COZMART: Corner Shop of Visiting Gods

Silence crashed through the operations room. Every gaze snapped toward the announcement. In front of the screen, Meng Yao steadied herself against the console. The rare crack in her composure sent ripples of unease through the watching staff, heightening their collective dread.

"This can't be real," behind Eathan, Finn's voice broke out in a tremble. The Azure Dragon… he's immortal. How could—?"

How could this be possible?

No one replied. Willow stared at the screen, her eyes glazed with disbelief. Chewie's small frame stood rigid, fists clenched at her sides.

Eathan's chest tightened, as if the words on the screen had struck him with physical force. Quine Long—ancient, cunning, unassailable in wit and strength—officially deceased?

Something deep in his gut rebelled instinctively at the thought. It wasn't possible; it didn't align with everything he knew about the Azure Dragon's tenacity, his natural defiance during even the most straining circumstances.

Yet the Paladin's flat tone left no room for argument, only sterile bureaucratic finality.

He glanced around at his teammates, their expressions echoing his own shaken disbelief. The room felt impossibly smaller now, closing in from all sides, leaving them trapped within the news.

"Eathan," Finn whispered, as though barely holding onto rational thought, "do you believe it?"

He couldn't answer. His jaw tightened, thoughts swirling.

"No," he said finally. "It doesn't make sense."

Losing two of the Four Guardians in mere days felt like a cosmic impossibility, a cruel error in reality itself. Yet even as he spoke, he knew the Paladin's verdict was immutable. The Platinum Paladins were under the Jade Deity. Their declaration, backed by the Jade Court, meant no recourse. The machinery of the Heavenly bureaucracy left no gaps for protest.

Meng Yao drew a breath, forcing composure back into her expression. Her voice emerged strained yet steady, cutting across the silence.

"Everyone, back to your stations," she said. "Now isn't the time to lose ourselves. Area 001 stands vulnerable enough without our panic feeding into instability."

At her words, staff trickled back to their tasks, movements robotic and faces pale. Quiet murmurs rippled outward, steeped in dread.

Eathan stood rooted in place, his gaze fixed on the scrolling RealmNet feeds flooding the monitors:

[@JadeObserver]: Am I seeing this right? Both Guardians… in just days?

[@StarryFoxfire]: If this isn't divine politics, I don't know what is.

[@AzureFanClub]: Qing Long would never just vanish. Something else must be happening here.

As each message flashed by, Eathan felt the stark reality seep deeper into his bones—the uncertainty and chaos now hovering over Area 001 like an executioner's blade.

The room jolted as heavy doors burst open. An HQ staff, panting, turned to Meng Yao as she signalled to the outside.

"Commander Li Wei of Area 003 has arrived in person!" she said. "He is waiting in the lobby at this very moment."

***

Meng Yao strode back down to the grand lobby, Eathan, Chewie, and a few others trialing behind her. Near the entrance, they saw Li Wei trailing briskly left and right, his usually calm face hardened into unreadable stone.

Whispers sparked among the staff around him, wary glances exchanged rapidly.

"What's Area 003's commander doing here?"

"Another one? Are they making a play for guardianship?"

"I thought he was supposed to be on good terms with our commander?"

Meng Yao stepped forward, composure immaculate despite visible wariness. She intercepted him at the threshold.

"Commander Li. This is an unexpected visit."

Li Wei offered a curt nod, wasting no time. He produced a document marked with Bai Hu's distinctive seal, holding it out. "Area 003 has temporary custody of Eathan Lin. Explicit orders from Commander Bai Hu, established long ago for a contingency precisely like this."

Meng Yao blinked once—surprise flashing before she quickly regained control. She accepted the document, eyes scanning each line with scrutiny. Giving Eathan a quick glance, she then turned to Li Wei.

"Documentation verified," she admitted. "The White Tiger's arrangements are…clear enough."

Nearby, Eathan startled at the announcement, the initial relief at Li Wei's familiar presence was quickly overshadowed by confusion.

"Wait—I'm leaving Area 001? Right now?"

Li Wei turned to him. "Immediately. No room for discussion, I'm afraid. Area 003 will provide you with safety—something you won't find here amidst current instability."

Upon hearing his words, Eathan instinctively glanced toward his teammates. Willow's eyes darkened protectively, Finn swallowed, and Chewie's eyes burned into the man as they narrowed.

"I'm going too." The eleven-year-old stepped forward, arms crossed. "Eathan Lin doesn't leave my sight."

Li Wei studied her briefly, as if weighing her stubbornness against his patience, then nodded once. "Fine. Quickly then, both of you."

