100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 544 - True Name

Half a year brought about significant changes.

Seraphine’s recurring visits were among them.

Initially, the inhabitants of Lootwell observed her arrivals via the instant teleportation array with measured curiosity. After all, she was the woman Lucien had publicly declared as his own.

This status alone rendered her a figure of considerable interest.

Naturally, Lootwell embraced her swiftly.

During her initial few visits, he anticipated her seeking him out.

She did not.

She would arrive, inspect the array, exchange pleasantries with the attendants, and proceed directly to Eirene.

The following time, her destination was Vivian.

Subsequently, she sought out the elemental women.

Then, at some juncture, Lucien realized he had inexplicably fallen to being the fourth or fifth person on the list of individuals his own woman visited when she entered his domain.

This presented a profound injustice.

He voiced his displeasure.

Seraphine regarded him with serene amusement as she organized a pile of medical notes next to Eirene.

"You are envious."

Lucien placed a hand over his heart.

"I feel overlooked."

Eirene remained engrossed in the report she held.

"You were with her yesterday."

"That was yesterday."

Seraphine chuckled.

"Poor thing."

Lucien narrowed his gaze at her.

This only caused her smile to broaden.

Later, when they were secluded, he continued his display of hurt with a sincerity ample enough to eventually elicit a laugh from Seraphine, who then drew him near, allowing him to rest against her.

Lucien immediately concluded that this strategy had proven effective.

Ultimately, balance was restored.

Seraphine acquired companions.

Lucien received affectionate embraces.

No one incurred a loss.

This, he believed, constituted diplomacy.

•••

Another quiet triumph emerged from the Celestial Dominion.

Lucien eventually introduced the Lunarians to Virel and Aniel.

The initial exchange was courteous.

Within thirty minutes, several Lunarians and Celestial barrier masters were gathered around a holographic projection of the Dominion’s immense barrier.

The conundrum was straightforward in its description yet intricate in its resolution.

The grand barrier of the Celestial Dominion possessed formidable power but presented significant inconveniences.

Once fully activated, its deactivation could not be casually executed.

This had served to protect the Dominion.

However, it had also transformed the entire territory into an inaccessible sanctuary that could only be opened with considerable effort.

The Lunarians intended to assist in rectifying this situation.

The work commenced shortly thereafter.

The Lunarians did not aim to replace the grand barrier. Instead, they focused on refining its command protocols, easing the emergency lockdown without compromising its fundamental authority, and initiating the establishment of tiered access conditions that would permit controlled entry without jeopardizing the Dominion’s security.

This transformation would not occur instantaneously.

However, it was inevitable.

For the first time in an age, the Celestial Dominion was preparing to reopen itself to the wider world.

•••

Throughout those same months, Lucien’s personal growth continued unabated.

By the culmination of the six-month period, he had advanced to the Eighth Stage of the Celestial Realm.

And subsequently, a shift occurred.

Lucien perceived it initially while standing within the hallowed chambers of the Origin Core Shrine.

The coalesced fragments throbbed before him, akin to a sentient heart governed by cosmic law.

Lucien stood before it as the peculiar sensation enveloped him.

An unusual clarity began to permeate his awareness.

True names.

The feeling, subtle at first, gradually intensified.

A true name was far more than a simple designation. It represented a concentrated essence of existence, a declaration universally acknowledged by the cosmos as intrinsically tied to a being's perpetual journey.

And now, inexplicably, Lucien felt an ability: should he grasp a true name with sufficient clarity, he could perceive through it.

Sufficiently to glimpse the very elements that constituted the name’s truth.

His respiration decelerated.

For immediately, one name surfaced within his consciousness.

Alanthuriel.

The Arch-Lord of Abyssal Nullity.

Lucien recalled a statement Alanthuriel had once made.

That should Lucien ever acquire the capacity to gaze through his true name, he would attain comprehension of certain matters.

At that time, those pronouncements had seemed distant and abstract.

Now, they lay directly before him, like an unyielding portal forged from darkness.

Lucien swallowed once.

"This is likely ill-advised," he uttered softly.

The Origin Core pulsed with latent power.

The nascent Tree of Creation residing within him stirred with a faint tremor.

His own Law of Nihility responded with a subtle vibration, through its ancient link to Alanthuriel.

Lucien closed his eyes, focusing his intent.

The ability to peer into the true name of an Abyssal Entity should have been an insurmountable feat for someone at his current stage of cultivation.

