Ch 131: My Multiverse Supermarket

Luna was jolted awake in the middle of the night by the guards on duty. When she learned that the supermarket had disappeared, she bolted outside—her hair unpinned, clothes still wrinkled from sleep.

On the way, she ran into Ariel and her people, who had clearly just gotten the same news.

The Radiant Consortium were the first to notice the disappearance. They were now engaged in desperate combat against the shadow creatures that had surged forward the moment the supermarket vanished.

Seeing Luna, Kemeigao shouted for help.

Luna first glanced toward Ariel and saw her standing aside with arms crossed, looking thoroughly entertained.

Truth be told, while firearms could harm shadow creatures, the effect was pitiful. Against humans, one bullet could kill. Against those things? It barely shaved a sliver off their health bar—one shot might not even deal one percent damage.

Steam-powered weapons were effective for fighting people, but when it came to dealing with magical entities, only magic could counter magic.

Kemeigao, sweating, felt lucky that the Thorn Consortium dabbled in both magic and technology—maybe he could get them to lend a hand.

But Luna was a merchant, not a saint.

He had no choice but to promise to sell the Thorn Consortium a batch of firearms at cost price.

Only then did Luna signal one of her never-before-seen guards to act.

That guard had always worn a wide cloak that concealed their figure and a hood that hid most of their masked face, so no one knew whether they were male or female.

Now, as the hood fell back, everyone saw the carved multicolored runes on the mask—and gasped.

A shaman!

Shamans, like druids, were followers of the Goddess of Nature.

But unlike druids—who roamed the world in the open—shamans were secretive, elusive, and few in number. They rarely integrated with ordinary society, and most people never saw one in their lifetime.

Ariel was surprised at first to see a shaman among the Thorn Consortium’s ranks, but then it made sense. The Emerald Wasteland was a perfect place for such reclusive believers to hide, and since the Consortium frequently traveled these lands, it wasn’t strange that they knew a few.

The shaman pulled from the cloak a staff carved with totems and miniature figures, chanting as they swung it in sweeping arcs.

Every shadow creature that came close was physically obliterated.

The Radiant Consortium soldiers frowned, puzzled. “I thought they’d use spells. Why just… hit things with a stick?”

“Shut up,” Kemeigao snapped.

When they hit something with a stick, it was like giving the monster a massage. When a shaman did it, the blow was an exorcism.

These fools couldn’t tell the difference, yet they were proud of their ignorance.

No wonder—the followers of the War God were never known for brains. The War Academy trained nothing but muscle-bound brutes.

When the shaman finally cleared most of the surrounding shadow creatures, Luna went to speak with Kemeigao.

“What happened?” she asked. The empty field before them—where the supermarket should have been—made her uneasy.

Kemeigao briefly explained how the entire building had vanished into thin air.

“You’re sure it disappeared instantly, not teleported away, or—”

Before she could finish, a soldier interrupted her loudly, “It’s true! I was on night watch! I was dozing against the wall when I suddenly fell flat on my face. I turned around—and the whole building was just gone!”

Kemeigao added, “And besides, do you know how huge a teleportation circle would need to be to move a structure that size? No Archmage alive could build one that big.”

Ariel sneered. “You seem quite knowledgeable about teleportation magic.”

Kemeigao lifted his chin. “Know your enemy, know yourself—then you’ll win every battle. If I don’t understand magic, how can I design machines to replace it?”

Luna turned to the shaman. “Can you sense anything?”

The shaman circled the empty space, chanting and stamping rhythmically. After a while, a deep voice murmured, “The wind says… there was no trace of magical energy flow.”

That ruled out teleportation magic.

“Then what—did the shop grow legs and walk away?” someone muttered.

Ariel gave a short laugh and led her people back toward the Senate camp.

Luna’s eyes flickered with calculation. She called out, “Lady Ariel, wait.”

“What is it?” Ariel’s tone was cold.

Luna took a few steps closer but was blocked by the knights.

She looked at Ariel imploringly. The other woman said nothing at first, merely watching her with a calm, unreadable expression.

The standoff lasted so long it began to look almost suggestive to onlookers—until Ariel finally waved the knights aside and allowed Luna to follow her to the Senate’s camp.

Even on the enemy’s turf, Luna didn’t bother to restrain herself. “Lady Ariel,” she began bluntly, “you seemed… unsurprised when the shop disappeared. Do you know why?”

Ariel had indeed watched the chaos unfold with detached calm. At first, Luna thought it was petty revenge—Ariel enjoying her and Kemeigao’s suffering. But then she realized Ariel hadn’t been surprised at all.

That meant she knew something.

And considering the Black Crow Legion were the first to discover this mysterious shop, it was entirely possible Ariel had learned something from them before coming here.

Ariel replied, “Didn’t the shopkeeper tell you she’d be leaving for about twenty days?”

“She did,” Luna said, “but she didn’t say she’d take the entire shop with her!”

Ariel fell silent.

