100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 477 - Invasion

Marie commanded the Obsidian Tower with terrifying simplicity.

The tower glided across the gray void like a seasoned hunter reclaiming its old territory, familiar with it beyond even the lurking shadows.

With Marie handling the controls, the trip grew ridiculously smooth.

She tracked Lucien’s directions at an impossible velocity. The path grid bent beneath her touch, and the Tower complied with the grudging obedience of a device that viewed her as the most tolerable operator.

A voyage meant to drag on much longer—

lasted only half a month.

Half a month filled with quiet, adaptation, watching, and the subtle ache of heading to a realm Lucien hadn’t beheld with living eyes since long ago.

Finally—

it appeared before them.

The faintly translucent barrier of the small world hovered ahead, resembling a veil of muted glow. Its beauty held the allure of things easily shattered.

And at its borders...

...lurked monsters.

Black Mass monsters.

Clusters and ranks of their shapes slithered along the barrier’s edge. Miasma trailed from them in shadowy flows. War machines bobbed behind like twisted growths of steel and bone. Goblins scurried amid the bigger beasts, guiding, gauging, intoning, and positioning gadgets.

The observatory’s atmosphere shifted instantly.

Luke’s features grew stern.

Cienna’s gaze iced over.

All the women stood taller in unison.

For the fact stared them in the face.

The small world faced invasion once more.

This round, they’d shown up soon enough to spot the blade prior to its deep plunge.

Luke clenched his jaw.

"Again," he uttered.

Cienna’s face sharpened with ancient rage.

"The first time, we could not do anything," she said. "This time, we can answer."

Marie gripped the controls tighter.

"Let’s answer hard."

The Obsidian Tower’s view panels expanded and sharpened, pulling in far-off activity via stacked lenses and rendering it as crisp visuals across the dark crystal screens.

Now they viewed the goblins in detail.

Preparations were underway.

A goblin mage loomed by a circle of hovering gadgets, each oozing thick, oily miasma toward the small world’s outer shell. The devices pulsed in sync with its incantation, as though compelling the realm to recall an injury yet to occur.

Initially, the tongue held no meaning.

Luke squinted, stretched a hand to the panel, and triggered a translation skill. The runes and harsh sounds reformed into comprehension.

He voiced the translation.

"They’re waiting for an Obsidian Tower," he murmured deliberately. "Or... no. They’re waiting for the Obsidian Tower to take root in the world."

Cienna’s stare intensified.

Luke pressed on,

"With that, entry becomes easier. If enough miasma settles, a tunnel will form that connects directly to the Tower inside. They’re trying to bypass the world’s dungeon response and prevent it from locking them in."

Their faces cooled further.

One among the five Goblin Monster Lords, bulky with spiked black plating, snarled a command from afar.

"This world is more troublesome than the records claimed," Luke relayed. "Harder to invade. The first failure made it cautious."

Next, another voice rang out, and Luke rendered it instantly.

"The goblins are saying that they were still able to invade thanks to their Primordial lord’s magnanimity."

Right then—

A Goblin Monster Lord lifted his gaze, fixing on the nearing Obsidian Tower.

A sheathed sword hung at his side, paired with a smug boredom that rendered his visage instantly grating.

He advanced to greet the incoming edifice.

No alert came from him.

That proved his fatal error.

He assumed all other Obsidian Towers served the goblins, viewing the tech as theirs alone.

Mild bewilderment crossed him. He pondered another Tower’s arrival but chalked it to higher orders.

Yet the dark form refused to halt for him.

It pressed onward in a direct path.

The goblin lord scowled.

Then—

the entryway parted.

A flash gleamed.

He perceived it too late.

Before reflex sparked a cry—

His head parted from his torso effortlessly.

It whirled once... then dropped, tumbling into the boundless gray void.

Luke sheathed his blade.

Decapitation.

The ability triggered flawlessly.

Wielding the sword Lucien once bestowed, the outcome matched the technique’s unyielding promise.

For a breathless instant, all witnesses froze motionless.

Chaos erupted next.

The monsters lagged in response.

That marked their second blunder.

Having witnessed a lord perish in a blink, denial lingered over dread in many thoughts.

Arrogance prevailed.

As the party emerged, beasts gauged by presence first.

Luke and Cienna lingered at Transcendent Realm.

The elemental women, in vacant shells, emitted no true presence.

Eirene’s flower-fairy floated overhead like mere ornamentation.

To monsters, it seemed laughable.

To monsters, it screamed simplicity.

Goblins chuckled.

A surviving Monster Lord, a mage bound in miasmic links, grinned wickedly.

"So that’s it?" it mocked.

Another hefted its arm and smirked.

"The fool died because he was careless."

Those proved its final boastful words.

For the group struck first.

They advanced not just to battle—

but to wipe away an unresolved affront from existence.

Luke vanished in a flare of ability glow.

He plunged into his optimal battlefield layout and rampaged from there.

The initial Goblin Monster Lord summoned a shield.

Luke applied Sunder Stance and sliced it apart. The next armored its hide via a guard law. Luke deployed Kingfisher Breach and pierced the defense. The third retreated for space. Luke invoked Point-Skip and materialized before it mid-step.

Such was the dread of his Law of Skills.

Limitations barely restrained him.

Skills demanding laws? He evaded them. Those needing conditions? He seized the effect regardless. Techniques tied to paths? He claimed them freely.

He battled as a living arsenal of techniques.

Nearby, Cienna’s spells bloomed.

