100% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? - Chapter 226

Chapter 226: Chapter 226 – Eliminated
For a heartbeat after the declaration of first place, the entire spire held its breath.

Then—

Something shifted at the topmost ring.

The black-robed women who had stood motionless beneath the Ascension Gate, tilted their heads in eerie unison.

A pressure leaked from their bodies.

It’s not aura or Law… but something colder.

Intent.

Killing intent so sharp it felt like a razor sliding along the world’s throat.

The Dawnblade twins snapped their gazes upward.

The Scarlet disciples’ flames quivered, not from fear, but from instinctive readiness.

They felt it.

The black-robed women were done climbing. They shifted to… hunting.

And they moved.

No warning. No signal. Just a blur.

Two shadowy specters streaked forward with executioner precision.

Their first strike split the air… aimed squarely at the Dawnblade duo.

“THEY’RE ATTACKING?!”

“THE TRIAL ALREADY ANNOUNCED FIRST PLACE!”

“THE BLACK-ROBED WOMEN ARE TRYING TO REDUCE THE COMPETITION—!!”

The Dawnblade twins crossed their mirrored blades—

CRAAAAAANG!

Dawnsteel flared, meeting the women’s merciless blows with disciplined, synchronized precision.

The impact shook the entire ring.

The Dawnblades were not weak. They moved as one, blades crossing and uncrossing in a complex dance they had trained.

“Circle the intent!” the senior Dawnblade barked.

They executed instantly. Twin arcs of dawnlight forming a defensive spin.

But the black-robed women stepped straight through the technique as if it was mist.

Their chain rotated around them, guiding their footwork with terrifying fluidity.

Below, the Scarlets reacted just as fast. Flames surged in spiraling patterns.

“ARE THEY TRYING TO ELIMINATE US TOO?!”

“That is exactly what they’re doing!” the Scarlet senior hissed. “Stay tight! Burn their approach!”

The Scarlets moved with synergy. One ignited the air into fire currents, the other compressed the flames into blazing wheels, launching them with surgical aim.

Two wheels collided with the robed women…

BOOOOM!!

…but the women cut the explosion in half with a scissoring strike, slipping through the flames untouched.

The Dawnblades attacked again. Their blades streaked in mirrored arcs, pushing their bodies past their limits.

For a moment… they held ground.

For a moment… the robed women’s advance slowed.

For a moment… the crowd cheered as dawnlight forced the women back a single step.

“They’re holding! THEY’RE HOLDING—!!”

But then—

One black-robed woman shifted her heel half an inch.

Her partner mirrored it.

A tiny adjustment.

A perfect angle.

And the Dawnblades realized too late.

The women… had been analyzing their rhythm.

A ghost-pale hand slipped between the duo’s guard faster than human reflex.

“BROTHER—!!”

A soft tap. A devastating result.

The Dawnblade junior was launched backward. The Astral Chain yanked the senior with him.

Their bodies tore downward through several platforms and fell into the abyss…

“TENTH PLACE — DAWNBLADE DUO.”

They dissolved into motes of light and reappeared above the arena.

The arena exploded.

“NO WAY—THE DAWNBLADE BROTHERS LOST?!”

“They held so well—HOW?!”

“THOSE WOMEN — THEY READ THEIR ENTIRE STYLE IN SECONDS!!”

Next came the Scarlets.

And they did not fold.

“Form the Crimson Gate!” the senior sister roared.

Fire roared around them, creating a flaming shield of interlocking arcs. Both of them stepped forward through their own inferno.

They clashed head-on with the black-robed women.

BLAZE!

CLANG!

BOOOOM!

Scorching flames wrapped around ghostly limbs.

Heat waves shattered stone.

The Scarlets fought like twin phoenixes.

One fire wheel struck true… exploding against the robed woman’s shoulder.

The crowd gasped.

“They HIT her!!”

“THE SCARLETS ARE AMAZING—!!”

But the woman’s body didn’t flinch.

Her mask didn’t tilt.

She simply rotated her wrist.

A flame wheel broke.

A body spun.

A shadow slid behind them…

…and a blade of pure motion traced a clean line through the air.

“NINTH PLACE — SCARLET SECT DISCIPLES.”

They too… faded into motes of light.

Two pairs gone… just like that.

Then…

The two women stepped back to the Ascension Gate.

They stoood before it like statues carved for execution.

As if daring anyone else to approach.

•••

Starlight ripped up the spire like a comet tail.

Lilith and her partner burst through the ascending platforms in a streak of silver-gold.

Below her, attacks fired upward… but she cleaved through them with brutal, effortless grace.

