Divine Convenience Store-Chapter 562: Twelve against One

Lin Mo sensed the restless energy of the kneeling elders below. They were awed by what he showed, yes, but they were martial artists. There's no way they're not curious as to how they truly measure against him.

"So, are you going to continue kneeling there?" Lin Mo called out to the kneeling crowd, specifically, the remaining ten Valley Elders who had surrendered.

"Don't be shy. If you think you can do better, step up. Or perhaps... you want to come at me all at once?"

The elders showed hesitation as they glanced at each other.

Ten against one? Even against a monster like him, those were odds any martial artist would take.

Greed and pride warred with fear in their eyes. Slowly, one by one, they stood up.

They drew their weapons. Sabers, spears and chain whips.

They leaped onto the front, surrounding Lin Mo in a tight circle.

Twelve Transcendent Stage masters, including the injured Stone and Viper, who stood up again after gathering their martial qi to catch their breath.

It was a kill box. A formation designed to crush any single opponent.

Luo Lanyi gasped from where she was watching. "Shopkeeper! That's too many!"

Tie Zha also stepped forward, ready to intervene, but Lin Mo held up a hand without looking back.

"Stay there. Honestly, I feel like it'll be easy for me to just kill everyone or force them to submit. However, I'm not a tyrant like their previous Valley Master. I'm giving them a chance if they truly do not want to stand on our side of history. Call this a staff training exercise. Observe."

He looked at the twelve masters encircling him. Their killing intent was carrying a heavy weight in the air.

"Twelve," Lin Mo counted. "A nice, even number. Let's make this quick. I still have a store to open in the morning."

"Attack!" One of the elders roared, probably the most senior among them.

And then, they attacked simultaneously.

Before Lin Mo's eyes, a storm of steel and inner energy erupted. Blades slashed, hammers smashed, and whips cracked. Every angle was covered.

There was no escape. For an ordinary martial arts master, at least.

But Lin Mo was different.

He closed his eyes and let his [Stillwater Perception] do its job, painting a perfect, 360-degree picture of the battlefield. Every muscle twitch, every intake of breath, every flow of qi.

He opened his eyes. And they were glowing with the faint, amethyst light of his Psionic-Tempered Qi.

He moved, lunging straight at the elder wielding a massive war hammer.

The elder brought the hammer down with a roar.

Lin Mo stepped inside the swing's arc. He placed his hand on the elder's chest.

A pulse of solid starlight qi erupted from his palm.

BOOM!

The elder was blasted backward, his body becoming a projectile that slammed into the two swordsmen behind him. The three of them tumbled across the ground and almost crashed into the martial artists of the Seven Valley Alliance.

Lin Mo spun again as he swept his spear low.

[Dragon Crescent Sweep]!

He didn't use the full starlight blade, but he infused the shaft with enough qi to make it unbreakable.

The sweep caught the legs of three more elders. Bone cracked and they fell as their attacks went wild.

Perhaps finding it an opportune moment, a whip wrapped around Lin Mo's arm.

The wielder was a cunning woman with an elegant yet sadistic smile. She yanked it, trying to pull him off balance.

Lin Mo pulled back hard, not budging at all.

With his Foundation Establishment strength, the tug-of-war was a joke.

The woman was yanked off her feet, flying towards him.

Lin Mo caught her by the throat mid-air, spun her around, and threw her into the path of an incoming saber strike from another elder.

The saber wielder frantically pulled his blow, missing his ally by inches, but the distraction cost him.

Lin Mo was already there. A palm strike to the chin sent him sleeping.

Six down. Six to go.

The remaining elders were terrified. Their coordination was shattered. Their attacks became desperate and erratic.

"Formation! Use the [Six-Valley Harmony]!" One of them shouted.

They tried to regroup, to coordinate their techniques. It wasn't an actual magical formation that cultivators used. It was simply arranging themselves in a way that would make their technique meld with each other, giving them the advantage.

And Lin Mo, who had many days of simulated battles in the cultivation room, wasn't even fazed. If they were at least at the same level as Hei Feilong, he might have to be very careful. But against these elders, it's like fighting a group of bandits.

"Too slow," Lin Mo said.

