100% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? - Chapter 227

Chapter 227: Chapter 227 – Temporary Alliance?
Marie’s colossal earth armor soared upward like a rising titan. Every step sent tremors through the spire’s platforms.

Inside the cockpit-like chest cavity, Marie moved like she was puppeteering a giant war machine. Lucien sat behind her, half-hidden beneath layers of stone shielding.

“Luc,” she said as her eyes narrowed, “we’re close.”

“Good,” Lucien murmured. “I’ll leave everything to you first.”

The titan crested the edge of the topmost ring…

…and the battlefield revealed itself in full, savage glory.

Lilith and her partner were there. But she wasn’t dominating the ring.

She was surrounded.

Lythrae and her Moonlit Maiden rained silver arcs from the left.

Sskavyrn and his partner lunged from the right. Their spear aura carved out execution lines.

The Monastery monks hammered the air with bell-induced spatial ruptures.

And in front of her…

The black-robed women stood.

Their killing intent radiated like a death oath. Their movements were clipped, mechanical, and uncaring.

Every pair was going for the kill now.

The announcement of 10th place and 9th place had changed everything.

Their goal had changed too.

If they couldn’t get a key, then they would at least eliminate the other parties.

This wasn’t a race anymore. It was a purge.

Marie didn’t hesitate. She drove the earth armor straight down into the ring like a meteor.

BOOOOOOOOM!!!

Stone exploded outward. Shockwaves ripped across the arena. Half the battlefield staggered as the titan straightened to its full, towering height.

The crowd detonated.

“HERE COMES MY FAVORITE DUO!!”

“THE VERDANT VEIL WOLVES ARE HERE FOR THE KILL TOO?!”

“DID SHE MAKE THAT WITH THE LAW OF EARTH?!”

Meanwhile…

Marie’s first instinct was to charge straight for the Ascension Gate. But one glance told her that wouldn’t be possible. She would be the target if she did so.

And now that their Laws were unshackled, she knew her earth giant could be parried and dismantled if she charged in blindly.

When the colossal giant appeared, everyone turned to stare.

Even Lilith paused mid-parry to look.

Marie’s eyes flicked to her… and a thought clicked.

She opened the chest cavity like a cockpit hatch and shouted across the battlefield:

“HEY, STARFORGE! NEED A HAND?”

Lilith blinked, then smirked despite the chaos around her.

“…That would be great, Wolf missy. I’ll make sure you’ll be rewarded afterwards.”

Immediately, Marie lit up as if Lilith had just spoken magic words.

Hearing the exchange, Lucien sighed.

“Another negotiation. And she accepted again.”

Marie flexed the titan’s stone arms.

“Luc, this is gonna be FUN.”

“Well, now that it has rewards, it’s fun for you?”

And so… Marie swung a massive punch that forced the others to back off.

For the first time in a while, Lilith and her partner could breathe.

Just then…

A burst of runic logic spiraled upward. Two streaks of glyph-light shot straight into the ring.

The Obsidian duo landed beside Marie’s titan with sharp, controlled precision.

“We’ll assist too!” the junior shouted.

Those with keys now stood on the same side.

Lilith + her spatial prodigy.

Marie + Lucien in the titan.

Obsidian Collegium Scholars.

Their temporary alliance formed in an instant.

Marie grinned, slapping a massive stone fist into her palm.

“Good! Let’s smash them together!”

The senior brother adjusted his stance.

“…Crude wording, but acceptable.”

And then—

The ring became warfare.

Marie’s titan hurled another colossal punch—

CRAAAAAACK!

The stone platform split.

Sskavyrn and his partner met the blow head-on and deflected it but they slid backward with their talons carving trenches across the stone.

The monks struck their bell. The space around the titan warped and twisted like liquid glass.

Lythrae fired beams of moonlight that ricocheted off the titan’s rocky hide in bright, ringing sparks.

Meanwhile, the scholars projected runic shells around their allies, shields shaped like spinning formulas.

Lilith drove a brutal kick into one black-robed woman and sent her skidding back.

The other turned at once but their chain snapped tight between them.

Marie’s titan wound up another blow—

BOOOOOOM!!!

It slammed into Lythrae and her maiden mid-air. The combined force was too great to absorb.

They were launched like falling stars…

Smashed through the upper ring. Then the next. Then another.

The crowd screamed:

“THE MOONLIT DUO FELL—THEY’RE OUT!!”

“WAIT—NO—THEY DIDN’T TURN INTO LIGHT!!”

“THEY SURVIVED?! THEIR LAWS SAVED THEM?!”

Down on a fractured platform far below—

Lythrae floated safely atop her cushion.

“Are you okay, Lady Lythrae?” the Moonlit Maiden asked.

“Fine… This is frustrating.” She exhaled… but then suddenly stopped.

She felt something.

A ripple in the air.

Her eyes narrowed as moonlight swirled in her irises.

“…Stillness… ripples… there’s another key?”

Her partner nodded.

Lythrae grinned for once.

