COZMART: Corner Shop of Visiting Gods

Sunset fell into the Shanghai skyline, bleeding gold and red against the endless steel teeth of the city.

From the rooftop of Area 001's headquarters, the view should have been beautiful. Instead, it felt like the start of a battlefield. Across the platform, two squads—the newly christened Strike Teams A and B—were prepping beneath a net of glowing sigils etched directly into the concrete.

The Inter-Node Transfer Gates, emergency portals linked to critical stabilization points across the entirety of Area 001, flared with thin blue light. Each pulse hummed like a heartbeat against the dying sky.

Eathan shifted nervously where he stood near the edge, clutching his [Receipt Printer] in both hands like it was a shield. The battered COZMART jacket still tied around his waist felt absurdly out of place among the armoured operatives, who were each adjusting their spirit-weapons and loading runic cartridges.

Willow, standing beside him with her arms crossed, noticed his twitching. Without a word, she leaned over and gave his shoulder a light, corrective punch.

"Cut it out. You look like a sacrificial intern."

Eathan made a face but obeyed. His nerves only barely settled when Xenis sauntered past, juggling two reinforced talisman scrolls in one hand and flashing a smug grin.

"Relax," he said, leaning his weight lazily against a supply crate. "First field run's always terrifying. Half of us puked before our first gate jump."

Eathan wasn't sure whether to feel better or worse.

As the team waited for the Transfer Gate's calibration to finalize—white holograms flickering and spinning tighter—Eathan, desperate for any distraction, blurted:

"So, uh… we're tryna save Area 001. How big is this 'Area' actually?"

"Pan-Asia," Xenis replied breezily.

Eathan froze. "Pan-Asia. Pan—like, the literal Pan-Asia?!"

He'd seen the territorial jurisdiction once while activating [Ledger Tap], but it felt immensely different to hear it confirmed in person.

"Yes," Willow said dryly. "The one on the map."

Still not entirely convinced he hadn't misheard, Eathan stared at the two leads. "Wait, wait, wait. Then how the hell are two teams with—what, thirty-ish people total?—supposed to fix rift tears across an entire continent?"

Willow rolled her eyes so hard Eathan swore he heard them creak. "You sweet summer child," she muttered.

Xenis, clearly enjoying himself far too much, pushed off the crate and flicked his wrist. A glowing node-map projected upward from his wristband, hanging over them like a ghostly tree.

"You see, Area 001's real battlefield isn't about geography, rookie," Willow said, pointing at the clusters. "It's about spiritual anchor density."

Eathan squinted. Clusters of red and yellow dots glowed across certain metropolitan regions—Shanghai, Greater Yangtze, Pearl River Delta, and scattered highland temples.

"These," Willow continued, "are the choke points. If we stabilize the anchors here, we stitch the entire web together. Lose them... and you might as well toss the Mortal Realm into a blender."

Xenis chimed in, a mischievous glint in his eye, "We're not traveling Pan-Asia. We're cutting surgical stitches across its backbone. Lucky for you—otherwise you'd die of jet lag before your first rift."

A mental image flashed across Eathan's mind: him face-planting in random airports across Asia while spiritual explosions set off behind him.

"Good to know," he muttered.

Visualizing it the way they described helped a little:

Area 001, not as a flat map, but as a giant forest. If nodes were the ancient roots that stabilized it, rift activity was like termites gnawing away at critical arteries.

And the Inter-Node Transfer Gates were their cheat codes—shortcuts skipping from root to root.

Eathan gulped.

Still terrifying, but slightly less overwhelming.

The Transfer Gate's final locks hissed into place with a hum. They had about three minutes before deployment.

While operatives double-checked gear, Willow tossed a spirit-seal clipboard onto a crate and leaned back casually. Eathan, sensing another rare sliver of downtime, tried to steer the conversation away from his own impending heart attack.

"You two seem... weirdly chill about all this," he said cautiously.

Willow smirked. "Comes with practice," she said. "After all, I've been at the HQ for seventeen years already." She jerked a thumb at herself casually. "Hated the family dynamics back home. Ran off to fight real battles instead."

There was pride there, raw and unfiltered.

Eathan blinked. The woman looked no more than in her late twenties.

"And you?" He asked Xenis, grateful to hear anyone else's life was more complicated than his.

Xenis puffed out his chest dramatically. "Rogue cultivator," he declared. "Found by the great Bunny Goddess Meng Yao herself during a field operation ten years ago. Practically dragged into HQ by my ear. Been surviving paperwork and bloodbaths ever since."

He finished with a wink. "My greatest achievement? Being just mortal enough to get away with being annoying."

Willow snorted. "You're not annoying. You're a bureaucratic soul trapped in a field agent's body."

"Flattered," Xenis said brightly.

Despite himself, Eathan smiled.