Her horn blazed.

Her partner can now blink-stepped again, now that his own Law had returned.

Each step he took bent space just enough to redirect killing lines away from their path.

They shot onto the topmost ring…

…and froze for a fraction of a breath.

A pressure hit them.

The black-robed women stood before the Ascension Gate. Their heads angled just slightly… not looking at Lilith, but acknowledging her as an approaching variable.

Lilith’s eyes narrowed, starlight reflecting off her irises like molten moons.

“…So you two intend to guard the gate.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a challenge.

The robed women moved first.

Just a single step—

—and the air buckled.

Lilith met them halfway.

A storm detonated.

STARRR—KRAAAAAANG—!!

Starlight clashed with machine-precise strikes.

The first woman’s chop came in clean as a falling guillotine.

Lilith caught it with her forearm.

The second woman’s kick sliced at her ribs.

Lilith twisted, grabbing the chain between them and ripping it sideways… forcing both assassins to recalibrate.

Her partner blinked and both of them appeared behind one assassin, redirecting her blow by a hair’s breadth. It turned a lethal slash into a harmless arc.

It was breathtaking.

Lilith planted her foot and slammed her fist upward—

CRAAAAACK!!

The shockwave sent the women skidding back several steps.

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

“She pushed them back—?”

“How strong IS she—?!”

But there was more.

Lilith’s partner wasn’t lagging behind her at all.

He blink-stepped through the smallest spaces between strikes, redirecting wrists, diffusing angles, and folding trajectories into harmless misses.

“HER PARTNER—HE’S MATCHING THEM?!”

“He’s redirecting those killing blows—WITHOUT FORCE?!”

“That’s spatial manipulation on absurd precision—!”

The robed women adjusted.

Their bodies clicked into sharper synchronicity. Their posture tightened like two blades being sharpened mid-fight.

Lilith wore a predator’s grin.

“So you can be pushed.”

And she surged forward again.

Starlight roared. Space shimmered. Guillotine-like strikes fell in pairs.

The topmost ring became a battlefield of ruptured stone, scattering shards like shooting stars.

Every collision rang like a hammer striking the sky.

Lilith and her partner held their ground… matching the black-robed killers blow for blow.

For the first time since the trial began… the black-robed women were not in absolute control.

•••

Far below, Lucien finally snatched the key from the falling light.

Marie’s eyes glittered.

“We got it!”

But Lucien’s gaze turned toward the war above.

“We can’t slip past them without fighting,” he murmured. “But we don’t have to fight like they expect.”

Marie blinked.

“What do you—”

He leaned in and whispered the plan into her ear.

…

Marie froze.

Then her eyes widened in pure excitement.

“That’s crazy… I love it.”

She pressed her hands to the ground.

Her Law of Earth surged…

Beneath her palms, the stone roared.

A massive shape rose… a towering humanoid armor of compacted earth. The design inspired by the mobile suit Lucien gifted her.

It’s like a walking fortress.

The crowd gasped as its shadow consumed half the lower ring.

“IS THAT—A GIANT?!”

“NO—THE WOLF GIRL MADE THAT?!”

“SHE FORGED EARTH LIKE METAL—WHAT KIND OF TALENT IS THAT?!”

Both of them climbed inside the chest cavity, settling comfortably.

Marie raised her hands.

The giant raised its fists.

Its eyes glowed green.

“Alright,” Marie whispered. “Let’s crash their party.”

The giant armor leapt. It’s like a small mountain launching into the sky.

While inside, Lucien wasn’t idle.

He was already brewing something deeper. Something he couldn’t show until the right moment.

The earth armor was not their trump card…. it was Marie’s battlefield.

Lucien was building something else.

•••

Down below, the junior scholar trembled.

“Senior Brother… our Laws returned.”

His third eye gleamed like a turning gear.

“With this… we can locate another key easily.”

The senior brother inhaled slowly. His posture straightened.

“Good. Then let us apply what our Collegium trained us for.”

They unleashed their law.

“…there. A resonance.”

His voice tightened into focus.

“A faint ripple layered above the sixth rotation. Something is disturbing the equilibrium.”

The elder’s gaze sharpened.

“Right… that disturbance explains the imbalance in the air currents.”

The third eye thrummed brighter.

“It’s a hidden signature. Faint, but consistent.”

His hands clenched with scholarly triumph.

“Senior Brother—that’s our chance!”

The elder gave one decisive nod.

“Then let us climb.”

They shared one breath, synchronizing their steps.

Then their runic sequences ignited… and they shot upward in twin streaks of spiraling light.