100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 331 - Negotiation?

Lucien turned his face slightly toward Astraea but his voice went only through the thread between them.

[Sister. We will not survive what comes next if it is only us.]

Astraea’s eyes did not move. Her reply was immediate.

[I was already weighing the same verdict.]

Lucien let out a slow breath, then pushed the thought forward.

[It has been too long since we lingered here. The Gargoyles may breach the boundary at any moment. I can carry another pact. Please help me choose.]

Astraea’s lips curved with quiet cruelty.

[I will convince them. A chain is easiest to break when the prisoner believes it was their own choice.]

She lowered her gaze to the ruined battlefield, then reached down and seized the Covenant-Breaker’s corpse by the horned ridge of its skull as if it weighed no more than a cloak.

Lucien understood her intent at once.

A trophy. A provocation.

Lucien blinked.

Astraea blinked a heartbeat after.

They left the Liberator members to rest.

•••

Lucien stood before the place where the cages had been buried. With a thought, he called them forth.

Inside them, presences stirred.

The air thickened.

Astraea appeared beside Lucien in human form, still dragging the Covenant-Breaker’s corpse like a banner.

At first, the caged beings began to sneer.

Then they saw her.

Two humans, they almost said.

But the woman’s aura was not human.

It was storm.

A voice rumbled from one cage.

"So the thunder-bird still breathes."

Another presence answered.

"You really formed a concord pact?"

Another voice echoed.

"We felt the tremor of battle even while entombed. Since both you and we yet endure, it is clear the foe was nothing but frailty clad in noise."

They remembered the visage of the Gargoyle Emperor earlier. In the age of war, the Basalt Regent had stood beneath them, a lesser power in their eyes.

At first, they believed it was that same being Astraea had slain earlier. So they sneered, thinking it was an easy fight.

But then...

Astraea did not even glance their way.

She simply lifted the Covenant-Breaker’s corpse higher.

The faint miasma trailing it snapped like a flag.

The cages went silent.

Recognition hit them.

That corpse carried the residue of authority. The taste of Collapse. The foul signature of a goblin Emperor who had survived longer than empires deserved to.

One of the captives pressed closer to its bars.

"That is," it said slowly. "That is the Covenant-Breaker!"

Astraea finally turned her head, just enough for her smile to become visible.

"Was," she corrected.

A bitter hiss rose from another cage.

"No. Impossible."

Astraea’s tone was calm.

"Your disbelief does not rewrite the sky. I tore his vessel open and I made the world withdraw permission for it to exist."

A pause.

Then softly with the cruelty of truth...

"And while you remained here, polishing your so called pride, I grew."

The captives reacted the way immortals always did when confronted with a future that had happened without them.

One slammed a clawed hand into the bars. Not to escape, but to deny.

"You lie," it growled. "You were always loud, Astraea. Do not mistake noise for progress."

Astraea laughed and the sound carried the cold ring of storm-metal.

"Progress?" she repeated. "You speak as if you have not spent centuries staring at the same bars. The only thing you have refined is bitterness."

She tossed the Emperor’s corpse to the ground.

It hit with a dull, obscene thud. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

The air shivered.

Astraea stepped forward and placed one foot on its chest like a conqueror claiming a hill.

Then she lifted her chin and let her aura flare.

It was enough to show that she was no longer the Astraea they remembered.

Lightning crawled across her skin in thin, lazy lines. Wind folded around her shoulders like a mantle. The pressure of her presence felt sharpened.

A voice rasped from the shadows of a cage, quieter than the others.

"You smell of pact."

Astraea’s eyes gleamed.

"Good," she said. "Then your ancient noses still function."

Lucien stood beside her, slightly speechless.

To him, it felt less like negotiation and more like an old feud being reopened with the casual confidence of someone holding the winning piece.

The captives were not just angry.

They were offended.

Because Astraea had done what they could not.

She had killed a problem they had once considered inevitable.

And she was smug about it in the only way immortals truly understood.

By showing the result without explaining the method.

One of the ancient beasts leaned forward until its shadow swallowed half its cage.

"What did you trade?" it asked. "What did he take from you?"

It was talking about Lucein and the Concord Pact.

Astraea’s smile widened.

"Nothing I value," she said. "And everything I desired."

She glanced at Lucien.

"He treats pacts as oaths, not leashes. He bargains like a sovereign."

Lucien’s mind flickered.

He understood what she was doing.

Not merely tempting them with freedom.

Tempting them with dignity.

Astraea tilted her head toward the horizon as if listening to a distant drum.

"And there is more," she added. "The next Emperor approaches."

The captives stiffened.

Astraea’s voice sharpened into something delighted.

"The Basalt Regent is still out there."

Silence dropped like a stone.

