100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 793 - Control

Before Alanthuriel brought them back to the Big World, Lucien stopped him.

There was still one question left in his mind, and after everything he had just experienced, it no longer felt like something he should postpone.

"Senior Alan, do you know about Omniarch?"

Alanthuriel went still.

Lucien immediately noticed the difference.

The Abyssal Entity was usually difficult to surprise. Even when Lucien encountered something ridiculous, Alanthuriel often reacted as though he had already considered ten stranger possibilities.

This time, he did not answer.

The silence stretched through the void.

There was nothing around them to soften it. No wind, no distant stars bright enough to draw attention, and no world nearby to give Lucien somewhere else to look.

Alanthuriel simply stared at him.

For the first time since Lucien had known him, hesitation appeared clearly on his face.

Eventually, Alanthuriel released a slow breath.

"So you have already reached that knowledge."

Lucien’s attention sharpened.

That answer alone confirmed far more than Alanthuriel probably intended.

He waited a moment before asking the question that had bothered him ever since the Tree of Creation revealed the existence of that realm.

"Is that what the Abyss has been searching for?"

Alanthuriel remained silent.

Lucien continued carefully.

"The perfect timeline. The Prime Continuum. All the effort spent comparing possibilities and forcing the Parallel Timelines back into contact with this one."

He looked toward Alanthuriel.

"Are the Abyssal Arch-Lords trying to create an Omniarch?"

Alanthuriel studied him for several breaths.

"Your conclusion is close enough that denying it would serve no purpose."

Lucien’s expression grew serious.

Alanthuriel turned his gaze toward the distant darkness.

"The Abyss has sought the birth of an Omniarch for longer than most races have recorded history."

His voice carried none of its usual lightness.

"The problem was never simply producing one."

Lucien already had an idea where this was going.

Alanthuriel confirmed it.

"Many among the Arch-Lords want the first Omniarch to be someone whose path they can shape."

Lucien fell silent.

Suddenly, several things made much more sense.

For years, he had watched the Thousand Races become stronger at a pace that would once have seemed absurd. Lootwell had rebuilt nations, accelerated training, connected factions that had spent generations distrusting one another, strengthened monsters, raised new Eternals, developed defenses against the Black Mass, and turned repeated enemy incursions into combat experience.

Lucien had begun to think this timeline was already becoming something extraordinary.

Yet the Abyss had continued unlocking the Parallel Timelines.

’So the missing piece had not been strength.’

It was control.

Lucien almost laughed.

Of course it was.

Alanthuriel glanced toward him.

"You understand."

Lucien rubbed the side of his face.

"I was wondering why this timeline apparently still wasn’t good enough."

A faint trace of amusement appeared in Alanthuriel’s eyes.

"The Abyss has never lacked ambition."

That was one way of describing it.

Lucien looked into the void again.

If an Omniarch truly possessed authority over the framework of a universe, then the concern of the Arch-Lords became obvious.

An existence like that would not merely join the balance of power.

It would redefine it.

Alanthuriel’s expression gradually became more distant.

"The birth of an Omniarch would change this universe in ways even the Abyss cannot completely predict."

He paused before continuing.

"Primordials are bound deeply to Laws. Abyssal beings exist closer to the balance surrounding those Laws. An Omniarch would stand above both structures."

Lucien listened without interrupting.

"Such an existence could become the axis around which the universe itself changes."

Alanthuriel’s gaze hardened slightly.

"That is why some among my kind want one they can influence before that person ever reaches the summit."

Lucien understood immediately.

"If they fail to control the Omniarch, they lose control of everything beneath one."

Alanthuriel gave a small nod.

"At the very least, they lose the certainty that their authority will remain beyond challenge."

That explained enough.

It also explained why Lucien was unlikely to be the candidate many Abyssal Arch-Lords wanted.

He was exceptionally bad at being controlled.

Alanthuriel seemed to read the thought from his expression.

"You would be a terrible choice for them."

Lucien looked at him.

Alanthuriel’s mouth curved faintly.

"You have spent most of your life finding ways around things that attempt to constrain you. Anyone intending to place a leash around you would eventually discover that they had volunteered to hold the dangerous end."

Lucien laughed despite himself.

"That sounds slightly insulting."

"It was praise."

That somehow made it worse.

•••

The brief humor faded when Alanthuriel looked beyond Lucien.

His gaze seemed to pass through the void itself.

"There is another reason the Abyss has pursued this for so long."

Lucien waited.

Alanthuriel took his time before speaking again.

"We have existed long enough to see things most inhabitants of this universe never will."

Something about his tone made Lucien straighten.

Alanthuriel rarely spoke about the universe.

When he did, it was never casually.

"This universe is not the entirety of existence."

Lucien already knew that much.

The way Alanthuriel said it made the statement feel considerably less comforting.

"There are places beyond it," Alanthuriel continued, "and not all of them are empty."

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

Alanthuriel looked toward him.

"Among immortals like us, centuries often feel abundant. Millennia become familiar. Eventually, even ages begin to seem repeatable."

His gaze shifted back toward the darkness.

"That illusion disappears once you understand what is moving beyond your home."

Lucien felt his earlier curiosity turn colder.

"A threat?"

Alanthuriel did not immediately answer.

When he finally did, his voice had lost even the faintest trace of humor.

"Something that this universe is not yet prepared to meet."

Lucien’s expression changed.

That was not the kind of statement Alanthuriel made carelessly.

"Do you know what it is?"

"Not enough."

Alanthuriel’s answer came without hesitation.

"Enough to understand that if it ever reaches this universe in its current state, the first beings forced to face it will be those closest to the foundation of existence."

Lucien thought immediately of the Primordials.

Alanthuriel saw that realization.

"That is one reason the Primordials have become increasingly restless."

The pieces began settling together.

The strange behavior of the Primordials.

The Black Mass.

The competition surrounding the Origin Core.

The Abyss and its obsession with timelines.

All of them had looked like separate conflicts when Lucien first encountered them.

Perhaps some still were.

Yet somewhere behind those struggles existed a pressure much larger than any of them.

Alanthuriel continued.

"Those who understand even fragments of what may eventually come have spent a very long time preparing in their own ways."

Lucien thought of the Abyssal Arch-Lords attempting to produce an Omniarch they could control.

He could not exactly call their method reassuring.

Then Alanthuriel mentioned something that made Lucien’s attention sharpen completely.

"The Origin Core will matter when that time comes."

Lucien stared at him.

Alanthuriel said nothing more.

He did not need to.

Images from the Mural World returned to Lucien immediately.

Fragments of the older age.

Pieces of history he had never fully understood.

The Origin Core.

The Human Ancestor.

The Primordial Slime.

Things that had always seemed to belong to a conflict buried in the past suddenly felt uncomfortably connected to the future.

Lucien closed his eyes.

For once, he did not ask the next question.

There were too many answers already.

And some part of him understood that Alanthuriel had probably reached the limit of what he intended to reveal.

Lucien let the silence remain.