However, Lucien had long since ceased to be constrained by the confines of the word 'should'.

He remained seated before the Origin Core Shrine, allowing his senses to delve into profounder depths.

Through the unified fragments, he sensed a vaster connection to the world – not merely its physical expanse or spatial dimensions, but the underlying lawful continuum that underpinned all existence. Utilizing that continuity, he extended his reach toward the name.

Then, with quiet resolve, he voiced the call.

"Alanthuriel."

The shrine was immediately enshrouded in darkness.

Lucien’s vision abruptly ceased.

•••

Immense pressure assailed Lucien’s mind.

He flinched as fractured glimpses of vision violently erupted before him. These were not gentle recollections, nor were they meticulously arranged scenes designed for mortal understanding. They were shards of undeniable truth, perceived through the fractured lens of a name far too immense for him to properly contain.

Initially, a void of blackness prevailed.

Then, a sense of depth emerged.

Subsequently, a place that defied spatial definition manifested.

The Abyss.

It was far from an empty void.

Such an existence would have been a mercy.

This was a realm where rejected concepts resided, where old endings festered, where unborn hungers stirred, and where laws operated independently of any need for consent from light, matter, time, or sanity.

Within this realm, abstract notions moved with animate life. Silence possessed physical weight. Distance exhibited fluctuating temperaments. Direction occasionally acted as a matter of mere opinion.

And amidst that impossibly expansive space stood entities that Lucien could not adequately characterize.

The Arch-Lords of the Abyss.

They were not congregated like royalty in a council chamber. Their alignment resembled that of calamities acknowledging each other's presence.

There was Oblivion, or rather, the palpable pressure it exerted—an absence so profound that even memory itself seemed to bow its head in deference.

There was Finality, a state of stillness and absoluteness, like the concluding chapter of every narrative ever conceived.

Then there was Nihility.

Alanthuriel.

The Arch-Lord of Abyssal Nullity maintained a distance from the others, enveloped in a darkness that did not consume because consumption was unnecessary. It denied existence. It rendered superfluity meaningless. It shamed artificial continuities into obscurity.

Lucien found it exceptionally difficult to maintain his gaze upon him.

Yet, he was compelled to do so.

The vision underwent a transformation.

Voices resonated without emitting any sound.

Meaning was directly imparted to Lucien.

The Arch-Lords were engaged in a dispute.

No.

They were engaging in judgment.

Before them, countless streams of light flowed.

These were timelines.

Lucien grasped this only after his mind nearly recoiled from the sheer magnitude of the revelation.

Each stream represented a potential universal continuity. Some shimmered brightly. Others appeared pallid. Certain streams navigated bizarre, alternate cycles of birth and demise. Some exhibited robust existence for a duration before succumbing to decay near their conclusion. Others teemed with life, only to fracture under insurmountable pressures. A few were so breathtakingly beautiful that their eventual destruction caused Lucien's very soul to ache, even within the context of a vision.

The Arch-Lords observed these timelines not with admiration.

They were assessing them.

Searching.

Testing.

Pruning.

A concept struck Lucien's consciousness with the force of a sharp blade.

The perfect timeline.

The Arch-Lords harbored a desire to forge a continuity that would remain unyielding.

A universe capable of withstanding any pressure they perceived originating from beyond the ordinary bounds of existence. They sought something sufficiently stable to support a future that lesser timelines could not endure.

However, their operational methodology was profoundly ruthless.

When a timeline was deemed substandard, they annihilated it.

Perhaps not out of sheer malice.

This consideration almost rendered their actions more repellent.

They destroyed with a precise objective in mind.

They eliminated certain pathways, deeming they would "foster weakness." They caused histories to collapse, believing those histories would "precipitate fatal divergence." They condemned entire continuities because the predicted outcomes failed to align with their inscrutable standards.

Lucien's hands began to tremble, even as his physical form remained seated within the shrine.

Within the confines of the vision, he fixated on the disintegrating streams of light.

Then, he perceived what remained.

Gray. An interplanar gray.

Lucien's breath hitched.

The gray planes.

The spaces where smaller worlds had been situated.

He finally comprehended their true nature.

The obliterated timelines had not simply vanished without a trace.

They had been severed from their natural progression towards the future, stripped of their potential outcomes, their core causal momentum incinerated, and collapsed into inert remnants.

Subsequently, when Alanthuriel secured the primary timeline, these remnants were prevented from drifting into complete non-existence or evolving into new, divergent realities.

