100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 648 - Injury

The next few days passed with motion instead of rest.

People crossed the five continents through the Intercontinental Teleportation Array.

At first, they came with awe.

Then curiosity.

Then purpose.

Food, techniques, customs, clothing, jokes, insults, and grief began crossing the world.

Lucien watched the reports and felt the result he had hoped for begin to take shape.

The array had not only moved people.

It had started moving understanding.

The work of the World Fortification Plan continued beside it.

Lilith reported that the first evacuation shelters had been completed.

The five continents were too vast for one wave of construction to satisfy anything except impatience.

But the first shelters stood.

That mattered.

...

Anvil-Horn’s reports were much the same.

The first Tidewatch towers had risen along priority coasts.

Their foundations were ugly, deep, stubborn things driven into stone and sea-facing cliffs. They did not look elegant.

They looked like they intended to argue with the ocean.

Lucien approved.

...

The Soul Harbor Lamp production line was also moving well.

Tens of thousands were being produced every day.

That sounded absurd until one looked at the map.

Five continents.

Countless cities.

Coastal districts.

Tens of thousands a day was impressive.

It was also not enough.

Elk did not complain.

She simply expanded the production schedule in a way that made several material managers age spiritually.

Lootwell continued moving.

Everything advanced.

And then Seran returned.

Injured.

•••

Lucien felt the disturbance before the report arrived.

Seran suddenly appeared via the Void Disc route with half his coat burned away, blood on one shoulder, and several wounds that were already trying to close through sheer stubbornness.

His smile was still present.

That made Lucien more concerned, not less.

Seran looked down at himself, then back at Lucien.

"Well," he said, "I found the world."

Lucien’s gaze moved across the wounds.

"And the explosion found you?"

Seran sighed.

"Several times. Very enthusiastically."

Lucien walked toward him immediately.

Living Creation unfolded from his hand and entered Seran’s injuries.

The gold light did not force the wounds shut.

It encouraged the body to remember that healing was its own nature.

Cells stirred. Burned flesh softened. Blood vessels sealed. Broken tissue reconnected beneath the light as if Seran’s body had been reminded that it was too proud to remain damaged.

Seran released a slow breath.

"That feels better."

"You can still joke in this condition."

"I am alive. It would be wasteful not to."

Lucien stared at him.

Seran’s smile faded by a fraction.

Then he became serious.

"I found another world with a bark of the Tree of Creation."

Lucien’s eyes sharpened.

That was good news.

Too good to arrive covered in blood.

Seran continued, "But the enemy left something behind. I triggered it."

Lucien looked at him for a long moment.

"It is not like you to be careless."

Seran froze.

Then he laughed once, quieter than usual.

"No. It is not."

The mood changed.

Lucien did not speak.

Seran sighed.

"Do you remember the empty world we found before? The one that had already been evacuated?"

Lucien’s expression shifted.

"Yes."

"I thought this one was the same."

"That was the mistake?"

"No."

Seran’s voice lowered.

"The mistake was that I thought it before I had enough reason to think it."

Lucien became still.

Seran’s eyes turned cold.

"I had the urge to enter. Certainty. A feeling that I already knew there was nothing dangerous inside."

The room grew heavier.

Seran continued, "By the time I realized that certainty did not belong to me, the trap had already awakened."

Lucien’s face darkened.

A Law influence.

Something had guided the meeting between Seran and that world.

Only one enemy fit that shape too well.

"Convergence," Lucien said.

Seran nodded.

Both men fell silent.

The name sat between them like a blade.

Lucien had hoped Convergence was still recovering.

But hope, once again, had behaved irresponsibly.

Seran continued, "The world was not empty. Not exactly. It was emptied, prepared, and left behind like a stage. There were no monsters waiting. Only traps, execution circles, and something woven into the entry logic."

Lucien’s Living Creation continued healing him, but his eyes had gone cold.

"An execution circle."

"Yes. It activated the moment I reached the site. I moved quickly, but not quickly enough to leave untouched."

Seran lifted his injured arm slightly.

"The wounds are annoying. The implication is worse."

Lucien understood.

Convergence had recovered enough to interfere.

Or at least enough to leave influence behind.

That meant the enemy already knew they were looking for branches of the Tree of Creation.

That meant the empty world before might not have been a simple evacuation.

It might have been a test.

A way to teach them the wrong expectation.

Lucien’s expression became ugly.

Seran watched him and smiled again, though there was less ease in it this time.

"Do not make that face. I still succeeded."

Lucien looked at him.

Seran’s smile widened.

"I found the bark."

For a moment, the air shifted.

The danger remained.

But so did the prize.

Lucien almost laughed despite himself.

The wound on Seran’s shoulder finally closed beneath Living Creation.

Seran rolled his shoulder.

"Better."

Then, as if remembering something far more frightening than Convergence, he said, "One more thing."

Lucien raised an eyebrow.

"Do not tell my wife."

Lucien froze.

Seran’s expression became extremely sincere.

"If she hears that I returned injured, I will survive Convergence only to die at home."

Lucien stared at him.

Then laughed.

Seran, the Liberator leader who had walked through wars, hidden worlds, monstrous enemies, and ancient traps, was clearly more afraid of his wife’s scolding than of several execution circles.

Lucien understood completely.

Some dangers did not need realms to be terrifying.

"I will not report it unnecessarily," Lucien said.

Seran relaxed.

Then Lucien added, "But if she asks directly, I am not lying for you."

Seran looked wounded in a way Living Creation could not heal.

"Betrayal."

"Accountability."

"Cruel word."

"Accurate word."

Seran sighed as if he had suffered the greatest injury of the day.

Lucien ignored him.

"Can you still travel?"

Seran’s eyes sharpened again.

"Yes."

"Then we go now."

The bark mattered.

The trap mattered more.

Convergence traces did not wait politely.

They teleported using the Void Disc.

•••

The world appeared quiet from the outside.

Lucien and Seran landed on blackened earth.

The air smelled of ash, cut roots, and spent law.

There had been life here once.

The world had been emptied carefully, like a room prepared before guests arrived.

Lucien’s gaze moved across the terrain.

Charred formation grooves cut through the ground in circles.

All of them had been burned after activation.

The trap had consumed its own footprints.

Seran stood beside him, his expression calm but colder than before.

"The bark is ahead."

Lucien nodded.

They moved.

No monsters attacked.

No hidden army appeared.

No voice greeted them.

That made the place worse.

Enemies that left silence behind wanted the silence to do the work.

At the center of the world was a deep trench.

Lucien could already feel the pulse of Creation even from afar.

The bark of the Tree of Creation.

Lucien approached carefully.

Seran did not follow.

Soon, Lucien saw the bark, deep in the trench. Old creation rhythm ran beneath it.

As he moved deeper, his thoughts stirred.

Convergence.

He found almost nothing.

That made his eyes colder.

The certainty that had lured Seran was gone.

The enemy had not only prepared the trap.

It had prepared the aftermath.

Next time, it might not be a trap waiting behind emptiness.

It might be a world designed to welcome him.

Or a bark made into bait.

Or a route that led exactly where Convergence wanted him to stand.

Lucien’s expression settled.

"The next worlds will not be simple."

Still, the bark was useful.

With this addition, there would be more Fruits of Creation.

Lucien stored it inside his Divine Energy Core first.

Absorbing it here might be dangerous.

Only after securing it did he return to the surface.

When he came back, Seran smiled at him.

"Well?"

Lucien looked at the ruined forest.

"Got it."

Seran smiled.

"Then I expect fruit."

"I already reserved one for you."

"Good. I was prepared to look tragic if you forgot."

Lucien just shook his head.