Divine Convenience Store-Chapter 591: Vespera
"We’ll be sure to leave a review of your hospitality, Manager Xylos. Spoiler alert: one star. Terrible ambiance.
A brilliant pillar of teleportation light erupted around Lin Mo, Xiaoyu, and the paralyzed Hunter-Killer torso.
Xylos let out a scream of pure hatred and hurled his massive body forward, swinging his bone-blade to disrupt the spatial transfer. The blade struck the edge of the teleportation pillar just as the spatial laws of the First Heaven engaged.
The clash of Highland corruption and native spatial magic created a localized singularity.
A shockwave blasted outward, completely obliterating the remnants of the fleshy heart’s island, which turned the toxic sludge lake into a geyser of purple rain.
But Lin Mo and Xiaoyu were already gone.
Xylos’s blade met only empty air.
He stood alone in the ruined cavern, chest heaving, the stumps on his back still smoking from Lin Mo’s starlight qi.
"Vespera..." Xylos growled, but instead of sounding aggrieved, fear seemed to occupy his voice.
He knew what the strong Mind-Weaver would do. She wouldn’t rage or scream madly at him. She would simply delve into his mind and twist his shame until it became a physical agony that eclipsed the phantom pain of his severed, grafted limbs.
And just as he thought of that, the quiet cavern that had been left devastated suddenly rippled. Not far from him, a space had begun to distort before materializing into a psychic projection.
There appeared the Dreilling, whose noble standing was much higher than his; Vespera.
It wasn’t her physical form, merely an echo of her consciousness projected from the Core Area. However, the density of her mental presence forced Xylos to lower his gaze.
She came from a Dreilling Aristocratic Household that had a connection to the capital of the Empire. His own house, which was among the second to the lowest rank of aristocratic households, couldn’t be compared at all. It was truly only luck that she picked this Anchor.
"A rather... inadequate performance, Xylos," Vespera’s voice didn’t travel through but directly resonated into his mind before traveling across his body and even within the marrow of his bones.
It was biting cold and devoid of empathy.
"You allowed those natives to destroy the secondary relay, mutilate your crude amalgamations, and extract themselves with a live specimen. Your bluster was, as always, louder than your competence."
"Y-you’ve seen it! They... they possessed... anomalous artifacts," Xylos gritted his teeth as he was unwilling to fully submit to his blunder. "That ’Shopkeeper’ carried a harmonic resonance that repelled our Highland Domain. He also possessed an energy that contained an essence of purification. And the female... I... got distracted. My Hunter-Killers had her yet... they all fell against her fists. Her physical parameters are illogical. She generates a localized storm that overloads our absorption matrices."
"Excuses," Vespera softly said, yet it delivered a terrifying pressure on Xylos’s shoulder. Her silver, pupil-less eyes narrowed, seemingly trying to dissect him. "They are mere Foundation Establishment Stage natives. Cultivators no better than our slaves. They should not possess the capacity to conceptualize such attacks, let alone execute them against a Highland Noble. They are prepared. Prepared to face otherworldly enemies. This ’Store’ they speak of must be a nexus point of external interference."
"T-then let me hunt them down!" Xylos roared as he gestured to the empty space where Lin Mo disappeared. "I will reshape myself! I will synthesize a hide immune to their starlight and storm!"
"Hmm. You will do no such thing," Vespera flatly commanded, "You have played your part as a distraction, however clumsily. Yet I cannot ignore this one thing, Xylos."
"W-what is it?"
"You.... You possess such a loose tongue. I am so inclined to pull it out of your skull to see what rot has infected your mind."
Vespera’s answer instantly made Xylos flinch in fear as he instinctively hunched forward.
The psychic weight bearing down on him was not a physical force, but a localized suppression of the Highland Domain controlled by Vespera from the Core Area. The pressure made him forget how to breathe as his lungs refused to expand under Vespera’s silent decree.
"Shame. You prattle about the ’Path of the Apex’ to a lesser being," Vespera continued, "Yet, you also broadcasted the existence of the Convergence Engine. You handed them the blueprint of our intent. Your vanity has compromised the operational security of this entire incursion. Had His Eminence not expressly forbidden the infighting of Nobles during a Vanguard deployment, I would unravel your neural pathways right here and leave you as fertilizer for the husks."
"They... they used trickery!" Xylos almost choked on his spit as he tried to explain. "That starlight... it acts as a solvent to the Highland binding matrix. It is an anomaly!"
