100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 821 - Hunger

One of Lucien’s Parallel Thoughts suddenly sharpened.

The Split Body pursuing the second Incarnation had finally caught sight of its target.

Lucien saw through its eyes while his real body remained above the bound Beastman.

The second vessel was unmistakably different from Rust’s.

It belonged to one of the Vulturekin, a lean member of the Thousand Races with dark gray feathers covering most of his body and a narrow, hooked beak. His wings remained folded behind him as he hovered silently above the land.

The appearance itself meant little.

The authority inside him told Lucien everything that mattered.

Hunger.

Lucien’s expression changed.

Of all the Laws the Incarnation could have carried, that one immediately made him uneasy.

Then his Split Body looked below.

A village rested beneath the Vulturekin.

It was small.

There were perhaps a few hundred mortals living there, with simple wooden homes gathered around fields, livestock pens, and several shallow wells. Nothing about it looked extraordinary.

That made Hunger’s presence there far more suspicious.

The Incarnation had crossed an impossible distance through history and deliberately stopped above an ordinary mortal village.

...

Lucien’s attention returned fully to Rust.

The Beastman remained trapped within the stone bindings, although Rust continued gnawing through whatever portion of the restraints he could reach.

Lucien raised Morphis.

For a moment, killing him seemed simplest.

Then he stopped.

Destroying the vessel would not destroy the Primordial behind it.

Rust had already shown that he did not care if this body survived. The more Lucien thought about that, the less willing he became to give the Incarnation exactly what it appeared prepared to accept.

Perhaps the deal with the Arch-Lords made the loss worthwhile.

Perhaps the Arch-Lords had promised to help the Primordials establish new Incarnations afterward.

Lucien did not know.

He knew enough not to cooperate.

Morphis lowered.

Rust noticed immediately.

The Beastman’s expression changed.

Lucien smiled faintly.

"No. I don’t think I’ll kill you."

For the first time since their battle began, the confidence on Rust’s face slipped.

The stone bindings exploded.

Rust forced himself halfway free and sent corrosion surging through the surrounding formation, but Lucien was already moving.

Symbols appeared around the Beastman.

Lucien had studied Vaelcar’s sealing arts long enough to reproduce the fundamental structure, although his version naturally carried his own authority.

The first seal closed around Rust’s arm.

Then another crossed his chest.

More followed.

They did not descend as rigid chains. The seals flowed around the Incarnation like living script, changing direction whenever Rust attempted to avoid them.

Rust’s expression hardened.

His struggling became violent.

Metal tore from the earth.

The seals passed around it.

Corrosion spread through the formation.

Living Creation restored what Rust damaged before the weakness could propagate.

The Beastman suddenly drove one rust-covered hand toward his own throat.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

Space tightened.

Rust’s arm stopped centimeters away.

"So now you want to die."

The Beastman’s eyes burned with hostility.

Lucien almost laughed.

That reaction told him more than another interrogation probably would have.

Rust wanted the vessel destroyed.

Lucien had no intention of obliging him.

The seals reached the Beastman’s neck and shoulders, then flowed downward until almost his entire body was wrapped.

Rust continued fighting.

His Law crawled over the restraints, corroding their physical anchors wherever it could find them.

Living Creation followed directly behind.

Every section that deteriorated renewed itself.

Rust destroyed.

Lucien restored.

The Incarnation’s movements gradually became smaller until only slight struggling remained beneath layers of sealing authority.

Lucien studied him.

"That should do."

Rust glared at him.

Lucien opened his inner universe.

He did not place the Incarnation anywhere near the Aevans or any inhabited region.

A secluded layer unfolded, isolated from the rest of his internal worlds by multiple spatial boundaries and reinforced formations.

Rust vanished inside.

Lucien sealed the layer behind him.

Only then did he turn toward the devastated mountain range.

The sight made him frown.

He had arrived in the past with one instruction that mattered almost as much as stopping the Incarnations.

Do as little as necessary.

The battle had shattered cliffs, displaced enormous quantities of ore, and covered the region in rusted debris that should not have existed here yet.

Leaving it this way would mean creating his own historical imprint while trying to stop someone else’s.

Lucien raised a hand.

Living Creation spread.

He remembered how the terrain had looked before the battle.

Perfect Calculation supplied the proportions while Structural Insight reconstructed the relationships between the damaged layers.

Broken cliffs rose.

Stone returned to its previous position.

Ore veins rejoined beneath the earth.

Rust-created debris was broken down and restored into the materials from which it had originated.

Lucien did not attempt to improve anything.

He rebuilt only what their battle had disturbed.

After several minutes, the valley looked almost exactly as it had when he arrived.

Lucien examined it one final time.

There would always be microscopic differences.

He could accept that.

History did not need perfection.

It needed him to stop leaving mountains split open behind him.

His attention returned to the village.

Hunger was still there.

Lucien reached into his Inventory.

The Covenant of Pathless Sovereignty appeared.

He activated the Void Disc.

The target was already familiar to him.

His own Split Body.

Space folded.

The restored valley disappeared.

•••

Lucien emerged beside himself.

The Split Body turned toward him once before Lucien absorbed it back.

At the same time, another portion of Parallel Thoughts remained fixed upon the final Split Body, which was still following the third Incarnation.

That target had not been reached yet.

Lucien left it moving.

Then he looked toward the village.

His expression darkened.

Hunger had already begun.

At first glance, the village did not look as though it was under attack.

No buildings burned.

No monsters roamed between the houses.

There were no bodies scattered through the roads.

That was precisely what made it disturbing.

The people were simply dying.

A farmer stumbled across one of the fields and collapsed beside crops that had begun yellowing hours too early.

Several villagers were gathered around a well, staring helplessly into water that had dropped far below its normal level.

Livestock crowded empty feeding troughs despite having been fed that morning.

Children cried from hunger while adults tried to divide what little food remained.

Lucien extended his perception.

Then he understood what Hunger was doing.

The Law was not merely making people feel hungry.

It was forcing everything within the village into a state of deficit.

Plants demanded more water than their roots could obtain. Nutrients disappeared from the soil faster than they could be replaced. Livestock burned through their reserves while their bodies failed to retain nourishment properly.

The villagers suffered the same effect.

Food entered their stomachs.

Their bodies consumed it.

But the sense of emptiness remained.

Hunger had taken the ordinary needs of living things and widened them until nothing available could satisfy them.

Even the land seemed thirsty.

Moisture sank deeper into the soil while the wells struggled to refill.

The village was being starved without anyone openly attacking it.