They weren't gods. They weren't perfect. They were just people—ridiculous, stubborn people—who refused to give up on holding the pieces of this world together.

[Side Quest (new!)]

Fit In with Team B!

▸ Help your assigned unit complete 3 successful missions and build team rapport. (Progress: 0/3)

Reward: +80 Karma, +15 Qi Tokens, +4% Humanity

The notification blinked softly against his vision. Eathan closed his hand tighter around the [Receipt Printer]. His nerves were still there, but now they burned with a little more steel.

He could do this.

He would do this.

The air above the rooftop had begun to warp, rippling faintly like heated glass. The sigils across the rooftop pulsed brighter, humming with charged spiritual energy. Above the Transfer Gates, faint glyphs floated like miniature comets, orbiting the main circles.

[Transfer Complete. Gate Activation in 60 seconds.]

The teams moved into position.

Squad captains tightened their utility belts, ran quick diagnostics on their stabilizers and scanners. Somewhere in the background, someone blessed a stack of emergency receipts by thwacking them three times against a vending machine.

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Across the platform, Meng Yao stepped forward first. Under the cold glow, her black tactical jacket cut a sharp silhouette against the skyline. She raised her gloved hand in a crisp signal.

"Fast-Response Unit," her voice rang clear, "report readiness."

Instantly, her squad snapped into formation—sealers adjusting their suppressor gloves, rapid-squad members checking the talisman arrays stitched onto their gear.

"Sealers ready!"

"Suppressors armed!"

"Rapid Squad standing by!"

Chewie, oversized jacket flapping slightly in the rooftop breeze, flicked her receipt-scanner-turned-enchanted-sword once. The sound it made was a low, vibrating vrrrm, like a storm ready to snap.

She tilted her head, voice deadpan: "Support squad green. Ready to sweep."

On the opposite side, Willow popped a piece of gum in her mouth, shoulders loose, posture deceptively relaxed. Yet when she threw on her lightweight jacket, the air around her shifted—the faint tang of spirit-beast bloodline sharpening her edges. She turned, flashing a cocky grin at her squad.

"Rapid Stabilization Unit. Sound off!"

Xenis, calmly balancing a holopad and what suspiciously looked like five sealing arrays stacked under one arm, adjusted his glasses and answered without even glancing up. "Registry sync stabilized. Rift suppression arrays loaded. Mortality insurance premiums... pending."

The rest of Team B followed suit:

"Anchor points calibrated!"

"Emergency seals packed!"

"Portable ward stones ready!"

And there, slightly awkward among them but tightening his hands on the Receipt Printer at his belt, was Eathan. COZMART vest half-tucked into tactical gear, face taut but determined.

He swallowed dryly and managed to croak out:

"...Human tech support. Reporting in."

There was a beat—and a ripple of low, almost affectionate laughter among the veterans.

Even Willow flashed him a quick, approving side-smirk. "Good enough, rookie."

[Transfer Gate Activation in 10 seconds.]

The sigils lining the rooftop gates flared suddenly, casting everything in a stark white glow. A sharp, melodic hum filled the air—like a massive harpstring being plucked across dimensions. Eathan stared into the shimmering transfer field, heart pounding. Somewhere behind him, he could still faintly hear Taeril's briefing echoing in his mind:

"Do not waste my time by dying."

He gripped the barcode scanner tighter.

Right. Don't die. Step one: Don't die.

Willow threw a two-finger salute at Team B.

"Moving out!"

Eathan took a deep breath and braced himself.

Time to step into the fire.

[Transfer Gate Activation in 3… 2…1.]

The world snapped sideways—light twisting like wet cloth—and the next thing Eathan knew, he was standing on a cracked rooftop overlooking a half-deserted suburban plaza in Pudong.

He blinked at the sight.

No giant monsters. No bloodthirsty demons.

Instead—

"...What the hell are those?" Eathan croaked.

Dozens of translucent creatures, no bigger than the size of his fist, flitted through the air like sugar-high soap bubbles. Some zipped around streetlamps. Some phased through café windows, snatching pastries from smart fridges. A few were racing each other upside-down across powerlines while cackling like gremlins.

And by the behaviours of the utterly unaware mortals, the glitch effects had already started spreading.

To Eathan's right, he watched as a student entered a coffee shop twice in a row, identical latte in each hand. Just as the student trotted down the stairs, two bicycles rolled themselves down parallel sidewalks without riders. Across the street, someone's email inbox exploded, sending messages before the guy even typed.

Willow squinted at the chaos, unimpressed. "Great," she muttered. "Spirit hamsters on steroids."

Xenis, leaning over the parapet with the calm of someone who studied spiritual ecology for fun, corrected: "Technically, they're Cloudleaper Sprites. Emotionally reactive. Agitate them and they destabilize nodes faster than low-tier influencers."

