Divine Convenience Store-Chapter 534: The Violethaven Temple Grand Elder’s Plight (2)

A massive, vine-wrapped Dyshanti brute lunged at him. Mu Wuyan foregoes casting another spell. He channeled his Void Refinement aura into his physical body, hardening his skin until it shone like an amethyst.

"Scram!"

He delivered a roundhouse kick that shattered the sonic barrier.

CRACK!

The creature's torso exploded, vines and black ichor spraying across the deck. Physical force worked. But the effort cost him. To maintain that level of physical enhancement without projecting qi required immense concentration and consumption of his reserves.

"Grand Elder! The ship! It's… it's being rooted!"

Mu Wuyan looked down. The massive tendrils from the crater below had shot up like colossal spears of flesh. They wrapped around the hull of the ship construct, their thorns piercing the metal. The ship groaned, its anti-gravity arrays failing as the Anchor began to drag it down.

"Abandon ship!" Mu Wuyan roared, making the hardest decision of his life. "Fly! Scatter! Head for the canyon rim!"

He didn't wait to see if they followed. His life was more important than most of them. He only grabbed the nearest helm elder by the collar and launched himself into the air.

His violet aura flared like a comet as he tried to break the gravitational pull of the Living Anchor.

Below him, the ship construct was torn apart. The screams of the unlucky Violethaven Temple elders that couldn't escape were cut short as the swarm descended, burying them under a writhing mountain of vines and darkness.

'The Temple Master wants to contact those creatures and work with them? What a foolish notion. To ally with a locust swarm is to invite oneself to be the first course of the banquet.' Mu Wuyan thought.

The air around him screamed as he broke the sound barrier, the friction turning the toxic smog of the Crimson Waste into streaks of superheated plasma.

In his grip, the Helm Elder, a man named Fang, was pale as a sheet, his spiritual shield flickering dangerously as it struggled against the atmospheric drag.

"Grand Elder! Behind us! They… they are flying!" Elder Fang shrieked, his voice barely audible over the wind.

Mu Wuyan didn't need the warning. His spiritual sense, honed over centuries, felt the anomaly before his eyes saw it.

The massive, vein-like tendrils that had dragged the ship down were not rooting themselves.

They were blooming. The tips of the vines split open like fleshy flowers, and from within, more winged monstrosities erupted.

Cloaked in the same blackness, the humanoid shapes with wings made of stretched, verdant leaves that pulsed with a sickening, hungry light.

They moved with an eerie silence, cutting through the turbulent air of the wasteland without resistance as they followed after them.

"Persistent vermin," Mu Wuyan snarled. He couldn't outrun them while carrying dead weight, and his Violet Star Incineration would not be enough against their number.

He needed to change tactics. He needed to be… inconvenient.

"Elder Fang," Mu Wuyan said, his voice cold and steady. "Do you wish to live?"

"Y-yes! Of course, Grand Elder!"

"Good. Then make yourself useful. Overload your dantian. Prepare a [Violet Sun Self-Destruction] sequence. Dedicate yourself to the Violet Deity. You will be immortalized for your sacrifice."

Elder Fang's eyes bulged as he heard something like a death sentence. The Grand Elder was telling him to sacrifice himself for him…

How cruel.

However, the glint in Mu Wuyan's eyes told him that this wasn't a request.

It was an execution order disguised as a glorious end.

The Grand Elder's hand, still gripping his collar, began to pulse with a coercive, invading violet qi. He was forcibly stimulating Fang's dantian, pushing his core to the point of critical mass.

"I... I..." Fang stammered, his survival instinct warring with centuries of indoctrination. But he couldn't move. He was a Nascent Soul cultivator, powerful in his own right, yet against a Void Refinement expert, he was a chick in the grip of an eagle.

"Do not hesitate," Mu Wuyan hissed, his gaze fixed on the encroaching winged swarm. The lead creatures, their leafy wings shimmering with voracious hunger, were mere seconds away.

"Your death will buy the Temple time. Your name will be carved in the Hall of Martyrs. Now, go!"

Mu Wuyan didn't wait for an answer. With a roar of exertion, he infused a final, destabilizing jolt of energy into Fang's body and hurled him backward with all his might.

Elder Fang screamed, a sound of pure terror that was cut short as his body transformed into a streaking comet of unstable violet light. He hurtled straight into the heart of the pursuing swarm.

The swarm of creatures, sensing the immense concentration of spiritual energy, shrieked with delight.

To those who were just following orders through the detection of spiritual energy, it was a feast. They swarmed the glowing figure, their vines lashing out to pierce his flesh and drain him dry.

They were greedy. And that greed was their undoing.

Only a few, who were clearly the ones commanding, broke away, retreating to the Anchor.

Although Mu Wuyan saw them, he lacked the ability to chase after them. He's already sacrificing his subordinate to cut an escape for him. It would be more than foolish to charge in by himself.

"Detonate!"

Mu Wuyan commanded from a distance, performing a hand seal that triggered the instability he had planted.

BOOM!

The explosion was blinding. A miniature sun of violet fire erupted in the crimson sky.

It wasn't just a physical blast; it was a chaotic unraveling of a Nascent Soul. The energy didn't just burn; it screamed.

The creatures closest to the blast didn't even have time to absorb it. The sheer volume of energy overwhelmed their absorption capacity instantly. They bloated and burst like overfilled waterskins, their vines withering and turning to ash in a fraction of a second.

The shockwave slammed into the rest of the swarm, disorienting them and burning their wings. The sky rained black ichor and charred leaves.

Mu Wuyan didn't look back to admire his handiwork. He used the force of the shockwave to propel himself further, accelerating to a speed that tore the clothes from his back. He dove towards the jagged, rocky labyrinth of the canyon floor below, suppressing his aura to the absolute minimum.

He crashed into a ravine, rolling and skidding until he came to a halt behind a massive, wind-carved boulder.

He lay there for a long time, his chest heaving, his body battered and bruised.

He was alive. Alone, stripped of his ship, his subordinates, and his dignity, but alive.

Slowly, the Grand Elder of the Violethaven Temple sat up. He coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood that sizzled on the hot rock.

He extended his spiritual sense cautiously.

The sky above was quiet. The swarm, confused and damaged, had lost its trail. They were likely feasting on the scattered remnants of Elder Fang's qi residue.

"Monsters..." Mu Wuyan whispered, his hands trembling with a mixture of rage and adrenaline.

He thought of the Temple Master's plan. To ally with these things? To use them as a tool against the Divine Convenience Store?

"Madness," He grumbled helplessly. But like Elder Fang, whom he had just commanded to sacrifice himself, he was but a mere pawn in the eyes of the Temple Master.

He pulled out a communication crystal and began to pour his sliver of spiritual energy, establishing contact with the temple.