“This is the council of humans, how dare you involve other races into humanities decisions?”, despite having sustained some serious internal injuries Huan Po was still haughtily rebuking Ji.

Ji shook his head.

“Don’t try your silly excuses, old man. What does race matter in front of power? Can the sects of Jianghu really stand off against the combined might of the heavenly dragons and the Buddhist fraction? I’m not even talking about the human gods and the dwarves!”

The old man’s expression fell, and his face twisted in anger.

“YOU-…”, he was about to say something when another member of the council stepped out to stop him. She was a female, with outrageously attractive proportions. A single glance of her managed to silence the grand Immortal Huan Po.

“There is not need to talk about fighting is there?”, she said with her gentle voice.

“Even though neither the dragons and dwarves are no part of the human race, they have always had a good relationship with our various factions and tribes. Our common history is older then most of those present here. Considering this, Huan Po, do you not think we should allow this young god to represent them in this council?”, a beautiful smile blossomed at her lips as she asked the elder.

Huan Po’s expression turned even darker, yet he averted his eyes from the beauty.

“Fine.”, he answered akin to a small child who had been reprimanded by its parent.

The beautiful woman nodded, satisfied with the elder’s response. She turned to face Ji.

“Please come and join us now.”, her pleasant voice was honey sweet and stuck in people’s minds for a long time. It made Ji want to throw up. In fact, the lady’s very existence disgusted him more than anything else in the world.

But there was no sign of that on his face. A thankful and polite smile played on his lips.

“It’s my honor, Lady of the council!”, his voice was amiable and friendly.

A smile can be beautiful,

Yet it is wretched.

A wonderful illusion,

Hiding truth under a dazzling lie.

For under that beautiful smile,

We hide ourselves.

On the other side of the city explosions were followed by a sea of flames that swallowed entire streets. Screams and cries occupied the darkness of the night, first suppressed then replaced the usual symphony that was unique to this one of a kind city.

But by now this few streets had changed their identity. They had become a battlefield, filled with the death corpses of innocent onlookers. Hundreds of formations and magical arrays had long since separated the three large streets and hundreds of alleys that had turned into an abys of fire and destruction, from the rest of the city. Blue and white lines, hieroglyphs and sentences written in languages no mortal had ever spoken, blotted out ever centimeter of space and turned the area into an impenetrable fortress of powerful magic.

Nothing could enter. But more importantly nothing could escape!

Standing in front of this wall of magic that could even repel the combined power of multiple gods was a young man, staring into the chaos of fire and dust on the other side of the thin blue layer. He had long, jet-black hair bound back in a complicated structure of interwinding strands. His frame was well build, but not too muscular. The only part about his appearance that one could point out was that he was a little small at about 1.7 meters.

His also jet-black eyes scanned the situation on the other side of the array. For some reason it seemed like he urgently searched for somebody inside this hell of fire. He frowned as he could not find the one he was searching for.

Four weeks of journey. It took him this long to reach this city from the small village hidden in an unnamed mountain range located in a country unknown to most being alive today. Yet he had travelled from afar to meet one person who lived in the city of a billion names.

He knew that that person owned a pub and he could recognize that person’s presence. Unfortunately, he neither knew the name of that person, nor the name of the pub that he owned. Despite that he was confident that he could find that person in this almost infinitely large accumulation of buildings and beings.

To be exact, he was confident in his senses that could feel a bug’s presence from over a hundred kilometers away and his sense of direction that would directly lead him to that bugs location.

Of course, this city was way larger then just a hundred kilometers, but that person’s presence also was far stronger than a mere bug’s one.

If one was a tiny star, barely visible to the naked eye, the other was a blazing supernova that illuminated hundreds of galaxies with it’s impossible amount of energy.

As such it should have been easy for him to find that person even in a city as large as this one.

Yet when he finally arrived at the city, he realized that that person’s presence had split into two presences, located at different parts of the city. One was larger then the other, but unfortunately that part was currently located in a part of the city that he did not dare to approach. The other was located on the other side of the formerly described temporal fortress.

To be honest the young man wasn’t even surprised. His only thought was that such an amount of damage was not even close to that person’s real power. On the other hand the presence he felt inside was also too weak to that person.

Either that person had split his body into two parts, maybe his little toe had gone executing some weak foe while the rest of the body was eating dinner, or that person was consciously hiding his real power.

What ever it was, the young man had to get on the other side of the array!

His frown was displaced by a thoughtful expression. He turned his head and caught sight of a panicked large frog who was wearing elegant human clothing. It was jumping around, ordering around about a dozen females of different species as they evacuated the building.

Most of the arrays that made up the ‘fortress’ were individual formations and arrays belonging to the various shops and buildings that bordered the affected area. They were usually used to protect this shops from attacks of unreasonable inhabitants of the city and were controlled by the owners of said shops.

That male frog obviously was the owner of one of that stores…

An idea formed in the young man’s mind and a smile creeped onto his lips. He suddenly disappeared from his location and arrived next to the frog.

The frog sensed the sudden attack and tried to evade, but before it could use the astonishing power of it’s legs to jump away, the young man’s arm reached out and gripped its throat. The frog’s expression fell as it began to sweat.

“Y-young M-master… what might this y-young master want from t-this h-humble servant?”, he asked with a trembling voice. He could tell that that youth was extraordinarily powerful. If the youth killed him, there was no one who would even dare to take revenge for him!

The young man smiled.

“Let me inside that area.”

The frog stared blankly. He slowly lifted his trembling hand and pointed his green finger at the blue array.

“You want inside THERE?!”, the frog couldn’t believe it.

“Yes.”, the young man replied tersely. It was obvious that he was annoyed.

“B-but that’s a ba-eehthtet”, the frog began to speak but the youth tightened his grip on the frogs throat.

“JUST. DO. IT.”

The frog, slowly loosing conscience because of the lack of oxygen slowly nodded. The youth’s grip instantly loosened.

“Open.”, the frog said quickly, afraid of what would happen if he did not act fast enough.

On of the arrays, disappeared and torrent of heat and dust swept over them. The youth let go of the frog.

“Thank you.”, he made a polite bow and disappeared, leaving the frog standing alone. The female employees instantly came running towards him, dragging him away from the hole in the tight net of arrays. They did not dare to help him when the youth was there, but now they had to ensure that their boss would survive through this ordeal.

A bizarre look remained in the frog’s eyes as he stare at the opening in the blue wall.

“Close.”, the array reappeared at it’s former location and blocked the hot air and dust from the inside of the ‘fortress’.

Inside the roaring sea of fire, the youth strolled towards the source of the presence. The burning flames that raged everywhere seemed insignificant to his body as they couldn’t even burn his clothes. Everywhere he went the sea of fire subsided and formed a clearing around him. It seemed to be intelligent as it did not dare to approach this unusual youth.

After a few moments the sound of explosions had become louder and the flames became even stronger. It was hard to see any further then a few meters as large quantities of dust suspended in the air worsened the visibility.

Some distance away a white flash surrounded by blue flames darted towards a large, burly figure with gigantic hands. With one glance the youth could tell that the burly figure was a member of the giant race, while the other was a young fox.

The youth shook his head. Those two weren’t the source of the presence.

He looked around. Some distance away stood a young human female, surrounded by two large koi that shielded her from the heat and the energy radiated by the two fighting entities. The youth’s eyes turned sharp.