100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 802 - Prepare

Before anyone appeared in the Big World, Lucien returned to his inner universe.

The ancient beasts were the first ones he gathered.

Most had been training there for years, taking advantage of the accelerated environments Lucien had prepared for them.

They had changed enormously.

Almost every ancient beast that had survived since the Millennia War had already reached Extinction-Grade strength.

It was still not a realm of its own. It was simply the point where ordinary Eternal standards stopped describing what they could do.

Lucien did not immediately send them outside.

He first explained why he needed them.

The Primordial Incarnations had begun appearing in the branching futures surrounding the continental reunification. Worse, the three diviners had discovered signs that those Incarnations could interfere with divination itself.

Lucien could not determine where they would attack.

The seas were possible targets.

So were the continental anchors, the ancient wounds left by the Millennia War, and the newly restored connections beneath the oceans.

That meant he needed enough strength spread across the world to answer an attack wherever it appeared.

The mood among the ancient beasts changed as Lucien spoke.

None of them treated the assignment lightly.

They understood Primordial Incarnations better than most beings living in the current age. Even those who had not personally fought an Incarnation knew what kind of existence stood behind one.

Reaching Extinction-Grade strength had given them confidence.

It had not made them foolish.

An Incarnation carried more than destructive power. It inherited fragments of the authority, experience, and instincts of a true Primordial, and that difference could become fatal if someone assumed equal strength meant an equal opponent.

Lucien did not need to remind them twice.

Astraea was already considering which regions Tempest could cover most effectively.

Vaelcar quietly examined the world map Lucien projected before them.

Condoriano, Saber, Kira, and the others began discussing response ranges rather than who would get the first battle.

Lucien liked that.

They had grown powerful without forgetting how dangerous the world remained.

Once the assignments were understood, he brought them back into the Big World.

•••

The return of the ancient beasts was impossible to hide.

Across the five continents, enormous presences appeared.

The Thousand Races noticed immediately.

They had seen the before.

What they had not seen was what years of training inside Lucien’s inner universe had turned them into.

The pressure alone was enough to silence entire cities for several moments.

Then Lucien brought out the next force.

The reaction became considerably larger.

He had no intention of emptying the Monster Small World.

The younger monsters remained inside.

So did those still benefiting more from training than deployment.

Lucien only brought out the forces strong enough to matter against what might be coming.

That was already far more than the outside world expected.

The monster army had spent years developing inside his inner universe.

The Monster Small World had become a genuine military environment rather than a place where powerful creatures simply lived together. Ancient beasts trained the younger generations, different species learned to fight beside one another, and repeated battles had gradually turned creatures that once relied almost entirely on instinct into organized forces.

Now part of that army returned to the Big World.

The first groups appeared in the prepared regions under Lucien’s direct transfer.

Massive land beasts settled onto reinforced plains.

Winged monsters rose into the skies and spread toward their assigned patrol regions.

Aquatic forces entered the oceans and immediately joined Tidewatch’s outer coverage.

Other creatures remained around the continental formations as heavy response units.

Then people began noticing their strength.

Eternal pressure appeared among the formations.

Then another.

And another.

At first, observers assumed they were seeing the strongest commanders of the monster army.

That explanation became impossible very quickly.

There were too many.

Hundreds appeared across the deployment regions.

Then thousands.

The numbers continued rising until counting them individually became pointless.

The Thousand Races had spent most of recorded history treating an Eternal as an existence capable of changing the balance between major powers.

Even after recent years had produced far more high-level experts than previous eras, that perception had never completely disappeared.

Eternals were supposed to be rare.

Lootwell had just revealed an army containing thousands upon thousands of them.

The communication network nearly collapsed under the reaction.

•••

Shock came first.

Then came disbelief.

After that, confidence spread so quickly that Lucien almost regretted showing them anything.

The Thousand Races knew these monsters belonged to Lootwell.

They had already fought beside some of Lucien’s beasts during Black Mass incursions and had seen ancient beasts protect the continents before.

Nobody seriously believed an invasion had suddenly begun from inside their own defenses.

Once the initial shock faded, people started looking at the army differently.

Extinction-Grade ancient beasts were now guarding the world.

And thousands upon thousands of Eternal monsters stood behind them.

The coming war suddenly looked far less terrifying.

That feeling spread quickly.

Perhaps too quickly.

Lucien began seeing comments asking whether ordinary armies would even be necessary anymore.

Others wondered how difficult the Black Mass could possibly be when Lootwell had been hiding this much strength.

Some people were already speaking as though victory were inevitable.

Lucien put an end to that before it grew worse.

His message reached the five continents soon afterward.

He first explained why the ancient beasts and monster army had appeared.