Meng Yao placed a hand on Eathan's shoulder.

"Trust Commander White's decisions. He wouldn't make arrangements lightly." Yet her own eyes betrayed uncertainty.

Reluctantly, Eathan allowed himself to be guided from the hall, Chewie trailing closely, footsteps sharp against the cold floor. As they passed through Area 001's doors, he cast a lingering look backward. The faces of his team members regarded him back, united in weary anxiety.

On the HQ rooftop, Li Wei's aircraft waited, engines humming in readiness. Eathan was the first to get on the plane, followed by Li Wei and Chewie. Soon, clouds and continents blurred together beneath them, carrying them steadily across oceans into Area 003 territory, toward New York City.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Inside, the cabin was tense, its silence punctuated only by the engines' rhythmic hum.

At the front, Li Wei was reviewing a series of reports. He scrolled across a thin holopad, occasionally glancing sidelong at the other seats. Across from him, Chewie sat legs crossed, arms folded. Her posture appeared casual, yet her eyes captured every subtle shift in movement.

As for Eathan, he was aware of the attention, yet couldn't help but drown in spiralling thoughts. He sat hunched forward, fingers intertwined, his expression shadowed.

"You should try to rest, kid." Li Wei sighed, breaking the silence. "It's still a long flight."

Eathan didn't immediately respond, tension coiling tighter in his shoulders. Eventually, he lifted his head, gaze hardening as he met Li Wei's eyes.

"Captain Li, did you know?"

Li Wei's fingers paused in mid-motion, holopad forgotten. Chewie narrowed her eyes slightly.

Eathan met both of their eyes. He couldn't bare it anymore—the elephant in the room had to be addressed.

"Did both of you know from the start?" he said, voice cracking on the last word. He swallowed hard. "About me… being Qilin's vessel?"

Silence dropped upon the trio, thicker than even the clouds outside. Li Wei exchanged a quick glance with Chewie. The hesitation was brief—but revealing far more than either had intended.

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:

Mortal Shock Detected! [Humanity] has decreased by 1%! (50% → 49%)

Almost instantly, something shifted within him. His heart lurched violently, and a surge of aura rushed through his veins like icy fire. The air around them flickered, and a shimmer of gold rippled across his skin. Eathan gasped, clutching his head as subtle, ghostly golden antlers shimmered into existence above his brow.

Below fifty percent.

The thought twisted in his gut, clear and terrifying: he'd dipped below a critical threshold. He had to regain control. Yet despite the faint sense of rationality, he couldn't adhere to the thought.

Chewie visibly tensed, eyes darting toward Li Wei in alarm.

"Eathan—" Li Wei began, a rare note of anxiety in his voice, "you need to breathe."

"Answer… my question…" Eathan said through gritted teeth.

Chewie was the one to respond. "Does it matter?" Her tone was impatient. "In a situation like this, does it make a difference whether we knew or not?"

A brief silence fell between them.

Then, laughter escaped, half-panicked, half-disbelieving.

"Does it matter?" Eathan's voice rose, surprising even himself with its brittle edge.

His breath quickened, pulse racing erratically as fear clawed up his throat. From within, he could sense his irises flickering from amber to molten gold, pupils narrowing into something distinctly inhuman.

"Yeah, it matters," he said. "I've spent my entire life wondering why Taeril White would take in some random mortal orphan, and now it all makes sense. He needed a convenient container, right? Because I'm just a placeholder for some god who died two thousand years ago? A replacement—"

"That's enough," Li Wei interrupted again, firmer this time. "Kid, you need to calm yourself."

"No, I don't need to calm myself," Eathan snapped.

Before he knew it, his anger had surged past restraint. Lights above them flickered. The faint, spectral outline of Qilin's antlers glimmered again above him, fading in and out like an apparition.

"I need answers. Tell me straight, Li Wei—did the White Tiger take care of me all these years just because I was a carrier of Qilin's soul? Was that all this was?"

"Eathan!" Chewie cut him off, eyes hard with rare intensity. "Get a grip. Your [Humanity] isn't stable enough for this kind of stress."

"I know!" Eathan laughed. It was a sound laced with a wounded irony. "Mister White wouldn't like that, would he?"

The cabin plunged into another silence. Chewie flinched visibly, as if stunned by his biting remark. Li Wei closed his eyes briefly. He let out a long exhale before removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose.

When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, heavy with exhaustion.

"Yes, we knew."

Eathan visibly recoiled, chest tightening as his words sank in like a blade. Confirmation was worse than suspicion. He felt as though the world tilted sharply, all trust suddenly fracturing beneath his feet.

