COZMART: Corner Shop of Visiting Gods

The maintenance tunnel yawned open like the mouth of some sleeping beast, breathing cold, damp air across the cracked concrete.

Dim emergency lights sputtered along the walls, half-drowned by vines of creeping mold. Somewhere deeper in the station, the air itself shimmered—a haze of fractured qi bleeding from invisible seams.

Eathan adjusted the grip of his [Receipt Printer], heart hammering as he followed Meng Yao and Chewie into the gloom. Their footsteps echoed, sharp against the rusted tracks and scattered debris.

The rift felt close, tangible. Even without fully opening his senses, Eathan could feel it—a rip in the world's skin, leaking something foul and wrong.

Chewie spun a blade wrapped in talisman between her fingers, idly tracing the runes inscribed along its length. Leading the team, Meng Yao moved ahead with precision, her gloves already glowing faintly with prepared array seals. They rounded a collapsed stairwell and reached the breaker station—a crumbling utility hub tucked behind sealed doors. Only, the seals were fractured now, thin lines of spiritual corrosion gnawing at the metal.

Meng Yao stopped. Inside, the rift pulsed like an open wound, spilling black smoke into the dim space. Ignoring the static noise behind her, she spoke without looking back. "Node maps unstable. Rift cluster density confirmed. We'll hit it three ways: left tunnel, right maintenance shaft, old breaker station ahead."

Eathan's mouth went dry.

Three-way. Simultaneously.

Meng Yao turned to him, expression unreadable in the weak light.

"Activate [Ledger Tap] now. You'll have one minute. Mark fracture points and secondary leakages. Prioritize node weaknesses first. Potential spirits second." She paused. "And remember—cooldown is five minutes. No second chances once it's blown."

Eathan's throat bobbed in a hard swallow. The [SYSTEM] chimed faintly in his mind, waiting—patient, impersonal. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes.

[Ledger Tap (Lv. 1)] has been activated!

30 Qi Tokens have been subtracted from your [PROFILE] (165 → 135)

The world peeled open.

Data flooded his senses, layering translucent diagrams across reality. Spiritual fractures snaked all around them like hairline cracks through concrete. Node anchor points pulsed faint yellow and orange, and rift leaks coiled like storm clouds in slow motion.

It was overwhelming—and untimely exhilarating.

Each point glowed with shifting intensity, live metrics tagging instability rates.

Okay. Focus.

Eathan scanned rapidly, heart racing. He pointed to the left. "Minor fracture on the third node junction—if it snaps, two more rifts could spawn."

Chewie pivoted without hesitation, racing down the left end of the station with her blade flaring to life. Eathan turned right, eyes catching a second spike.

"Maintenance shaft—backflow leak forming around the emergency stabilizer box. Weak spot: base anchor."

Meng Yao nodded sharply, already moving, hands weaving glowing talismans in the air.

The timer ticked in the corner of his vision.

Thirty seconds left.

He swept the area, seeking hidden threats—

A flicker.

Something was wrong.

Further ahead, by an older breaker station, a dark stain unfurled like spilled oil against the walls, barely visible through the layered fractures. The air vibrated with low, broken frequencies, sounds a human throat couldn't make.

A form began coalescing before Eathan's eyes. Mist condensing into limbs. A partial humanoid shape, except it was too thin, too elongated, and the joints were all wrong.

[Side Quest (new!)]:

Seal Emergency Rift T-222!

▸ Class-C Rift

Reward: +250 Karma, +30 Qi Tokens

A premature rift.

This wasn't part of the plan. If it were fully anchored to the Mortal Realm, it would start hijacking the spiritual nodes, tearing the local mana web, and collapsing surrounding barriers like dominoes.

Eathan pinged it immediately. "Breaker station! An unmarked rift is forming—C Class, I think. Still stabilizing. New priority!"

Meng Yao's voice snapped through the communicator. "Confirmed. Redirect suppression priority."

Out of nowhere, the last ten seconds of [Ledger Tap] flashed red. Fractures blurred, and spirit currents tangled in his vision. Eathan called two more minor leak points before the [SYSTEM] chimed harshly:

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION

[Ledger Tap (Lv. 1)] has been terminated!

Reactivation available in 5 minutes.

The holographic overlays dissolved like smoke, and reality snapped back, heavy and blindingly mundane by contrast.

