100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 640 - Monster Legions

After the Echo of the Five-Continent War began taking shape, Lucien turned his attention to another force he had kept hidden.

The monster legions.

He had not deployed them during the Keeper war.

That war had not been a simple contest of numbers.

The Keepers had specialized in turning structure against itself.

A massed army that did not yet understand proper formation discipline would not have been a trump card.

It would have been a feast.

The monster legions were powerful.

But they were not yet an army.

They were closer to a swarm that had learned to speak, obey, and fight in the same direction.

That was not enough.

Lucien had needed precision during the war.

The monsters were not ready for that.

So he had kept them back.

Now, however, the next disaster was approaching.

And hidden blades still needed sharpening.

•••

Lucien entered the small world he assigned to the monster legions.

The air changed the moment he stepped through.

This world had been altered for monster cultivation.

The ground carried claw marks the size of roads.

Crater fields marked where young monsters had failed to control their strength.

Stone arenas had been rebuilt so many times that several of them looked personally offended.

At the center of the world stood the blood pools.

They were arranged in tiers.

The outer pools held diluted essence for monsters below the Ascendant Realm.

The middle pools steamed with denser blood for Ascendant beasts.

The innermost pools were for Celestial Realm monsters.

A monster that entered too strong a pool would not evolve.

It would burst.

Astraea had taken charge of dilution.

That decision had saved many lives and possibly several mountains.

The monster legions were spread throughout the small world.

Some trained in packs beneath ancient pressure.

Some endured bloodline tempering.

Some practiced formation movement under the supervision of Ancient Beasts who had no talent for mercy and very little patience for excuses.

Lucien watched a group of enormous silver horned wolf monsters attempt a coordinated turn around a mountain ridge.

Half succeeded.

The other half collided.

The ridge lost.

Astraea, standing nearby in human form, stared at them with an expression Lucien had once seen Kael use while reading budget damage reports.

"Again," she said.

Lucien approached.

Astraea turned toward him.

Even in human form, she carried the pressure of storms that had learned patience only because the world was still intact.

"Little Brother, you finally came to inspect them."

"I was busy preventing the world from becoming a funeral offering."

Lucien looked at the monster groups.

Astraea finally said.

"These monsters are strong," Astraea said. "Too strong for how young they are."

That was the core of the problem.

Lootwell’s monsters had grown too quickly compared to ordinary monsters.

Resources.

Blood pools.

Ancient Beast guidance.

All of it had produced monsters that would have made most beast territories kneel in envy.

Most had reached the Ascendant Realm.

Many had even entered the Celestial Realm.

But there, their progress slowed.

Not because their resources had failed.

Because Eternal was different.

Lucien had learned that the hard way from the Ancient Beasts themselves.

To humans and many races, practice was difficult.

To monsters and beasts, evolution was even crueler.

A monster did not simply gather power and rise.

It had to refine bloodline, instinct, body, soul, law compatibility, species limitation, inherited memory, and the brutal weight of what it was allowed to become.

Astraea had once told him that she had not become the Storm Roc known today by being lucky.

She had spent a very long time escaping the fate of an ordinary roc.

She had bathed in the Primordial Winds of the Void until her feathers broke and regrew with storms inside them.

She had survived places where wind did not move around bodies, but through them.

And even then, reaching Eternal had not been easy.

The other Ancient Beasts had said similar things.

Some with pride.

Some with bitterness.

Some with the calm tone of beings who remembered centuries where failure meant becoming food for something older.

That was why they were harsh on the monster legions.

Not because they hated them.

Because kindness without tempering would kill them later.

Lucien understood that better now.

"These monsters are like children who were handed mountains for muscles," he said.

Astraea’s mouth curved faintly.

"An accurate insult."

Lucien watched as another training unit attempted formation breathing.

Several giant serpent monsters synchronized properly.

Then one sneezed lightning.

The formation collapsed.

Condoriano was was acting as the instructor struck the ground with one claw, and the entire group froze.

Lucien rubbed his forehead.

"They can speak now."

"Yes."

"They can think."

"Better than before."

"But they are still young."

"Very."

Lucien sighed.

Many of them had intelligence now. Some could speak fluently. Some could understand tactics, loyalty, territory, restraint, and shame.

Especially shame, judging by the lightning serpent currently pretending not to exist.

But intelligence gained quickly was not the same as wisdom.

Power gained quickly was not the same as discipline.

An army required more than teeth pointed in the same direction.

It needed timing, trust, patience, obedience under pressure, and the ability to stand still when every instinct screamed to charge.

The monster legions did not have enough of that yet.

Lucien had no intention of throwing them into the next world-ending disaster as an impressive pile of corpses.

"I want most of them at Eternal before full outside deployment," he said.

Astraea gave him a long look.

