Divine Convenience Store-Chapter 523: Stellar Flare

As compressed energy bullets flew to incapacitate the controlled cultivators, Lin Mo positioned himself at the back, keenly observing those threads that seemed to maintain the connection between the fleshy heart and the puppets.

It was a chaotic scene. The [Stardust Repeaters] whined with comical 'pew pew pew' as they continued to discharge pulse after pulse of non-lethal energy, striking legs and shoulders.

Borok and Liu Jingshan moved swiftly, using the flat of their blades or bursts of blunt force to knock their controlled puppets unconscious.

Meanwhile, Yan Chen channeled the wind with a spell, forcing a lot of those controlled puppets back.

But the puppets were relentless.

Driven by the Dreilling's will, they ignored pain and injury, dragging themselves forward even with shattered limbs.

The fleshy heart in the middle pulsed faster, sending waves of violet energy through the threads, forcing the broken bodies to rise again like marionettes on taut strings.

"Boss! They're not stopping!" Xiaoyu shouted, dodging a spiral fireball thrown by a glazed-eyed cultivator. "We might be able to save them but their bodies would be too broken. That fleshy thing is pumping that weird energy right into them!"

"I see it," Lin Mo muttered, his eyes narrowing.

Through his enhanced perception, the scene looked different. The purple threads were not just tethering, they were feeding the puppets, overriding their nervous systems and forcing them to move despite the condition of their bodies.

He extended his hand and let his [Stellar Domain] flare. He tried to grasp one of the threads connecting to a nearby barbarian warrior. His hand passed through it as if it were smoke.

"Intangible to physical touch," He noted. "But what about intent?"

He focused his will, recalling the lesson from Xingxing. Re-contextualize.

These weren't magical bonds. They were data streams. Karma. Connections. And connections could be severed.

He channeled his starlight qi, turning it into a pair of shears.

He infused it with the concept of 'disconnection', of 'ending a call'. Or so that's what he thought he needed to do.

He swiped his hand through the air again.

SNAP.

A sound like a breaking violin string echoed in his mind. The purple thread severed cleanly.

The barbarian warrior it was connected to instantly collapsed, the violet light fading from his eyes. He didn't rise again and remained unconscious.

"It works," Lin Mo breathed, a surge of triumph filling him. However, he also felt the backlash for doing so. His head suddenly ached as if he had been hit by a rock.

But would that stop him? These were his patrons. One less of them would be one less customer.

Besides, while he could leave them behind, the others probably wouldn't. If it's possible to save then… they should save them.

"Xiaoyu! Cover me! I'm going to cut the lines! But I might pause every time I do. There's a price for what I was about to do."

"Cut the lines? You mean the invisible ones?" Xiaoyu didn't question him. She immediately shifted her stance, placing herself between Lin Mo and the advancing mob. "Got it! No one touches the Boss!"

She unleashed a storm of lightning punches, creating a perimeter of crackling energy.

He couldn't help but nod in satisfaction at his assistant's quick response.

With that, Lin Mo moved.

He became a blur of green and white, weaving through the chaos using his movement technique.

He evaded the puppets and struck the empty air above them, his hand slicing through the unseen connections. Although some of them had higher cultivation bases than him, their sluggish movements allowed him to react perfectly.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

With each motion, another puppet fell with its strings cut.

The cultivator throwing fireballs slumped over. The barbarian swinging an axe dropped it mid-swing.

Perhaps noticing what was happening, the fleshy heart in the center of the cavern convulsed.

The Dreilling's voice echoed again, this time tinged with genuine surprise and annoyance.

"Impossible. You severed my strings? Without a soul technique? What... are you?"

"I'm customer support," Lin Mo retorted in her usual business-like tone, slicing through three threads at once. "And dear customer. I'm canceling your current subscription."

The heart let out a screech that came out like a psychic feedback.

The remaining threads retracted, whipping back towards the central structure as if in pain.

"Insolence!" The Dreilling roared. "If I cannot use them, I will break them!"

The heart began to glow with a blinding, unstable light. The energy that was being pumped into their bodies reversed, turning volatile.

The bodies of the fallen and the few remaining standing puppets began to swell as their skin cracked while violet energy started to leak out.

"T-that's… What's happening? " Liu Jingshan yelled, horror dawning on his face. "They're about to self-destruct!"

