Divine Convenience Store-Chapter 533: The Violethaven Temple Grand Elder’s Plight (1)
In a forbidden region in the Western Sacred Land, a huge ship construct was flying through the wasteland of fiery, poisonous pits.
Standing on the bow of the ship was a man with an aged face and a displeased expression as he impatiently glanced towards the horizon.
He was the Violethaven Temple’s Void Refinement Stage Grand Elder, Mu Wuyan. The one who traveled from the west and started the conflict with the Eastern Abyssal Domain and the convenience store when he detected Xiaoyu’s heavenly physique after her minor tribulation.
"Someday I must return the humiliation to that Shopkeeper. My heaven-grade artifact was destroyed, and now I was sent here in this hinterland to find a replacement," He muttered as he clenched his fist hard enough that it started bleeding.
The Temple Master, Zuo Tianqiong, had been cold. Unforgiving.
He hadn’t stripped Mu Wuyan of his rank, but he had sent him on this ’scouting mission’. A polite term for exile until he could prove his worth again.
His mission was to investigate the unusual energy fluctuations in the Crimson Waste, a place where the earth bled fire and the air was toxic enough to melt a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator in minutes.
"Traces of an Ancient Flame Seed... Bah. Old legends to keep fools busy," Mu Wuyan spat. "But if I find it... if I can refine a flame that rivals an immortal fire... that store will burn."
Suddenly, the ship construct shuddered. The protective array flickered as a wave of foreign, chaotic energy slammed into it.
"Grand Elder! Below us! The sensors are going wild!" A Nascent Soul Stage Elder, who was steering the ship while already red from the temperature and decked in multiple defensive artifacts, shouted, panic edging his voice.
Mu Wuyan narrowed his eyes, his spiritual sense sweeping downwards. Through the thick, toxic smog, he saw it.
That was no flame.
But a crater. A vast and pulsating crater as if a giant meteor landed on it.
The ground heaved and breathed. Massive, vein-like tendrils of purple and black biomass stretched across the crater, throbbing with a heartbeat that resonated with a foreign energy signature he hadn’t encountered yet.
"Is that... an Anchor?" Mu Wuyan whispered, his eyes widening.
He recalled the warning from the Temple Master’s briefing, intelligence gathered from the few spies they had left. Living Anchors.
An Anchor was a gateway of an Outer Realm to the Realm of Nine Heavens. Once it remained undiscovered, it would allow them to invade, and the Anchor itself would take root and expand to carve a piece of land attuned to their natural energy.
And at the moment, he could see it consuming the ley lines of the Crimson Waste.
Suddenly, a black silhouette shot out from the pulsating mass of veins.
It was fast, faster than the ship’s defensive array could track.
CRASH!
The silhouette slammed into the ship’s hull, tearing through the reinforced spirit-metal plating as if it were wet paper. The entire vessel groaned from the impact and tilted violently, sending the Nascent Soul Elder stumbling from the helm.
"Insolent beast!" Mu Wuyan roared, his humiliation flaring into a white-hot rage.
He leaped from the bow, his body wreathed in a violet flame that burned with the intensity of a dying star. Without his heaven-grade artifact, his combat power had diminished, but he was still a Void Refinement Stage expert. His very presence distorted the space around him.
He punched out, a fist of condensed violet energy slamming into the intruder.
BOOM!
The silhouette was blasted back, crashing onto the deck, its remains splattering.
However, that was just the start.
At the same time as the other Elders of the Violethaven Temple climbed up to the deck, a large swathe of black silhouette swarmed up from the crater, blotting out the crimson sky of the wasteland.
They looked like a collective wave of darkness. Thousands of them. Their forms were shifting and indistinct, like ink spilled in water, but their claws were terrifyingly solid, gleaming with a cold, light-eating matte black.
However, the energy exuding from them appeared to be filled with life force, as viridescent vines snaked out from their backs.