"So our senses did not deceive us. That presence truly belongs to the Basalt Regent."

"And yet he has climbed higher... ascended to the rank of an emperor."

"And we remained here," one voice said, "rotting in place."

Astraea looked at them as if they were mildly amusing.

"Yes," she said. "You made a choice."

Then she leaned closer to the bars and spoke with slow, ceremonial mockery.

"Tell me. How does it feel to be eternal and still be behind?"

The cages shuddered from their humiliation.

That was when Lucien stepped forward and spoke,

"Sister," he said aloud. "Since you chose to form a pact with me, I will forge equipment worthy of whatever treasures you held before."

A snort came from one of the cages.

"A human speaks of forging for an Eternal?"

Another voice laughed.

"Let him. Let him pretend. It will pass the centuries."

Lucien did not answer the mockery.

He simply opened his Craft interface.

The air shifted.

The captives felt it. But... They did not see anything.

Lucien’s eyes moved across categories.

Equipment.

And he was it.

[ TEMPEST CROWN ]

The cost flashed before him.

One million high-grade spirit crystals.

Lucien bought the recipe without blinking.

He read through the materials in silence.

Then a slow smile formed, the kind that meant alterations were already taking shape in his mind.

Lucien did not use the default materials.

He changed the recipe.

Living Alloy Essence. Astrafer. Threads of collapsed space harvested from goblin storages.

He smiled.

A crown that could adapt.

The crafting began.

A progress bar unfolded.

The bar filled.

And then...

A soft chime rang.

And the crown was born.

Lucien grabbed it then held it up.

A circlet of storm-silver and abyss-dark, crowned with thin prongs like frozen lightning. Astrafer veins ran through it in subtle spirals. Along the inner band, space-thread inscriptions rotated slowly.

The crown did not shine.

It resonated.

Astraea stared at it.

And for the first time since Lucien met her, her expression softened into something dangerously pleased.

"This," she said, "is not trinketry."

Lucien extended it.

"Wear it," he said. "and transform. It will follow you."

Astraea placed the crown on her head.

The moment it touched her, wind gathered.

The circlet tightened gently, matching her aura like a lock fitting a key.

Astraea inhaled, then transformed.

Her body surged outward into her Storm Roc form in a bloom of feathers and pressure.

And the crown resized instantly, unfurling into a sovereign diadem meant for a creature that could blot out skies. It sat between her horn-like crests like it had always belonged there.

The cages trembled.

Because the Tempest Crown was not merely equipment.

It was a declaration.

Astraea lifted her wings.

The crown responded.

Storm-light threaded through the air, and the wind around her became layered.

Regal wind.

When she flapped once, the gust did not scatter.

It folded into spirals, compressing and releasing in controlled bursts that carried force without wasting it. When she flared her aura, Astrafer’s resonance spread evenly across her frame, turning what should have been a strain into a sustained pressure.

Astraea’s laughter rolled.

She struck the air with one talon.

A thin line of lightning formed like a blade and held its shape, anchored by space-thread logic. It did not arc randomly. It obeyed. It carved a clean path through the world and vanished only when she willed it.

Then she looked back at the cages.

Her eyes gleamed with a predator’s joy.

She descended and returned to human form in one smooth motion.

The crown shrank with her like a living companion and settled on her brow as if it had never known another size.

Astraea touched it lightly, pleased.

Then she threw her head back and laughed.

"Hah. Little brother," she declared. "From this day, you may call yourself mine."

Lucien shrugged as if he had gifted a coat.

"Sister," he said evenly, "I told you. You would not lose by standing beside me. You treated me well. I return what I am given."

The captives hesitated.

Lucien could see it.

Their envy was no longer abstract.

It had a shape now.

A crown. A freedom. A pact that did not humiliate.

Astraea turned to the cages with an exaggerated grin, the expression of someone who had just stepped onto a path the others could not access.

Then she spoke softly.

"Still trapped," she said. "Still proud. Still empty-handed."

One of the ancient beings snarled.

"When I am free, I will grind you into dust, storm-bird."

Astraea’s smile widened.

"Then hurry," she said. "If you can."

For a heartbeat, Lucien thought the cages might break from sheer spite.

Then the shouts started.

"Let me out first. I will bind. I will bind."

"No, me. I will swear it. I will swear it clean."

"You think a crown makes you a sovereign? Release me and I will show you what sovereignty was before you learned to flap."

Astraea’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

Lucien turned slightly toward her, amused.

He had expected negotiation.

He had not expected Astraea to weaponize pride so perfectly.

But perhaps it made sense.

Only ancient beings truly knew how to bargain with ancient beings.

Astraea met his glance with a knowing smile.

And in the din of furious offers and ancient threats, Lucien felt it.

Time tightening.

The next catastrophe was drawing near.