100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 451 - Next Move

Soon, Lucien and the others regrouped in Aurion.

Lucien placed the newly accepted people inside his divine energy core.

He did not simply leave them there unattended.

Morveth took charge of the immediate organization, while Seren and the other Liberators helped calm them, explain what Lootwell actually was, and answer the same frightened questions that kept rising in different forms.

What kind of place is it? Will we be forced to serve? Can we still leave later? Will our children be safe?

Seren handled those well.

Inside the city, Dawnbinder received them without delay.

The difference in the ancient beasts was visible at once.

Before the campaign, the newer ones in particular had carried themselves with the contained stiffness. Their auras had been suppressed, cold, and reserved.

Now, after finally acting in the world rather than merely discussing it, they felt different.

More alive.

Even the way they stood had changed.

Grave (Gravemaw Colossus) looked as though some old stone had finally remembered it was once part of a mountain rather than a prison wall.

Aurvang’s (Gilded War-Moose) presence carried a low, rumbling satisfaction, the kind that belonged to a beast allowed to run instead of merely endure.

Ashkara’s (Ashen Crown Serpent) amusement no longer seemed entirely theoretical.

They had tasted motion again.

And they liked it.

Noctryn (Nightglass Owlbear) stretched with satisfaction, "It is good to feel the sky answer battle once more."

Dawnbinder, who was still becoming accustomed to the fact that these kinds of conversations now happened in his halls, said nothing.

It did not take long for Eirene to arrive.

She entered the hall calm as ever, but the moment Lucien saw her expression, he already knew.

Good news.

When she announced that the Lunareth Sect had agreed, the room genuinely stilled.

Even Shadow, who had already begun adapting to impossible things, blinked once.

"That fast?" Marie asked.

She sounded impressed rather than doubtful.

The ancient beasts exchanged glances of their own.

They knew of the Lunareth.

Stillness practitioners were not famous for being easy people.

They were controlled, difficult to pressure, and often more stubborn than mountains because they saw motion as something to be spent only when necessary.

For a group like that to align this quickly was no small thing.

When Lucien smiled at her and said, "Good work," Eirene’s expression softened into something rare and genuine.

Then, perhaps by instinct more than intention, she glanced slightly to the side.

There, Lilith happened to be sitting.

Their eyes met.

Eirene’s smile sharpened with quiet triumph.

Lilith looked away first and clicked her tongue softly.

Eirene then added, "The Lunareth representative will arrive soon."

And she was right.

Lythrae came not long after.

Dawnbinder had already instructed the guards to admit her at once, and so when she entered, there was no delay.

The moment she saw Eirene, her crescent eyes lit up with unmistakable excitement.

Then she suppressed it with admirable speed.

She bowed to Eirene first then greeted the rest in measured order.

No one else found that strange.

Lucien noticed the additional restraint in Lythrae’s posture, but he said nothing.

Now, the crucial players of the region are now gathered.

The meeting began again.

This time, it was no longer about whether they could act.

It was about how fast they needed to move before their silence turned suspicious.

That part mattered.

The first wave of liberated nodes had gone quiet. The supply routes feeding them had been cut or seized. The nearest communication lines had been controlled. That bought them time.

But only some.

The Exchange was too large, too methodical, and too dependent on rhythm not to notice missing beats eventually.

So they had to make those missing beats matter before the enemy could correct to them.

That led naturally to the next question.

The cure.

Should its existence in the West remain hidden longer?

Or should it begin spreading now?

Lucien listened before answering.

Dawnbinder spoke first.

"If we let the news travel uncontrolled," he said, "then merchants will weaponize it before our enemies do. They will add lies, remove context, and turn uncertainty into panic."

Shadow nodded.

"And if the first version of the cure’s existence reaches the Exchange through gossip, they will shape the narrative before we do."

That was the real danger.

Silence was only useful up to a point.

After the cure had already been administered in multiple settlements and in Aurion’s restricted treatment quarters, hiding its existence entirely was no longer a realistic long-term strategy. Too many people had seen too much. Merchants would talk. Families would whisper. Desperate practitioners would chase rumors harder than coin.

If the coalition stayed silent for too long, the story would still spread.

It would just spread incorrectly.

