The scale of the threat was beyond anything they had faced. This wasn't a business rival or a feuding clan; this was an apocalyptic cult operating from the shadows.
A direct assault on the Kunlun Mountains was suicide. The Necro-Soul Sect's defenses would be impregnable. They needed a weapon that could disrupt the ritual without a frontal attack.
Ye Xia turned to her oldest, most peculiar asset: the mountain of wasted goods in her storage facility. She walked through the aisles with a new purpose, her [Qi Perception] scanning not for monetary value, but for spiritual potential.
The cheap MP3 players? Their simple circuitry could be infused with a disruptive Qi frequency.
The scientific calculators? Their logic boards could be repurposed as focusing arrays for a energy-dispersal field.
The rotting exotic fruit? Useless, but the idea of it…
She had a flash of inspiration. This called for [Conceptual Waste II (Targeted)]. This new function allowed her to attach a concept to a specific target.
She focused her mind, channeling the day's 100 million RMB quota. The concept: "The absolute and irrevocable cancellation of the ancestral summoning ritual of the Necro-Soul Sect in the Kunlun Mountains." She targeted the conceptual waste directly at the hidden altar she had seen.
The money vanished. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, Silas called in from the monitoring station.
"Ye Xia, you need to see this. The seismic sensors in the Kunlun region… they're going haywire. But it's not an earthquake. It's like… a localized reality distortion."
On the screen, data showed a massive spike of anomalous energy in the exact location of the altar, followed by a wave of pure, silent cancellation. The energy signature of the ritual flatlined.
Back in the cavern, the result was chaos. The chanting cultivators were thrown into disarray as the intricate ritual circle cracked and fizzled. The forming spectral ancestor let out a silent scream of rage before dissipating into nothingness. The conceptual waste had worked like a cosmic "undo" button.
But it had only bought them time. The Sect still existed. The Sigma strain was still active. They had been thwarted, not defeated.