“I take back what I said… not frustrating anymore. The Wolves have given us the right gift. If she hadn’t knocked us to the right timing and right place, even we wouldn’t notice the appearance of the key…”

Their eyes changed. They lit up.

If they had a key… then they wouldn’t need to fight for one.

They waited.

And then—

A faint pulse. A vibration. A ripple in stillness.

Their eyes widened.

“There.”

A single key-signature.

They shot off the instant it manifested.

Just then… another announcement occurred.

[All keys have been taken.]

The crowd outside went wild.

“HOW CAN THERE ONLY BE 5 KEYS WHEN THERE ARE 10 OF THEM?!”

“THAT’S WHAT MAKES IT EXCITING!”

“THIS IS A BLOODBATH!!”

•••

Back above—

When they heard the announcement, the ring turned into a slaughtering field.

Every clash thundered, shook, and cracked the ring’s foundations.

The scholars shouted calculations mid-fight, adjusting runes on the fly.

Lilith tore open space fissures with her bare hands, hurling enemies into distorted air.

Marie controlled the titan like a conductor orchestrating a war symphony.

And the robed women—

Now moved like pure death.

“THE TOP RING IS IN SHREDS!!”

“HOW ARE THE WOLVES THIS STRONG?!”

“WOW—WE’RE GOING FOR THE CLIMAX!”

Nothing was clean. Nothing was friendly. Nothing was safe.

Every strike carried the intent to kill. Every block trembled under Laws colliding at the brink of the mortal threshold.

This was no longer a trial.

It was war.

And above it all—

The Ascension Gate pulsed ominously.

Waiting.

Watching.

Measuring who remained worthy to reach the ancient ruin.

•••

Those who didn’t hold a key felt the floor drop under their chances.

No more hope of “finding” one. Only taking one… or making sure the others never reached the ruin.

Sskavyrn and his partner’s pupils thinned to slits.

“Their keys… or nothing,” he growled.

The monks’ gazes hardened. Even their calm breaths grew heavy and their fingers tightened on the rim of their bell.

They moved differently now—

With the weight of people who understood… if they failed here, the ruin’s doors would close in their faces.

Desperation sharpened everything.

Attacks grew faster. Angles turned cruel. There were no more warning blows.

Only killing strikes.

Marie’s titan took the brunt of it.

Sskavyrn’s spear aura slammed into its ribs—CRACK!—shattering half the chest plate.

The monk’s bell-ripple made the giant’s right leg shudder and crumble at the knee.

For a heartbeat, the titan staggered.

Lucien’s stone shielding shook. Dust rained down inside the cockpit.

“Marie,” he murmured.

“I know!” Her brow beaded with sweat.

The earth answered.

Stone surged up from the ring, layering over the broken segments. The titan’s missing leg reformed. Its cracked chest sealed.

But the effort showed.

Her breathing hitched. Her fingers trembled before she forced them steady again.

They were still bound by mortal bodies. Every rebuild cost her.

Lilith noticed. So did the scholars.

A runic barrier snapped into existence to intercept a spear aimed at the titan’s neck.

Lilith tore open a spatial fissure, swallowing an incoming bell-ripple that would’ve crushed the giant’s core.

For a brief moment, the chaos found a fragile shape.

Those with keys fought back-to-back, their temporary alliance holding:

Marie’s titan bracing the front line.

Lilith and her partner blink-stepping through gaps, striking like comets and vanishing.

The scholars rotated defensive and offensive runic patterns with clinical timing.

Sskavyrn and his reptilian partner, keyless but unyielding, fought close by. Their spears crossed to intercept any blow that might slip through.

Then—

It happened.

The black-robed women shifted.

They adjusted mid-motion at an impossible angle. Instead of following the attack line toward Lilith… they cut away.

Silently.

They glided past Marie’s titan…

…and appeared behind Sskavyrn and his partner.

No glow. No telegraphed Law.

They simply stabbed forward.

Straight through their backs.

…

The arena went cold.

Sskavyrn and his partner choked. Their spear aura collapsed.

Sskavyrn looked down at the blades jutting from his chest. Disbelief twisting his face then forced his head around far enough to see the black-robed women behind him.

His partner roared, swinging his spear.

But… too late.

The other robed woman’s heel crashed into the reptilian’s spine, snapping him toward the edge.

The Astral Chain between them yanked tight.

They fell together.

As light began to swallow them, Sskavyrn bared his fangs and snarled:

“I thought… we are in a temporary alliance… You bitches….”

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

An announcement followed, cold and clear:

[ EIGHTH PLACE — SSKAVYRN & PARTNER. ]

The crowd exploded.

“THEY BACKSTABBED HIM?!”

“THERE WAS AN ALLIANCE—DID YOU SEE THAT?!”

“WELL TECHNICALLY, THEY JUST FOUGHT TOGETHER—NO ALLIANCE WAS FORMED!!”

On the ring, the monks went utterly still.

Their eyes hardened like carved stone.

One monk spoke quietly, voice low but edged.

“…We let them into our blind side once. Never again.”

Their bell began to hum with a deeper, more dangerous resonance.

They were done treating this like a trial.

This was survival.