No incantation. No gradual sigils. No enemy-visible buildup.

Her palm rose, transforming the gray heavens above the beasts into a spell grid before most noticed her start.

A goblin mage sought a miasma dome.

Cienna traced its miasma stream and twisted the frailest strand.

The casting imploded, bursting within its user.

Another pursued a domain shard.

Cienna channeled the shard’s stolen miasma into her rebuttal spell, spawning azure-white glyphs right in its heart.

The domain crumbled ere its base set.

Thus shone the ruthlessness of her Law of Magic.

No incantation stayed concealed from her.

Every caster turned see-through. Each sequence legible. All flaws exposed.

Mana short? She siphoned the foe’s.

A Goblin Monster Lord wailed as its inner magic reversed through miasma channels, fueling Cienna’s incoming cast.

She returned the miasma—

as obliteration.

A vortex of packed sorcery ripped through the Black Mass core, vaporizing a vast section that halted even the vessel women momentarily.

"Wow, Aunt is terrifying," Marina voiced from her shell in pure awe.

"She always was," Luke shot back, slaying anew.

Next, the elemental women stormed the vanguard.

The carnage ignited fully.

Via Lucien’s hollow vessels, they kept not just awareness and traits.

They preserved battle essence.

They crashed in like a resurfaced calamity.

Marie spearheaded amid laughter that rang indignant for the realm.

Her shell-form lacked aura but surged with Celestial might. Fists flickered in swift combos, fusing spells and melee into seamless havoc.

She ducked an axe, slammed a palm to a belly, and yelled, "This is for coveting things that are not yours, you ugly freak."

The blast gutted the fiend internally.

Kaia struck purer.

She thrust forward like wrath-clad lance. Strikes spared no motion. They impaled, scorched, ended. Black Mass ranks swelled against her.

She cleaved them with flame blade and whispered, "Too slow."

Sylra clashed distinct.

Grace honed to savagery guided her, mastering gaps so foes met doom instants before sensing peril.

Her elements whispered, not thundered. Breezes ensnared limbs, stole poise, dragged pace, then pinpoint blows felled the exposed.

Marina stunned everyone.

Grief hadn’t dulled her.

It had distilled her.

Shy tenderness vanished. Cold, quivering zeal took hold, chilling to behold. She murmured "For my prince," repeatedly in combat, each utterance steeling her more.

Water waves morphed to needle storms, then edges, then bone-crushing barriers that splintered innards.

Monsters strove to regroup.

They genuinely tried.

Yet aura misled them utterly.

Even Eirene’s petite flower-fairy wove into the fray delicately.

It drifted over the melee like innocuous fluff.

Suddenly, soft green rings unfurled midair.

Vines erupted. Roots impaled legs. Spores wafted, sapping vigor from breathers. Blossoms shielded key paths. Mending haze cloaked a marred shell briefly before flitting off.

The fairy appeared frail.

Its aids proved merciless.

In moments, Black Mass forward ranks dissolved into disarray.

Goblins sought to regain order.

No success.

Lords aimed to press back.

Worse failure.

A Goblin Monster Lord lunged at Luke with miasma-lightning halberd.

Luke triggered Counter-Window, claiming the clash. Halberd whiffed. Wrist rent. Torso sundered next beat.

Another ambushed Cienna from rear.

Without glance, she unleashed Glass Aurora Spiral via its blade’s gleam, freezing nerves in prismatic buzz before snapping the spine.

Droves mobbed the elemental women, betting volume on prior defeats.

Marie and Kaia intersected.

The sight resembled a cosmic blunder.

Marie flung packed earth blasts amid the mob as Kaia sparked the volatile gaps. The mass blew into churning death-wave of hues, sparing naught but charred miasma and stray remnants.

"Again!" Marie bellowed.

Kaia smirked faintly.

Even the horde grasped it now.

No contest raged.

Pure reckoning unfolded.

Five Monster Lords dwindled to four, three, less.

Hubris drained swiftly from the beasts.

Raw might they could gauge. Force they could plot against.

But this?

A compact squad assaulted with the poise of loss-embracers, rendering terror futile.

Black Mass foes weren’t merely slain.

They shattered so utterly defiance turned idiotic.

Lines crumbled sequentially.

The butchery ended swiftly.

To the perishing, it dragged eternally.

When silence returned, the small world’s rim hushed once more.

Beast ichor drifted in the planar gray. Shattered war gear bobbed like husks. Invasion tunnel tools dangled forsaken, still dribbling foulness to the barrier.

Cienna denied corpse remnants.

Palms aloft.

Flame sheets rained, devouring every carcass, blight, taint in reach. Fires purified, irked that grime neared Lucien’s origin.

Only post-ash did it emerge.

A portal.

It yawned at the barrier where goblin tools converged. Unsteady darkness first, then steadying to firm passage.

Luke examined it.

"This must be the passage they were talking about," he noted. "A direct route into the world once the inner Obsidian Tower had taken root."

Marie’s eyes lit up.

"So they basically finished the hard part for us."

Cienna eyed the portal, then the realm past the veil.

"For once, their stupidity is useful."

A smoother ingress awaited.

The invasion path goblins forged now served renewal.

Prior to entry, they folded the Obsidian Tower into the dark cube.

Task complete, Luke faced the group.

"This is it," he declared.

Each approached the gateway in turn.

Luke leading. Cienna at his side. Elemental shells trailing. Flower-fairy trailing like a tiny beacon.

Together—

they breached the veil.

And stepped into Lucien’s former home world.