100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 333 - Final Preparation
Lucien did not waste time.
The world had a way of charging interest on delays.
He turned first to Vaelcar.
"Then brother, please consolidate yourself," Lucien said evenly. "You were bound for millennia. Your strength exists, but it has not yet settled into this era."
Vaelcar inclined his head.
"You speak correctly," the Cataclysm Wyrm replied. "Power unused becomes rigid. I will temper it before stone tests me."
He moved away from the others and sat upon the fractured land, one palm pressed against the ground.
The Law of Seals stirred.
Invisible runes spread beneath him like a buried script, arresting fault lines, steadying fractures, and forcing the land itself to remember what it was.
Vaelcar breathed.
The seals deepened.
Astraea watched him once, then turned away.
Her own preparation awaited.
She stepped into the open sky and unfurled her wings.
The Tempest Crown responded immediately.
Storm did not explode outward this time.
It folded inward.
Layer upon layer of pressure condensed around her frame. Lightning threaded through the air in precise arcs, reinforcing rather than tearing.
Astraea hovered, testing.
When she flared her aura, the Astrafer veins within the crown redistributed the strain evenly across her form.
Earlier, she had worn it lightly. As a declaration rather than a tool.
Now she understood that what she had shown was only its surface.
The crown still held depths unawakened, functions that had not yet been drawn into harmony with her Law.
And she intended to uncover every one of them.
She smiled faintly.
Below them, Lucien had already turned inward.
He opened his Craft interface.
This time, he did not browse.
He already knew what was missing.
Vaelcar wielded Seals.
But Seals alone were not enough.
A seal without an anchor could be torn open by force.
What Vaelcar required was continuity.
Lucien selected the blueprint.
<Oathbound Monolith>
Cost: 1,000,000 High-Grade Spirit Crystals 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮
Lucien did not hesitate.
The materials list was long.
Yet Lucien did not stop there.
He added more components. Each one was meant to reinforce the structure as a whole rather than merely strengthen a single aspect.
He smiled faintly.
A monolith that could move. A seal-anchor that could follow its bearer.
’Good.’
The crafting began.
The progress bar unfolded slowly.
...
When it completed, the world seemed to notice.
Lucien lifted the artifact.
It was not large.
A dark obelisk the length of his forearm, floating slightly above his palm. Its surface was layered with runes that did not glow. They waited. Astrafer veins ran through it like a circulatory system, and space-thread inscriptions rotated slowly, allowing it to exist in multiple positional states at once.
Lucien turned to Vaelcar.
"For you."
Vaelcar reached out.
The moment his fingers touched it, the obelisk dissolved into pale script and reassembled behind him like a shadow cast by authority itself.
Vaelcar’s breath caught.
Then he laughed.
"Ah," he said. "This is... appropriate."
He lifted his hand.
A seal flared.
The monolith responded, locking the seal in place without draining him.
Vaelcar nodded once, deeply satisfied.
"This will let me hold verdicts open," he said. "Long enough for execution."
Then he stepped back.
Stone-script rippled across his skin.
His human form unfolded with restraint.
In moments, the Cataclysm Wyrm stood revealed.
Behind him, the Oathbound Monolith did not remain small.
The pale script composing it unraveled and surged outward, reassembling into a colossal pillar that rose along the length of Vaelcar’s true form.
It followed him. A shadow of judgment bound to his existence.
Vaelcar lowered his head.
A vast seal formed between his horns.
The monolith answered.
Its runes flared and locked, anchoring the seal in place.
The air froze.
Arrested.
Dust halted mid-fall. Wind stalled without dispersing. Even distant tremors hesitated, as if awaiting permission.
Vaelcar inhaled.
The seal did not close.
It remained.
Vaelcar shifted one massive claw.
The space bound by the seal moved with it, dragged like a tide caught on an anchor.
Then, with measured control, he released it.
The pressure lifted.
Time resumed.
The monolith collapsed back into flowing script and returned to its place behind him as his colossal form folded inward once more.
When the transformation ended, Vaelcar stood again in human form.
He exhaled once, satisfied.
"Yes," he said quietly. "This is fitting."
Lucien nodded.
The artifact had done exactly what it was meant to do.
It enforced outcome.
And against an Emperor who ruled through inevitability, that was far deadlier than brute force.
Lucien soon left.
He did not stop.
He turned to his Craft Feature once more.
The others needed protection.
He selected the next blueprint.
<Aegis Set>
A full defensive set.
He modified it and added Astrafer.
His theory was simple.
Petrification was a verdict.
Astrafer spread force.
If a verdict relied on concentrated enforcement, then spreading the "decision" would weaken it.
Not nullify. But delay.
And delay was survival.
Soon...
The crafting completed.
Five sets appeared in his inventory.
Then, he blinked.
Kaia was already awake when Lucien arrived.
She stood with a faint glow beneath her skin. Her eyes were sharper than before.
There was glee there now.
Lucien handed the sets out one by one.
The armor shimmered as it attuned.
Light but resilient.
Runes adjusted to each wearer instinctively.
Rhazek tested his gauntlet against stone.
The stone resisted.
Then fractured.
Velun flexed and laughed. "This feels like cheating."
Darian exhaled slowly. "I can feel the dispersion. My mana is no longer being crushed."
Seryth nodded once, approving.
Kaia rolled her shoulders.
Her fire brushed the armor.
It did not burn.
Instead, it slid.
She stared.
"...This avoids fire?" she asked quietly.
Lucien nodded.
"This would prevent friendly fires. But not fully, so be careful still."
Then...
Kaia approached him again.
This time, she spoke first.
"The Will of the World merged with my system."
Lucien was not surprised.
"What changed?"
Kaia closed her eyes.
"It thinks now," she said. "Not like a voice. It optimizes without asking."
She opened her palm.
Flame bloomed.
Not one color.
But three.
Red, gold, and white braided together into a stable spiral.
"I can merge flames," she continued. "And create composite states. I can invent them now."
Kaia finished speaking.
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
Lucien absorbed the implications quietly.
His theory was right. The Will of the World really merged with her system. A system that could now understand rather than merely execute.
"It suits you," he said at last. "Fire that can choose."
Kaia snorted softly. "That’s one way to put it."
They parted soon after.
That was when Lucien felt the unease finally settled.
It was too quiet.
Kharzun might believe they were still locked in battle with the goblins. That assumption made sense. Fights between Emperors would naturally be long.
But even so—
At least one gargoyle should have appeared by now.
A scout. A watcher. A messenger.
The Lead Gargoyle King was loyal to the Goblin Ancestor, loyal enough that retreat without confirmation would have been unthinkable.
Yet he had not returned.
Not to report. Not to observe. Not even to confirm survival.
Lucien extended his senses outward, pressing carefully against the limits of his domain.
"They should have sent eyes," Lucien murmured. "Even stone sends witnesses."
Astraea descended beside him.
"Stone does not panic," she said. "It assumes endurance is victory."
Vaelcar stood facing the horizon, unmoving.
"When stone delays," he said, "it is not hesitation. It is calculation. Weight is being arranged elsewhere."
Lucien nodded slowly.
If the Lead Gargoyle King had not returned, then either he had been destroyed...
Or he had been ordered not to return at all...
Lucien stopped thinking about it.
The preparations were complete.
There was nothing more to add.
Only resolve.
"Rest is over," he said quietly.
The world tightened around them.
Somewhere beyond the reach of sight and sense, something was shifting.
And Lucien understood then—
The danger was not that the stone emperor had not moved.
It was that he had chosen where to move first.