In the plaza, the little pests had already stacked enough micro-loops that reality itself was starting to glitch like a bad game server.

Eathan's [SYSTEM] pinged, too chipper for the situation:

[Side Quest (new!)]

Stabilize Minor Rift T-0047 (Sector 24F)

▸ Assist Team B in repairing unstable Tag-Node and suppressing minor rift opening in vintage factory district. (Progress: 0%)

Reward: +100 Karma, +25 Qi Tokens, +2% Integrity

Eathan's hand instinctively shot down to his Receipt Printer, adjusting it nervously around his waist.

Willow caught the movement, smirked, and gave him a thumbs-up. "Relax. They're just annoying, not lethal. Think of it like pest control—with extra reality glitches."

Which, honestly, wasn't all that reassuring.

The next moment, Eathan saw Xenis's fingers fly around his console at an absurd speed. The moment his hand left the screen, every member's wristpad lit up with a notification simultaneously:

[Mission ID: RSC-B-2093]

Priority: Moderate – Escalation Risk

Assigned Unit: Team B – Rapid Stabilization & Containment

Target Location: Sector 24F, Old Textile Mill District

Threat Level: Minor Rift Residue – "Cloudleaper Sprites" (low threat)

Objective: Stabilize collapsed Tag-Node; seal time-fluctuation echoes; preserve mortal environmental integrity

Tools Authorized: Portable node-repair kits, Advanced Receipt Printing permitted.

Notes: Civilian presence HIGH. Stealth and discretion mandatory.

He swerved his head at the registry scribe, who offered him a polite "welcome to the job" shrug in return.

"Let's get started?"

Their strategy was simple: catch and seal.

Team B promptly dispersed, seeping through the common crowd. Eathan stepped to the side and, with his back to the crowd, activated the [Receipt Printer], feeding it a barcode from a duct tape roll he had snagged back at HQ. Duct tape receipt, universal fix-all.

With a whir of gears and spirit energy, the device coughed out [Binding Receipts]—tiny, flashing seals with trap runes burned onto their surfaces.

Willow barked orders like a field sergeant.

"Fan out! Don't let them cluster!"

The squad members moved with practiced precision. Eathan, following orders, darted into the plaza, waving the receipts like oversized trading cards.

The sprites, naturally, thought it was a game. They zipped, dodged, laughed—one even buzzed his head like a drunk mosquito. Eathan gritted his teeth, timing his throws. The first time he tagged a sprite mid-flight, it squealed, spun in a glittery circle, and shrank neatly into a containment bead.

SLAP—Another [Binding Receipt] stuck onto a sprite mid-dash. It let out a tiny offended squeal and shrank instantly into a glowing marble.

Another. Another.

Soon, captured sprites filled his spirit-jar like tiny, angry fireflies. Halfway through, Eathan found a grin making its way on his face.

"Aha!" He sniggered while looping another sprite into the jar. "Who's the hamster now!"

Indeed, Eathan was getting wildly cocky until one sprite—either clever or deranged—shot through a five-story apartment complex, leaving behind temporal echo trails like birthday streamers made of chaos.

He nearly face-planted dodging the echoes.

Eathan's grin vanished instantly.

"…"

They were around ninety percent done—sprites sealed, plaza slowly stabilizing—when the world lurched.

The ground beneath their feet trembled, and above them, the sky cracked open. A jagged seam of purple lightning split the sunset like a wound. Space-time peeled apart, the rift fracturing wide enough that mortal civilians could see it without any supernatural sensitivity.

[Emergency Side Quest (new!)]

Deflect Anomaly Surge — Sector 24F

▸ A secondary Rift fluctuation detected at assigned sector. Protect mortal civilians nearby while stabilizing node structure. (Progress: 0%)

Reward: +500 Karma, +75 Qi Tokens

Eathan, staring up at the sky, heard the panicked [SYSTEM] alert and resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands.

Not good.

Very not good.

More streaks of lightning flickered along the widening rift.

Worse, mortal civilians were already staring—wristpads raised, MixToks about to be made, hashtags halfway to trending. If they didn't shut this thing down fast, the next viral meme would be Shanghai getting its own personal portal to hell.

Willow had already drawn her spirit-forged blade, the light glinting off the polished edge. "Xenis! Get a secondary node up—reroute stabilizers!"

Xenis rolled his sleeves, pulling a field node-stabilizer from his kit and barking crisp orders to nearby operatives. "On it!"

Eathan, heart hammering, squeezed the Receipt Printer until his knuckles went white.

He wasn't ready.

He'd never be ready.

But there wasn't time to hesitate.

He glanced once at the civilians gaping up at the rift, at the way reality itself was already fraying at the seams.

Alright.

He exhaled slowly, squaring his shoulders.

"Round two," he muttered grimly. "Let's go."