100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 314 - Monster Emperor

Just then...

The Obsidian Tower shuddered.

It’s not the familiar tremor of drifting inertia nor the groan of a hull grinding against cosmic pressure.

This was a nudge.

Lucien’s stone throat tightened. His borrowed lungs did not need air, yet the instinct to swallow remained. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Meanwhile, the gargoyle kings understood immediately.

Their kneeling bodies pressed lower.

"Ancestor," the lead Monster King said. "The one who bears the Emperor’s mantle stands beyond the maw."

Another gargoyle spoke. "If our memory is true, he was your disciple. He was the first to hunger for your return."

A third added. "He has ascended. He is a Monster Emperor now. It was his will that led us through the void."

Lucien’s spirit went cold.

A Monster Emperor.

Outside.

A single step away from the tower’s entrance.

His disguise had fooled kings. It might not fool an emperor who knew the original voice, the original habits, and the original shape of silence.

Lucien searched his memory, dragging up fragments from the Mural World. He had seen it there, standing behind the emperor like a shadow given stone. A follower. A hound.

A name surfaced.

"Kharzun," Lucien said. "Kharzun, my Basalt Regent."

The tower trembled again. The pressure at the entrance thickened. Kharzun was not knocking. He was asserting.

Lucien did not allow his borrowed face to change. He let the emperor’s expression remain unreadable.

His mind moved with the speed of survival.

His gaze swept over the kneeling gargoyles.

"Return to him," Lucien said. "Explain what you have found."

Confusion flickered across stone faces but none dared question.

Lucien continued and his tone turned casually lethal.

"The offender you seek is dead."

The gargoyles flinched as if the words carried a blade.

Lucien let the silence stretch for a heartbeat, then added as if stating a matter of fact.

"I took this Obsidian Tower from a human I killed in the void. I claimed what was his. I kept what pleased me. That is the only way this structure could be in my grasp."

Understanding struck them like a blessing.

Their heads lifted a fraction as awe spilled through their rigid discipline.

"So the offender is gone," one whispered.

"Our Ancestor devours his enemies," another murmured. "As it should be."

Voices gathered,

"We are stone. We are conquest."

"We are the plunderers of worlds."

They gloried in the idea of their emperor killing a human and wearing his theft like armor.

Lucien watched their reaction and stored it.

A believable story did not need detail. It needed alignment with their instincts.

Then a single voice disrupted the harmony.

"But Ancestor," Harold Coalheart said.

The words were respectful. The intent was not.

"Why remain within this carcass of obsidian instead of returning to our dominion? Ten thousand years of absence is a wound. A master does not abandon his disciples without cause."

Lucien felt the urge to kill him rise like a snap of teeth.

Harold was not kneeling with the right kind of faith.

Harold was tasting the lie.

Lucien forced the killing impulse down and replaced it with wrath.

Wrath was believable. Wrath was expected. Wrath could drown questions.

Lucien’s aura surged. The chamber tightened around it. Miasma clung to the air like black frost.

The gargoyles recoiled.

"You witless stones," Lucien’s voice cracked like a mountain splitting. "Do you think I linger here for amusement?"

His gaze swung upwards. To the locked chambers of the Obsidian Tower.

"Goblins. Their cleverness is rot dressed as craft. Ten thousand years have passed, and you still let them outpace you in their little tricks."

His talons flexed.

"In the end, it is still I who must soil my hands. You call yourselves conquerors, yet you have leaned on goblins as if you were crippled."

The gargoyles’ eyes brightened. Pride flared. The insult struck exactly where it should.

Lucien pressed harder.

"You think they serve you," he said. "No. They feed on you. Goblins do not worship strength. They worship advantage. They would sell your bones if it bought them a new toy."

A rumble rose through the kneeling ranks.

"We need no goblins," one king said, voice thick with contempt.

"We are gargoyles," another growled. "We take what we desire."

"Their technology will be ours. The Ancestor had opened our eyes," a third hissed, and his gaze turned predatory.

Harold fell silent. His hands clenched. He looked away as if swallowing bitterness.

Lucien felt the shift in the room and knew he had succeeded.

A crack had formed between gargoyles and goblins and cracks were more useful than chains.

Lucien’s voice dropped into command.

"Go," he said. "Tell Kharzun what you have learned. Do not disturb my stillness again."

The gargoyles obeyed instantly.

They rose in disciplined motion and withdrew toward the maw. Harold lingered half a breath longer than the others, staring back at Lucien.

Then he turned and followed.

The chamber emptied.

Lucien stood alone for the first time in what felt like hours.

His shoulders loosened by a fraction.

He had bought time.

He had needed time.

Now time would return with teeth.

...

The tower shook again, harder.

A shadow eclipsed the entrance.

Something vast leaned toward the maw. Too large to enter fully, but close enough that its presence poured into the corridors like flooding tar.

A face of stone and ancient malice. Wings folded like fortresses. Eyes that held the dull glow of deep magma.

Kharzun.

A Monster Emperor.

Its voice did not shout. It did not need to.

It carried authority like a law.

"Impostor," Kharzun said. The word struck the chamber like a hammer hitting a bell. "You wear my master’s shape, but you do not carry his silence."