"Trickery? Shameless. You flaunted your arrogance, thinking you’re invincible. Now, you speak of an anomaly that we are now forced to factor into our calculations, thanks to your generous demonstration," Vespera replied, her projection floating slightly higher, looking down upon the ruined cavern.
She observed the dissolved remnants of the fleshy heart, the scorch marks from the golden lightning, and the residual trace of the strange, orderly energy that still lingered in the air.
"This ’Shopkeeper’ and his ’convenience’..." Her telepathic voice grew softer, adopting a tone of cold, scientific curiosity. "They do not appear to fight like the natives we have studied. They do not rely solely on individual martial prowess or stagnant traditions."
The gemstone on her forehead pulsed with a deep, bruised purple light.
"Brute force and crude amalgamations will not suffice against an enemy that can adapt so rapidly. We must alter our methodology. If they rely on a network of what he called ’convenience’, we shall introduce something different into that network."
"W-what is your command, Vespera?" Xylos asked, his pride thoroughly beaten down, replaced by the pragmatic instinct to survive his superior’s wrath.
"Fall back to Core Area," She ordered. "Take what remains of your Hunter-Killers and have them stand guard in the antechamber to the Core. Your lowly amalgamations are to act as the final physical bulwark. Do not intentionally weaken yourself again by breaking the Anchor’s rule." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
—
The sensation of the [Emergency Escape Talisman] was never pleasant. It wasn’t like the smooth, instantaneous glide of the Celestial Shuttle Network. It felt almost like a violent yank through the dimensional fabric, a feeling akin to being stuffed into a narrow pipe and fired out of a cannon.
Lin Mo hit the ground of the fortified camp outside the Anchor’s entrance with a heavy and ungraceful stumble. His boots slid on the rocky terrain, kicking up dust. The [Decanus Set] sparked slightly as its Aetheric resonance protested against the sudden shift in atmospheric laws before stabilizing.
A split second later, a loud, cheerful thump echoed beside him.
"Wheee! That was a rush, Boss! Ten out of ten, would ride the magic paper again!"
Liu Xiaoyu landed in a perfect superhero crouch, her golden-hued armor gleaming in the sunlight of the Realm of Nine Heavens. Sparky, the lightning wolf cub, materialized next to her, shaking its head and letting out a dizzy little yawn like it had been exhausted from zapping those creatures.
However, the most striking thing wasn’t their flawless arrival. It was the fact that Xiaoyu was still casually holding the writhing torso of the Hunter-Killer Amalgamation by the scruff of its neck, like a hunter bringing back a particularly ugly and oversized rabbit.
The camp, which had been buzzing with the tense energy of a forward operating base, ground to an absolute halt.
Cultivators from a dozen different sects, fierce mercenaries composed of rogue cultivators and barbarians of the Stormhowl Tribe all stopped and stared.
Their eyes bulged, fixed on the grotesque, multi-limbed horror dangling from the grasp of the cheerfully grinning young woman.
"Shopkeeper!"
Elder Liu Jingshan and Chieftain Borok rushed forward from the command tent, their faces pale. Behind them, a contingent of elite guards drew their weapons, eyeing the writhing monstrosity with undisguised alarm.
"You... you returned!" Liu Jingshan gasped, his eyes shifting between Lin Mo’s armor and the captive beast. "And you brought... what in the nine heavens is that abomination?"
"Oh, it’s a souvenir," Lin Mo replied. He tapped his chest plate, deactivating the armor. With a series of sharp, mechanical clicks, the heavy plating folded in on itself, retracting and compressing until it formed the neat, silver cube in his palm. He tossed it into his inventory, returning to his immaculate green and white uniform.
"A very specific and hostile souvenir," Lin Mo amended as he dusted off his sleeves. He looked at Xiaoyu, who was currently ignoring the horrified stares of the camp and was instead trying to teach Sparky to ’sit’ using the twitching stump of the Hunter-Killer’s arm as motivation.
"Xiaoyu, try not to let it bleed out. Seal its veins, or it would be worthless to study."
"Got it, Boss! I sealed its major arteries with a little zap of lightning. It’s totally crippled now!"
Or so she said, but she was only doing it right as she spoke of it. The creature let out a garbled gurgle of pure misery while everyone watched in horror.
The Assistant Shopkeeper was terrifying. That would be a hot topic in the Bulletin Board.
