100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 413 - One Step Ahead

Lucien spent the night with the goblin manuals spread across the table again.

It revealed the workings of the Obsidian Tower and the design behind their conquest.

Lucien had read this manual before.

But now he read it differently.

Now he had context.

Suddenly, the parts that once seemed obscure began to align.

Lucien leaned back slightly.

"I see."

The explanation was not complicated.

Reality was not a single continuous space.

It was layered.

Not like stacked floors of a building.

More like multiple sheets of fabric occupying the same position, pressed together so tightly that beings perceived them as one.

Each layer was a different plane of existence.

The Big World existed on one of those planes.

The small worlds existed on another.

They shared the same cosmic position, yet they remained separated by an invisible membrane of dimensional pressure.

Lucien murmured quietly.

"The worlds overlap... but they do not touch."

The Obsidian Tower existed for one purpose.

To pierce that membrane.

It did not simply tear open reality.

It searched.

The tower could scan the layered planes like a lighthouse sweeping across a dark ocean, probing for the faint resonance of small worlds hidden beyond the dimensional curtain.

Once it detected one, it could calculate the coordinates where the membrane between planes was weakest.

Only then could it strike.

Lucien’s gaze sharpened.

The small worlds were not floating islands scattered through empty space.

They were embedded layers, hidden within the same cosmic volume as the Big World but sealed behind dimensional barriers.

The Obsidian Tower was designed to locate those layers.

And once the coordinates were confirmed, it could drive a spike through reality itself.

Lucien closed the manual for a moment.

But that alone did not explain the rest.

He opened the others and turned several pages.

Now that he understood the structure of the planes, the next part became clearer as well.

Why the monsters relied on the Black Mass.

Lucien exhaled slowly.

"Of course."

The Black Mass was a creation of the Primordial Slime.

Which meant its frequency and its existence were all related to the same system that created the small worlds.

In other words, the Black Mass gave them the means to imitate the very frequency of the small worlds.

That made it the perfect disguise.

If the Obsidian Tower tried to pierce a small world directly using their miasma, the world itself would reject the intrusion instantly.

The Primordial Slime had not been careless when it created the incubator worlds.

Foreign corruption would be rejected.

But the Black Mass was different. It could mimic the resonance of the small worlds closely enough to slip through the outer layers.

Lucien’s fingers tapped lightly against the page.

"Still... that would not be enough."

And the manual confirmed it.

Even with the Black Mass as camouflage, the monsters could not simply force their way in.

The small worlds rejected miasma.

Too much corruption entering at once would trigger defensive responses.

Reality itself would attempt to close the wound.

So the monsters did not rush.

They waited.

Lucien flipped to the section describing early incursions.

His eyes darkened.

"They tested it."

The first step was patience.

Once the Obsidian Tower identified a small world and marked its coordinates, the monsters did not invade immediately.

Instead, they began with experiments.

Monster Emperors possessed the ability to generate vast numbers of lesser creatures using their own blood and essence.

To them, the cost was trivial.

Life and death among those creatures did not matter.

They created legions.

Then they sent them.

Freshly born monsters that had no miasma.

Those monsters were pushed through the dimensional puncture like seeds scattered into soil.

Most died.

Some survived.

But something interesting happened.

The small world reacted.

Lucien leaned forward.

"The world treated them like disease."

When a monster entered a small world, the world’s laws recognized it as a foreign object.

A tumor.

The world’s response was not immediate destruction.

Instead, it attempted containment.

Dungeons.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

It was like a defensive quarantine.

But the monsters quickly realized something.

The punctures/rifts eventually became dungeon cores. If the cores were destroyed, the dungeons would collapse as well.

But for profit, the dungeons were rarely destroyed.

The monsters took advantage of this opportunity.

Dungeons became footholds.

Starting points.

Slow leaks of miasma began spreading through the dungeon environment, corrupting it little by little.

Lucien’s expression hardened.

"They turned the prison into a nest."

From the dungeon, the monsters could observe the small world.

And then they began the second stage.

Manipulation.

Lucien turned another page.

Here the goblin scribes described the process with disturbing precision.

The monsters did not rely solely on brute force.

They searched for ambition.

Every world had people who hungered for power. People willing to betray their own kind for the promise of strength.

The monsters found them.

And they offered gifts.

Knowledge. Treasure. Techniques. Power.

The traitors believed they were forming alliances.

They believed they were becoming masters of forbidden knowledge.

In truth, they were tools.

Just like the Golddusts and the Coalhearts.

Many such factions across different worlds.

Lucien had seen the results himself.

Those traitors constructed arrays.

They sacrificed blood.

The manual explained the purpose clearly.

The sacrifices destabilized the small world’s defensive laws.

The more corruption the dungeon accumulated, the weaker the dimensional membrane became.

Lucien could picture the process now.

A tiny wound in reality.

Dungeons growing like infected tissue around it.

Traitors feeding the wound with blood and corruption.

Until finally...

The Obsidian Tower found its moment.

The exact instant when the dimensional barrier weakened enough.

That was when the monsters struck.

Lucien closed the manual slowly.

"When the tower pierces at that moment..."

His voice was quiet.

"The world dies."

Entire legions could pour through the breach.

The Black Mass would spread through the Obsidian Tower as its core, preventing the small world’s laws from recovering.

By then, it was already too late.

Lucien breathed out slowly.

’The monsters are really patient.’

His gaze drifted to the window where night stretched quietly beyond the glass.