"So it's true then. All along, I was just… divine insurance."

"Eathan—" Chewie started, voice edged with warning.

"You don't understand," Li Wei interrupted gently, setting aside his holopad. He leaned forward, carefully meeting Eathan's conflicted gaze. "Yes, we knew about Qilin's essence within you. Bai Hu told me himself, fifteen years ago."

His eyes fixed onto Eathan's.

"But never, not once, did he see you as merely a vessel, as a replacement," Li Wei explained, emphasizing each word. "It was never about you simply housing the Auspicious Beast."

"Then what?" Eathan bit back, confusion battling hurt in his chest. "Then what exactly was it about? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like I've spent my whole life unknowingly being a placeholder."

"Protection." Li Wei's eyes darkened. "It was about protecting you a life led down a mistaken path. You weren't chosen to be Qilin's vessel because of any particular virtue or strength—in fact, we still don't fully understand why it was you, specifically. But once he discovered that Qilin had reincarnated into a mortal form, your life could never remain ordinary."

"Immortals and mortals were never supposed to mix—no karmic intersection, no direct interactions," Chewie said, flicking a piece of paper into the garbage bag. "But that rule broke spectacularly when fragments of Qilin manifested inside you. Someone had to take responsibility for that anomaly."

"That someone was Bai Hu," Li Wei continued quietly, eyes steady on Eathan's face. "You carried the core of what was left of the Auspicious Beast after the Null Incursion. He ensured you lived a life as close to normalcy as possible. Not because you were special as Qilin's vessel, but because your life—your potential mortal existence—had already been irreversibly altered by divine interference."

His words settled among them, lingering among the hum of the flight's engine.

"So his guardianship wasn't about protecting Qilin. It was about protecting...me?" Eathan felt his breath catch at the implications, questions surging inside him. "Why? Why hide it from me?"

"Because understanding took time, and acceptance even longer. For the White Tiger, communication was closely interwoven with complications. Ones he did not know—did not want to handle," Li Wei said with a sigh. "He knew there were countless vultures wouldn't hesitate to use you—to exploit Qilin's auspicious nature for their own goals. So he chose fifteen years away from the Heavenly Realm—risked his position, the safety of his own Area, and everything he had built—because he valued you, Eathan, as a living being. Not as a divine relic. He wanted you to have something close to a normal life, for as long as possible."

"Do you really think if all we cared about was securing Qilin's essence, you'd be sitting here right now?" Chewie's voice cut sharply into the space between them. "You'd already have spent your life inside a heavily guarded celestial vault—not attending mortal universities and enduring mundane internships."

"You think someone as proud and stubborn as Bai Hu would risk everything if you were just a vessel?" Chewie narrowed her eyes. "War gods are less charitable than you think."

Eathan faltered, words dying on his lips. The ghostly antlers flickered, pulsing above his head. He blinked, his anger fracturing into doubt and confusion.

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:

[Humanity] has increased by 1%! (49% → 50%)

"Yet everyone still treats me like my life revolves entirely around Qilin," he mumbled.

Li Wei's expression softened slightly.

"Because you're powerful. To be able to hold the Qilin essence inside you while staying distinctly 'you,' that requires more strength than you think. That kind of strength, intermixed with divinity, casts a very long shadow, and it makes you valuable. It's inevitable some will see Qilin first and you second. But the White Tiger? He always saw Eathan Lin first, not the Auspicious Beast's legacy."

He paused.

"You should know that better than anyone."

The silence returned, softer this time. Eathan's heart stumbled, and he stared at his hands again. Their words rang painfully true; Mister White had always treated him differently, warmly, like family—even when he had every reason not to.

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:

[Humanity] has increased by 1%! (50% → 51%)

Eathan exhaled shakily, realising just how dangerous that brief dip had been. His breathing steadied, and his eyes returned to their normal amber shade, pupils human once more.

The dangerous turbulence receded, replaced instead by heavy guilt in his chest.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I shouldn't have assumed... I shouldn't have said that."

Chewie's expression softened just slightly. Li Wei nodded, understanding clear in his eyes. A brief silence settled in the cabin, but then the eleven-year-old shifted abruptly, sighing as if reaching some inevitable conclusion.

"Well," she said flatly, leaning back in her seat and opening her hands. "Since we're on the topic anyway, might as well ask all your burning questions now. Go ahead. Fire away."

Eathan hesitated, eyes darting between Chewie and Li Wei. There was so much he needed to know, yet he hardly knew where to begin.