100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?

Chapter 619 - Enemy Response

The hidden array missed only a beat.But every Keeper connected to the old command felt it.

In buried chambers, sealed halls, hidden valleys, and pressure-bearing sites beneath forgotten shrines, black-robed figures looked up at the same time.

Lootwell had not broken the locks. It had made the locks let go.

For the first time in a very long age, the Keepers looked at the name Lootwell and did not see a young force rising too quickly.

They saw a threat.

•••

In a chamber without lamps, a ring of Keepers gathered around a dark projection of the intercontinental array.

A Keeper with silver patterns across his black robe spoke first.

"The hostage tactic failed."

No one denied it.

Another Keeper, older and thinner, placed one hand over the projection.

"Not fully. Several locks still hold fragments."

"Several," the first Keeper replied. "Not enough."

The word settled heavily.

They had been close.

Painfully close.

If Lootwell had not appeared, the final years would have been simple. Civilizations would have argued. Old powers would have delayed. Fragment holders would have been isolated, stolen from, or misled. The locks would have fed. The receivers would have opened. The sleeping bodies would have awakened in order.

The world would have remembered its old masters before it understood it had been taught to kneel.

But Lootwell had appeared.

And Lootwell had not come alone.

The reports from escaped Keepers had changed the room’s understanding.

Seran and Lucien could not be judged by ordinary Eternal standards.

The ancient beasts under Lootwell were not simple beasts.

The Lunarians had stepped out of mystery.

The Celestials had committed real teams.

The Obsidian Collegium had become teeth behind records.

The Silent Monastery had given witness to things that should have stayed vague.

And now there were slimes.

For a moment, no one spoke of that part.

It sounded absurd.

That made it worse.

One Keeper finally said, "The resonance traces were slime-based."

The silver-patterned Keeper’s fingers tightened.

"Slimes."

His tone held no mockery.

Another Keeper could not hide his disbelief.

"Those creatures entered pressure-bearing leyline flow?"

The oldest presence in the chamber answered from behind the projection.

"The world does not care what shape a vessel takes if it can hear the vein."

That ended the disbelief.

The old voice continued.

"Lootwell found a method. If they continue, the fragments inside the locks will be stripped away one by one. After that, they will try to restore the leyline rhythm itself."

The room darkened.

Everyone understood what that meant.

Fragment extraction was damage control.

Leyline restoration was the true threat.

If the slimes entered long Ley Slumber across the right points, they could help the world’s flow remember its natural rhythm. They could weaken artificial redirections. They could make receivers lose alignment. They could starve the intercontinental array without breaking the scars.

That could not be allowed.

The silver-patterned Keeper spoke.

"Gather and protect the remaining locks."

Another added, "Poison the rhythms. Insert false pulses into the leyline. If the slimes connect through resonance, let resonance become a blade."

A third Keeper looked toward the dimming array lines.

"Wrong rhythm can injure them. Trap them. Pull their awareness into the locks."

"Good," the old voice said.

The chamber became colder.

"Stop guarding only the fragments. Guard the rhythm."

The projection pulsed once.

Several sleeping markers stirred.

The old voice continued, no louder than before.

"We cannot sleep anymore. A little more, and our mission will be complete. Remember why we were born."

The Keepers bowed their heads.

They were not soldiers hired by a faction.

They were not old men protecting tradition.

They were prepared instruments.

Hands made for a return.

The old voice finished.

"We exist to fulfill the goal."

Across the hidden array, orders moved.

Protect the remaining locks.

Poison the rhythms.

Kill the slimes if they can be reached.

Corrupt them if they cannot.

And if Lootwell prepared restoration, make the veins scream first.

•••

Origin Core fragments arrived at Lootwell one after another.

Lucien received them all inside the Origin Core Shrine.

He merged them immediately. Each fragment entered the growing core of world authority and settled into the whole.

The merged Origin Core brightened.

Its shape was no longer a loose gathering of broken pieces.

It was approaching three hundred fragments now.

It hovered above the altar like a half-formed sphere, its surface incomplete, its edges still broken, but its inner light moving with the rhythm of a sleeping world.

Every added fragment made the projected map clearer.

Hidden roads showed faint outlines.

Shadow routes appeared like black threads beneath ordinary roads.

The suspected shape of the intercontinental array became easier to see.

