100% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? - Chapter 282

Chapter 282: Chapter 282 – Space
The transition was not instantaneous as Lucien thought.

He felt it the moment the planet-bound teleportation disc activated.

Space did not vanish… it compressed.

Reality folded inward, layer upon layer, like an endless sheet being pleated and forced through a narrowing frame. Distance did not collapse to zero. Instead, it was reduced to traversal.

They were moving through a corridor carved across spacetime itself.

Stars stretched into pale threads. Colors smeared into meaningless gradients. Time lost its rhythm, dragged along the path defined by the disc.

The destination was too far, astronomically far, for raw teleportation. Crossing such distances instantly would tear anything below Eternal-realm into conceptual debris. So the disc created a stabilized transit channel, a controlled passage where distance was bent rather than erased.

Lucien felt himself being pulled, not by force but by destination priority.

The Fire Nephralis Eternal stood at the heart of the corridor. His brush hovered as he adjusted the disc’s formations in real time. His attention was absolute. Every symbol, every coordinate, and every corrective fluctuation demanded his focus.

That was the opening.

Lucien moved.

It took less than a second.

Decay flowed from him, aging the shadow bindings just enough to loosen their conceptual grip. At the same time, his hand dipped into his inventory.

Black Velvet Parfait.

The cloak unfolded without light or sound.

The instant it activated, Lucien felt something lock.

Not protection but… Position.

His existence asserted a fixed coordinate in spacetime.

The corridor tried to carry him forward…

…and failed.

The effect was subtle, but catastrophic.

The Fire Nephralis Eternal continued moving.

Lucien did not.

The transit corridor stretched violently. Spacetime screamed as one endpoint advanced while the other refused displacement. The corridor sheared.

The Nephralis Eternal’s eyes widened for the first time.

“What—”

The corridor snapped.

The Fire Nephralis Eternal vanished down the path alone, dragged toward his distant planet as if nothing had gone wrong.

Lucien was left behind.

Anchored.

The corridor sealed shut like a wound cauterizing itself.

Silence followed.

Lucien… was now suspended in open space.

The stars burned cold and distant. Their light arrived without warmth or comfort. Space pressed inward.

He successfully escaped. But then…

Lucien did not have time to celebrate.

Pain came immediately.

His lungs spasmed, trying to draw breath where none existed. Blood began to boil inside his veins as external pressure dropped to nothing. Capillaries ruptured. Flesh swelled, then cracked.

There was no scream. Sound could not exist here.

Radiation scorched him while heat fled his body at the same time. His skin crystallized in places, burned in others. Bones creaked as temperature and pressure tore at their structure.

A mortal would have died instantly.

As someone in the Transcendent Realm, Lucien did not.

But he was dying.

His regeneration fought desperately, repairing tissue only for it to rupture again. Neural signals misfired as chemistry failed without stable conditions. His vision fractured into meaningless light.

‘So this is real space,’ he thought dimly.

He had never felt this way within the void of his divine energy core.

Here, he had no domain to shield himself, no ascendant authority to impose an environment. His body was strong but not enough.

With the last of his coherence, Lucien willed himself inward.

Into his Divine Energy Core.

The transition was violent.

He collapsed inside his inner realm as fractures raced across the sky itself. The pressure of the void bled inward, tearing open seams in reality. Divine energy vented outward like a punctured star.

Lucien howled.

This time, there was sound.

His divine energy core cracked.

His Origin Core fragment flared wildly, repairing damage faster than it could be undone but even they were being overwhelmed. The void was eating his world.

Lucien fell to his knees.

Of course, he would not flee without a plan. And just as he was about to proceed—

Something moved.

A vast presence shifted in the depths of his core.

A voice echoed, deep and ancient, carrying more irritation than concern.

“How troublesome…”

The abyss unfolded.

Blackness spread, sealing fractures with absolute stillness. Leaking energy stopped. Pressure equalized. The screaming ceased.

“You humans truly excel at appearing in inconvenient places.”

Lucien gasped, drawing breath for the first time since the corridor snapped.

The Abyssal One emerged.

“Space,” it continued calmly, “is not a place you should visit uninvited.”

A portion of its abyss patched the torn realm completely.

Lucien looked up, exhausted.

“…Senior, you saved me.”

The Abyssal One regarded him.

“No,” it replied flatly. “I corrected an inconvenience.”

Its gaze lingered on him, unreadable.

“Still… This complicates matters.”

The abyss receded slightly, stabilizing everything.

Lucien’s divine energy stopped leaking.

The void outside no longer pressed inward.