Primordial Incarnations were moving.

The diviners had seen increasing signs of interference surrounding the continental reunification, but the Incarnations also appeared capable of disturbing the futures being observed.

Lucien therefore could not tell everyone where the attack would come from because he did not know.

That was exactly why the deployment covered the entire project rather than concentrating on a handful of predicted locations.

He also made one thing clear.

This was not the beginning of the full war.

The Black Mass had not yet launched its true offensive, and its barrier was still receding.

The current preparations were intended to stop the Primordial Incarnations from disrupting the reunification of the five continents before that larger conflict arrived.

The explanation calmed some of the anxiety.

Then Lucien addressed the confidence spreading through the world.

The monster army was powerful.

The ancient beasts had become enormously stronger.

That did not make the Primordial Incarnations ordinary enemies, and it certainly did not make the Black Mass harmless.

A Primordial Incarnation could possess abilities and authority that raw strength alone did not measure properly.

When the real war arrived, no army could guarantee that every city and every person would remain safe simply because Lootwell possessed more Eternals than anyone had expected.

The Thousand Races still had their own role.

Their armies still mattered.

Their commanders still needed to prepare.

Their training could not stop because Lootwell had revealed another layer of its strength.

Lucien had spent years trying to make the world capable of surviving even when he could not personally stand in every battlefield.

He was not going to undo that progress by allowing everyone to depend on him again.

The excitement across the communication network became more restrained after that.

The confidence remained.

That was fine.

Lucien wanted them confident.

He simply did not want them stupid.

•••

The deployment expanded over the following days.

Lucien ignored the exact locations shown most clearly by divination.

If the Primordial Incarnations were deliberately manipulating what Aurelia, Elunara, and the Grandmaster could see, concentrating his forces around those predictions would only help them.

Instead, the ancient beasts were positioned as mobile response forces.

Their strength allowed them to cover enormous regions, and Lucien placed them where several important areas could be reached quickly rather than assigning each one to a single predicted battlefield.

The monster army formed the wider defensive layer around them.

Aquatic monsters reinforced Tidewatch throughout the seas, with special attention given to the narrowing waters between the continents and the regions containing newly restored shelves.

Winged monsters maintained overlapping patrol regions above the formations.

Other Eternal creatures remained close enough to major anchors to respond before damage could spread through the interconnected continental arrays.

The preparations made by the other factions changed with them.

The Obsidian Collegium modified the reunification network so damaged sections could isolate themselves before a local failure affected the rest of the formation.

The Lunarians prepared alternate leyline channels that could temporarily carry energy around a region forced offline.

The Celestials continued watching the old authority scars left by the Millennia War, especially those close enough to the reunification routes that an Incarnation might attempt to exploit them.

Lucien prepared for the same uncertainty in his own way.

Several major Split Bodies separated from him.

He distributed them across the world.

One remained close to the seas.

Another watched the major continental formations.

Others stayed within immediate reach of regions the enemy might consider less obvious targets.

Lucien himself continued overseeing the whole structure.

He refused to gamble on finding the correct future.

If the Incarnations wanted him looking toward one continent, another Lucien would already be watching elsewhere.

If they wanted the five continents focused on their coasts, the oceans would still be occupied.

Even if every visible branch was a lie, the basic strategy remained unchanged.

There would be no easy opening.

•••

The continental reunification continued beneath all of it.

The appearance of Primordial Incarnations in the branching futures did not stop the formation arrays from gathering energy.

Lucien continued approving the spatial adjustments once each previous stage settled.

Lilith continued restoring the continental shelves beneath the sea.

The Lunarians continued turning temporary energy routes into permanent ones as those connections matured.

Now ancient beasts watched from the horizon while they worked.

Monster armies patrolled the waters where merchants still sailed.

Formation masters continued descending beneath the ocean while enormous creatures guarded the region above them.

The combination should have felt absurd.

After everything the world had experienced, people adapted to it remarkably quickly.

Merchants continued planning the roads that would eventually cross the reunited land.

Kingdoms continued discussing future borders.

Military forces continued training rather than surrendering their responsibilities to Lootwell’s newly revealed army.

That was exactly what Lucien wanted.

The Black Mass continued condensing on one side of the world.

On the other, the five continents continued drawing closer.

Somewhere beyond the futures the three diviners could trust, the Primordial Incarnations were preparing to interfere.

Lucien still did not know where they would appear.

He no longer intended to waste time guessing.

He had ancient beasts waiting.

He had the monster army spread across the world.

He had the Thousand Races prepared to fight rather than hide behind them.

And wherever one of those Incarnations finally decided to emerge, Lucien intended to make sure it discovered the same thing.

There was no longer an undefended direction.