Lucien kept his posture calm. He let the emperor’s cold gaze remain fixed and imperial.

Kharzun continued.

"My master vanished without leaving a command. Without leaving a scar. If he returned, his first step would be to his dominion. His second would be to me."

His eyes narrowed.

"You claim inheritance, yet you sit in a stolen tower like a scavenger guarding a carcass. That is not the manner of the one who forged our hierarchy."

The suspicion was sharp and worse, it was intelligent.

Lucien’s mind raced, calculations stacking fast.

If Kharzun pushed through the maw, Lucien could not fight him.

If Kharzun retreated, he would return with reinforcements and methods that did not rely on smelling lies.

Lucien stepped forward.

He rose to his feet with deliberate slowness and walked toward the gaping maw until he stood before Kharzun.

Lucien’s borrowed gargoyle emperor body was massive, but Kharzun was a moving cliff.

Lucien looked up and spoke Kharzun’s name.

"Kharzun," he said. "Are you finished?"

He unleashed his aura.

A tide of dread and miasma that rolled outward and filled the entrance corridor until the very air felt heavy enough to crack.

Kharzun’s wings stiffened. His eyes tightened.

The presence was familiar. The killing intent was familiar. The dominance was familiar.

And that familiarity was dangerous, because it made doubt harder to hold.

Lucien leaned into the moment.

"You fool of a disciple," he thundered, letting wrath fill the spaces where truth might leak. "You accuse your master because you have grown comfortable."

He stepped closer, forcing Kharzun to look down at him like a child being scolded.

"While you nested in miasma, I traveled," Lucien said. "While you patrolled your scraps of dominion, I hunted enemies that dared survive the war."

Kharzun’s expression flickered.

Lucien did not let him recover.

"I captured what should not be captured," Lucien continued. "I refined what should not be refined. And you stand there asking whether I am real."

Kharzun’s gaze hardened again, fighting to cling to suspicion.

So Lucien showed him proof.

He expanded his domain.

Dark light unfolded in a dome, but it was not Lucien’s earlier playful architecture. This time, the domain manifested like a throne-room of law.

Within it, Lucien mimicked fragments he remembered from the Mural World. A sense of ancient gargoyle dominion.

Kharzun’s eyes widened despite himself.

Then he saw what mattered.

Cages.

Not one, not two, but rows upon rows... each holding an eternal beast bound in suppression.

Ancient beings. Eternities in prison.

The breath left Kharzun’s throat as if someone had crushed it.

Inside the cages, the ancient beings stirred and erupted into furious howls when they sensed miasma.

"Black Mass filth!"

"Unclean stone-born dogs!"

"Cowards!"

Their rage was real. It made the scene impossible to fake.

Kharzun stared as if his mind had stopped moving.

Lucien’s voice cut through like a blade.

"Look," he said. "Look at how helpless eternity becomes when my will tightens."

He let the domain’s pressure press down, just enough to make the cages vibrate and just enough to make the ancient beings snarl harder.

Then Lucien turned his gaze back to Kharzun.

"And you suspect me?"

Something broke in Kharzun’s expression.

Recognition flooded in. Reverence followed it like a tide.

He lowered his head slowly as if bending his pride hurt.

"Master," Kharzun said and the word came out rough. "It is truly you."

Lucien did not soften.

"Who else," he replied.

Kharzun swallowed and his voice gained urgency.

"Return with us. Our dominion endures. We have claimed a world in the void, a stone-walled refuge carved from conquest. You will be honored. You will be among your own."

Lucien felt the trap hidden inside the invitation.

If he refused, Kharzun’s suspicion would return and sharpen.

If he accepted, Lucien would be dragged toward a gargoyle-held world where scrutiny would be constant and mistakes would be fatal.

Lucien let silence hang for a heartbeat as if weighing empires.

Then he spoke as if granting mercy.

"Not yet," Lucien said. "These ancient beings are dangerous even in chains. If one escapes, it will be a wound in our dominion. I will refine them first. I will strip them down until there is nothing left to rebel."

Kharzun nodded immediately, almost relieved.

"As expected," he rumbled. "Then bring the tower to our world. Study the goblin craft there. Take what they made, and make it ours."

Lucien’s mind tightened.

He saw the only survivable angle.

Stay inside the tower.

Maintain the disguise.

Use the tower’s sealed systems as a shield.

Buy time again, even if it was time spent inside a monster emperor’s territory.

Lucien exhaled once.

Then he nodded.

"Very well," he said. "Pull this tower to your world. I will remain within it and finish my work."

Kharzun’s eyes brightened like stone catching fire.

He turned and gave commands into the void. Outside, Lucien sensed gargoyles moving into formation, pushing their wills against space to drag the Obsidian Tower like a captured fortress.

The tower trembled as direction returned to it.

Lucien stood at the maw, watching his own prison gain an escort.

Inside his chest, his real heart of thought was already sprinting.

He had survived the encounter.

He had deceived a Monster Emperor.

Now he was being towed toward a gargoyle dominion.

Lucien turned back into the tower’s darkness where no one could see the tension in his posture.

His eyes glinted.

This would not be a battle of strength.

It would be an escape from a Monster Emperor’s world.

And that was the kind of mission that killed legends.