100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 752 - Deployment

The first Voidwatch network came online around the selected world while fighting continued outside its boundary.

The difference was immediate.

A concentration of Black Mass monsters shifted toward one damaged section.

Previously, the formation masters would have recognized the danger only after pressure on that region increased.

Voidwatch saw it first.

The nearest detection nodes reacted.

Energy began moving before the first Monster Emperor reached the barrier.

Additional power flowed into the threatened section.

Two external interceptors activated farther out in the void.

The Monster Emperor struck.

Space buckled.

The interceptor broke first.

That was intentional.

Its destruction scattered part of the force outward and ruined the attack’s clean alignment.

The remainder hit the barrier.

Golden light rippled across the world’s surface.

But the section held.

The faction’s formation masters stared at their readings.

They had expected damage.

Instead, the barrier’s load had been distributed across six nearby anchors.

Before the Monster Emperor could strike again, Celestial stabilization structures reinforced the weakened region.

Miasma that had begun clinging to the outer layer was burned away by purification arrays.

A warning reached every authorized defender connected to the local network.

Reinforcements were already moving.

No one had needed to shout.

No messenger had needed to cross the battlefield.

No elder had needed to guess where the next strike would land.

•••

The Monster Emperor attacked again.

Another interceptor activated.

This one survived.

A third attack came from a different direction.

Voidwatch shifted power toward it.

Then something unexpected happened.

The monsters changed targets.

Lucien watched through the reports.

They abandoned the section they had been striking and moved toward another part of the boundary.

The system followed them.

Detection nodes tracked the movement.

Power redistributed.

Defenders moved before the monsters arrived.

Lucien leaned forward.

"They’re testing it."

Eirene’s expression became more serious.

"So are we."

That was true.

•••

The battle continued.

The Black Mass monsters struck several sections.

None broke.

Not because the barrier had suddenly become invincible.

It had not.

The damage was still accumulating.

Interceptors were being destroyed. Energy reserves were dropping. Several nodes required replacement.

But everything was happening more slowly and more predictably.

The faction’s Eternals were no longer running from one crisis to another.

They were choosing where to fight.

That difference was enormous.

When Astraea arrived to reinforce the outer line, she no longer had to hover beside the barrier protecting one damaged point.

She could attack.

The same was true for the other defenders.

The barrier had stopped being something that constantly needed rescuing.

It had become something that could hold long enough to let its defenders do their jobs.

•••

Farther in the void, another Monster Emperor appeared, then another.

Astraea sensed them before most of the faction’s soldiers did.

Her attention sharpened.

Monster Emperors were not weak. They stood at a level comparable to Eternals.

Ordinarily, beings of that strength would be preserved carefully.

Yet the Black Mass monsters were sending them toward world boundaries repeatedly.

Some had already died ’permanently’.

Others continued attacking even when retreat would have been the more sensible choice.

Astraea crushed one beneath a storm of Tempest authority and watched another approach almost immediately afterward.

Through the Concord Link, Lucien felt her suspicion.

He shared it.

These monsters were powerful, too powerful to be treated cheaply.

Yet someone was treating them as expendable.

Why?

The simplest answer was numbers.

Perhaps the enemy had so many Monster Emperors that losing a few did not matter.

Lucien disliked that possibility.

Another explanation was worse.

Perhaps the Monster Emperors themselves were part of the test.

Weapons sent forward to measure defenses.

Lives spent to gather information.

If that was true, then whoever was directing the pressure did not care about preserving even Eternal equivalent forces.

That said something unpleasant about the scale behind them.

Lucien did not voice the conclusion.

Not yet.

They had enough problems.

•••

After several hours, the field test ended with the world’s barrier still intact.

The Black Mass monsters withdrew farther into the void.

The defenders did not pursue.

Lucien had already ordered that.

Instead, they repaired, counted losses, replaced interceptors, measured energy consumption, and studied every impact.

