Divine Convenience Store

Just as that thought crossed her mind, the tribulation in the distance escalated again. Two bolts, a spear of darkness and a sphere of silver descended simultaneously.

A dual-pronged judgment against the cultivator facing it.

Liu Tianfeng held his breath and so did Elder Bing Xin. Their current battle momentarily forgotten.

BOOM!

Even from a hundred miles away, they felt the tremor, a deep, resonant shockwave that traveled through the very earth. The spiritual energy in the air vibrated violently.

Liu Tianfeng stared with wide eyes as he waited for the light to fade. Had he been too arrogant? Had the young man finally overreached? Those thoughts rolled in his head.

When the flash subsided, he could still sense the Shopkeeper's aura. It was weaker, battered, but it was unbroken.

It was still there. Defiant against the will of the heavens.

A wild, booming laugh erupted from the Liu Clan Patriarch. It was a laugh of unadulterated joy and admiration. "He survived! The madman actually survived a direct hit!"

His gaze snapped back to Bing Xin as his eyes blazed with a fighting spirit akin to that of an overzealous believer. "Your Temple picked a fight with a god in the making, Bing Xin. And my clan will be there to watch him ascend."

Before Bing Xin could react, a new pressure descended not far away from them.

It wasn't from the heavens. It was still charging up its next and possibly final bolt to annihilate the heaven-defying Shopkeeper.

Instead, it came from the direction of the Soul Lure Array.

There, a storm of shadow and illusory arts erupted, so vast and powerful it momentarily rivaled their own.

The spiritual energy signature was chaotic, desperate.

It was the aura of a Void Refinement expert on the verge of death.

"Xiu Jian…?" Bing Xin whispered in horror.

What was happening over there? The Spirit Severing Ancestors of this backwater region shouldn't be strong enough to push a stealth master like him to the brink of death. She thought as she clenched her fist.

She glanced at Liu Tianfeng, assessing his current state. If she could slip away and come to Xiu Jian's aid, a peak Void Refinement Stage expert of the Western Sacred Land wouldn't need to fall here.

Having sensed the same pressure, Liu Tianfeng's eyes shifted in the same direction while also keeping his eye out for the Violethaven Temple Elder before him. He knew the strength of Yu Qingmei and the other ancestors.

They were strong, but not that strong.

Unless…

Unless the Shopkeeper had another 'convenient' asset he had failed to account for. Another hidden blade that allowed cultivators a whole stage lower than their opponent to defeat them.

The thought had barely formed in his mind when the chaotic aura of Xiu Jian vanished abruptly, snuffed out like a candle in the wind.

Silence. The battle on the second front was over.

Elder Bing Xin stared in the direction of the array, her face a deathly pale mask of disbelief. One Void Refinement expert had just been… eliminated?

How?

A single, terrifying possibility began to dawn on her. What kind of existence did their Temple provoke? Someone who could elevate a bunch of Spirit Severing Stage cultivators to fight and kill a peak Void Refinement Stage expert, someone who should've had a lot of life-saving artifacts? It was impossible. Even a coalition of five of them wouldn't be able to achieve it.

A cold dread, far colder than her own violet glacial qi, began to seep into her bones. The intelligence they gained had been catastrophically wrong. What they're fighting was not just some backwater alliance led by a clever merchant… it was a force that operated on a plane of logic they could no longer comprehend.

—

A few minutes earlier, at the Soul Lure Array.

Sect Master Xiu Jian of the Phantom Mirage Sect was a specter of death. His movements were illusions within shadows, his attacks silent strikes that warped reality. He had easily toyed with the four Spirit Severing Ancestors who had come to intercept him from activating the array. However, their combined might had only become a mere annoyance against his superior cultivation and profound techniques.

The Ancestor of the Azure Gale Sect was trapped in a mirage, endlessly fighting phantoms of himself. The Verdant Sky Pavilion Ancestor, Yu Qingmei, found her life-wood arts withering under his corrosive shadow qi. The other two were already heavily injured, their defensive artifacts shattered.