Lucien finally said, "Then we speak first."

Not publicly. But through controlled rumor.

Enough truth to establish authorship.

Not enough specificity to expose the full structure behind it.

So the first version of the story was crafted carefully.

A cure had appeared in Sareth.

It came from wandering figures who called themselves Liberators.

They moved in shadows, entered afflicted settlements, administered treatment, and vanished before anyone could tie them down.

They did not seize cities.

They did not demand worship.

They only cut chains and moved on.

That version carried several advantages at once.

It matched what had already been known from the East Continent. That gave the story credibility.

It kept Dawnbinder from being implicated too early. That preserved Aurion’s stability.

It denied merchants room to invent a ridiculous source out of whole cloth. If people already knew the cure came from the Liberators, then the Exchange could not as easily redirect blame toward rival sects, rogue alchemists, or fabricated poison plots.

And most importantly—

It made the cure feel mobile.

Present. Moving. Reachable.

The plan would proceed in stages.

First, the rumor would move through controlled communication channels between allied settlements and trusted trade partners.

From there, it would be permitted to slip into smaller sect circles, then outward through travelers and caravan routes.

The rumor will not explode.

It will spread the way all effective things spread first.

Like a secret people desperately wanted to be true.

Lythrae then offered the next piece.

"The Lunareth Sect will also let the rumor pass through our influence," she said. "Quietly. But clearly enough that it acquires weight."

That mattered enormously.

If only merchants repeated the story, then many would dismiss it as desperate market talk.

If a major sect allowed the same rumor to move through its circles without denying it, then the rumor became harder to laugh away.

"We can also assist with the production of the cure," she added.

Shadow hesitated at once.

His expression tightened slightly.

"Can the Lunareths be trusted with production?" he asked Lucien quietly.

That was the real concern.

Extending cure-making capacity into another unknown power’s hands.

But Eirene, beside Lucien, heard it and answered.

"They can."

Lucien gave a slight nod in confirmation.

That eased Shadow’s concerns.

Lythrae then said, "The Lunareth population is large. Our discipline is sufficient. If given the process, we can accelerate production without degrading quality."

That was true.

There were millions within the Lunareth Sect’s sphere. Even if only a fraction took part in the production, ingredient generation and cure refinement would rise dramatically.

The stockpile problem shrank at once.

So the next arrangements were made.

The hybrid ingredients. The cultivation conditions. The refinement sequences. The error thresholds.

All of it was passed carefully.

Once that was done, Lythrae departed immediately.

She did not linger.

The Lunareth would start at once.

And with that, another great pressure on their campaign eased.

Then came the next major question.

What should they do now?

Some argued for caution.

Some argued for immediate deeper strikes.

Lucien listened.

Then he clarified the shape of the problem.

The first communication and supply nodes in Sareth had already been removed.

But pushing blindly at every remaining Exchange node in Sareth all at once would now be the wrong move.

They had already won silence.

They should not replace it with noise too early.

So he adjusted the campaign.

"Not another wave of open purges," he said. "Not yet."

Instead, the ancient beasts would shift roles.

Some would remain in hidden positions near the liberated settlements as invisible deterrence.

Some would begin intercepting long-range supply movement, but selectively... enough to create irregularity, not enough yet to make the enemy instantly recognize the full shape of the pattern.

Some would hunt for deeper communication relays, hidden couriers, and medium-tier command nodes that mattered more than the settlements themselves.

In other words, they would not keep chopping the visible branches.

They would start cutting the veins.

If they purged every node too quickly, the Exchange would know a regional coalition had already formed and would react with heavier force immediately.

If they instead caused uncertainty, attrition, delays, and partial blindness, then the Exchange would be pushed into misreading the size and nature of the threat.

Lucien wanted them guessing.

And while they guessed—

The cure would spread.

The settlements would stabilize.

Aurion would harden.

The Lunareth would scale production.

That was how they would cleanse Sareth properly.

Not through one dramatic victory.

Through a campaign of controlled inevitability.

By the end of the meeting, everyone understood it.

The first strikes had severed the fingers.

Now they would work inward toward the wrist.

And all the while, the region would hear, more and more often, the same impossible rumor:

The Liberators had come.

And they had brought an end to poison.