Voidwatch had worked.

Not perfectly, but well enough.

The faction that had previously required several powerhouses constantly stationed along its most damaged boundary could now reduce that number substantially without leaving the world vulnerable.

That was exactly what Lucien had wanted.

•••

The next phase began immediately.

Mass production.

Lilith expanded the manufacturing lines.

Morphy and the construction divisions refined installation procedures until entire node clusters could be assembled far faster than during the prototype.

The Lunarians simplified several components without sacrificing the critical functions.

The Celestials developed standardized purification cores that could be tuned after installation.

Lootwell produced adaptable interface modules capable of connecting Voidwatch to different barrier architectures.

Lucien refused to keep the design exclusive.

Affected factions were given installation specifications and training.

They could produce compatible parts themselves where possible.

Lootwell would supply what they could not.

The point was not to make everyone dependent on Lootwell technicians forever.

The point was to make the void harder to attack.

•••

Deployment teams spread outward.

Not randomly.

The most threatened conquered worlds came first.

Then worlds positioned along important void routes.

Then major resource worlds whose loss would affect several factions.

Emergency Teleportation Discs moved installation teams and prefabricated modules across impossible distances.

Lootwell construction crews worked beside faction engineers who only days earlier would never have allowed outsiders near their most important defensive formations.

The crisis made certain forms of secrecy less important.

Within days, new lights began appearing around conquered worlds.

A second network surrounding the first.

Voidwatch.

•••

The effect spread faster than the Black Mass attacks.

Not because Lootwell could install the full system everywhere immediately.

It could not.

But every successful installation reduced the number of Eternals required to defend that world.

Those Eternals could reinforce the next threatened region.

That bought time for another installation.

Then another.

The problem that had been scattering the Thousand Races began reversing.

Forces started returning toward the five continents.

The worlds in the void did not become safe.

They became manageable.

That distinction was enough.

•••

Lootwell released the results publicly only after the first several deployments succeeded.

There was no reason to promise what they had not yet proven.

This time, the broadcast included recorded footage.

Across communication devices throughout the five continents, people saw a conquered world hanging in the void behind its luminous barrier.

They saw Black Mass monsters approach.

They saw a Monster Emperor strike.

An outer interceptor shattered.

The barrier behind it held.

The recording shifted.

Another section came under attack.

Power moved through the formation before the creatures arrived.

Defenders repositioned.

Purification light erased gathering miasma.

The world remained untouched.

Then Lootwell’s statement appeared.

[The first Voidwatch defensive networks have completed live combat trials.]

[Deployment has begun across priority conquered worlds.]

[Voidwatch is designed to integrate with existing world barriers, improve early detection, redistribute defensive power, resist corruption, isolate damaged sections, preserve reinforcement routes, and reduce the need for continuous Eternal deployment.]

[Affected factions will receive deployment priority according to current threat level.]

[The conquered worlds will continue to be defended.]

[Forces on the five continents should maintain their current preparations.]

[The enemy attempted to divide the Thousand Races through the void.]

[It failed.]

That final line had been debated.

Several administrators thought it sounded too confident.

Lucien had allowed it anyway.

This time, confidence was part of the weapon.

•••

The reaction across the five continents was immediate.

Public channels that had spent the previous day discussing whether Lootwell could actually fulfill its promise now filled with recordings of the test.

Formation masters dissected the system.

Military factions requested technical briefings.

Younger fighters mostly focused on the part where a Monster Emperor struck a barrier and failed to break it.

That clip spread particularly fast.

Some people cheered.

Others laughed.

A few who had remained skeptical simply became quieter.

The important reaction came from the factions themselves.

Elders began returning.

Not all of them.

No competent faction abandoned its conquered worlds simply because a new defensive system existed.

But the emergency deployments became smaller.

Rotations became possible.

Defenders could rest.

The five continents stopped bleeding strength into the void quite so quickly.

The pressure remained.

The panic did not.