Eathan staggered slightly, catching himself against the crumbling wall. Sweat prickled under his jacket, yet his entire body was wide awake, wild with adrenaline. He snapped up his [SYSTEM] overlay instinctively again, only to be slapped with a brutal notification:

[Ledger Tap (Lv. 1)] access is currently unavailable!

Cooldown Remaining: 4 minutes 55 seconds

He stiffened. With no targeting overlay and no rift analysis, they were flying blind.

"My time's up!" He yelled.

Chewie cursed audibly through the channel. She drew her blade instantly, the receipt-edge catching the dim light. Eathan could feel the condensed aggression radiating from her. Meng Yao unrolled a short scroll mid-air, fingers flashing through rapid sigils. They needed weak point data—target precision. Without it, even Chewie's fastest strike might miss the critical nucleus. A drawn-out fight could be especially detrimental right now, when rift pressure was already this high.

Eathan's gut twisted. He had seen it, just barely, but he saw it right before [Ledger Tap] gave out. The entity's limbs were still forming, arms too long, smoke-forged joints twitching erratically. The phantom began weaving mana into anchor threads, trying to hook itself into the station's dormant barrier nodes.

Another few seconds, and it would stabilize.

If it did—

Chewie braced forward slightly, blade tip tilting toward the chest. Instinctively, like a hunter trained to strike at a centre mass. But Eathan's brain tugged at his thoughts.

No, not there.

Without [Ledger Tap], he only had his senses. He squinted, remembering what he glimpsed during his earlier scan. The spirit density had been highest around—

The left clavicle.

Anchor threads had curled subtly around the upper shoulder structure. That's where the nucleus was forming. The chest would be a decoy—deliberately reinforced to mislead instinctive strikes.

Eathan's mouth went dry, but he barked out, "Left shoulder! It's anchoring there, not the chest!"

Chewie didn't glance back, but a faint smile had twitched across her mouth.

And then she moved.

In a single breath, the eleven-year-old flickered forward. A flash of white as her blade seared through the dense mist, slicing straight into the spirit's left clavicle. Following it, a shriek split the stale air. It was high, shattering, and wrong in every way. The entity convulsed violently, collapsing inward as the nucleus shattered cleanly.

The mist scattered into harmless wisps, the rift's pressure evaporating in an instant.

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:

You have completed [Side Quest]:

Seal Emergency Rift T-222!

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

You have been rewarded: +250 Karma, +30 Qi Tokens

Chewie flicked residual mist off her blade with an idle motion, giving him a smug look. "Nice call, kid."

Eathan exhaled shakily, knees almost giving out under him. He didn't even have the strength to refute that she was much more of a kid than he was.

Beside him, Meng Yao was already beginning the post-suppression locking of the rift site. The tunnels had fallen silent again after the phantom's dissolution. Only the soft crackle of Meng Yao's sealing talismans filled the stillness, weaving stabilizer arrays over the fractured breaker nodes.

For a moment, there was nothing to do but wait—to let the arrays sync with the dormant barriers, holding the wound closed a little longer.

Chewie leaned against the scorched wall, twirling her blade between two fingers. Eathan wiped the sweat from his forehead, lungs still burning from adrenaline. He scanned the [SYSTEM] every five seconds, waiting for the [Ledger Tap] cooldown to finish.

"Mister White—the commander, I mean," Eathan started, trying to fill the silence as they worked. "Did he teach you to do all this?"

Across the room, Meng Yao finished locking the last stabilization seal. She didn't turn immediately, her gloved fingers tracing a final glyph into the cracked concrete. When she finally spoke, her voice was smooth, contemplative, like reading something written long ago and long accepted.

"Commander White is not your typical commander."

The words fell into the damp tunnel air with a weight that did not sink but anchored.

"Fifteen years ago, he left Area 001 standing strong and untouchable. When he was here, the mere fact that Bai Hu commanded this sector was enough." Her voice echoed in the hollow space. "No one dared to approach us. They couldn't, even if they wanted to."

Her fingers lifted from the glyph. The rune flared once, sealing itself into the wall with a faint hum.

"When he left—without warning, without excuse—he entrusted Area 001 to us. Deputy directors, elite captains, strike teams, ghost units, regulators… He gave no speech. No ceremony.

"He simply trusted we would hold."

Meng Yao finally turned, holopad flickering softly at her side, casting her features in hard golds and shadows. She peered towards him.

"We knew, even then, what it meant. The White Tiger did not leave behind survivors—he left behind successors."

There was no resentment in her tone. Nor bitterness.

Only a quiet, prideful certainty.

The loyalty of someone who had been left in the fire—and chose to keep standing anyway.