"You are out of your depth, old fossils whose talent has been further limited in this backwater region," Xiu Jian's distorted whisper echoed from all directions. "Surrender, and I will grant you a swift death. This is a war you cannot win."

"Winning what, Sect Master Xiu Jian? It's not over yet."

The voice came from below. Xiu Jian's gaze snapped down. Standing amidst the Spirit Severing Ancestors was a figure he had dismissed as a junior. A young woman with an aura as sharp and unyielding as a drawn sword.

Jiang Jianxin, the Sword Fairy.

She had arrived with the ancestors as a support, her early Core Formation cultivation that she had just achieved recently, a mere footnote in this battle of giants.

But now, her eyes burned with a light that was anything but junior.

"And who are you?" Xiu Jian sneered with a flicker of genuine annoyance in his voice. "A child playing at war?"

"I am a patron of the Divine Convenience Store," Jiang Jianxin stated, her voice calm and clear. "And you, Sect Master Xiu Jian, have become a most inconvenient obstacle."

She raised her hand. On her wrist, a familiar-looking artifact gleamed. A [Celestial Duel Gear].

Xiu Jian almost laughed. A toy? She was going to fight him with a toy?

"Look closely," Jiang Jianxin declared.

Her Celestial Field, which had long erupted, suddenly blossomed with a swirl of azure and silver light.

Four [Summoned Units] appeared from behind her. She reached for the floating cards in front of her and, almost instantly, she sacrificed all four units, their forms dissolving into pure motes of spiritual energy.

A Level 1, a Level 2, a Level 3 and a Level 4 unit from her [Arcane Blossom Court] deck.

It was a risky, all-or-nothing gambit that drained her spiritual reserves in an instant.

"What is she doing?" the injured Lightning Amethyst Ancestor gasped.

Yu Qingmei's eyes widened. She recognized the pattern… Having woken up recently in light of the Violethaven Temple's attack on the store, she took particular interest in that revolutionary product of the store. She studied it but not to the point that she could replicate what Jiang Jianxin was displaying at the moment.

The desperate, high-risk summoning ritual taught only in the most advanced strategy threads on the Bulletin Board, a theory-crafted move by a user named [CardShark99] that no one had been crazy enough to attempt in a real battle.

Why? Because its prerequisite was opening the Celestial Field way before the start of the battle, supporting the summoning of units that constantly drain one's spiritual energy reserves.

This time, Jiang Jianxin did just that. Since she wasn't even qualified to become cannon fodder at the fight between cultivators two and three stages above hers, she bided her time.

Now, the card in Jiang Jianxin's hand began to glow with a blinding, divine light.

It was a card she had drawn before, but never summoned due to the condition needed for it.

"I summon… the Level 5 Unit, the [Petal-Storm Sovereign]!"

The world went silent.

The chaotic spiritual energy of the battlefield was instantly suppressed, replaced by a profound, ancient, and unbelievably powerful pressure. From Jiang Jianxin's Celestial Field, a figure materialized. It was not a simple summon; it was a manifestation.

A woman who seemed to be carved from moonlight and cherry blossoms stood there. Her face was an ageless mask of serene indifference, and her eyes held the depth of a thousand springtimes. She wore ethereal robes that seemed to be woven from falling petals, and in her hand, she held a single, impossibly sharp katana that shimmered with divine light.

Sect Master Xiu Jian froze as his shadowy form flickered violently. The being before him was not a spiritual projection. It felt… real. Its gaze was not that of a summoned puppet, but of a true sovereign looking down upon a mortal.

However, after a few seconds, he let out a maniacal laugh.

Because the [Petal-Storm Sovereign] that Jiang Jianxin summoned only emitted a pressure similar to the injured Ancestors. Only Spirit Severing Stage.

"Why are you laughing? We're not done yet. Sect Masters, it's your turn." A small, radiant smile blossomed from her lips as figures seemingly appeared behind her from out of nowhere.

They were concealed using a formation disk bought at the store for the whopping price of 1000 high-grade spirit stones. The disk, a [Mirage Veil Projector], was a marvel of illusionary arts, capable of concealing even Nascent Soul experts from the senses of a Void Refinement master if they remained still.