100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 352 - Clash

The corridor slowed until even breath felt loud.

Inside that stretched tunnel of night, thousands of Liberators held their stance in silence. No one spoke. No one dared to waste motion on anything that was not survival.

As Liberators, they carried knowledge most factions had buried under myth.

They knew about the Primordials.

So when Lucien’s words rang through the corridor, faces changed all at once.

Not into fear. But into focus.

Every gaze fixed on the figure ahead as if its smallest gesture could be lethal.

It stood in the void like an error reality refused to correct.

Indifferent and unhurried.

Lucien did not move.

His mind turned cold.

’Of all incarnations... why this bastard?’

Lucien hated indifferent enemies more than arrogant ones.

Arrogance wasted time. Indifference conserved it.

Indifferent killers were efficient. They are machines built for one purpose.

Astraea’s storm hovered tight around her shoulders.

Vaelcar’s Monolith rotated.

Moltsage’s expression hardened. The scolding uncle vanished entirely. What remained was an Eternal shaped by survival.

Calculations ran behind the Eternals’ eyes.

Astraea and Vaelcar understood incarnations better than any here. They had lived long enough to know that an incarnation did not fight like a practitioner.

It fought like a principle. And principles did not bleed easily.

The three Eternals were ready to act.

Yet none of them could see an opening.

Not in the figure’s stance, not in its aura, not even in the way space arranged itself around it.

There were no loose threads to pull and no flaws to exploit.

Only a calm presence that made the corridor itself want to kneel.

Then the figure moved.

Not fast. Not slow.

It moved like a final sentence being written.

A scythe formed in its hand.

The void around the blade dimmed as if light had remembered it was optional.

Astraea’s voice dropped into command.

"Now."

The three Eternals vanished from the corridor at once.

The corridor trembled as their departure tore holes in its stability.

Outside, the void was naked.

Moltsage moved first.

His Law of Molting spread outward like a shedding skin. The void around the corridor peeled into layers, and one layer folded over another until a barrier existed.

Space argued with itself and decided that entering and exiting was no longer simple.

The corridor was secure once more, and he made sure everyone inside was safe.

At the same time, Astraea raised a hand.

Lightning judged.

Her Tempest Crown flared above her brow and storm-lines snapped into existence like spears of heaven. Each bolt carried a different frequency of destruction.

Vaelcar’s Monolith answered.

Scripture bloomed outward. Seals unfolded like petals made of law. They wrapped the void around the figure.

They sealed directions. They sealed distance. They sealed the idea of "escape" as if it were a concept that could be locked in a box.

Moltsage followed, attempting to seize control of the battlefield through his Law of Molting.

Three Laws struck in perfect synchronization.

For an instant, the void became crowded with authority.

Then the incarnation lifted its scythe.

A single slash.

And then...

The slash cut through their combined Law Arts like a blade through smoke.

Not by overpowering them. By separating them.

Astraea’s lightning split into two rivers that veered away from the figure as if unwilling to touch it.

Vaelcar’s seals tore apart and flew outward, their scripture unraveling midair like shredded decrees.

Moltsage’s molted space rippled and peeled away in sections as if something had told reality it was allowed to be inconsistent again.

The Liberators in the corridor felt it.

Thousands swallowed in unison. The kind of swallow that happened when the mind realized it had misjudged what "danger" meant.

Just then—

Moltsage disappeared.

He molted his location. Space shed the assumption of where he stood.

He reappeared behind the incarnation, palm already thrust forward.

Astraea and Vaelcar surged to assist, tightening the net.

The fight began.

It did not look like combat.

It looked like three storms trying to move a mountain that refused to admit it could be moved.

Moltsage’s palm struck.

The space behind the incarnation peeled, folding inward as if Moltsage intended to shear the figure’s back off the world.

Astraea’s lightning speared down in layered patterns, striking from three angles at once.

Vaelcar’s seals snapped shut around the scythe hand. The scriptures locked like a courtroom verdict.

But then—

The incarnation stepped once.

Just once.

Its foot touched nothing, and the void rearranged itself to support it anyway.

It swayed aside with minimal motion, and every strike missed by the width of an unspoken law.

Then the scythe moved again.

A short arc.

Astraea’s storm split cleanly. Her lightning wassevered into harmless streams.

Vaelcar’s seals shattered. The scriptures flared like paper thrown into fire.

Moltsage’s molted space ruptured. The peeled layer collapsed into itself, and for a heartbeat Moltsage’s body blurred as if he had almost been cut out of reality.

Inside the corridor, the crowd shifted.

Some hands clenched white. Some mouths tightened. Some fingers curled as if they wanted to bite the void itself. Others stared at the figure in quiet horror.

Lucien remained still.

His heart was beating fast, but his gaze was cold.

This was the same feeling as the Mural World.

A terror that did not threaten. A terror that simply did.

The corridor continued to crawl toward the Big World.

Moltsage’s mind split.

One part fought. One part fed mana into the corridor’s governing script to keep the thousands moving.

He was not merely battling an incarnation.

He was shielding an entire migration.

But, the incarnation seemed to notice.

Its head turned slightly.

Its gaze drifted past the Eternals and fell upon the corridor.

Upon the future of the organization.

Upon Lucien.

Its eyes narrowed and then...

The incarnation attacked.

It moved the scythe forward with minimal motion, and a line of severance appeared in the void.

The line aimed directly at the corridor’s throat.

At the thousand lives inside.

Everyone held their breath.

At that instant, Moltsage vanished into the path of the attack.

He reappeared where the severance line would pass, and the scythe’s law struck him squarely.

