100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 750 - Confusion

The confusion Lucien had expected arrived faster than he hoped.

News of the attacks in the void spread across the five continents within hours.

At first, the reaction was almost dismissive.

The Thousand Races had fought Black Mass monsters before.

They had seen them pushed back.

They had watched armies gather, ancient experts move, and forces that once would have terrified entire continents become part of a larger defense.

So when the first reports appeared, many assumed the situation would resolve itself the same way.

A few conquered worlds were under pressure.

Several barriers had been damaged.

Reinforcements had already been dispatched.

It sounded serious, but manageable.

Then the hours passed.

The attacks did not stop.

More conquered worlds reported movement near their boundaries.

More factions sent elders into the void.

Then casualty reports began appearing.

The confidence of the Thousand Races began to crack.

•••

Public channels filled almost immediately.

The question was simple.

Should they help?

The answers were not.

Some argued that the Black Mass was the enemy of everyone. If conquered worlds belonging to other factions were being attacked, then refusing to help was simply inviting the same thing to happen elsewhere.

Others disagreed.

What if that was precisely the point?

What if the enemy wanted the strongest forces of the five continents scattered through the void?

What if the attacks were bait?

A faction that sent too many people outward might return to find its own territory exposed.

Another problem surfaced soon after.

The conquered worlds did not belong to everyone.

They belonged to individual factions.

They had been developed over centuries.

Their routes, defenses, resources, and populations were protected secrets.

Helping was not as simple as gathering an army and entering.

Many factions would not appreciate strangers appearing near their boundaries without permission, especially when some of those strangers had been rivals for generations.

The discussions grew louder.

Old suspicions surfaced.

Someone accused another faction of exaggerating losses to attract free reinforcements.

Another claimed certain powers were using the crisis to study the defenses of their competitors.

Several old grievances resurfaced for reasons that had very little to do with the Black Mass.

For a short while, the five continents looked disturbingly familiar.

The cooperation built during the competition and the months that followed had not disappeared.

But under pressure, the old cracks were still there.

They had merely been covered.

Now everyone could see them again.

•••

Lootwell had anticipated that possibility.

Before the arguments could grow into anything worse, a notice appeared through Lootwell’s official public channels.

It spread through communication devices almost simultaneously.

The message was brief.

There was no dramatic warning, no call for mass mobilization, and no attempt to frighten anyone.

It simply said:

[Regarding the ongoing Black Mass activity near conquered worlds in the void: Lootwell has already deployed forces to assist the affected factions with their permission. Reinforcement and containment operations are currently underway.]

[The five continents do not need to redirect additional forces at this time. Maintain your local responsibilities. Do not abandon established positions based on unverified reports.]

[Lootwell, together with the Lunarians, Celestials, and cooperating factions, is preparing countermeasures intended to reduce the need for continuous Eternal deployment around conquered worlds.]

[Until those measures are completed, affected factions will continue receiving support where necessary.]

[There is no need for panic. The void has become another front, but it will not be allowed to divide the five continents.]

The announcement ended there.

There was no promise of an easy victory and no declaration that the threat was insignificant.

It acknowledged the problem.

Then it told the world that someone was already handling it.

•••

The public channels became strangely quiet.

Not completely.

Questions still appeared.

So did doubts.

But the tone changed almost immediately.

The endless argument over whether people should rush into the void lost its urgency.

Someone had already gone.

The ancient beasts were already fighting.

Lootwell had already begun coordinating with the affected factions.

More importantly, Lootwell had told everyone what they were supposed to do.

Stay where they were.

Keep preparing.

Do not allow the enemy to pull the five continents apart.

For many people, that was enough.

•••

It was strange how quickly fear could change when uncertainty disappeared.

The danger had not lessened.

The casualty reports had not vanished.

Black Mass monsters were still striking world barriers somewhere beyond the five continents.

Yet people returned to training grounds.

Formation teams continued reinforcing cities.

Transport groups stopped preparing unscheduled deployments into the void.

Factions that had been arguing over whether to send assistance began checking their own defensive responsibilities instead.

The problem had not been solved.

But it had been given shape.

And Lootwell had placed itself at the center of that shape.

•••

Not everyone trusted the announcement completely.

Some senior figures remained cautious.

That was natural.

A public statement could not erase centuries of political instinct.

But whenever doubt began spreading too widely, others answered it.

They remembered the Keeper War.

They remembered forces everyone had believed impossible to stop.

They remembered Lootwell’s strange artifacts, emergency networks, ancient allies, and preparations that had looked excessive until the moment they were needed.

They remembered how often something absurd had become manageable shortly after Lucien involved himself.

Eventually, an uncomfortable idea had rooted itself deeply enough across the five continents that people no longer needed to say it aloud.

