100% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? - Chapter 247

Chapter 247: Chapter 247 – Breath
The moment Lucien finished mapping the rhythm of the breath-creatures, the lake reacted.

Not with ripples.

But with a drawn-in inhalation, a cavernous pull that made the entire basin sink inward like a lung collapsing under pressure.

Every breath-creature on the lake shivered violently and then something horrifying happened.

They… merged.

Not into mist nor into vague silhouettes.

But into dense, semi-solid constructs of crystallized breath like glass statues sculpted from condensed respiration.

Where once there were hundreds… Now, only a few dozen remained.

But each one had grown monstrous.

Their thoraxes are shaped like ribcages of frozen fog. Their limbs are made of compressed inhalation. Their faces are without features. Only a hollow cavity pulled air inward like a predator tasting fear.

And worst of all…

They now carried weight, presence, and… killing intent.

Gulping sounds echoed.

One robed woman swung her blade through a creature.

Before, this would have dispersed it into fog.

But now?

The creature absorbed the blow.

Then retaliated.

Its huge arm lashed out and struck her square in the chest.

The impact sent her flying across the terrace. Stone cracked beneath the force.

The other two robed women were instantly besieged by three breath-beasts that hammered them like tidal waves given form.

And the remaining creatures turned…

Toward the factions.

Toward every living being with a breath-signature.

Lucien’s instincts roared.

“HOLD YOUR BREATH — OR YOU DIE!”

Verdant Veil reacted instantly.

Others did not.

A Scarlet Sect disciple gasped loudly.

“Th-they’re… solid!?”

The nearest breath-beast twisted.

Its chest opened like an expanding lung… and ripped a fragment of condensed breath straight from its own body.

The beast compacted it…

And hurled it.

“MOVE!”

Raven, finally awake, yanked the disciple back just as the projectile detonated.

A shockwave of scattering fog exploded outward, spiraling in a suffocating cloud.

“Hold your breath like the Wolf Brother said!” Raven barked. “You wouldn’t want to become a target!”

Panic erupted.

Breath became a precious, dwindling currency. It was easier to hold their breath for a longer period before… but in mortal realm, it got harder.

The Sskavyrn duo held steady. Their cold-blooded physiology lent them longer breath retention.

They lunged as another fog-wave approached, striking with a spear coated in wind magic.

It broke the fog, dispersing it back toward the lake—

But something was off.

The duo shared a grim look.

“Wind doesn’t hurt them,” one hissed.

“They ignore motion unless it’s breath,” the other muttered.

Lucien understood instantly.

Stillness anchored their bodies.

External forces changed nothing unless tied to breath.

A Verdant Veil practitioner suddenly shouted:

“They are acting again!”

A massive merged beast slammed into the terrace. Its landing cracked the stone like a brittle bone.

The group barely scattered in time.

Eirene’s voice was tight.

“The Eternal wouldn’t leave a key guarded by soft fog.”

Lucien’s mind clicked into place.

Once merged, the breath-creatures obeyed a new Law.

Anything with a breath-signature is prey.

Calm or chaotic makes no difference.

Breath itself is the trigger.

Marie squeaked.

“So, what do we do?! Stop breathing forever!?”

“No,” Lucien said sharply. “We confuse them.”

His earlier plan resurfaced… The idea of storing the creatures inside his divine core.

But doing so would reveal his divine energy… and worse, he had no guarantee the creatures could even be stored.

And the robed leader stopped him before he could even try.

But now—

Lucien had a better plan.

A smarter one. And a far more chaotic one.

Lucien raised his hand.

“Stay behind me!”

He closed his eyes and reached inward.

His divine energy core stirred.

“Luc—what are you—” Marie began.

Just then…

The space around them warped.

Because Lucien…

He summoned monsters.

Hundreds of them.

The ground trembled beneath the weight of his inner-world ecosystem.

Orcs with obsidian tusks.

Panthers crackling with blue static.

Wyverns with frost wings.

A dozen griffons flaring their wings at once.

And many more.

A living army.

Gasps broke across every faction.

“HOW—”

“WHAT—”

“Where—did these come from—?!”

But the breath-creatures didn’t even glance at the people anymore.

Because suddenly…

The air was filled with hundreds of breath-signatures.

Breath-patterns. Breath-rhythms. Hundreds of mismatched echoes.

Perfect confusion.

The breath-beasts halted.

Twitched.

Split their attention so wildly their bodies flickered between solidity and distortion.

Lucien didn’t directly command the horde.

He commanded only the leaders, the intelligent beasts who governed the ecosystem inside his inner realm.

[ Scatter your groups. Keep breathing. Loudly. ]

A wyvern inhaled like a thunderstorm.

An orc exhaled like a collapsing forge.

A shadow panther purred in vibrating waves.

Lucien exhaled in satisfaction.

“Creatures made of breath can be confused by breath.”

Marie whistled weakly.

“So your plan is… biological breath pollution?”

“No,” Lucien corrected. “Natural ecosystem chaos.”

But he wasn’t done.

Lucien’s voice dropped.

“Now, for the next phase of the plan.”

A second pulse erupted from his divine core.

Gargoyles.

Stone-skinned, winged constructs.

Predators of silence.

Creatures born without breath.

The breath-beasts didn’t even turn their heads to them. Because gargoyles had no breath for the lake to read.

They were natural nemesis.

Lucien pointed forward.

“Break their rhythm!”

The gargoyles launched like ballistic shadows.