Instead, they were drawn to the periphery of the Prime Continuum, compressed around the main timeline much like scar tissue forms around a healed injury.

This was the authentic composition of the interplanar gray spaces.

The burial grounds of extinguished possibilities.

This realization sent a chill down Lucien's spine.

The Primordial Slime had utilized the remains of these very planes.

It had transformed the remnants of timelines into havens.

The notion was simultaneously appalling and possessed of a strange, melancholic beauty.

Only an entity driven by profound desperation, yet fundamentally benevolent, would fashion nurseries from grave sites.

The vision shifted once more.

Now, Lucien observed Alanthuriel initiating an action.

The other Arch-Lords had already determined their strategy.

They intended to continue their process of pruning, destruction, and refinement, compelling all possibilities towards a single, acceptable outcome.

However, Alanthuriel harbored a fundamental disagreement.

Not due to any affectionate sentiment towards the universe.

Lucien doubted that Abyssal Entities experienced emotions akin to mortals.

Alanthuriel's opposition stemmed from a colder, more logical standpoint.

He did not believe that achieving perfection through perpetual annihilation constituted genuine survival.

He posited that it was merely failure masquerading as discipline.

A timeline enduring solely because every alternative had been eradicated was not, in his view, the strongest timeline.

It was merely the final remaining remnant, still standing through default.

Consequently, Alanthuriel absconded with something invaluable.

A key.

Lucien could not discern its complete form with clarity. His mind instinctively resisted such a visualization. The vision itself seemed to contort, as if even memory hesitated to reveal too much.

Yet, he understood its purpose.

The Key of the Prime Continuum.

It was a key conferring authority over the universal timeline.

An artifact that governed the processes of branching, divergence, restoration, and the inherent right of timelines to be either rewritten or supplanted.

Alanthuriel accepted it. The Abyss trembled. The Arch-Lords turned their gazes upon him. Oblivion struck first, not with a physical blow, but with utter annihilation. Finality slammed shut all escape routes. Other abyssal powers, which Lucien couldn't even identify, moved like catastrophic forces through unfathomable dimensions. Yet, Alanthuriel didn't immediately retreat. He employed the key. Consequently, the primary timeline became fixed. The vision grew unbearable. Lucien observed the entirety of the Prime Continuum constricting around itself. Possibilities didn't vanish entirely, but their breadth drastically reduced. What was once a river of constantly branching realities became a single, protected stream. New timelines could no longer diverge freely from every significant decision, and alternate continuities couldn't be harvested as readily. The Arch-Lords lost their former liberty to obliterate one version and then shift to another. The Prime Continuum turned linear. Secure. But this came at a profound cost. Fate could still shift, lives could still undergo transformations, and decisions retained their importance. Individuals were not mere automatons. However, substantial deviations would no longer spawn inconsequential branches that dispersed consequences elsewhere. If the course of events was altered from what was intended, the locked timeline itself had to absorb the immense pressure. This pressure manifested as causality. It was then that Lucien understood. Every instance where he'd interfered too profoundly with destiny, causality had acted to rectify the imbalance. It wasn't born from the universe's animosity towards him. It was a direct consequence of the main timeline being sealed. Without any alternative paths for contradictions to escape into, the correction had to occur precisely where it happened. Within the sole trajectory permitted to continue. … Lucien shivered. His existence had always felt as though destiny exacted a toll. Now, he finally comprehended the reason. Alanthuriel had safeguarded the main timeline by transforming it into a sharpened, sealed blade. … The vision shifted once more. Lucien witnessed Oblivion relentlessly pursuing Alanthuriel across eras of concealed warfare. Oblivion's singular desire was to reclaim the key. Should Oblivion succeed, the Arch-Lords could once again unseal the Prime Continuum. The pruning could recommence. Or, far worse, with so many extinguished timelines already relegated to the fringes as mere gray expanses, the subsequent pruning might not simply eliminate feeble possibilities. It could potentially destabilize the main timeline itself, casting it as a candidate for judgment. Lucien remained unaware of the Arch-Lords' ultimate fear. That crucial motive was concealed, even beyond the scope of this vision. It was something so potent that it compelled even abyssal entities to believe a flawless timeline was essential for their survival. This very ignorance terrified him more than a potential answer might have. Because if the Abyss was bracing for an unknown catastrophe, then the entire universe was unknowingly standing beneath a looming shadow, one whose name it hadn't even begun to comprehend.