100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 469 - Out of Lives

Meanwhile...

Deep inside a chamber at Liberator Headquarters—

Seran lingered near the window, hands folded behind him, staring at a sky that escaped his true notice.

His image in the glass appeared off.

Far too empty.

Like a fragment of his consciousness had drifted just a step apart from the whole, awaiting something his mind hadn't grasped yet.

The door creaked open gently behind him.

A woman dressed in white stepped in unhurriedly.

"What are you thinking about?" she inquired.

Seran held his silence for a beat.

His eyes drifted from the window to the table in the rear.

Two comm devices lay upon it.

He fixed his stare on them for an extended instant before uttering a word.

"Do you know," he murmured softly, "why two communication devices connect to the West?"

The woman creased her brow.

"What do you mean?"

Seran pivoted partially to face her, his typical grin absent.

"I recall handing one to Shadow," he stated. "That memory is vivid. Yet here are two."

His gaze intensified.

"And before... I believe one of them buzzed."

"You believe?"

Seran exhaled faintly.

"That's the issue. I'm uncertain if I truly heard it or merely sense that I ought to have."

He brushed the second device with a pair of fingers.

"When I answered, no voice came through."

The woman shook her head deliberately.

"You never mentioned a second one to me."

Silence deepened around Seran.

He despised voids in his thoughts.

Especially these sorts.

The woman observed him briefly longer, then her face altered.

"The Devourer," she uttered.

Seran snapped his head up.

"What of it?"

"The matter we discussed earlier," she replied. "I recalled something. Or more precisely..." She rubbed her temple. "I realized I'd overlooked something."

Seran’s features grew stern.

She spoke with measured pace.

"It truly manifested in my vision previously. I'm sure now. I witnessed it. Yet I forgot. I erased a genuine vision from memory."

Seran grew utterly still.

"That defies possibility."

"I know," she affirmed. "My visions fade. Symbols slip from clarity. But the vision itself never vanishes. Not in that manner."

Unease crept into her tone.

"Now I'm wondering if it was solely the Devourer. Or if another element lurked there that I couldn't retain."

Seran went quiet.

The extra device on the table weighed far beyond mere metal now.

He discerned the outline.

Not the complete truth.

Merely sufficient anomaly to confirm its existence.

Events in the West had surpassed routine disruption.

Seran’s eyes grew keen.

"I don’t like this," he declared. "Get ready to depart."

The woman drew herself up.

"Now?"

"Now."

His voice stayed even.

"The West has turned peculiar."

•••

Earlier within the Void—

The ancient beasts held the upper hand.

The Devourer bore wounds from Moonfall Judgment prior to the fight shifting from the Big World, and with the ancient beasts freed from safeguarding settlements under each stray strike, the battle's tempo gradually shifted.

The Devourer remained a horror.

Regenerating in manners that mocked basic logic's attempts to comprehend.

Yet it now faced an array of entities ancient enough to view disasters as routine storms.

Astraea sliced storm-paths across the void, thwarting the Devourer’s grander shifts from landing true.

Condoriano adjusted its stance precisely when its bulk sought optimal positions.

Grave burdened the vacant space below it, slowing even its descent against its will.

Aurvang smashed directly into it whenever the beast amassed unchecked craving.

Noctryn exploited its sightless gaps.

Ashkara seared decay into freshly healed gashes.

Saber proved the most ruthless among them. Each blow landed where survival would pain the Devourer most.

The rest saturated the arena with ancient, exact ferocity.

They had reached the battle stage where triumph evolved from wish to method.

Then—

A flicker pierced their minds.

A feeling.

A probe.

Astraea’s gaze wavered for the barest instant.

Condoriano stumbled mid-swoop, recovered swiftly, and chuckled to mask the lapse.

Others sensed it as well.

Yet it vanished as abruptly as it struck.

They dismissed it.

Or lacked cause not to.

The Devourer demanded slaying still.

Its form ripped apart beneath fresh synced assault. Rents tore across its mass. Multiple eyes exploded. Flesh fragments whirled into blackness like torn satellites.

Astraea breathed out and murmured, nearly on reflex, "Let’s wrap this up fast. Then we can deliver some great news to little brother."

The others turned toward her.

For a fleeting second, motion ceased.

Condoriano’s grin faded foremost.

"Little brother..." he echoed.

Astraea blinked.

Her face grew taut.

"Did I..." She scowled. "Did I just say that?"

Grave drifted languidly through the void.

The group's alignment felt off once more.

Insufficient for clarity. Potent enough to unsettle.

Condoriano’s stare grew remote.

An emotion stirred within.

He tsked.

"That’s annoying," he grumbled.

Astraea’s stormlight blazed anew as she wrenched attention back to the Devourer.

The rest followed suit.

None grasped why an urge now pressed them fiercely to hasten back to the Big World.

Thus they channeled ancient unease into savagery, as elder horrors always did.

And the clash with the Devourer intensified further.

•••

Earlier in the Stillness Palace—

The women encircling the Eclipse Array had slumped in place.

The ritual's firing had sapped them deeply. Power lingered in their frames, but chaotically. What stayed was the weary residue of fueling a war-engine predating countless eras.

Silence reigned briefly.

They sprawled or leaned on the floor, gasping, eyes unfocused.

Then Marie furrowed her brow.

