100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 823 - Counter

Lucien stopped treating the battle as something that needed to be won normally.

Hunger’s advantage came from creating need.

The village needed food, so Hunger widened that need until food could no longer satisfy it. The fields needed water and nutrients, so he made those requirements impossible to meet. Even Lucien’s spells had been forced to consume more energy simply to continue existing.

Fighting him here only gave his Law more things to exploit.

So Lucien changed the battlefield.

Divine Energy erupted from him.

The sudden release illuminated the sky above the village and spread outward in a vast golden-white tide.

Hunger’s expression changed for the first time.

The Vulturekin immediately retreated several hundred meters.

"What are you doing?"

Lucien ignored him.

More Divine Energy poured from his inner universe.

The amount was wasteful by any ordinary standard. In an era where Lucien had yet to find even a trace of mana, releasing this much foreign energy into the world would have been insanity if he intended to leave it here.

He did not.

The Divine Energy curved.

Hunger realized what Lucien was doing a moment too late.

The flood had never been meant to attack him.

It surrounded him.

Hunger spread his Law instinctively, forcing the Divine Energy nearest his body to demand more of itself. The surrounding power began draining faster, but Lucien simply released more.

The Incarnation stared at the seemingly endless reserve gathering around him.

Even for a Primordial vessel, the amount was difficult to ignore.

Lucien closed his hand.

The Divine Energy collapsed inward.

Space folded with it.

Hunger tried to escape, but every direction had already been filled with Lucien’s power.

"You..."

Lucien pulled.

The Incarnation vanished.

The enormous Divine Energy surrounding him disappeared at the same instant, leaving the ancient sky clear once more.

Lucien followed.

•••

Hunger reappeared beneath a different sky.

For several moments, the Incarnation did not move.

Stars stretched across an enormous darkness.

There was no village beneath him. No dying crops waited to be deprived of water, and no frightened mortals existed nearby for Hunger to exploit.

There was only an immense empty region of Lucien’s inner universe.

Hunger slowly spread his perception.

Then his face changed.

The Laws surrounding him felt wrong.

The place acknowledged another authority before his own.

Time flowed according to a reference he had no knowledge of.

Even the energy saturating the region seemed connected to something larger that he could sense but could not properly touch.

For the first time since Lucien had encountered him, the Incarnation looked genuinely unsettled.

"This place..."

Lucien appeared several dozen meters away.

Hunger stared at him.

The Vulturekin’s perception reached farther, and his unease deepened.

"This is not the Big World."

Lucien said nothing.

Hunger searched again.

The sensation clearly unsettled him.

"It feels..."

Hunger stopped.

His eyes moved slowly across the surrounding darkness as his expression changed.

"This place... Why does it feel even more oppressive than Primordial Space?"

Lucien’s eyes narrowed slightly.

He had never experienced Primordial Space himself, so he had no basis to judge the comparison.

What he did know was much simpler.

This universe belonged to him.

Here, every Law already recognized his authority.

Hunger finally looked directly at him.

"What is this place?"

Lucien raised Morphis.

"My universe."

Hunger’s pupils contracted.

Lucien smiled faintly.

"And here, the Laws answer to me first."

He moved.

Hunger reacted immediately.

His authority surged outward.

The surrounding Divine Energy began consuming itself faster as Hunger attempted to create the same impossible deficit he had imposed outside.

Lucien thought once.

The loss stopped mattering.

More energy entered the region from every direction.

Hunger increased the demand.

Lucien increased the supply.

The Incarnation tried to make the surrounding Space itself require more power to remain stable.

The inner universe corrected it.

He turned his Law toward Lucien.

Lucien’s body suddenly demanded an enormous amount of energy.

Divine Energy flooded through him before the deficit could become meaningful.

Hunger’s expression darkened.

He finally understood the problem.

There was no scarcity here unless Lucien allowed it.

The Incarnation attacked physically.

His wings snapped open as he crossed the distance between them. Claws descended toward Lucien’s throat while Hunger concentrated around his body, attempting to force every defensive process Lucien used into an unsustainable state.

Lucien caught his wrist.

The impact sent a ripple through the surrounding darkness.

Hunger’s eyes widened.

Lucien punched him through several kilometers of empty Space.

Before the Incarnation could stabilize, the region itself folded and returned him directly in front of Lucien.

Morphis struck his side.

Blood scattered into the darkness.

Hunger attempted to spread his Law through the weapon, but the inner universe suppressed the foreign authority before it could deepen.

He retreated.

Space closed behind him.

The Incarnation turned.

Space closed there as well.

Hunger finally stopped.

Lucien could almost see the realization settling in.

Outside, Hunger had forced Lucien to protect a village while simultaneously fighting him.

Here, there was nothing to protect, nothing to starve, and nothing to turn against Lucien.

Only the Incarnation himself.

Hunger lowered his wings.

"So this was what you were carrying."

Lucien did not answer.

The Vulturekin smiled again, although some of the confidence was gone.

"Unfortunately, it changes nothing."

Lucien paused.

Hunger wiped blood from the corner of his beak.

"We already finished what we were sent here to do."

The words struck harder than the attack before them.

Lucien’s expression changed.

Aurelia’s futures ending in darkness returned immediately to his mind.

Elunara’s fate threads disappearing.

The Grandmaster finding no collapse because the road itself simply stopped.

Hunger saw the reaction and smiled.

Lucien moved before he could say anything else.

Sealing patterns spread throughout the surrounding Space.

Hunger struggled the moment he understood what was happening.

His Law surged wildly, trying to force the seals to consume more energy than Lucien could maintain.

The attempt would have worked much better anywhere else.

Lucien fed the seals directly from his inner universe.

Hunger created deficit.

Lucien filled it.

The flowing symbols wrapped around the Incarnation’s wings, arms, legs, and torso until his movements became increasingly restricted.

Hunger made one final attempt to collapse the seal through exhaustion.

Lucien simply increased the supply again.

The Vulturekin stared at him.

Lucien stared back.

"This is probably your worst possible prison."

The seal closed.

Hunger disappeared into another isolated layer of the inner universe, far from Rust, the Aevans, and every inhabited region.

Lucien reinforced the separation twice.

Then he left.

There was no satisfaction in capturing the second Incarnation.

Hunger’s words followed him back into the ancient world.

They had already finished.

Lucien refused to believe that without seeing it himself.

The moment he returned, the Covenant of Pathless Sovereignty appeared in his hand.

The Void Disc activated.

His last Split Body became the destination.

Space folded.

Lucien vanished.