Eathan listened, something thick gathering at the back of his throat.

The Taeril she knows...

Not the lazy boss haggling over bubble tea coupons, nor the grumpy old storekeeper muttering about security cameras.

The White Tiger, Autumn's blade.

The embodiment of dusk, resolve, and blood-stained vows.

The White Tiger hadn't abandoned them. He had believed they would endure—or fall with their heads held high.

"Area 001 stood... because it had to." Meng Yao's voice softened slightly, almost imperceptibly. "Stable on the surface, yes. Cracked and worn underneath. But even so—" She paused, gaze distant. "We held. We held because we knew that one day, Commander White would return."

A faint smile ghosted across her mouth, so quick Eathan almost thought he imagined it.

"And now that he has—Area 001 will rise again."

Eathan stood still, the words anchoring themselves deep in his chest.

Despite having only met Meng Yao today, he found himself somehow believing her words wholeheartedly. Area 001 hadn't survived these fifteen years because of blind faith. They had survived because the White Tiger had taught them, without words, what it meant to belong to his legacy.

The group moved on.

They ventured into the maintenance shafts, following the faint, acidic tugs of unstable qi. It wasn't long before Meng Yao halted, frowning sharply at her readings.

"Rift T-229," she muttered. "Expanding faster than projected."

Chewie straightened instantly, blade flashing into ready position. Eathan, heart ratcheting into double-time, pulled up his [SYSTEM] overlay and activated [Ledger Tap] once more.

[Ledger Tap (Lv. 1)] has been activated!

30 Qi Tokens have been subtracted from your [PROFILE] (165 → 135)

However, before his eyes could fully adjust to the glowing gridlines and blinking anchor points, reality exploded in front of him.

The rift ahead tore itself wider with a sickening screech of qi. A brutal shockwave slammed Eathan against the tunnel wall, his breath punched out in a harsh gasp. Stars burst behind his eyelids as a searing pain ripped through his side.

[HP] has dropped by 44%! (100% → 56%)

He doubled over, coughing violently. His vision was sent swimming, darkening at the edges. Out of the breach, something began to claw its way into the Mortal Realm—half-solid, half-shadow, movements jerking like a marionette dancing on broken strings.

A vengeful spirit.

Not some vague anomaly like before, but a creature with intent. Unlike the previous rift, this one was already in humanoid shape; its back arched over and bones cracking, its entire body dripping with toxic mist.

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:

[Side Quest (new!)]

Seal Emergency Rift T-229!

▸ Category-B Rift

Reward: +400 Karma, +40 Qi Tokens, 4% Integrity

[CALAMITY RADAR β]

Status: Auto-online.

Warning! Hostile intent detected! Aura Threshold Breached!

The world blurred.

Eathan's body locked up. For a terrible, frozen second, all he could feel was fear. Beyond that single second, the first instinct that hit him wasn't to fight, it wasn't to stand his ground.

It was to run.

Hard and fast, the primal need to survive boiled to the surface, loud enough that the [SYSTEM] interface shivered around the edges of his vision.

Mortal Shock Detected!

[Humanity] has decreased by 5% (91% → 86%)

The notification blinked coldly in the corner of his mind. Then, as if the current situation wasn't worse enough, he received a second blaring notification the next second:

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION

[Ledger Tap (Lv. 1)] has been terminated!

Reactivation available in 5 minutes.

No, no, no, not yet— he thought frantically, struggling upright.

The activation period had already ended, but instead of the anchor nodes, all he'd seen were blurry stars, their patterns scattered and incomprehensible.

Eathan clutched his chest, nausea twisting through him as his [HP] flickered lower, sinking dangerously toward single digits. Through bleary eyes, he glimpsed Chewie thrown sideways, clenching teeth as she pulled back, sneakers driving against the tiled ground. Somewhere behind, Meng Yao was attempting to reinforce faltering wards. His pulse thundered in his ears, almost drowning out the latter's urgent commands and the former's sharp curses.

His trembling hands, almost against his own volition, snapped toward his HUD. The [Agility] stat pulsed brightly in his vision, overshadowing everything else. Although [Ledger Tap] was on cooldown, he still had Qi Tokens. He could dump everything into [Agility] now, become fast enough to bolt before the spirit took full form.

If he did it now, he could make it.

Eathan bit his lips so hard they bled. It was cowardice, perhaps. Or practicality. Maybe there was no difference when it came to survival. He almost mentally confirmed the Token input when, in the seconds between thought and action, something else surfaced.

