COZMART: Corner Shop of Visiting Gods

The central arena lay quiet and eerily empty, a stark contrast to the vibrant banners floating above. Without spectators or participants, it resembled a dormant battlefield—yet the RealmNet livestream roared as if a stadium full of gods were screaming at once.

Across the Six Realms, holo-screens stitched into the very sky replayed the same scene on loop: Team 001 frozen under a scarlet alert box that now basically read "FORCE-QUIT = COMMANDER CRIPPLED".

RealmNet comments exploded across countless glowing screens, comment feeds flowing faster than moderators could swing the ban-hammer.

[@FieryPhoenixah]: did the devs just nerf escaping??

[@WTigerFanclubOfficial]: Exit patch notes drop mid-event?? Isn't that illegal??

[@HeavenlyGossip]: Can anyone try reuploading the replay vids? Mine keeps getting taken down

The hashtag #EmergencyExitSabotaged rocketed past celebrity scandals and celestial memes in under a minute. Panic pinged like hail on crystal. Notifications blared, and conspiracy speculation multiplied faster than anyone could manage.

Up in the broadcast tower, Brother Woo's knuckles whitened on the mic. Beside him, Yverie stared at the feeds, a tremor in her star-punctured eyes.

"Brother Woo," she whispered, "the kill-switch just turned into a kill-shot… But can't be right," she added quickly. "How can the emergency termination seal be modified?"

Brother Woo inhaled, steady voice doing overtime. "Esteemed viewers," he announced, "confirmation just in—the forced termination rules have inexplicably changed. Any attempt at termination now causes irreversible damage to a commander's cultivation core."

RealmNet exploded again in disbelief:

[@TeaLord007]: 'permanent' as in… no more godhood??

[@SmallBunsAreLife]: Who would even have clearance to rewrite Ledger code mid-round?

[@ImmortalSkeptic]: Sabotage. Has to be. Look at 002, look at 001.

"First Team 002, and now Team 001 as well…" Yverie gulped, turning her starry eyes toward another live-feed panel.

RealmNet audiences watched in tense silence. Somewhere on the RealmNet replay catalogue, someone had uploaded a replay compilation of each team in the past hours, one of them capturing Team 002's nightmare scenario in chilling clarity:

Erlang Shen stood atop a burning palace made entirely out of jade, bodies of allies and enemies alike scattered around him. Behind him, heaven itself cracked and fractured, streaked with massive ruptures as rebellion surged like a flood. Erlang Shen himself stood gazing down at the heaps of bodies that'd all belonged to the Platinum Paladins, blood-stained spear in hand.

[@ShenSupport]: Is Erlang Shen's nightmare… the Heavenly Rebellion?

[@Celestial-Chaos]: Wasn't he the one who suppressed it in the original timeline? So what is this??

"Commander Erlang's nightmare recreated the Heavenly Rebellion he once suppressed," Brother Woo explained, "But the nightmare had twisted the setting, forcing him to lead it himself—forcing him to watch as his victory unraveled heaven into ruin."

"Team 002, upon seeing their commander on the other side, had decisively chosen to exit the nightmare." Yverie bit her lips. "But then the rules changed. They halted termination procedures immediately upon seeing the modified warning."

The RealmNet chat quieted momentarily, dread settling across millions of screens simultaneously.

"The Cloud-Jade Ledger's back-up failsafes are showing the same infection," Brother Woo said grimly. "The usual external emergency termination safeguard is now also compromised. This means that if we force an external extraction, the damage to commanders will be identical."

Yverie peered at her own admin holopad, fingers brushing rapidly through updates. "At minimum, commanders would lose several millennia of cultivation. At worst—"

She swallowed.

"True mortality."

A chilling silence blanketed the RealmNet feeds, streams momentarily pausing as viewers processed the gravity of her words.

[@SnowyFox134]: That's… insane.

[@DemonPrinceStan]: This isn't even just sabotage anymore. It's wholly a hostile attack on the Six Realms.

Yverie swallowed visibly, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. "But how... could this even happen?"

She then turned pale, realization dawning almost immediately after. She glanced sidelong at Brother Woo.

"The Realm-Barrier Games' firewalls are guarded by celestial encryptions," he said calmly into the streaming camera. "It cannot be breached easily."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

None of them said any more, but everyone knew what it implied. The Realm-Barrier Games ran on the Cloud-Jade Ledger's most secure firewalls, protected by layers of celestial encryption.

Yet now, all nine commanders—immortal pillars anchoring the Six Realms—along with their most elite forces, were trapped within these altered nightmares. Whoever had orchestrated this attack clearly had planned meticulously.

A certain heaviness settled upon the crowd. Speculation hung thick in the air, yet nobody dared voice aloud their darkest suspicions. Censorship bots began throttling the RealmNet trends and hashtags. Comment lag spiked; fear thickened.

Suddenly, a brilliant gilded talisman blinked into existence beside Yverie. She jolted, fumbling the scroll open hastily. Brother Woo glanced toward her.

"An official proclamation," she announced, voice shaky but authoritative. "Official statement: the Jade Deity confirms a breach. An investigation is already underway, and a specialized unit of Platinum Paladins has been mobilized to uncover and apprehend the perpetrator."

[@SpiritualGossiper]: Platinum Paladins?? Looks like this is actually serious.

[@heavensfavoritetaxevader]: whoever poked the Deity's dashboard just signed their own karmic warrant

Brother Woo exhaled slowly, shoulders tense beneath his embroidered robes. He turned back to the audience.

"For now, all we can do is continue monitoring closely, providing whatever support we can to our trapped commanders. Let us pray that this nightmare doesn't escalate further."

