100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 804 - Victory

Information flowed continuously through the battlefield.

Lucien’s pets remained connected to him through their bonds, while Lootwell’s command network tied the wider formations together.

Reports from one battlefield reached the others almost immediately.

A destructive authority that ignored ordinary barriers appeared in the north.

Every other defense learned about it.

One Incarnation repeatedly targeted formation anchors instead of opponents.

The Collegium warned every region.

Another used apparent retreat to draw pursuing forces away from the structures they were protecting.

Vaelcar recognized it before anyone followed too far.

The lesson spread.

The Primordial Incarnations were experienced.

So were Lucien’s forces.

More importantly, Lucien’s side could learn collectively while the battle was still happening.

An Incarnation might reveal a trick once.

After that, the entire defensive network knew about it.

Lucien watched the pattern evolve.

That was where the enemy’s greatest advantage began shrinking.

They had come prepared to destroy separated defenses.

They found one battlefield sharing information across an entire world.

•••

The fighting lasted for hours.

Several continental regions suffered damage.

A mountain range near one of the western anchors lost three peaks before the Incarnation attacking it was forced away.

Part of an eastern sea boiled under repeated authority collisions.

Two Eternal monsters were nearly torn apart protecting one of the undersea joining regions, although Lucien managed to stabilize them before their injuries became fatal.

Several ancient beasts emerged bleeding.

None complained.

The Primordial Incarnations were worse off.

One had lost an arm that refused to regenerate properly after being struck by overlapping authorities.

Another carried a wound through its chest left by Astraea after Tempest finally broke through its defense.

A third had been forced to expend far more authority than intended simply to escape being surrounded.

Lucien did not order a reckless pursuit.

He knew better.

These were Incarnations.

Their retreat could be another lure.

And the world-scale formation remained the thing they were actually protecting.

So when the first Incarnation withdrew beyond the defensive region, Lucien let it go.

Then another retreated.

The others recognized the changing situation quickly.

Their surprise had cost them the opening.

Their scattered deployment prevented them from supporting one another efficiently.

Lootwell’s forces were growing more coordinated the longer the battle continued.

There was no reason for them to remain.

One after another, the Primordial Incarnations disengaged.

The pressure weighing over the five continents began disappearing.

The last one remained longer than the others.

It looked toward the ancient beasts surrounding it, then toward Lucien’s Split Body standing beyond them.

Its expression revealed very little.

Still, Lucien thought he saw something there.

Recognition.

The battlefield had changed.

Then the Incarnation vanished.

•••

For several seconds after the final enemy withdrew, nobody reacted.

The armies remained ready.

The ancient beasts continued watching the horizon.

Tidewatch searched the seas.

The Collegium checked every major anchor for hidden damage.

Lucien waited for another attack.

Nothing came.

Only when enough time passed did the truth finally settle across the world.

The Primordial Incarnations had retreated.

Then the sound began.

A roar rose from one battlefield.

Another answered from a different continent.

Ancient beasts lifted their heads.

Monster armies struck claws, weapons, wings, and bodies against the ground.

The noise spread.

Then the communication network erupted.

The Thousand Races had watched the battle from behind their defensive positions.

Most had never entered the direct fighting.

They had been prepared to if necessary.

But it never became necessary.

They still understood what had happened.

Primordial Incarnations had attacked.

The world had held.

For ages, those existences had been spoken of as catastrophes.

Even facing one had once seemed like something only the highest powers in the world could survive.

Today, more than a dozen had appeared across the five continents at once.

And they had been driven back.

People celebrated. Cities erupted. Even commanders who knew better than to call the war won allowed themselves to smile.

Lucien did not stop them.

This victory mattered.

The Thousand Races needed proof that the monsters waiting beyond the Black Mass were not invincible.

Now they had it.

He only hoped they remembered the other lesson too.

The enemy had not sent everything.

More than a dozen Incarnations were dangerous.

They were not the total force hidden behind the Black Mass.

And this victory had depended heavily on catching them by surprise.

Next time, the Primordial Incarnations would know what Lootwell had been hiding.

Lucien looked across the damaged battlefields.

The confidence spreading through the world was deserved.

Complacency was not.

Still, for tonight, he allowed the celebrations to continue.

They had earned that much.

•••

Later, after the immediate damage had been stabilized, Lucien returned to the thought that had struck him during the battle.

He entered his inner universe.

The difference was immediate.

The Big World’s pressure faded.

The distant Primordial authority disappeared.

The familiar vastness of his own universe surrounded him.

Lucien remained silent for a long time.

The Incarnations had manipulated divination well enough to conceal a coordinated attack across five continents.

Yet they had failed to anticipate the ancient beasts and monster army he brought from inside.

That contradiction was too large to dismiss.

His earlier theory returned.

Perhaps his inner universe was invisible to divination originating from the Big World.

Perhaps it was merely difficult to penetrate.

Or perhaps the answer depended on connection.

Aurelia, Elunara, and the Grandmaster had all entered Lucien’s universe before. They had existed beneath its Laws, moved through its Space, and become recognized by the same structure that governed everything inside.

The Primordial Incarnations had never done that.

If recognition mattered, then entering the universe might create a causal bridge that allowed a diviner’s perception to follow things inside later.

Lucien did not know.

He would need to test it.

Carefully.

But if the theory proved true, the implications extended far beyond hiding armies.

People, plans, weapons, and entire operations could remain beyond an enemy’s divination until Lucien brought them outside.

His inner universe might not merely be a refuge from external danger.

It might be a blind spot itself.

Lucien looked toward the distant worlds moving quietly inside him.

His expression slowly became serious.

An experiment would have to come next.