"You say that like you are ordering more chairs."

Astraea turned toward the blood pools.

"Most beast races would call that dream madness."

"Lootwell has a long relationship with unreasonable goals."

"That is true."

She looked back at him.

"But even with this world, the blood pools, our guidance, and your resources, Eternal will not be simple. Many of them have reached Celestial too quickly. Their foundations need weight. Their instincts need refinement. Their bloodlines need pressure."

"Then give them pressure."

Astraea’s eyes sharpened.

"We already are."

"More."

Her smile became beautiful in the way storms were beautiful from very far away.

"That can be arranged."

Several monsters in the distance suddenly shivered without knowing why.

Lucien almost pitied them.

"The next disaster will not wait for them to mature naturally," he said. "The more Eternals we have before the seas wake properly, the more lives we can save."

Astraea nodded.

That was the argument no Ancient Beast would dismiss.

Strength alone was pride.

Strength that protected the world was purpose.

Lucien continued, "I also want them trained as an army. Real formations. Mixed units. Command resistance. Retreat discipline. Rescue discipline. Authority-pressure training. They need to learn how to fight enemies that can command instincts, suppress laws, or turn a group into a sacrifice structure."

"The Echo Crucible?"

"Yes. Once the new war echo stage is stable, I want monster units cycled through it."

Astraea considered that.

Then she looked toward the wolf group.

Astraea closed her eyes for a breath.

"That may be necessary."

Lucien decided not to comment.

•••

He had come for inspection.

But not only inspection.

Lucien walked toward the central blood pool area.

The Ancient Beast instructors noticed his movement and quieted their pressure. Monsters across the training fields turned one by one.

Some lowered their heads.

Some stared with bright, hungry reverence.

Some tried very hard to look disciplined and failed because their tails, wings, or claws betrayed them.

Lucien could feel their loyalty.

It was raw, heavy, and immature.

Dangerous if mishandled.

This was another reason he had not deployed them.

They adored him too simply.

That kind of loyalty was useful in peace and terrifying in war. If Lucien pointed, they would charge. If he vanished, some might break formation trying to find him. If an enemy imitated his command before proper protections were installed, the result could be catastrophic.

They needed anchors.

They needed training.

They needed to learn that loyalty was not the same as losing judgment.

Lucien stopped before the inner pools.

Astraea followed.

So did several Ancient Beasts who had sensed something unusual.

Lucien looked at them and said, "I want to test something."

Astraea’s gaze moved to his hand.

She understood first.

Her eyes widened.

"You intend to use your blood."

The moment she said it, the nearby Ancient Beasts went still.

The monsters did not fully understand.

The Ancient Beasts did.

To an Eternal, blood was not merely blood.

Especially not to beings whose bodies had become vessels of law, history, instinct, and authority.

The blood of an Ancient Beast carried more than vitality.

It carried experience, bloodline memory, law pressure, and survival instinct.

The shape of evolution itself.

That was why the blood pools worked.

Diluted Ancient Beast essence gave younger monsters something to challenge, absorb, resist, and learn from.

Too little did nothing.

Too much destroyed them.

Lucien had changed after eating the Fruits of Creation and reaching Eternal.

And then there was his constitution.

The Omnigenesis Vessel.

His body was no longer ordinary in any sense of the word.

Not his bones.

Not his blood vessels.

Not his flesh.

Not his marrow.

Everything had been refined into something that felt less like one species and more like a foundation capable of accepting many beginnings.

Even Lucien did not fully understand it yet.

But he had noticed the change.

His blood was gold now.

It was thick, luminous, and heavy with a pressure that made life, creation, law, and possibility resonate at once.

He had not tested it on monsters yet.

Now, standing before the blood pools, he wondered whether his blood could do what Ancient Beast blood did.

Or something stranger.

"If it works," Lucien said, "it may help their evolution."

Astraea stared at him with bright, almost predatory attention.

"That is an understatement."

Lucien looked at Astraea.

"Sister, please handle dilution."

"Obviously."

"I mean carefully."

Astraea gave him a look.

"I have prevented your monster army from exploding for months."

"Fair."

"Do not give me fair. Give me blood."

Lucien blinked..

Lucien sighed.

"You are enjoying this too much."

"Of course. This is my first time witnessing a new source of evolution essence from an Eternal with the Law of Creation. Joy would be too small a word."

That was probably the most polite way she could have said she wanted to throw his blood into a pool and watch what happened.

Lucien extended his hand.

The world seemed to notice.

The blood pools stilled.

The wind quieted.

Even the monsters stopped shifting.

Lucien drew a thin line across his palm.

A single drop of blood emerged.

It was gold. Brighter than sunlight, but not sharp.

It did not fall immediately.

It hung above his palm like a small star that had decided gravity was a suggestion.

The small world resonated.