He stabbed his spear into the ground and his domain spread out, catching them all like a spiderweb. The gravity around him intensified tenfold.

The elders felt like the sky had fallen on their shoulders. Their knees buckled. Their weapons became impossibly heavy. They collapsed to the ground, pinned like insects.

Lin Mo walked amongst them, his steps light and unaffected.

He stopped in front of Valley Master Stone, who was struggling to lift his head.

"So, do you still want to crush my arrogance?" Lin Mo asked softly.

He placed his foot on the elder's back and pressed down.

"Arrogance requires ignorance. I know exactly what I am capable of. Do you?"

He looked around at the groaning, defeated masters.

Twelve Transcendent Stage experts. Defeated in less than a minute.

Without a scratch on him.

Luo Lanyi, Tie Zha, Hu Gan, Ling Qiumei, Ying Sha, Iron Pan, Tiger Lord and everyone from the Sleeping Dragon City watched in silence, their breaths caught in their throats.

The scene before them was etched into their retinas. A scene of absolute dominance that shattered their understanding of martial arts.

To them, a Transcendent Stage master was a titan, a being who could walk through armies unscathed.

Twelve of them together should have been a calamity capable of leveling the city. Yet, here they were, scattered like broken toys, groaning beneath the pressure of a single man who looked more like a scholar than a warrior.

"This... this is the true power of the Shopkeeper. No, he hasn't shown what he's truly capable of yet." Hu Gan whispered, his voice trembling not with fear, but with a fanatical fervor while clutching the [Legionary Set] helmet under his arm.

"It was perfection. Every movement was efficient. No wasted energy. No hesitation. He moved before they struck, and struck before they could defend. It was as if... as if he could see the future." Ling Qiumei added, her eyes wide as she replayed the battle in her mind.

On the battlefield, Lin Mo slowly lifted his foot from Valley Master Stone's back.

The elder gasped, sucking in air greedily as the crushing weight vanished, but he didn't dare to rise. His spirit was broken.

The 'Iron Palm' he had trained for forty years had been dismantled like a child's game.

"I will ask one last time," Lin Mo said, his voice returning to that pleasant, customer-service tone that was now more terrifying than any roar. He swept his gaze over the defeated elders. "Are we done with the product testing? Or do I need to process a few more returns?"

The elders who were conscious scrambled to kowtow, their foreheads banging against the stone pavement.

"We yield! We yield, Senior!"

"Please, spare us! We were blind!"

"The Seven Valleys Alliance is yours!"

Lin Mo nodded, satisfied. He was about to dismiss his spear when a sudden, jarring spike of malicious intent flared from the side.

"Yield? To a merchant? Never!"

The scream came from Valley Master Viper. He had been thrown aside earlier. But now, he stood, his body trembling violently. His skin, which was already pale, had started transforming into a sickly, vibrant purple. His veins bulged as they pulsed with a chaotic, self-destructive rhythm.

In his hand, he crushed a small, wax-sealed pill.

"That's... the [Dragon-Blood Frenzy Pill]!" One of the Valley Elders shouted, recognizing the forbidden medicine. "Shopkeeper, beware! It burns the martial artist's life force to forcibly open the Gates! He's trying to force a breakthrough to the Transformation Stage! It was only temporary, as he'd die right after but…"

"Oh?" Lin Mo raised an eyebrow, pausing his motion to store the spear. "A desperate power-up sequence? How cliche. But also... incredibly inconvenient for the property value."

Viper roared, a sound that was less human and more bestial. The martial qi around him exploded, turning into a cloud of green gas that dissolved the stones beneath his feet.

His muscles expanded, tearing his robes, and his eyes rolled back, leaving only whites filled with broken capillaries.

Now, he looked like those wandering zombies outside. The energy rushing through him was uncontrolled, turning him into a living bomb of poison and martial qi.

"Die! Die with me!" Viper shrieked, lunging forward.

His speed had doubled. He moved like a green phantom, leaving a trail of melting stone in his wake. His daggers were gone, replaced by claws formed from his own solidified, poisonous qi.

The other elders scrambled away in terror, terrified of getting caught in the blast radius of their former ally's suicide run.

Lin Mo didn't retreat. He simply sighed in genuine annoyance.