100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 807 - Past

Night had already settled over Lootwell when Space changed beside Lucien.

He looked up from the Origin Core projection.

Alanthuriel stepped through the distortion.

Lucien rose immediately.

Something was wrong.

Alanthuriel had appeared without warning many times before, sometimes carrying information capable of overturning everything Lucien thought he understood about the universe. Even then, the Abyssal Being usually possessed the same measured calm, as though catastrophes deserved contemplation before emotion.

Tonight, that calm was strained.

Lucien had never seen him arrive with this kind of urgency.

Alanthuriel did not waste time.

"What I feared has occurred."

Lucien dismissed the projection.

"Senior Alan, does this concern the agreement between the Primordial Incarnations and the Abyssal Arch-Lords?"

Alanthuriel nodded.

This time, he did not correct Lucien with another incomplete warning.

"The negotiations succeeded."

Lucien’s expression hardened.

"What did they agree to?"

Alanthuriel looked toward the darkened windows.

"They intend to recover a timeline that no longer exists."

Lucien went still.

Before the Prime Continuum had been locked, countless possibilities had been examined, pursued, abandoned, collapsed, or prevented from stabilizing.

Among those possibilities were timelines the Arch-Lords had considered ideal foundations for what they wanted to create.

Lucien slowly understood.

"They want one of those possibilities back."

"They want the conditions that produced it."

Alanthuriel’s answer carried a subtle distinction.

An old timeline could not simply be summoned from nothing.

The histories that had disappeared before stabilizing were gone.

Their results remained known to some beings who had observed the Prime Continuum before it was locked, but knowledge of an outcome was not enough to restore the road that produced it.

Something in the past had to change.

Lucien stared at him.

"You’re saying they intend to alter history."

Alanthuriel nodded.

"Not this history."

Lucien frowned.

Alanthuriel raised one hand.

Space folded between them.

A thin line appeared.

"This is the continuity we currently inhabit."

Another line branched away from an earlier point.

"If an external influence reaches the past and changes an event strongly enough, the present you know will not suddenly rewrite itself around you."

The second line continued forward.

"A new continuation will form from the altered event."

Lucien watched the branch grow.

"If it survives."

"If it survives," Alanthuriel confirmed.

That was the important part.

Not every interference could create a stable timeline.

Most possibilities would collapse.

Some changes were too small.

Others created contradictions incapable of sustaining themselves.

The Arch-Lords were not attempting something random.

They knew what outcome they wanted.

They knew where to interfere.

And apparently they had found someone capable of carrying that interference into the past.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

"The Incarnations."

"Their vessel."

Alanthuriel’s expression darkened.

"The Arch-Lords cannot enter the required point themselves without provoking resistance from structures far greater than the path can withstand. Their presence would distort the passage before they reached the destination."

A Primordial Incarnation was different.

It carried genuine Primordial authority without bringing the full weight of a Primordial existence.

That made it powerful enough to alter an important event while still being small enough to pass through the route the Arch-Lords intended to open.

Lucien finally understood why the two sides needed each other.

The Arch-Lords possessed knowledge of the lost possibilities and the means to locate the desired point in history.

The Primordial side possessed a vessel capable of entering it.

Together, they could attempt something neither side could accomplish cleanly alone.

Lucien’s expression became grim.

"And if they succeed?"

Alanthuriel did not answer immediately.

"The current timeline will continue to exist at first."

At first.

Lucien caught the wording.

Alanthuriel looked directly at him.

"The Prime Continuum does not sustain every competing history equally."

Lucien remembered the old lock.

The dominant timeline.

Possibilities that once collapsed beneath it.

Now that the Parallel Timelines had returned, more histories could survive independently.

But dominance still mattered.

"If they recreate the timeline the Arch-Lords want," Alanthuriel continued, "it will possess advantages prepared specifically to challenge this continuity."

Lucien finished quietly.

"This timeline could lose its position."

"Yes."

"And then?"

Alanthuriel’s gaze remained steady.

"It may endure as a lesser branch."

A pause followed.

"Or it may eventually be erased."

Lucien said nothing.

The word felt strangely small.

The people living across the five continents and the lives that had grown inside this universe.

None of them needed to die in battle.

History itself could simply stop sustaining the road that contained them.

Lucien looked at the branching lines between them.

"What do you need me to do?"

Alanthuriel closed his hand.

The projection disappeared.

"I need you to prevent the interference."

Lucien stared.

Alanthuriel continued before he could ask.

"When they open the path, their vessel will enter the past."

Lucien already knew what came next.

He still found it absurd when Alanthuriel said it aloud.

