As the restaurant closed for the night, Pef and the management team gathered in the Indigo Realm, where they had set up a modern looking command center, filled with screens, holo-arrays and thousands of scrying and anti-scrying Formations. Dragon Burger took its security very seriously, perhaps due to the influence of the General as the leader the Veritas Legion, plus dozens of other war-like sects or nations included in the Great Relocation.

Pef nodded towards the General and picked up a mind-stone containing the daily briefing, everything their sources, agents and direct scrying had collected during the past day.

After a few seconds, Pef sighed audibly and sat down in his comfortable Dark Leviathan skin armchair.

"Still no trajectory for the Upper Heavens. I hoped that new girl would give us a clue..." he complained in a low voice.

To his right, Oracle Lia smiled thinly. "They must have a type of Destiny watch, husband. I suspect they screen any potential arrivals, and our restaurant contains trillions of suspicious persons. Single or dual insertions might have a chance to cross, even by lucky accident or neglect. But not trillions..."

The General scowled for a second. It annoyed her to be obstructed by Fate or any such frail excuses. But the truth was undeniable, any leads towards a way into the Upper Heavens vanished almost as soon as they found out about it. It had to be intelligent action, and a powerful Oracle skill at the minimum. "I am getting bored. Give me a small war or something." she said in a despondent tone.

Seated on a cloud-like throne, with a large silver mirror at its top, the Mirror Goddess smiled faintly and declined to comment, not that she spoke much in the past 2 years since they arrived in the Middle Heavens. It was for the best anyways, since when she did speak, it was to predict yet another attack by bandits, carnivorous beasts or worse.

Pef turned towards Lara, who was sharpening her Taotie sword for the third time today. Not that those claws ever got dull.

"Lara my dear, why so anxious?"

"There are still a thousand criminal gangs in the city, that's why. Let me sort them out, please?" the blue haired wife asked in a begging tone, likely from sheer boredom.

Pef shrugged and eyed Lia with a knowing look. Enforcement would be safer with an Oracle in charge. Those gangs did not survive for billions of years without tricks and possibly powerful backers.

"A new gang of Devils would work better for this task. They would need concealment artifacts and some aura masking, but even if they all die it will be fine." Lia explained in a relaxed tone.

The Tang Cloud City was a true megalopolis with billions of inhabitants, and a hundred levels up and down of tall towers and deep catacombs, secret tunnels and hidden spaces, spread out over a thousand kilometers-wide city surrounded by reinforced walls and protective Formations.

There were even some criminals gangs numbering a million members...cleaning all of that would likely require deploying the Legion, which wouldn't be wise. The City Governor was also a Tier 9 and wouldn't take kindly to outsiders usurping his mandate.

Perhaps Devils would work, as they did have a trillion of them captured after the famous Omelet Battle.

Pef nodded in cautious agreement. Might as well use the Devils for something.

"Oh! I can be the Black Cowl! Took me years to chase that bastard..." Lara exclaimed, mostly to herself.

'Hah, she did learn something from my teachings!' the glove exulted in a proud voice.

Pef sighed inward, and glanced towards Kalima. The Fay Godmother was next in line to advance in the 9th Tier, or Copper Immortal as they called them here. But as always, cultivation was slow and depended on lucky accidents for those like her, meaning normal people. She may need a thousand Chaos Cycles to reach the next step, or a random insight that could come from drinking wine or reading a poem. Cultivation was strange like that, at least without a high-tier immortal method.

"I hope those Temple guys do attack us. We could use a bit of flexing. Everyone is eager for some action." Kalima said in a laughing tone.

"I do feel a bit hungry too." the Taotie spoke from his own Violet Realm, somehow transporting his voice in the the command center in the lower realm.

Pef scratched his cheek, then caught Gena Feng nodding in agreement. Damn it! Why couldn't he just cook in peace?

"Deploy the Ants, General. It seems your war is indeed coming." he said softly, then stepped into the Violet Realm to meet the Taotie directly.

For a moment, the monster hesitated, then bowed low. "Master. Your burgers are fine too, if live meals are not available..." the Taotie said in a restrained voice.

"That's not it, old badger. Our dear Mirror has some people to kill, and we are forced to act as her divine instruments, just like before. I'll trip, you catch them...and any artifacts are mine. Beasts or alien races we bake into pills..." Pef laid out the plan, as if there wasn't a whole Province-level Sect coming to exterminate them.