Lucien remained alive.

Face to face with an ancient being that had never intended to intervene…

…and now had.

The Abyssal Monster stirred.

“My veil will not endure,” the Abyssal One said at last. Its voice was slow and layered as if spoken from beneath endless depths. “To exert myself further would invite notice. Eyes that should remain distant would turn… and that would be troublesome.”

Its gaze lingered on Lucien, unreadable.

“What follows,” it continued, “will no longer be mine to decide.”

Lucien straightened despite the exhaustion clawing at him. He clasped his fist to his chest and bowed deeply.

“Thank you, Senior.”

The Abyssal One did not reply.

Its form folded inward, sinking back into the foundations of the core as though it had never risen. Around it, the slimes hopped and drifted freely, brushing against the abyss like harmless companions. The ancient being did not stir, nor did it drive them away.

Silence returned.

Lucien exhaled. A dry, tired sound.

“So… that’s that.”

He did not linger.

Before the abyssal protection thinned completely, Lucien acted.

Thanks to the Abyssal Monster, he had been granted precious time. Time to execute his plans properly. In truth, it had saved him far more effort than he was willing to admit.

He then blinked within the void of his inner realm and reached out to the Obsidian Tower.

Using the Law of Reflection, he altered its outward form. Its structure warped and redefined itself, shedding its familiar silhouette. What emerged instead was something else entirely. An ancient monolith, austere and inscrutable, as if it had existed since the birth of stars.

Its nature, however, remained unchanged. Its property to distort perception endured. Appraisal slid off it without purchase. Observation bent and failed.

With a single thought, Lucien summoned the Obsidian Tower outward into reality.

Then he shifted. He activated Slime Beast Mode.

The transition back into open space was brutal.

Lucien reappeared amid the stars. His slime form immediately reacted to the hostile void. His body rippled and sagged. Edges melted and reformed as vacuum, radiation, and temperature extremes gnawed at him.

The damage was slower now, far slower than before, but it was still there.

Worse, his divine energy reserves were now shallow. He couldn’t stay in this form for long.

Lucien grimaced.

“Still not enough…”

He did not force it.

Instead, he slipped into the Obsidian Tower and sealed himself within. With no destination in mind, the tower drifted freely through space, a silent black monolith among distant stars.

For a brief moment, he considered the Voidcraft.

But dismissed it just as quickly.

Piloting it without a clear vector and without coordinates or a planetary frame of reference would be reckless. One wrong calculation in open space could strand him far worse than drifting ever could.

He reached for his Spatial Compass.

It remained inert.

Lucien stared at it for a second longer before sighing.

“…Right.”

The compass was designed for worlds. Here, in true cosmic space, it had nothing to lock onto.

Lucien stared at the other compass he had received from Lilith.

The Starfruit Halo.

He let out a sigh again.

“I should’ve locked the Big World as the reference point,” he muttered. “Next time… definitely.”

He chose caution.

The Obsidian Tower was ideal for this place. Its structure distorted perception, hid spiritual signatures, and confused long-range detection. In open space, that mattered more than speed.

Here, Eternals roamed. Celestial Realm experts traversed between domains.

And worse still… creatures born of the Black Mass drifted in the dark between stars.

Even though the chance of encountering anyone in the vastness of space was astronomically small, Lucien chose to be careful anyway.

The Voidcraft would draw attention.

The Tower would invite hesitation.

That was enough.

Lucien deactivated Slime Beast Mode and ignored the distant roars echoing from the sealed ancient beasts.

He sat.

And finally allowed himself to think.

This should have ended differently.

If the Varkhaal Eternal had come with him, there would have been no escape. No gap. No second to act.

Lucien closed his eyes.

“…Marie.”

He did not worry about her.

The Will of the World within him had stirred when hers awakened. It had not spoken clearly, but its message had been unmistakable.

She would endure.

They lived because she stood her ground.

Lucien’s jaw tightened.

“So now,” he murmured, “what’s left is me.”

The problem was simple.

He was too weak.

Without reaching at least the Ascendant Realm, space itself would remain a death sentence. No amount of preparation could change that. Without a domain, without authority over an environment, the universe would always grind him down eventually.

And then there was the matter of return.

No compass. No coordinates. No world to anchor to.

Lucien leaned back, letting the tower drift as his thoughts sharpened.

“I need strength,” he said quietly. “And I need a way home.”

Outside, the stars watched in indifferent silence.

And somewhere beyond sight—

Fate adjusted ever so slightly, around a human drifting alone through the void, already calculating how to defy it next.