The holo-feeds kept streaming: nine fractured dreamscapes, nine commanders now hostage to memories weaponized. Some teams had seen the red line; others still fought cluelessly.

As for RealmNet netizens, they could only stare, scroll, and wait for the next rule to break.

***

Inside the Azure Dragon's makeshift encampment, Team 001 sat hunched around a sputtering qi lantern. Nobody spoke; the barrier's hum did the talking—failure, failure, failure—until Finn broke it first.

"So…" He hugged his knees, voice thin. "Anybody else got any ideas why the Games had just decided to… kill us?"

"The most probable explanation is a hacker, or plural." Quine Long lounged on a silk cushion, one boot lazily crossed over the other. "If the saboteur knows heaven's root directories? Entirely feasible. The admins managing the Game's infrastructure mostly come from the Heavenly Realm, after all."

A faint shadow crossed his smile. "Cipher Venerable loves tricks like this."

Four heads snapped toward him.

"Cipher who?" Willow asked.

Quine Long chuckled dryly, examining his nails.

"Anarchist turned pacifist. Possibly a pretend one, though. Long story, zero relevance—unless you enjoy bedtime terrors." He flicked imaginary lint from his sleeve and let the silence swallow the name.

Eathan glanced up, frowning slightly. "Maybe present-day Mister White would know something about it—but obviously, he's not exactly reachable right now."

"Forget outside conspiracies." Willow shook her head with a sigh. "With that altered termination clause, we're essentially trapped."

"Willow's right." Finn rubbed his temples. "Even if we ID the culprit, Commander White's the one holding the nuke. And we can't pull out—"

"—unless we're fine-tuning him into a spiritual paperweight," Chewie finished.

Eathan's head snapped up, a flicker of fear crossing his features before quickly being pushed back. "Absolutely not," he said. "We are not crippling our commander."

No teasing jabs came at his swift, earnest loyalty—not this time. Willow's expression softened as she met his gaze. "Agreed. One fallen guardian and half the planet unravels."

Not only the White Tiger, but the same logic applied to all the other eight commanders. Aside from being powerful deities, they were leaders who represented an entire sector of the world, with hundreds of millions standing under their lead. If the commander were to fall, the territory they were in charge of would no doubt succumb to chaos.

"Hold on. We're in a stalemate, then." Finn rubbed his chin. "Option A: stay and die. Option B: leave and doom the boss. Option C?"

Chewie pointed at the sky-red timer of doom that hung above them all:

[TIME REMAINING]:

50:22:58

"Option C," she said, "we try to survive until someone on the outside figures out what the hell is going on. And by surviving, I mean playing whack-a-mortal with a feral war deity for the next two days."

Eathan exhaled, tightening his fists until the trembling stopped. "It's true that Bai Hu is not Mister White. Not yet. He's ruthless, brutal, and we've all seen that reasoning with him is impossible." His voice was steadier now. "Perhaps we need another angle."

Finn blinked. "You mean…"

"We change the board. Bai Hu's immovable; that leaves the other king piece."

Quine Long sat up slightly, expression shifting into mild amusement as he observed the young mortal's determination. "Continue."

Eathan peered toward him with clear, brown eyes. "We're still missing a faction."

Silence ensued, promptly broken as Willow snapped her fingers in epiphany.

"He's right! We can approach the Abyssal Legion and convince Demon Prince Cang to withdraw his troops. The moment he packs up and leaves, invasion will be pointless, along with vaporisation."

Finn's eyes widened. "We seriously think the demon prince will be more reasonable than our own commander? That's…"

He paused.

"That's… not exactly far-fetched."

"Demons usually have clearer motives. Survival, for instance," Chewie said. "If they realize Bai Hu intends to obliterate the entire island—taking them with it—they might reconsider their invasion."

Eathan met their gazes, quiet determination resonating within. "It's slim, but at this point, slim is all we have. If Bai Hu won't budge, maybe we can convince his enemies instead."

All eyes turned expectantly toward the Azure Dragon, who held their looks for a good five seconds before rolling his shoulders with theatrical resignation.

"Oh, fine." He stretched his arms overhead. "I suppose I can play chauffeur again. However, not right at their front gates. A safer distance, before my presence triggers immediate hostilities. Demons, unfortunately, seem to be deeply fixed on discarding my pretty head."

Willow stood decisively. "Good enough, then let's get moving immediately. The longer we delay, the slimmer our chances become."

The rest of the team rose beside her, exhaustion pushed back by fresh resolve. Eathan took a deep breath, heart pounding but mind oddly clear. He remembered the White Tiger—Taeril White, the one who always hid quiet considerations beneath dry sarcasm and aloofness. He owed this much to that man, at least.

Quine Long stepped forward, brilliant azure qi weaving around him in a luminous whirlpool, lighting the tent in ocean fire.

Finn gulped. "Come to think of it, is there really a 'safe' distance to teleport next to a demon army?"

"Relax, bread loaf." Chewie nudged him forward. "What's the worst that could happen—annihilation by the White Tiger, or annihilation by the demon prince?"

Finn shot her a look of betrayal. "How comforting, preteen warlord."

Eathan glanced at the horizon, determination steeling in his chest. For once, he felt oddly sure, even if every nerve in his body screamed otherwise.

"Alright." He drew a long breath—the kind you take before cliff-diving. "Let's rewrite history."

Quine Long snapped his fingers. Teal lightning blossomed, and Team 001 vanished in a roar of dragon-coloured light, racing toward the demon lines and whatever slim mercy lay beyond them.