The Taotie grinned a bit too wide, his smile extending way too much a living being to withstand. "I'll save a few for Yue as well. Devouring needs practice as well, and she needs a stronger stomach."

"We'll see. Yue has a straight path until Bronze Realm anyways, but Kalima needs some careful work. She is so damn fragile..." Pef complained in a sad voice.

The Taotie chuckled in agreement. "Send her over for a few hours, Master. I can beat the weakness out of her, if I strain my time field to the limit."

Pef frowned for a second. "Two hours, then recovery. The Temple punishment gang has already departed."

Two million years of constant combat with the Taotie should indeed toughen up the Godfairy, and possibly repair some of her deficient combat skills.

He stepped away in the Blue Realm, where his own forge and alchemy laboratory sat hidden under a large mountain.

'Now then, my orange glove. Let's prepare some deadly weapons for our next guests.' he mused inward as the Icefire also sprang out to help with forging.

-------

Shang Wei was still a bit bewildered by her new fate, and the strangeness of her caretaker. Sunny the waiter, who was not a failed immortal at all.

Sunny even had the Heart of the Sword, and was known as the Blade Fairy among her fellow coworkers.

"Why...why do you work this commoner job, Lady Sunny? And why are there 200 Golden Immortals also waiters here? You could..." she asked in a confused tone.

"Well, little one. Firstly, this job pays very well. I make like a thousand high-level crystals per month, sometimes more, just from tips. Secondly, things are rarely peaceful around here. People try to fight, steal even murder each other, or the employees. Stupid, but it happens almost daily. And then, there are robberies, bandits, slavers, necromongers, beast attacks...plenty of fun. Too bad there wasn't anything big today, that young master didn't even draw a weapon..." Sunny explained in a carefree smile.

Shang Wei nodded, a bit wiser. So the employees did need their cultivation realm, just to survive in this place. And Sunny was indeed named appropriately, as her wide smile and sunny disposition seemed a bit unreal.

"But...what if someone stronger comes...even her Highness is only a Silver Immortal. The Cloud Governor might not intervene to protect us, outside the city walls." she asked in a more cautious way.

Sunny just shrugged unconcerned. "We are a restaurant, little one. Here, we eat Dragons."

Just as she spoke, the building shook and bits of plaster and flower petals scattered everywhere.

"Oh? They even cracked the outer Formation? Must be a Tier 9..." Sunny said in a bit more tense voice, although she still smiled.

"You mean, a Copper Immortal?" she asked in outright panic.

"Now, we wait a minute and prepare. After the big guys get eaten, we can go out and loot some nice stuff too. I hope I get an Artifact this time..." Sunny explained in an eager voice, as armor and weapons sprang out to cover her waiter uniform, transforming her into a fierce warrior.

Shang Wei took out her own weapon, a Blue Jade Hair Pin that she bought with a hundred years of Temple allowance.

Sunny threw her a surprised, and somehow pitiful glance. "You do need better gear, little one. And now we go to collect!" the waiter exclaimed and rushed out the restaurant's door, just as the shockwaves stopped.

Shang Wei ran after her, priming her defensive shield and the concealment array.

Outside, she stopped abruptly as the devastation was beyond her comprehension. Nearby mountains out front had shattered, and even the city walls behind the building had visible cracks, as if they weren't rated to withstand Copper Realm Beasts.

The ground was littered with broken bodies and scattered limbs, all wearing the familiar robes of the Temple School.

Making her way cautiously, Shang Wei picked up a severed arm and took off a powerful ring, breaking a finger to remove it. And then she recognized it. The ring was the Copper Realm Artifact of Brother Luan.

She dropped the arm, and fell to her knees, then puked her guts out, adding her vomit and bile to the bloody guts on the ground.

"There, there, little one. I guess these guys were from your Temple? Must have come here to kill you. Oh well. It seemed you did find a nice artifact too." Sunny spoke with an easy going voice, then bent down to collect a Purple Jade Pendant still dripping with fresh blood. "Lucky! This thing has lots of sword arts inside."

Shang Wei glanced at the pendant and recognized it as well. The Temple Blademaster used to wear it, when he was alive and a top-tier Silver Immortal.

Thousands of giant half-ant people combed the bloody grounds around her, sometimes collecting things, other times eating the fresh organs.

Shang Wei vomited again. This was the real hell.