The corridor shook.

Velun’s breath caught. "Uncle!"

Moltsage’s body blurred.

Then, impossibly, he remained intact.

He... had molted the damage itself.

The severance peeled away from his flesh like a shed skin, drifting into nothingness as if the injury had never belonged to him.

Moltsage exhaled once, teeth clenched.

"You do not get them," he said.

The incarnation did not respond.

It shifted its scythe and pressed again.

Astraea and Vaelcar fought with perfect synchronization now. Their movements were so practiced they looked less like two people and more like two halves of a single ancient machine.

Astraea’s storm became a rotating lattice. Her bolts struck not to hit but to herd.

Vaelcar’s seals layered over the herding, turning her lightning into fences and corridors, forcing the incarnation to step where they wanted it to step.

Moltsage punctuated the pattern with Molting, peeling the void beneath the incarnation’s feet.

But...

It still was not enough.

They could not land a decisive hit.

Every time they thought they had it, the incarnation shifted by a fraction and the attack slid past as if reality itself corrected their aim.

Astraea’s teeth flashed as lightning crawled along her arms.

"We need at least five Eternals," she snapped. "Back in the war, it took five to suppress one of its kind."

Vaelcar’s tone was slower, and that slowness made it worse.

"If the Revered Slime still walked," he murmured, "it would subdue this thing in a breath."

Moltsage did not look away from the incarnation.

"Let’s endure with what we have."

The incarnation continued, unbothered.

It wasted nothing.

Minimal movement, maximum effect.

Every strike from that scythe carried enough certainty to wound even Eternals, and the only reason Astraea’s lightning and Vaelcar’s scripture survived was because they kept breaking, reforming, breaking again.

Vaelcar’s seals were a poor match. They were being cut apart too easily and without the Oath-Bound Monolith, Vaelcar would already be losing pieces of himself.

Astraea’s tempest hit harder. Her storm could harm Eternals.

Yet the scythe... It divided her storm. As if storm was merely a sentence that could be edited.

Still, Moltsage’s unorthodox doctrine gave them breath.

He molted angles. He molted distance. He molted timing itself, forcing the incarnation to "arrive" half a beat later than it intended.

It was enough to survive. But not enough to win.

After several exchanges, the truth settled into their bones.

There would be no victory here.

Not before exhaustion turned their defense into a mistake.

And if the fight dragged on, the side that tired first would die first.

It was then that Moltsage made a decision.

He flicked his hand and the Teleportation Disc’s governing focus shifted toward Astraea and Vaelcar like a baton passed mid-sprint.

"Friends, take it," Moltsage said.

Astraea’s eyes narrowed. "You... intend to remain."

Moltsage did not blink.

"We all die if we stay together," he said. "You two can keep the corridor moving. I will keep this thing occupied."

Vaelcar’s voice came low. "That is a death oath."

Moltsage’s mouth curved. Not into humor but into something grim and fond.

"Adults protect children," he said. "And one day, the world will depend on these children."

Astraea went silent.

For a heartbeat, her storm softened and something old moved behind her eyes.

Then she nodded once.

"Very well," she said. "We will not insult your sacrifice by refusing it."

Vaelcar’s scripture flared. He gave Moltsage a nod. His gaze carried quiet respect.

Then, they slipped back into the corridor, anchoring the Disc’s path, sealing its tether to keep it from being cut free.

Astraea stepped into command position. Her tempest crown brightened as she seized control of the activation sequence.

The corridor shuddered.

It began to pull again.

Not fast, but moving.

The incarnation turned to chase.

Moltsage moved first.

The space around the incarnation molted.

The void shed the assumption of where "forward" was, and the incarnation reappeared in front of Moltsage as if the chase itself had been forced to take a detour.

Moltsage struck at the same time.

His domain expanded.

The void within it peeled into layers, each layer disagreeing with the others about what existed inside.

Fissures formed. They sliced through the space the incarnation occupied.

For the first time, the incarnation made a large move.

It dodged with unmistakable intent. Its scythe swept wide as if to cut the domain apart.

Then its own domain expanded.

It was not grand.

It was absolute.

A cold field of ownership that made Moltsage’s peeled space recoil as if molting could not shed what had already been defined by something older.

The clash of domains created rifts.

Reality tore thin at the edges and the corridor behind them trembled as if it might unravel into open void.

Moltsage’s face tightened.

He tried to shed the incarnation’s domain.

He found it difficult. Not impossible but slow.

And slow was death here.

Moltsage withdrew his domain and molted backward, creating distance.

The incarnation withdrew its domain as well.

Its head turned.

Its attention slid past Moltsage again.

Toward the corridor.

Toward Lucien.

"Not so fast."

Moltsage threw his Law outward, and space molted into a trap, folding the incarnation’s path back toward him.

The corridor shuddered.

It pulled harder now.

Inches became meters.

Meters became miles.

Inside, thousands stared out through the corridor’s trembling edge, watching Moltsage fight something that moved like a principle given hands.

Lucien’s fists clenched.

He could do nothing.

He could not even last long against an Emperor.

He knew he stood no chance against an incarnation of a Primordial.

All he could do was watch.

And harden his heart.

Moltsage remained between them and the scythe.

A lone Eternal holding the line while the corridor dragged the helpless toward home.

Lucien met Moltsage’s back with his gaze, and for the first time he understood the Liberators’ true shape.

Not an organization.

But a promise.

A promise that someone would stand in front when the universe decided to harvest.

The corridor continued to move.

The Big World waited ahead.

Behind them, the void held a scythe.

And the next strike would decide whether "return" remained a word the universe permitted.