"Stand back!" Lin Mo gritted his teeth.

He couldn't cut the threads fast enough to stop the surge and so, he needed to target the source.

The Decanus Armor whirled into existence as he pressed it into his chest. It instantly covered his body, augmenting his current strength.

And then, while channeling both his spiritual energy and the Aether Energy from the Aetheric Shard, he raised his [Starfall Judgement Revolver].

"Xiaoyu! Clear a path to the heart!"

"On it! [Nine Heavens Storm: Piercing Gale]!"

Xiaoyu clapped her hands together and thrust them forward. A concentrated tunnel of wind and lightning blasted through the cavern, knocking aside the remaining puppets without detonating them.

Lin Mo aimed at the fleshy structure. Other than the energies he already channeled, he poured in his starlight qi into the cylinder, activating the second ability.

[Stellar Flare]!

The barrel hummed as the intricate patterns glowing with blinding intensity.

He pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

A projectile of pure, condensed starlight shot out, trailing a tail of silver fire.

It bypassed the puppets, flew down the wind tunnel created by Xiaoyu, and slammed directly into the pulsating fleshy heart.

The impact was silent for a split second, and then a sphere of starlight expanded outwards.

It wasn't a destructive explosion in the traditional sense but a rapid expansion of his domain's purifying order.

It might not be as strong as when he used the previous revolver to shoot down the Grand Elder of the Violethaven Temple's heaven-grade artifact, but it was enough to deal with what's in front of them.

The violet light of the heart was swallowed by the silver brilliance. The volatile energy building up inside the puppets was neutralized, suppressed by the 'Starlight Suppression' debuff.

The heart shrieked one last time like a wet, tearing sound, before it exploded into a shower of withered vines and grey ash.

The psychic pressure in the cavern vanished instantly.

The puppets all collapsed, unconscious but alive.

Silence returned to the cavern, broken only by the heavy breathing of the team.

"Strong! Shopkeeper, is it over?" Borok asked, lowering his axe and looking at his fallen tribesmen.

"For now. The control tower is down," Lin Mo said, holstering his smoking revolver. "They should be fine. Just exhausted and spiritually drained."

Liu Jingshan rushed to check on the cultivators. "They're breathing! Their meridians are damaged, but stable. Shopkeeper... you saved them."

"No, it isn't just me, dear customer. We saved them," Lin Mo corrected, though he felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. The backlash from cutting those intangible strings and the [Stellar Flare] had taken a chunk of his reserves. "Let's get them out of here. Use the Emergency Escape Talisman. I don't think the Dreilling will show its face right away. But just in case he rages at us, it's better to leave quickly. Besides, we've gotten quite a lot of information."

"U-understood!" The three Nascent Soul Stage experts immediately moved, carrying over thirty unconscious cultivators back so that they could be included in the range of the talismans.

Liu Xiaoyu, on the other hand, stuck close to Lin Mo, who's back in his green and white uniform as the soul-bound armor retracted from his body.

"Hehe. Boss, you're so strong now. When are you going to spar with me?" The young woman playfully grinned but the light in her eyes truly showed how serious she was about it.

"Soon." That's all Lin Mo could say as the talismans activated, sending them out of the Anchor.

—

Meanwhile, right at the Core Area of the Anchor, a figure sat upon a throne made of twisted, calcified bone and pulsating violet veins.

He was tall, slender, and possessed an unearthly beauty that bordered on the grotesque. However, unlike what Lin Mo thought, his skin was the color of pale lavender, and his eyes were voids of swirling psychic energy.

Long, pointed ears, adorned with jewelry that seemed to be made of solidified anguish, twitched as he sensed the disconnection of his puppets and the destruction of the heart.

This was Zyrith, a noble of the Dreilling race and the first of his kind to enter an Anchor. His position might not be high, but he was exalted as part of their race.

"Customer support..." Zyrith hissed, the words tasting foul in his mind. He had probed the minds of the captives, learning their language, their culture, and their fears. He knew of this 'Divine Convenience Store'. However, he had dismissed it as a local superstition, a primitive way of rationalizing a powerful artifact hoarder.

But the entity that had just severed his psychic tethers…

"He cut the strings. Canceled, as if my claim was invalid." Zyrith mused. His long, slender fingers irritably drummed the armrest of his throne.