazing-Eyed Emperor had left behind all their personal treasures.
Unfortunately, those two were resurrected by the Sky Emperor—otherwise, the most valuable things would've been their corpses.
Rosen dismantled the Fallen Emperor's corpse. Everything aside from the divine persona (divinity core) could be used as upgrade material for the Terror Wonderland.
Only then did he leave the Mysterious Study Room, preparing to face the Sky Emperor in the final showdown.
According to the distorted rules of the King's Game, the last surviving emperor would gain control of the entire game.
The Fallen Emperor had long since become a loser. The Forbidden Zone of the Fallen had no bearing on Rosen's eligibility to control the King's Game.
The Sky Emperor surely knew this already. That was why he had attempted to use the Forbidden Zone to eliminate Rosen.
Now, Rosen had survived and taken possession of the Eternal Fallen Source Seed. The time had come to settle things with the Sky Emperor.
He took out the Fallen Emperor's divine persona, then planted the Eternal Root Source Seed into it.
Before long, the divine persona in his hand took root, sprouted, bloomed, and bore fruit. The resulting origin fruit merged into the Eternal Divinity.
Through the fusion of the Eternal Root Source and the Fallen Emperor's divine persona, Rosen gained access to the two extraordinary powers once mastered by the Fallen Emperor—Fallen Scholar and Fallen Emperor.
With the power of the Fallen Emperor, Rosen began retrieving the scattered Eternal Fallen Source embedded within the Fallen Forbidden Zone.
That zone, fused to the core of the King's Continent like a bone-burrowing tumor, began to visibly shrink.
In the end, only a clump of Eternal Fallen Source remained—and under the wary gaze of the Sky Emperor, it silently appeared in Rosen's hand.
The moment Rosen got hold of the Eternal Fallen Source, he activated the core power of the Fallen Scholar: Forbidden Knowledge.
This Forbidden Knowledge allowed him to consume Eternal Fallen Source to corrupt any knowledge into forbidden knowledge.
If it was historical knowledge, it would become Forbidden History.
Everyone who had known this piece of Forbidden History would completely lose all related memories.
Anyone who tried to forcibly access that history—no matter who they were—would suffer corruption by the Eternal Fall.If they couldn't withstand it, they would be forcibly transformed into a Fallen Scholar.
And what Rosen now intended to corrupt was all knowledge related to the King's Game.
The Sky Emperor was horrified to discover that his understanding of the King's Game was being erased bit by bit.
If he tried to forcibly remember it, the Fallen power would immediately corrupt the divine essence at his core.
If he chose to resist the corruption, he would have to allocate a portion of his power to withstand it—leaving less power to fight the Holy Grail Emperor.
If he chose not to resist, he could fight the Holy Grail Emperor with full power—but he would forget all knowledge related to the King's Game.He would no longer remember how to use the game permissions to alter game data—and would therefore lose the ability to resurrect using the game permissions.
The Sky Emperor could not possibly give up his resurrection powers—so he had no choice but to resist the corruption by force.
Fortunately, the pollution of memory by Fallen Power was a gradual process.As long as he could defeat the Holy Grail Emperor before the corruption intensified further, the Sky Emperor could still win the King's Game.At that point, he could suppress even the Fallen Power.
(End of Chapter)