If Lootwell had moved, then the situation was not hopeless.

If Lootwell said time was needed, then perhaps time was all they had to give.

That trust had not appeared overnight.

It had been accumulated through wars, rescues, trade, training, impossible devices, and too many situations where Lootwell had delivered after making promises that sounded unreasonable.

Now that reputation began paying for itself.

•••

Then something else began happening.

Grace prompts appeared.

A swordsman preparing to argue in a public channel received a task directing him toward controlled sparring with someone whose fighting style countered his own.

A formation apprentice was encouraged to review old notes on spatial instability.

A healer received a task to practice treating authority contamination under time pressure.

A group of young fighters were given a cooperative exercise requiring them to complete a training course while rotating leadership.

Others received simpler guidance.

Train endurance.

Refine control.

Study their Laws.

Practice retreating without breaking formation.

Help someone weaker improve a technique.

The rewards were equally appropriate. Not extravagant, but useful.

Enough to make people interested.

Enough to make them move.

The arguments did not disappear because everyone suddenly agreed.

They disappeared because people became busy doing something that felt more productive than arguing.

•••

Across the five continents, the atmosphere shifted again.

Training halls filled.

Private practice yards opened.

Friendly challenges replaced hostile debates.

People who had spent the previous hour arguing about whether the void was a trap were now testing movement techniques against each other.

Those who did not fight gathered in workshops, medical halls, supply centers, and formation rooms.

It was almost ridiculous.

A crisis had threatened to fracture the Thousand Races.

Instead, within a few hours, half the people who had been shouting at each other were competing over who could complete their newest training objective more efficiently.

The old rivalries had not vanished.

They had simply been redirected.

For now, that was enough.

•••

Lucien watched the change from Lootwell.

Only after the public channels stabilized did he finally release a slow breath.

The announcement had worked.

The Grace System had helped more than he expected.

Together, they had prevented the uncertainty from spreading into something far worse.

But the relief did not last.

Lucien understood what had really happened.

Lootwell’s reputation had become part of the world’s defense.

That was useful.

It was also dangerous.

For years, Lootwell had climbed.

At first, people had doubted it. Then they had watched. Then they had trusted it.

Now some had reached the point where the simple knowledge that Lootwell was involved could calm them.

That kind of trust was powerful.

It could prevent panic.

It could keep factions from making irrational decisions.

It could buy time without moving a single soldier.

But there was a cost.

Once people believed you would solve the impossible, failing became more dangerous.

A minor power could lose.

People expected minor powers to lose sometimes.

A dominant power was different.

Every victory raised expectations.

Every impossible success made the next success feel less impossible.

Eventually, competence became an obligation.

The moment Lootwell visibly failed at something everyone believed it should handle, confidence would not simply fall by the amount of that failure.

People would begin revisiting everything else.

Perhaps Lootwell was not as strong as they thought.

Perhaps its enemies had finally surpassed it.

Perhaps relying on it had been a mistake.

Perhaps another faction should take control.

And once those questions began spreading, someone would inevitably find a way to use them.

Lucien understood that very well.

The position at the top was comfortable only from below.

From where he stood, it mostly looked like a place where everyone could see you fall.

•••

He did not regret the announcement.

They had needed it.

The five continents could not afford to tear themselves apart over every new attack in the void.

But now Lootwell had publicly said that countermeasures were coming.

That meant they had to come.

Not eventually.

But soon.

Lucien’s attention shifted toward the teams working with him.

Lunarian specialists were already breaking down the damaged barrier reports into structural patterns.

Celestial experts were studying how Black Mass miasma interacted with different defensive formations.

Lootwell engineers compared spatial anchors, energy costs, failure sequences, and reinforcement delays.

Formation masters argued over which existing systems could be adapted instead of rebuilt.

Eirene moved between groups, cutting away ideas that created more instability than they solved.

Virel and Aniel focused on support and purification layers that could remain active for long periods without exhausting the worlds they protected.

Lucien stood at the center of it.

The team assembled around him was absurd.

People who would have been treated as treasures by entire civilizations were sitting together trying to solve one engineering problem.

And they still needed time.

•••

Lucien activated the Concord Link.

The responses from the ancient beasts came almost immediately.

Battles were still ongoing in several regions.

Astraea’s side had stabilized.

Another boundary remained under heavy pressure.

Vaelcar had driven one wave away only for a second group to approach from farther in the void.

Two factions had repaired damaged sections, but their formations were consuming energy faster than expected.

The Black Mass monsters were not stopping.

Lucien sent a simple instruction through the connection.

Hold the boundaries.

Do not chase.

Buy us time.

That was all he needed from them.

The ancient beasts understood.