"Defensive Formation! Raise the shields to maximum!" The helm elder screamed, his voice cracking as the ship’s array started waning under the assault.
But it was futile. The black silhouettes didn’t just batter the shields; they latched onto them.
Mu Wuyan watched in horror as the creatures began to gnaw on the energy barrier. Their maws, filled with rows of needle-like teeth, tore chunks of pure spiritual light from the formation, swallowing it greedily.
"They consume qi?!" Mu Wuyan gasped. This was a nightmare for any cultivator. An enemy that could feed on their primary weapon.
"Burn them!" He commanded, channeling his Void Refinement aura. "Violet Star Incineration!"
He swept his hands forward, unleashing a tidal wave of violet fire. The flames roared, engulfing the swarm clinging to the ship’s port side.
The creatures shrieked, a sound like tearing metal, as they were turned to ash. Those who remained had the blackness of their bodies seemingly washed away, revealing humanoid creatures wrapped in those thick vines with large leaves playing the role of their clothes.
Their eyes were glowing red, but not because they were in a berserk state. It was their natural appearance.
If Lin Mo were here, he would possibly be able to connect them to the information he had gotten from the dormant Anchor just outside Fanling City.
The Viridescent Hollow Realm. Somehow similar to the relationship between the Dreilling and the Decrint Tribe from the Highland Realm, it was home to the Vyrnethi and Dyshanti races. The former was the dominant, intelligent and long-lived species while the latter was a collection of different inferior species.
"You..." Mu Wuyan grunted as he sensed the danger coming his way.
Before his eyes, most of the creatures’ attention focused on him as the biggest threat among everyone in the ship construct.
Cold sweat started trickling down Cold sweat started trickling down his back, a sensation he hadn’t felt in centuries.
The creatures were not mindless beasts. They are moving through a collective command. And because of what he did, they identified him as the strongest source of spiritual energy. His dantian became their prime meal.
"Formation! Surround the Grand Elder!" The helm elder screamed, abandoning the steering array to draw his own spirit sword. The remaining Spirit Severing and Nascent Soul Stage Elders on the deck, elites of the Violethaven Temple trained in the ruthless arts of violet flame, rallied around Mu Wuyan. They unleashed a barrage of fire spells, turning the air into a scorching inferno. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎
But the creatures of the Viridescent Hollow were relentless. No matter how many they killed and burned to ashes, the dark blot in the crimson sky wasn’t dwindling.
Furthermore, with the array of the ship construct already abandoned, they also started becoming influenced by the harsh conditions of the Crimson Waste.
Soon, as the violet fire washed over the black-cloaked creatures, the vines on their backs pulsed with a sickening, verdant light.
The furious fire surged and then began to weaken as it started being absorbed.
The vines elongated, weaving together to form living shields that drank the flames and grew thicker, thornier, and more vibrant with every spell cast.
"They are feeding on our fire!" One disciple shrieked in despair as a vine lashed out, piercing his chest. His body withered in seconds, his life force and cultivation sucked dry, leaving only a husk that crumbled into dust.
Mu Wuyan’s eyes widened. "Stop using elemental arts! Use physical force! Use your artifacts!"
He realized too late. The cultivation path of the Violethaven Temple focused heavily on energy projection and elemental manipulation. They were practitioners of the Violet Flame or Violet Glacial Dao, the supreme path of the Violet Deity.
Supreme in magical combat, but physically? Without their qi to reinforce them, it would be akin to being naked in a blizzard.
Against creatures that had a method to consume qi on contact, they were cattle walking into a slaughterhouse.
"Damn that Shopkeeper! Damn his wretched store!" Mu Wuyan cursed, his mind flashing back to the reports of the ’Flash Raid’. The Eastern cultivators had used physical projectiles, exploding noodles, and summoned beasts to fight what they called the Vindicators that spilled from the Anchor they schemed to ’break’.
The Eastern Abyssal Domain had adapted. But here, in the arrogance of the Western Sacred Lands, they were fighting a new war with old weapons.