She recalled the sentries at Vitus Outpost mentioning strange occurrences before—how they had once returned here hoping to buy more gems, only to find an empty field. The soldiers had guessed that the owner, afraid of attention, had dismantled the shop overnight and fled.

Ariel hadn’t known if she’d find anything this time—until she spotted the blood hawk circling from her airship. That was why she’d insisted on coming.

Tonight was her first time personally witnessing the “shop vanishing” phenomenon.

As shock faded, her mind raced. How could the shopkeeper possibly do it?

Even as Kemeigao said—no Archmage could build a teleportation circle large enough to move an entire building along with living people.

Unless…

A dreadful thought flashed through Ariel’s mind. The mere possibility made her shudder from head to toe.

“What’s wrong?” Luna asked, noticing her trembling.

Ariel’s turquoise eyes flickered—then glowed faintly with specks of gold.

“Leave,” she said curtly.

Luna, baffled, didn’t press. She already found the Senate’s nobles insufferably arrogant, so Ariel’s behavior didn’t exactly make her opinion worse—it had already been low enough.

She turned back to her camp to discuss with her own people.

Once Luna was gone, Ariel immediately contacted the Senate’s High Elder.

“Honored Elder Wendisha,” she reported breathlessly, “the Emerald Wasteland may be witnessing the descent of a divine realm…”

After Zhou Li sent An Fengxuan back to the Infinite World, The Game apparently didn’t appreciate her casually snatching away one of its players. The moment An Fengxuan stepped out of the supermarket, the system retaliated—throwing her straight into a dungeon instance.

Zhou Li: …

Was the damn Game angry now?

She didn’t rush to locate An Fengxuan right away, instead resuming business as usual when the clock hit operating hours.

The next morning, as she opened the doors, she saw An Yixiao standing at the boundary between dawn and shadow, staring into the distance pensively.

Hearing the door open, she turned around.

“You going for the brooding aesthetic now?” Zhou Li asked.

She chuckled softly, pulled out a green tea–flavored cookie stick, and said, “Fengxuan asked me to request leave for her.”

Zhou Li raised an eyebrow. “You know she got pulled into an instance?”

She nodded. “She carries an item that alerts me whenever she enters one.”

When An Fengxuan had entered, An Yixiao had used an artifact—The Eerie Right Eye—to view the dungeon.

It was an A-rank dungeon. Her promotion trial.

If she cleared it, she’d advance to A-rank. If she failed—she’d become part of the dungeon itself.

The trial would take some time, so she’d sent An Yixiao to inform Zhou Li personally.

Zhou Li wasn’t too worried. During their time in the world of Magic and Steam, Lamanda, Luna, and Ariel had all exchanged magical artifacts for store credits.

While seeking a cure for The Game’s mental corruption, An Fengxuan had bought several such items from Zhou Li, including a Purification Necklace that Ariel had brought.

Blessed by a priest, it could cleanse negative effects—exactly the kind of spiritual tool she needed.

She wanted to test whether magical artifacts could work against The Game’s pollution.

Zhou Li suspected they would. After all, Game-generated items worked across worlds—so why wouldn’t magical ones?

As for why that was possible…

Zhou Li believed that all these planes must share some underlying property—whether physical, metaphysical, or divine.

For example, in the interstellar plane, the planets Blue Star and Mia were similar yet composed of different materials. Their biology evolved differently, yet both were habitable for humans.

To truly understand why “Game items” and “magical artifacts” both functioned across dimensions, one would have to uncover the secrets of the System itself.

But that was far beyond human comprehension—and Zhou Li had no desire to become a scientist obsessed with the unknowable.

She wasn’t that curious. And she had no intention of getting stuck pondering questions modern science couldn’t touch.

After spending four days with her supermarket in the Infinite World’s public hall, Zhou Li returned briefly to Earth’s base plane, then entered the dungeon where An Fengxuan was.

She arrived right at the climax of the trial.

As soon as the supermarket materialized, the surviving players—who had already heard of its legend—rushed inside for safety.

“We’re not retreating,” they said breathlessly. “We’re just… catching our breath.”

An Fengxuan, though uninjured, looked utterly battered.

It had been a long time since her last dungeon run—she was rusty. Worse, The Game seemed to be deliberately targeting her. While other B-rank players faced A-rank-level challenges, her trial felt like pre–S-rank hell.

She’d cursed aloud, “The Game, are you seriously that petty!?”

One of the enemy anomalies had hissed back, “Throw away that illegal item that doesn’t belong to the Game, then we’ll talk!”

An Fengxuan snapped, “I earned my inventory fair and square—why should I throw it away?”

That line alone made her a target.

Soon after, certain players received new side missions: they could betray their teammates. Kill another player in the same instance, and they’d be guaranteed promotion.

Since this wasn’t a PvP dungeon, nobody had been wary of each other—and the result was a massacre.

An Fengxuan survived only because she never fully trusted anyone.

Just when everyone thought they were doomed, the supermarket appeared.

“Boss Zhou, I’ve never loved you this much in my life!” shouted one player.