"They plan in decades."

And this was only one method.

This manual only described the technology of the goblins.

The gargoyles possessed their own systems.

Other monster races likely had their own invasion techniques as well.

Lucien leaned back in his chair.

’The Black Mass monsters have grown too much.’

Their strength had increased.

Their intelligence had sharpened.

Their technology had evolved.

Meanwhile, the races of the Big World had fractured into factions, sects, and rivalries.

Lucien’s fingers tapped lightly against the table.

"That cannot continue."

He rose from the chair.

His eyes were calm again.

The monsters were already thinking ten moves ahead.

Lucien would not remain idle while they prepared their next invasion.

He turned toward the door.

Outside, the night wind moved softly through the quiet branch of the Liberators.

Lucien’s voice carried into the darkness.

"Time to move the board."

If he could not prevent the monster invasions, he would stay one step ahead of them.

He would invade faster than they could.

•••

Lucien stepped outside the house Cassian had given him.

A few lamps glowed along the walkways. Somewhere in the distance, Liberators were still sparring.

Lucien glanced once toward the direction of Seraphine’s laboratory.

The lights were still on.

He smiled faintly.

Then he stepped into the nearest shadow.

His body dissolved into darkness.

Slip Through Shade.

He passed the outer patrol routes without anyone noticing.

In less than a minute, he emerged outside the Liberators’ hidden territory.

Lucien stepped out from beneath a tall stone ridge and looked around.

The area was secluded. The forest around him was thick and untouched.

’Perfect.’

He lifted his hand.

Dominion Circle activated and magic circles unfolded in the air like silent gears. They rotated once, twice, and then they merged.

A transparent barrier spread across the clearing.

Satisfied, Lucien reached inside his core.

The ground trembled softly.

The Obsidian Tower appeared.

Lucien entered.

Without hesitation, he flew upward.

The tower recognized him instantly as an administrator.

He ascended through the hollow structure until he reached the highest chamber.

The control chamber.

At its center stood the pedestal.

And within it rested the origin core fragment that fuels the tower.

Lucien stepped forward slowly.

The tower responded to his presence like a machine waking from long dormancy.

Panels flickered alive along the walls. They displayed the outside world through the tower’s countless obsidian eyes.

Lucien studied the manuals again.

Then he smiled.

He did not need the Black Mass.

That was merely the monsters’ shortcut.

Lucien possessed something better.

His own skills.

Lucien could tune his energy to mimic the resonance of small worlds perfectly using his skills.

Soon, he placed his palm on the pedestal.

The origin core fragment responded instantly.

Light flooded the chamber.

Dozens of magic circles ignited beneath his feet. Formation arrays unfolded along the walls in precise geometric patterns.

The tower had accepted the command.

Lucien began channeling energy.

His divine energy flowed into the origin core like a controlled current. The tower absorbed it, translated it, refined it.

Runes shifted.

Calculations adjusted.

The tower was no longer dormant.

It was calibrating.

The entire structure began to hum.

Lucien watched the arrays carefully.

This was the part Lucien had not understood before. That was why, even after activating the tower before, he had never attempted to activate its true potential.

Every circle had a purpose.

Before, some of the circles had made no sense to him at all.

But after seeing the split-open site and hearing Sylra and Kaia’s accounts, Lucien finally understood their function.

Lucien smiled faintly.

Now, the tower’s logic finally made sense.

Lucien spoke quietly as he followed the sequence.

"Dimensional calibration."

One array rotated.

"Plane alignment."

Another formation unfolded above the pedestal like a spinning astrolabe.

"Frequency synchronization."

The tower responded.

Its veins began glowing with faint silver light as the scanning wave expanded outward.

Lucien could feel it.

A pulse spreading through reality.

Searching. Probing the layered planes beyond the Big World.

The origin core fragment pulsed again.

The tower groaned softly as the dimensional interface activated.

Lucien followed the instructions precisely.

Every circle had to activate in the correct order.

If the resonance became unstable, the tower could tear open the wrong plane.

Or worse.

Lucien’s eyes remained calm as he adjusted the final sequence.

"Dimensional anchor... established."

The pedestal vibrated.

Reality around the tower distorted.

Lucien felt the shift immediately.

The Big World’s presence faded slightly.

The tower had begun phasing into another layer.

The chamber darkened as the dimensional membrane slid past like water flowing across glass.

Then everything stabilized.

Lucien looked around.

They had moved.

The tower now existed in a neighboring plane.

Not inside the Big World.

But adjacent to it.

The scanning arrays expanded.

Panels along the walls changed.

The view outside was no longer the forest.

Instead, the panels displayed a vast gray expanse.

An ocean of distorted space.

Lucien studied it carefully.

"So this is the layer between worlds."

The tower continued scanning.

Time passed.

Lucien did not rush.

He watched the arrays process countless coordinates, measuring fluctuations in dimensional density across the infinite layered planes.

Minutes stretched.

Then suddenly.

One panel flickered.

Lucien’s gaze snapped toward it.

A signal.

The tower had detected something.

A faint distortion appeared on the display.

Then another.

The scanning array rotated once more.

Calculations streamed across the formation rings.

Coordinates locked.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

The tower had found one.

Hidden within the dimensional layers.

A small world.

The display sharpened.

Far away in the gray ocean of folded planes, a sphere of faint light flickered like a distant star.

Lucien stared at it.

Then he smiled slowly.

"So there you are."