Origin Core fragment trails glowed.

Important markers pulsed with a different rhythm.

The map was no longer only a map.

It was becoming an eye.

Better than a satellite.

A satellite could see surfaces.

The merged Origin Core could sense authority.

Lucien could now zoom from five continents down to a valley, then from a valley to a hidden route, then from a hidden route to a fragment’s pressure against the leyline.

Not everything was visible.

But much more was visible than before.

And every Keeper movement now had fewer places to disappear.

Kael stared at the projection for several breaths.

"Young Lord."

"What?"

"This is unfair."

Lucien looked at him.

Kael pointed at the map.

"Not enough to complain about, obviously. I am only making a professional observation."

Seran appeared through a reflection with blood on his sleeve and dust in his hair.

"Did the map become more terrifying?"

"Yes," Kael said.

"Excellent."

"No."

Lucien studied the deeper layer.

The humor passed quickly.

The fragments they had recovered mattered.

The locks that still held fragments mattered more.

Worse, the locks had begun to pulse differently.

Lucien watched one pressure-bearing site flicker with a false rhythm.

Then another.

Sylra turned her head.

"They are changing the song."

Marie’s expression darkened.

"The locks are being guarded from inside the rhythm now."

Kaia’s eyes sharpened.

"That means they know."

Marina’s voice was quiet.

"They will attack the slimes through the leyline."

Lucien nodded.

He had expected it.

Expectation did not make the danger smaller.

Slimes in Ley Slumber could not dodge.

Their awareness was stretched through the ley current. A poisoned rhythm would not strike their bodies first. It would strike the connection. If it succeeded, the slime could be injured, trapped, misled into the lock, or turned into a relay.

The Keepers had lost fragments.

So now they would target the method.

•••

Lucien stood before the projected map for a long time.

The shrine did not disturb him.

Everyone understood that the war had changed again.

The custody race still continued.

Fragments still had to be secured.

Carriers still had to be intercepted.

Locks still had to be stripped of stolen authority.

But that was no longer the final objective.

Recovering fragments was only stopping the bleeding.

The Big World’s leyline flow still carried artificial bends.

The hidden array still existed.

The intercontinental array still tried to teach the world to accept a return that should never happen.

Lucien looked at the map.

"The Grand Restoration will be the real operation."

No one asked what he meant.

They could see it.

Marie stepped closer.

"The slimes would have to stay in Ley Slumber much longer."

"Yes," Lucien said.

"Not just one breath to loosen a fragment."

"No. Long enough to help the leyline remember its own rhythm."

Sylra closed her eyes.

"That would touch many places at once."

Marina added, "Continents, not sites."

Kaia’s gaze moved across the pulsing locks.

"And the Keepers will never let them sleep peacefully."

"Correct."

The answer was simple.

That did not make it easy.

For Leybound Assimilation to restore the artificial flow, the slimes could not merely enter and withdraw. They would need to remain across key points of the leyline network, spread through every continent where the artificial rhythm had taken root.

Ley Slumber would turn them into living harmonizers.

If the Keepers were still nearby, they would poison the rhythm, kill the bodies, seize the connections, or force the locks to scream.

Lucien finally spoke.

"Fragment recovery continues. But restoration cannot begin while the enemy still holds knives inside the operating room."

Seran smiled faintly.

"That means we clear the room."

Lucien nodded.

"We clear the room."

The phrase settled into the shrine.

It was not a declaration of total war.

Not yet.

It was more precise than that.

Safe zones had to be created around pressure-bearing locks.

Outer routes had to be closed.

Hidden guards had to be removed.

Rhythm poisoners had to be found.

Relay stations had to be destroyed or isolated.

Receivers had to be cut from their support lines.

Keeper movement around restoration sites had to become impossible.

Only then could the slimes spread into long Ley Slumber without being turned into targets.

Eirene’s brush moved.

"New classification?"

Lucien answered.

"Three layers."

The map responded to his thought.

The first layer brightened.

"Thorn Removal. Continue recovering fragments from locks where safe."

The second layer appeared around the pressure-bearing sites.

"Operating Room Clearance. Remove Keepers, rhythm stations, guards, outer relays, and command pulses around restoration zones."

The third layer spread across the leyline network itself.

"Grand Restoration. Slimes enter sustained Ley Slumber and restore natural flow."