Stone talons crashed against crystallized breath.

The Breath-beasts screeched.

A gargoyle plunged its arm through a beast’s chest, not wounding it… but destabilizing its breath-cycle.

Another gargoyle clamped its jaws around a beast’s head… shattering the inhalation pattern holding the creature together.

The breath-creatures spasmed.

Flickered.

Several collapsed into fog-like fragments.

Then reformed—

But weaker.

Scattered.

Lucien nodded.

“Exactly as I hoped. They need a heartbeat-like cycle to stay solid. Break the cycle, and you break the monster.”

The factions stared in disbelief.

Even the robed leader’s mask tilted as if astonished.

Someone whispered behind them:

“This man… is he a monster tamer? A summoner? Or a walking calamity?”

Marie answered proudly:

“All of the above.”

She crossed her arms smugly.

“I knew you were hiding something outrageous.”

•••

The tide of the battle shifted.

Gargoyles tore into crystallized lungs and shattered breath-cycles.

Wyverns unleashed thunder-inhalations that scrambled the beasts’ rhythm.

Panthers darted through gaps like shadows cutting through fog.

Even the factions rallied behind Lucien.

Verdant Veil practitioners blasted magic spells from the back.

The Sskavyrn duo pierced destabilized beasts with spear thrusts sharpened by cold-blooded timing.

Scarlet Sect disciples unleashed controlled bursts of fire magic.

Even the robed faction subtly coordinated their movements, letting gargoyles draw aggro while they intervened with surgical precision.

The factions were fighting together.

Not out of trust. But survival.

Lucien stood at the center of the chaos.

The breath-creatures screamed in distorted breath-signatures, pushed back step by step.

Eirene stared at the battlefield, breath caught.

Monsters roared.

Breath-beasts shattered and reformed.

Gargoyles slammed them apart.

When the battle eased a little, Marie came towards Lucien and asked.

“Luc—why didn’t you summon the Gargoyles earlier?! They could’ve harvested the plants FOR US!”

Lucien sighed.

“I was trying to be subtle.”

She rolled her eyes.

•••

One by one, the crystallized beasts shattered into clouds of dissipating breath.

Their roars turned desperate.

Their cycles faltered and their bodies flickered.

And then—

They stopped retreating.

Every remaining breath-beast froze mid-motion.

That’s when they heard it.

A terrible, unified sound.

The beasts’ hollow cavities expanded at once, inhaling sharply…

Lucien’s instincts screamed.

His mind snapped to a single conclusion.

Self-detonation.

“EVERYONE—GET DOWN!!!”

The beasts ruptured.

BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—!!

Explosions of condensed breath tore through the terrace like meteor impacts.

There was no fire and no light.

Only shockwaves of crushing vacuum. Each blast stripped breath from anything it touched.

Lucien reacted faster than fear.

He summoned his STYGIAN SHELL.

His tortoise-shell shield expanded around the entire group, curving overhead like a fortress of obsidian.

The blasts slammed into it—

WHUMMM— WHUMMM— WHUMMM—

The air shook.

Stone cracked.

Silver soil tore open.

But inside the shell…

The factions survived.

Marie collapsed to one knee, trembling.

“T-that… would’ve erased our lungs…”

Everyone was gasping through clenched teeth, fighting the instinct to inhale sharply.

But the danger wasn’t gone.

As the shockwaves faded, something else stirred.

The lake.

The center of the Garden trembled like a furious deity awakening.

The breath-creatures were gone.

But the ruin was not finished with them.

A deep, resonant hum pulsed from the lake’s core.

The surface rippled.

Then—

A concentrated spear of condensed breath tore across the garden like a silent divine arrow.

It streaked toward Lucien’s Stygian Shell—

—and then bent.

Not deflected.

It curved mid-flight, folding itself into an impossible angle as though obeying a will of its own.

The spear of condensed breath slid past the edge of the Stygian Shell’s protection and veered sharply like a hunting beast sniffing out prey.

It didn’t aim for strength. It didn’t aim for weakness.

It aimed for a lone, hurried inhale, the smallest spike of panic in the air.

And in that instant—

The spear found its target.

The Scarlet Sect senior barely turned—

When she saw it.

It wasn’t a mere projectile.

It was a breath-signature eraser.

A conceptual killing blow aimed at her lungs, her very existence.

Her eyes widened in horror—

“—No—!”

But before it reached her—

Raven moved.

He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think.

He simply stepped in front of her.

FWUUM—!!

The projectile struck him square in the chest.

Raven’s body arched backward from the force—

And then…

His chest froze.

His breath stilled.

His aura collapsed like a candle snuffed out by a void.

Everyone gasped.

“RAVEN—!” The Scarlet Sect senior screamed his name.

Raven fell to one knee…

Then another…

His hands trembled as he clutched his chest.

They realized the truth instantly.

The blast didn’t injure flesh.

It erased breath.

Raven’s lungs were unmoving.

His heartbeat slowed.

His breath-signature collapsed into nothing.

He was dying not from a wound…

…but from the absence of breath itself.

The senior sister’s cry tore through the air.

“No, no, no—Raven—DON’T—!”

But Raven didn’t respond.

Eirene rushed forward.

“His breath-pattern was erased—his life-signature is falling. Brother Luc, what do we—!?”

Lucien’s heart slammed against his ribs.

Just as he rushed towards him, Raven slumped forward.

His eyes dimmed and his chest stopped moving.

Raven…

was no longer breathing.