"You will follow it."

Silence filled the room.

Lucien blinked once.

Then again.

"Senior Alan. You are asking me to travel into the past?"

"Yes."

Lucien stared at him.

For all the unreasonable things his life had produced, this managed to reach somewhere new.

He had moved worlds.

He had built an inner universe.

He had watched alternate possibilities of himself through the return of Parallel Timelines.

Apparently, the natural progression from there was physically entering history.

Lucien rubbed his forehead.

"I thought I was running out of absurd things to experience."

"You remain remarkably optimistic."

Lucien looked at him.

Alanthuriel’s expression barely changed.

That somehow made the answer worse.

•••

Lucien eventually returned to the important question.

"Why me?"

Alanthuriel had clearly expected it.

"The path will reject most beings powerful enough to stop the vessel."

That already sounded unpleasant.

"Primordials carry too much weight. An Arch-Lord entering directly would destabilize the route. Most Eternals would survive the passage but lack the authority required to oppose what waits inside."

"And me?"

"You are inconvenient."

Lucien waited.

Alanthuriel elaborated.

"Your existence no longer fits cleanly into the usual classifications."

Lucien became thoughtful.

Alanthuriel looked at him carefully.

"The past will resist foreign influence. You need enough connection to Laws to remain yourself while moving through a period where the relationships between those Laws may differ from what you know."

Lucien finally understood Alanthuriel’s earlier advice.

"That’s why you told me to deepen my comprehension of Laws..."

"Yes."

Alanthuriel paused.

"Especially Time."

Lucien did not like the emphasis.

"How long would I be there?"

"I cannot answer that yet."

That was exactly the answer Lucien had expected and hoped not to receive.

Alanthuriel continued.

"The passage is extraordinarily difficult to create. The Arch-Lords will have one viable opportunity once the necessary conditions align. If their attempt fails, reproducing those conditions will take a very long time."

"So this is one chance."

"For them and for us."

Lucien looked toward the window.

"And you?"

"I will prevent the Arch-Lords from interfering freely with the passage once it opens."

That explained why Alanthuriel needed someone else inside.

He could stop the greater threats outside.

Lucien had to handle the problem that slipped through.

"If I miss the vessel?"

"Do not."

Lucien slowly turned toward him.

Alanthuriel remained perfectly serious.

Lucien sighed.

Very helpful.

•••

They talked longer after that.

Lucien asked what would happen if he encountered people who had died in the present.

Alanthuriel told him the past he entered would be real, not an illusion or reconstructed memory.

Lucien asked whether his actions could destroy the current present.

Alanthuriel repeated that the existing timeline would not rewrite itself around him. His interference would affect whether the enemy successfully established another branch capable of competing with it.

Lucien asked whether he could deliberately change other things while there.

Alanthuriel’s answer came immediately.

"Do as little as necessary."

Lucien understood why.

The mission was to prevent one artificial divergence.

Creating ten new ones while doing so would be counterproductive.

Every action would matter more than usual because he would be operating near a point already chosen for its historical importance.

Eventually, Lucien asked the question that had remained beneath everything else.

"Are you forcing me to do this?"

Alanthuriel’s expression changed slightly.

"No."

Lucien looked at him.

"You can refuse."

Alanthuriel spoke without pressure.

"I will find another answer if one exists."

The next words came more slowly.

"But among the beings I know, you possess the greatest chance of entering that path, remaining yourself, and stopping the vessel."

Lucien closed his eyes.

He thought about the five continents gradually becoming one.

About the Thousand Races learning to fight together.

About the worlds inside him.

About Alanthuriel’s warning that this timeline could one day lose its place entirely.

He already knew his answer.

The fact that Alanthuriel had given him a choice only made it easier to say.

Lucien opened his eyes.

"What do I need to do?"

Alanthuriel was silent for several moments.

"Grow."

Lucien almost complained.

Alanthuriel continued before he could.

"Deepen your connection to your Laws. Strengthen your existence. Study Time until you understand more than how to slow, accelerate, or anchor it."

His gaze sharpened.

"You may need to remain in the past longer than either of us expects."

That confirmed Lucien’s suspicion.

"I will call you when the path begins opening. It may happen soon. It may still take time."

Alanthuriel stepped backward.

"Prepare as though you will not receive another warning."

Then Space folded around him.

Lucien remained alone.

The room felt strangely ordinary after he disappeared.

Lucien looked toward the world map still floating beside him.

He had been preparing for war in the future.

Apparently, he needed to prepare for one in the past as well.

He sighed.

His schedule had become unreasonable again.