100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 806 - The Other Side

Time continued to pass.

The five continents drew closer with every completed stage of the reunification.

What had once required updated maps to notice gradually became visible to anyone willing to stand along the right coastline.

Distant land appeared where there had once been nothing beyond the horizon.

Mountain ranges belonging to another continent could sometimes be seen on clear days.

Old sea routes shortened until journeys that once required several months could be completed in a fraction of the time.

The people adapted faster than Lucien had expected.

Some of that came from preparation.

As the gaps narrowed, Lootwell began conducting exercises based on the geography the world would eventually possess.

Armies practiced reinforcing neighboring regions without relying entirely on teleportation.

Civilian evacuation drills were rewritten around future land routes.

Commanders were deliberately placed in unfamiliar territories and made to coordinate with forces they had once considered belonging to another continent.

The first exercises were messy.

Centuries of thinking in terms of five separate continental theaters did not disappear simply because Lucien changed a map.

Repeated drills fixed that.

Command structures adapted.

Regional forces became familiar with neighbors they would soon be able to reach by road.

Even civilians started treating the future supercontinent as something increasingly ordinary.

Lucien received reports of towns discussing future trade with places that had once felt impossibly distant.

Some families had already begun planning where they would travel once the first permanent land routes opened.

The excitement surprised him.

He had expected resistance to last longer.

Instead, the approaching continents had given people something strangely hopeful to watch while the Black Mass remained over the world.

Perhaps they simply needed something that looked like progress.

Whatever the reason, Lucien welcomed it.

Who would have imagined the Thousand Races could become this cooperative?

A few years earlier, getting several major factions to sit at the same table had already required patience.

Now entire continents were preparing to become neighbors.

Lucien decided not to question the miracle too closely.

•••

The five continents were not the only thing changing.

The Black Mass had continued condensing.

For millenia, its presence had dominated an enormous portion of the horizon, an oppressive darkness wrapped around the corrupted supercontinent.

That sight was disappearing.

The mass had drawn inward until most of its former scale could no longer be seen from the inhabited continents.

From extreme distances, only a dark concentration remained visible against the sky, like a black point swallowing the last traces of its surrounding structure.

Lucien had no idea what it would eventually become.

Neither did Aurelia.

Every attempt to look beyond its final transformation produced unstable possibilities.

The future refused to settle around it.

Sometimes the Black Mass remained enormous.

Sometimes it collapsed into something much smaller.

Other visions lost clarity before the process finished.

After the return of the Parallel Timelines, Lucien had become accustomed to uncertain futures.

This felt different.

The uncertainty gathered around the Black Mass itself.

Whatever transformation was taking place had not yet reached a state that causality seemed willing to define clearly.

Lucien stopped trying to force an answer.

There was, however, one unexpected benefit to the Black Mass drawing inward.

The Monster Continent was becoming visible again.

•••

Lucien discovered it through the Origin Core.

The merged fragments had always been able to sense the remaining fragments scattered throughout the world.

That connection had become clearer as more pieces were gathered.

For a long time, the Black Mass had interfered heavily with anything beyond its boundary.

Now that interference had weakened.

One evening, Lucien focused on the distant traces.

The Origin Core responded.

A projection spread before him.

At first, only scattered points appeared.

Then the surrounding geography emerged.

Lucien’s expression changed.

The map was enormous.

The corrupted supercontinent stretched across a vast portion of the world, larger than any single inhabited continent.

Origin Core fragments were scattered throughout it.

Some remained isolated.

Others moved.

Several traveled together for long periods before separating again.

Lucien watched them.

The fragments did not give him perfect sight.

What reached him came through resonance with their holders: location, movement, faint impressions of surrounding activity, and occasional fragments of conversation when the connection became particularly clear.

It was enough.

For the first time, Lucien could observe portions of the Monster Continent without relying entirely on distant reconnaissance.

What he discovered surprised him.

The corrupted monsters were organized.

Just not in the way he had assumed.

•••

Lucien had spent so long thinking of the Black Mass as one enemy that seeing its internal divisions felt almost strange.

The Monster Continent was full of factions.

Large ones.

Small ones.

Territories shifted between powerful Monster Emperors.

Some groups followed bloodlines.

Others gathered around particular forms of corruption, ancient habitats, shared instincts, or simply whichever powerful existence had managed to dominate the surrounding region.

Even creatures of the same species did not necessarily belong together.

Lucien followed two Origin Core holders of the same monstrous race and discovered that their factions had been hostile for generations.

Another fragment moved through a region where three neighboring groups maintained an uneasy agreement because none of them wanted the fourth faction nearby to become stronger.

Lucien stared at the projection.

"This looks familiar."

Very familiar.

The Thousand Races had once spent enormous amounts of time doing almost exactly the same thing.

Old grudges.

Territorial disputes.

Competing leaders.

Groups cooperating only because another group irritated them more.

The Monster Continent appeared even more chaotic in places.

Many corrupted monsters possessed intelligence comparable to the races outside, though instinct played a far greater role in how some of their societies functioned.

Power carried enormous weight.

So did territory.

So did hunger, bloodline, old dominance, and whatever strange interests individual species valued.

The Black Mass had created an enemy civilization.

It had not created one mind.

Lucien leaned closer to the projection.

That changed several assumptions.

The attacks against the five continents had looked coordinated because the forces sent outside were being organized.

Inside the Monster Continent, that coordination had not yet spread everywhere.

But something was currently trying to make it spread.

The Primordial Incarnations.

•••

Once Lucien knew what to look for, the pattern became obvious.

Powerful factions were shifting.

Representatives traveled between territories that rarely communicated.