Taeril's voice, dry and infuriating, lecturing him about receipt paper stock; Chewie's snicker, tossing him a bag of day-old pastries after a late shift; Meng Yao's cool appraisal, the pride she didn't voice but made no effort to hide.

A darker memory flickered beneath them all.

Fifteen years ago, a child stood among black suits and umbrellas. The child, in his tiny, broken self, stared as a man stepped forward from the gloom—tall, calm, hair the colour of first winter.

Taeril White crouched to his level, setting the chrysanthemum onto the ground. The world tilted as he extended a hand.

"I am here to take you home."

Not a promise of safety; not a lie about fairness.

Just pure, unwavering presence.

The HUD blinked, waiting. Eathan's breath hitched. He shifted his finger—

—and confirmed almost everything he had left into [Intelligence] instead.

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:

[Humanity] has increased by 2%! (86% → 88%)

130 Qi Tokens have been subtracted from your [PROFILE] (135 → 5)

[Primary Attributes Updated!]

[Intelligence]: Lv. 25 → Lv. 41

Host [Level]: Lv. 22 → Lv. 25

The surge hit Eathan like a cold slap.

Fragments of memory from moments earlier, blurred by pain, snapped back into focus. He remembered them all vividly now: the flashing rift currents he had glimpsed before [Ledger Tap] burned out, the turbulence in the entity's energy matrix…

The unnatural flex at the edge of the throat.

He could see the after images—the slight turbulence around the spirit's throat, the way the anchor lines vibrated higher there. Eathan ripped his gaze up, voice raw and rising above the pandemonium:

"Throat! The throat—target the throat!"

Chewie didn't need a second order.

Her head jerked around, meeting his gaze for a brief, decisive instant. Without hesitation, she darted forward, a flash of red across the dark. Her talisman printed mid-air in a flash of burning crimson script, and in the same breath, she launched herself forward. With one hand, she whipped the talisman towards the coalescing spirit, then immediately followed with a strike of her blade with the other.

The spirit recoiled instinctively, but it was too late. The blade met resistance at the throat, paused briefly—then plunged through. The spirit gave a short, brittle cry—almost human-before its form crumbled into a mist of nullified particles. The rift itself shuddered once and then cinched smaller, stabilizing into a smaller, controllable fissure.

The tunnel plunged into sudden silence. For a heartbeat, the only sounds were the faint crackle of dying rift residue and Eathan's own heavy breathing.

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:

You have completed [Side Quest]:

Seal Emergency Rift T-229!

You have been rewarded: +400 Karma, +40 Qi Tokens, +4 Integrity

You have unlocked a New Achievement: Emergency Response Badge (Bronze)

[Integrity] has increased by 4% (36% → 40%)

Host [Level]: Lv. 25 → Lv. 26

He survived.

Eathan sagged back against the wall, head swimming, heart still hammering painfully. Yet even amidst the throbbing pain, clarity surged through him.

He hadn't just survived. He had made a decision, and that had changed the outcome. Not because he was lucky, but because he chose to be something more.

Chewie wiped the blade edge against the air, folding it back into her pocket pouch with a lazy nonchalance, despite the graveness of the situation just then. She glanced over at him, a crooked grin pulling at the corner of her mouth.

"Good instincts, Eathan."

Across the scorched ground, Meng Yao sealed the rift residue without a word. She unfurled another scroll, inscribing a heavy [Spiritual Fuse Lock] talisman seal directly over the gaping rift mouth, forcing its remnants to compress and fold inward. The lines of the array glowed softly, anchoring into the physical and spiritual substrate of the station.

"This will hold for now," she said. "At least until official restoration arrives—assuming that we get the funding unfrozen."

Eathan's breathing steadied slightly, his hand pressed firmly over bruised ribs. The last of the spirit smoke vanished, and for a moment, the tunnel was still again.

Meng Yao rose from her last sealing posture, dusting off her gloves. As she straightened, she allowed herself a single look at him—a nod so faint that it might have been missed if he blinked. Then, almost lightly, she stepped forward and patted him once on the back.

"Not bad, Intern Lin."

It was an acknowledgment.

Nothing more, nothing less. Exactly what a soldier received from their commander after surviving a field test.

Eathan, sweaty, shaken, and feeling like he might collapse any second, almost cried in relief. "I thought I was going to die!"

Chewie snickered, bumping his shoulder with a light punch.

"But you didn't die," she said. "And that's a big win."