"What were we discussing again?"

No reply came.

Kaia lifted her head.

Sylra blinked repeatedly, bewildered.

Marina huddled motionless, knees hugged, as if roused mid-thought only to find it vanished.

Lilith flattened her palm over her chest.

Her pulse raced wildly.

Without any cause she could pinpoint.

Eirene sat mute, fingers gripping the necklace at her neck. Her look had shifted.

Disquiet had seized her.

The sensation arising when reality skewed one speck excessively, instinct alerting before recall.

She sensed deprivation.

The conviction that a vital piece had been plucked from the space, with all expected to carry on unchanged.

Then arrivals rushed in.

Tiny. Swift. Desperate.

Slimes.

They leaped into the room in frenzied, erratic bounds. Their motions lacked customary poise.

Spotting the women, they erupted in desperate wails.

"Help."

"Help."

"Help the master."

"Please help the master."

The cries struck like hurled rocks.

All flinched sharply.

Marie bolted upright too fast. Kaia’s eyes bulged. Sylra blanched. Marina’s mouth fell open mutely.

Lilith rose first.

"What master?" she demanded, voice quivering as if ahead of her knew and dreaded confirmation.

The slimes bounced nearer.

"Big danger," one cried.

"Master in danger," another echoed, tripping on haste.

Though the world had erased Lucien—

The slimes retained him.

Merged with Nihility, their modest beings had grazed a truth Oblivion couldn't fully scrub.

Nihility defied full forgetting.

The women remained puzzled.

But Eirene’s disquiet honed to icy clarity.

Wordlessly, she clutched her necklace and triggered Equivalent Exchange.

The palace darkened around her.

Her breath caught.

She posed three queries to the cosmos simultaneously.

The slimes' intent. Her heart's malaise. Precisely what had been stripped from her thoughts.

The toll manifested at once.

Lifespan.

A tangible slice of her future years.

Eirene paid without pause.

Instantly, awareness flooded her mind.

It surged back like a gash tearing wide.

Lucien.

His visage. His tone. His decisions. His peril. Their vow. The certainty. Its prior occurrence.

And their absence.

Tears streamed from Eirene’s eyes unnoticed.

"Why..." she breathed. "Why did I forget?"

Her fingers trembled.

In that awful instant, she endured it all: void, return, terror of persisting while core essence was excised like flawed prose.

The others gaped at her, alarmed.

Eirene met their eyes.

"You must remember," she urged.

Her form transformed.

Radiance washed over her, dissolving the Floran guise into Lunarian essence.

The group stiffened in astonishment.

Eirene offered no clarification.

She lifted a palm, unleashing Eclipse magic not for combat, but unveiling.

Moonlight bathed the chamber.

It pierced their psyches, stripping Oblivion’s fabricated void by relighting severed truths.

And suddenly—

Recollection hit.

Lucien.

Simultaneously.

The atmosphere transformed.

Marie clapped a hand over her mouth, stunned. Kaia froze, torn between rage and breakdown. Sylra shut her eyes, bowing her head. Marina sobbed before awareness dawned.

Lilith suffered most.

She quaked.

Her lip bled from savage bite.

For full recall had returned.

The armor. Her pledge. Its christening. Beloved Bastion.

For whom else but him.

Her legs buckled nearly.

Eirene reverted to Floran shape.

She seized the Waystone Fragment tied to Lucien’s. Her face altered instantly.

Blank. Devoid of any image.

She faced the slimes promptly.

"Do you know where Brother Luc is?" she pressed.

The slimes sagged.

"No," one whispered.

Lilith advanced immediately.

"I may sense his rough position," she said, tone taut. "I embedded a soul-fragment in the armor I forged him. Sufficient for direction."

Eirene smiled faintly.

"That suffices."

Then her look toughened.

"We fire the Eclipse Array once more."

The others gawked.

Exhausted, yet none demurred.

Not a single soul.

For proper memory now guided them.

Him isolated while they lingered proved intolerable.

Marie dashed tears and rose.

Kaia drew breath and assented.

Sylra braced Marina while rising herself.

Lilith headed to the array paths.

Eirene surveyed them.

For a brief inhalation, the room brimmed fuller than before.

Then they commenced.

This time, the Eclipse Array stirred amid tears, dread, affection, and remembrance intertwined.

•••

Meanwhile—

Lucien faced dire straits.

The sort where twin Primordial Incarnations flanked a battlefield, every route between spelling doom variably.

Significant creation eluded him now.

Not versus both simultaneously.

Each response proved inadequate upon manifestation.

He merely guarded.

Nothing more.

Severance struck first anew.

A mute, final slash raced at him.

Lucien seized another drop, igniting it at collision's brink.

Riftmirror Flake — A reflective scale that reduces the impact of one hostile Law effect if timed correctly.

The severing surge collided.

And weakened.

Insufficient for nullity. Adequate for endurance.

Lucien took the blow regardless.

Severely.

His frame whirled from the lessened force, armor wailing. Innards quivered from near-dismantling reverberations.

Then Convergence materialized aside.

Severance opposite.

He stood trapped.

Lucien perceived too tardily.

Both unleashed.

And Lucien perished.

The final Life-Link Talisman shattered.

Spent.

It revived him in a flare of preserving glow.

Yet revival offered no refuge henceforth.