Monster Emperors that normally remained inside their own domains were gathering.

Some obeyed quickly.

Others resisted.

Several Origin Core holders moved through regions where discussions repeatedly centered around cooperation, consolidation, and the coming war.

The Primordial Incarnations were moving throughout the Monster Continent.

They were doing almost exactly what Lucien had done among the Thousand Races.

They were trying to turn divided powers into one war machine.

Lucien sat back.

"So that’s what you’ve been doing."

Their absence after the failed attack suddenly made more sense.

They had learned something.

Throwing scattered Incarnations against Lootwell’s prepared defenses had failed.

The Thousand Races had become coordinated enough to respond collectively.

The corrupted side needed the same advantage.

The larger factions were beginning to cooperate.

Perhaps those battles were serving as training for them too.

Lucien’s satisfaction faded slightly.

The enemy was adapting.

That was expected.

What happened next was less expected.

One of the Origin Core traces suddenly stopped.

Lucien frowned.

The fragment was still there.

He could sense its position.

But the impressions surrounding it had vanished.

A Primordial Incarnation had entered the area moments earlier.

Lucien focused harder.

Nothing returned.

Then something seemed to touch the resonance.

Lucien immediately withdrew his perception.

The connection vanished.

He remained still.

"They noticed."

•••

Lucien tested the phenomenon carefully over the following days.

The result remained consistent.

He could still sense the locations of the Origin Core fragments.

That connection came from the Origin Core itself and appeared much harder to suppress completely.

The deeper impressions were different.

Whenever a Primordial Incarnation remained close to a holder for long enough, Lucien’s ability to observe the surrounding area weakened.

Sometimes the connection became cloudy.

Sometimes it disappeared entirely.

Once an Incarnation noticed the observation, the same region remained difficult to inspect afterward.

Lucien did not push.

He had learned enough from ancient seals and hostile divination to know that repeatedly poking something after it noticed him rarely improved the situation.

The Incarnations had discovered his eyes.

Now they were beginning to close the curtains.

That limited what Lucien could learn.

He could observe movements.

He could catch surface conversations from holders far from the Incarnations.

He could infer relationships between factions.

But the deeper plans remained hidden.

Whatever agreement the Incarnations were discussing with certain Abyssal Arch-Lords did not appear in anything Lucien managed to hear.

The Origin Core had opened a window.

It had not handed him the enemy’s command room.

Lucien could accept that.

The window was already valuable.

•••

One discovery interested him more than the others.

The remaining Origin Core fragments were still spread across the Monster Continent.

The Incarnations had not gathered them.

Lucien confirmed that repeatedly.

Several fragments remained with Monster Emperors powerful enough to control enormous territories.

Others belonged to lesser but influential monsters.

A few holders had already aligned themselves closely with particular Primordial Incarnations.

Some appeared to have offered cooperation willingly.

Others had clearly surrendered after being pressured.

Yet the fragments themselves remained with their holders.

Lucien found that strange at first.

Then he understood.

The Primordial Incarnations had only recently returned.

They were trying to unify a continent filled with creatures whose loyalty often depended on strength, interest, territory, and instinct.

Immediately confiscating treasures from every powerful faction would be an excellent way to create enemies before the war even began.

Origin Core fragments were especially dangerous to touch.

Their holders knew they were valuable even if most did not understand their complete purpose.

Some had possessed them for generations.

Others treated them as symbols of authority.

Taking them by force could turn cooperation into rebellion very quickly.

The Incarnations seemed to understand that.

They had arrived as leaders.

They could not begin by robbing everyone they expected to follow them.

Lucien smiled.

That problem was familiar too.

He remembered gathering fragments from the Thousand Races.

That had not been simple.

Lucien had used patience, leverage, deals, trust, and occasionally methods that were considerably less dignified than he preferred to remember.

Eventually, the Thousand Races accepted permanent Lootwell custody.

The Primordial Incarnations did not possess that history.

They had strength.

They had ancient authority.

They also had a continent full of monsters with their own interests.

Lucien looked at the scattered lights on the projection.

For the first time in several days, he almost laughed.

The situation on the other side might actually be worse than what Lootwell had once faced.

At least the Thousand Races had possessed institutions built around negotiation.

Some monster factions appeared to settle disagreements by eating whoever disagreed most loudly.

Unifying that sounded unpleasant.

Lucien felt a small amount of sympathy.

Only a small amount.

They were still planning to kill everyone he cared about.

•••

The discovery gave him confidence.

But it did not make him careless.

The Primordial Incarnations had already proven capable of adapting.

They had learned from their failed assault.

They could interfere with divination.

They had noticed the Origin Core’s observation and begun blocking it.

Now they were consolidating the Monster Continent while communicating with Abyssal Arch-Lords.

Their internal divisions were a weakness.

Given enough time, those divisions could shrink.

Lucien knew because he had already done it once.

He looked toward the projection of the five continents.

They were closer than ever.

In some regions, the remaining water between them had narrowed enough that people could see the opposite shore.

The Thousand Races were learning to think as one defensive world.

Across the Black Mass, the Primordial Incarnations were trying to teach their monsters the same lesson.

Lucien studied both maps for a long time.

The coming war was beginning to look less like one united civilization fighting a mindless horde.

Two divided worlds were organizing themselves at the same time.

One had started earlier.

Lucien intended to make sure that advantage mattered.

He closed the Origin Core projection.

Outside, another continental adjustment was preparing to begin.

Somewhere beyond the condensed Black Mass, Primordial Incarnations were gathering factions that had spent millennia following their own instincts.

Lucien smiled faintly.

"Good luck."

He meant it only enough to make the joke funny.

Then he returned to work.